New gas dryer time...

[Sbrem]

Our old dryers are starting to get really old, so we're starting to look around. Interchange's name came up, who knows what about this company? Thanks in advance...

Steve

[KevinO]

We have an AirJet 60" w/ 12' of heat that's probably about 15 years old at this point and is still a beast. The flame rod goes out about once every year or two, but other than that with some weekly/monthly maintenance it should continue to truck on. We recently got a Roqtunnel as it was a really good deal or else we would've went with another Airjet. Sprint 3000 look pretty great also, but it about 20% more in cost than an Interchange.

[ericheartsu]

how is your roq tunnel?

[Nation03]

I'm not to familiar with the dryers themselves, but Interchange is located close to my shop and they're good people. One of their techs can pretty much fix any piece of equipment so it's good to have him local to our area.

[KevinO]

how is your roq tunnel?

We are so far very happy with it! One shock to the system coming from the Airjet was that the RoqTunnel takes about 45 mins to 1 hour to reach 330 vs about 15 minutes with the Airjet... Albeit they do have a timer program which is pretty neat, so we just set the timer to kick on 45 mins before we come into the shop and we are good to go. Also we have 20' of heat with 1 burner and I believe they do offer 2 burner options if you need it to get up and going faster. That's the cost of cutting your BTU's roughly in half though

[Doug B]

  We have a huge Interchange AirJet also. Up to temp in 10 minutes and the flame rod
has only gone out once in 15 years we've had it (we got it used).

[mk162]

I run an MD-8.  Love it.  It does dump a bit of heat out the ends and I wish there was more insulation in the base.  Other than that it's been a fantastic dryer.  I would buy another one again in a heartbeat.

[GraphicDisorder]

Love our Sprint 3000.

[Homer]

I don't have an Interchange, but I can tell you those guys bent over backwards to help me get my vortex going. I am not even a customer of theirs, never bought a thing from them. Stand up guys, same as the guys at CGS. If you are looking for a used unit, might be worth a look:

http://screenprintsource.com/equipment-categories/textile-dryers/

[Sbrem]

thanks guys, they do seem to be really well received. The local M&R rep was in last week with our Garston rep, and I think we were looking 48K. Since we're always had used dryers, we aren't above buying used at all.

Steve

[alan802]

I did a lot of research on dryers 4 years ago so the ROQ wasn't on my radar.  Essentially it was Interchange v M&R.  We went with the Sprint International.  I got to see an Interchange getting installed a few weeks after our Sprint was installed and much prefer the M&R design and features versus what Interchange does.  But I don't know that the overall performance is lacking on the Interchange, it probably had more to do with all the knowledge that was given to me about the M&R dryers that I didn't get from anyone at Interchange that created most of that gap.  I do think M&R makes the best dryer on the market, and spend some time speaking with Interchange's most knowledgeable guy then spend 10 minutes speaking with Rich Hoffman and then make a decision.

And I bet the ROQ tunnel is a fine dryer, but I wouldn't like waiting up to an hour for my dryer to be ready.  I don't care that you could program it to come on at a certain time, but if others don't mind that then more power to them. 

[mk162]

I couldn't wait that long either.  I had cooled the shop down when a customer came in looking for an order that fell through the cracks.  We had the whole thing printed front and back in less than 45. 

The gas savings would be pretty nice though.  But the Interchange is very efficient as well, so I don't know if the trade-off is worth it.

[alan802]

You always hear about the dryer's efficiency but I don't recall ever seeing any real figures or comparisons between them.  I always hear "our dryers are the most efficient available", yada yada.  I'm sure it exists since it's always a bullet point to go over when selling a dryer, but it's escaped my eyes all this time.  A cool feature on our dryer that I don't use is it tracks our gas consumption and I could conceivably cost a job down to how much it took to cure 1 shirt.

[GraphicDisorder]

I am guessing M&R could even do a slower start up if desired, using less gas. But me ive never said to myself....oh man it costs too much to run this dryer.

[Sbrem]

That's eye opening on the ROQ, why would it take an hour to warm up? Our 20 - 25 year old Advance Tex-Air dryers take 15 - 20 minutes tops... We are well aware of the M&R quality and reputation for service, so they are not off the table, but we have a lot going lately as we are being forced to move from our home of 25 years, so any savings are important. Thanks all.

Steve