Saati Lazer Exposure unit.

[Maxie]

Does anybody know what are the limits of our system are?
Let’s say the Saati unit can expose 120 dpi, can the screen, emulsion, ink, squeegee and possibly most important of all T Shirt hold this?

[ZooCity]

Does anybody know what are the limits of our system are?
Let’s say the Saati unit can expose 120 dpi, can the screen, emulsion, ink, squeegee and possibly most important of all T Shirt hold this?

I wouldn't go too far down that rabbit hole.   Short answer is no, a jersey weave T with ink printed straight to it is not really going to benefit from advanced lpi- mathematically speaking you'll have many of the dots falling in between the wales.  Common mesh counts used will block a lot of small dots with the enlarged knuckles present with higher micron thread thicknesses.

Now, a CMYK over solid base plate areas absolutely will benefit and especially if you utilize rosettes.   For a good reference point- if magazines were printed at the lpi we run they'd look like junk. 

Definitely there are emulsions available that can resolve higher lpi and inks, blades and mesh that can image them.

To me, the real benefit of increased dpi which, in the case of CTS units, translates directly to ppi or the resolution of your 1bit tiff rip file is that you have more pixels to mess around with for dot linearization.  The smallest piece of data you can image is 1px at whatever res you are outputting at.  I've found that you can't fully dial a tone curve for screen printing unless you start at a min 900ppi.  I don't understand the math behind it all necessarily but I do know that I can tighten up our tone curve at 900 but have to make compromises at 600.  Practically speaking, my only reason for desiring higher dpi. 

[T Shirt Farmer]

This laser unit is not a speed demon I heard 2 min imaging times for 14" by 16" image

[GKitson]

You gotta think backwards, image size is not relative.

The entire emulsion coated area is hardened by the laser and must be 'exposed/converted'.

Therefore if you have a 23x31 screen with 20x28 emulsion coated area, you are exposing/hardening the 20x28, even if the image is only a left chest or label back.

New & improved sometimes takes some getting used to...

[Sbrem]

Big boy Toys.. Could you imagine when (potentially new) customers find out there designs can be imaged on a screen at 120lpi? I can't see them wanting to use another screen printer.. Not to mention the end consumer- just wait till the find out they are rocking 120lpi t-shirts.. Pure madness in the market place- a true disrupter..

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

the question is how 120 lpi comes out on a t-shirt anyway. And not very many of my customers even begin to understand line counts and angles, and I'm talking about large marketing companies with international clients. They just rely on us to get it right and tell them how much it costs.

Steve

[starchild]

Big boy Toys.. Could you imagine when (potentially new) customers find out there designs can be imaged on a screen at 120lpi? I can't see them wanting to use another screen printer.. Not to mention the end consumer- just wait till the find out they are rocking 120lpi t-shirts.. Pure madness in the market place- a true disrupter..

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

the question is how 120 lpi comes out on a t-shirt anyway. And not very many of my customers even begin to understand line counts and angles, and I'm talking about large marketing companies with international clients. They just rely on us to get it right and tell them how much it costs.

Steve

That's my point.. We may appreciate 120lpi because it's our discipline but it ends there.. There are other ways to bring competency to a business and create value..  For pennies even..

 I don't know of a consumer that shop for a  t-shirt by lpi or even perfect registration.. There is no education in the makret place to tell a consumer what to look for in a printed tee..

We are buying sometimes (in any given trade) based on emotion because we strive to be the best at what we do (human nature) and a well versed manufacturer can appeal to these emotions (through marketing) even if there is no real value in the marketplace for the tingamajig.. (Where would you be at with a 3 color front 5 color back @ 320pcs brown cotton/polyester taking into account $90k worth of unnecessary operation to get the job done? How much did you save the customer?)

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

Nobody, and I mean nobody needs 120lpi to print on a shirt. The most majestical prints I've ever seen (not done by us) have been at 60-70lpi. So if it can hold that, that's all you need. Ever. Period. We are printing on shirts people, not paper.

Just the shear thought of not spending thousands in D2A ink, and 5-7k in print heads every two years makes it an easy buying decision.

Now how quickly does it Image a screen....that's my question. If its right about 1-2 minutes I'd be happy.

[Sbrem]

Nobody, and I mean nobody needs 120lpi to print on a shirt. The most majestical prints I've ever seen (not done by us) have been at 60-70lpi. So if it can hold that, that's all you need. Ever. Period. We are printing on shirts people, not paper.

Just the shear thought of not spending thousands in D2A ink, and 5-7k in print heads every two years makes it an easy buying decision.

Now how quickly does it Image a screen....that's my question. If its right about 1-2 minutes I'd be happy.

To this day, one of the finest shirts I've seen was the Nocona Boots shirt that came with Control Without Confusion by Joe Clarke and Mark Coudray when first published. I would just state at it and stare at it, brilliant execution. Back in the '86 or so too...

Steve

[mimosatexas]

Does anybody know what are the limits of our system are?
Let’s say the Saati unit can expose 120 dpi, can the screen, emulsion, ink, squeegee and possibly most important of all T Shirt hold this?

I wouldn't go too far down that rabbit hole.   Short answer is no, a jersey weave T with ink printed straight to it is not really going to benefit from advanced lpi- mathematically speaking you'll have many of the dots falling in between the wales.  Common mesh counts used will block a lot of small dots with the enlarged knuckles present with higher micron thread thicknesses.

Now, a CMYK over solid base plate areas absolutely will benefit and especially if you utilize rosettes.   For a good reference point- if magazines were printed at the lpi we run they'd look like junk. 

Definitely there are emulsions available that can resolve higher lpi and inks, blades and mesh that can image them.

To me, the real benefit of increased dpi which, in the case of CTS units, translates directly to ppi or the resolution of your 1bit tiff rip file is that you have more pixels to mess around with for dot linearization.  The smallest piece of data you can image is 1px at whatever res you are outputting at.  I've found that you can't fully dial a tone curve for screen printing unless you start at a min 900ppi.  I don't understand the math behind it all necessarily but I do know that I can tighten up our tone curve at 900 but have to make compromises at 600.  Practically speaking, my only reason for desiring higher dpi.

I'm still running a pretty low tech and unoptimized setup compared to a lot of shops and even I can see a massive difference in quality and control when starting art at 720ppi (imported from illy or when I am doing the design) vs the 300ppi files I get from clients.(I havent tried higher, but there is a noticeable difference between 600 and 720).

[ScreenFoo]

Does anybody know what are the limits of our system are?
Let’s say the Saati unit can expose 120 dpi, can the screen, emulsion, ink, squeegee and possibly most important of all T Shirt hold this?

I wouldn't go too far down that rabbit hole.   Short answer is no, a jersey weave T with ink printed straight to it is not really going to benefit from advanced lpi- mathematically speaking you'll have many of the dots falling in between the wales.  Common mesh counts used will block a lot of small dots with the enlarged knuckles present with higher micron thread thicknesses.

Now, a CMYK over solid base plate areas absolutely will benefit and especially if you utilize rosettes.   For a good reference point- if magazines were printed at the lpi we run they'd look like junk. 

Definitely there are emulsions available that can resolve higher lpi and inks, blades and mesh that can image them.

To me, the real benefit of increased dpi which, in the case of CTS units, translates directly to ppi or the resolution of your 1bit tiff rip file is that you have more pixels to mess around with for dot linearization.  The smallest piece of data you can image is 1px at whatever res you are outputting at.  I've found that you can't fully dial a tone curve for screen printing unless you start at a min 900ppi.  I don't understand the math behind it all necessarily but I do know that I can tighten up our tone curve at 900 but have to make compromises at 600.  Practically speaking, my only reason for desiring higher dpi.

I'm still running a pretty low tech and unoptimized setup compared to a lot of shops and even I can see a massive difference in quality and control when starting art at 720ppi (imported from illy or when I am doing the design) vs the 300ppi files I get from clients.(I havent tried higher, but there is a noticeable difference between 600 and 720).

To be fair a lot of that could be aliasing from non-native resolutions.  If you start at 300 or 600 and scale to 720 (an Epson's native resolution) every five dots it has to guess one, at certain angles that is very noticeable.  Not to even get into the "300 dpi file" that's actually a 120 dpi file that's been poorly resampled. 
We're also not even getting into some of the things that can happen when someone who doesn't understand color profiles starts modifying files with them.  And that's coming from someone who barely understands color profiles. 

Also, as a DPI vs. look thing, I think some of the best monochrome work I've been able to print had no structured dots at all. 
Go figure.

[DannyGruninger]

Super excited to get my hands on this technology. PO cut today for us to bring one into our shop here. As soon as we get it up and going which should be soon I'll let the forum know what we think. Regardless if our mesh/fabric can hold the detail I'm excited to push the envelope with hard dots like great image setter films. I'll bring the topic back up to the top once the machine lands here.

[3Deep]

Big boy Toys.. Could you imagine when (potentially new) customers find out there designs can be imaged on a screen at 120lpi? I can't see them wanting to use another screen printer.. Not to mention the end consumer- just wait till the find out they are rocking 120lpi t-shirts.. Pure madness in the market place- a true disrupter..

This just cracked me up, I've said for years the tech in this biz goes a little overboard, but if you got the money go for it.   It's like wearing a Rolex watch to my 10 dollar timex watch we both get the same time you just paid more for your time, to get the same time I get.

[DannyGruninger]

Laser unit is in place, install tomorrow. I'll let you guys know some initial feedback on it once we start firing up the laser.

[Colin]

Were the sharks included, or extra?

[Ron Pierson]

Just installed 3 new print heads - $4500.........
the tech was a few bucks.....
that's twice this year.........
thousands in Toner a year..........THOUSANDS of dollars
constant cleaning, constant adjusting valves, constant everything....
(we have 2 I-Image 3 head machines)
Don't get me wrong - I-Image is the way to go for speed and accuracy
film............like getting my artists to use a rotary phone
Can't look back, we aren't going that way

I could care less about a dot past 55 lpi
most work here is 2 over 3 and all spot work

let me count the ways.