Saati Lazer Exposure unit.

[screenprintguy]

Yeah been dealing with my dealer with all sorts of testing, like I said, we thought it was isolated, but it's doing the same thing at a shop not to far from me with a single print head "S" model. My guy got a sample of the new stuff, flushed his unit, put the new stuff in, no more banding. I've gone through a crap ton of T9 and it's just a weird anomaly. Oddly, when we first went back to using it, the first gallon didn't have the issue, then from there till now, about a years worth all the same. My guy even spent probably a total of 12 hours testing stuff here, and it's defiantly an interaction between the UV ink and the emulsion surface. Now, I don't use diazo, personally don't see the need for it, but maybe when you add the diazo and the water that's needed for it, you are avoiding what ever this anomaly is. T9 is awesome, small post exposure, we've had jobs over 5,000 impressions double stroking zero break down without the diazo so I've never felt the need for it, that's the whole reason I wanted to go with a T9, or chromatech WR. The WR is awesome too, just faster exposing, and I'm already at 1 and 2 second exposures so, no need to try and go faster lol, that's crazy. I'm just anxious to see when there is stock of the new ink to give it a go. I don't want to go back to the WR mainly because there is no local support for it, and winter time now, I'm not wanting to order shipped emulsion from up north lol. So we will see. It's not like I'm not able to get our work done, it's just a bit of a slow down if there are any lines in a spot color sep that need a little extra pressure from the power washer.

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

Off topic, but I'd really like to see one of these things in action.
My off topic thing is hitting on the guys that have head print head issues on their I-Images. I've been really struggling with using certain emulsions. Chromaline emulsions reacted great, but most murakami emulsions have lines/banding looking deals when imaging which translates to time and pain in the arse beating on the screen to rinse out. I was just told Friday that a new UV ink for the I-Images has been in testing and should be released soon that will not only cure the issues with bad reactions on come emulsions to also not drying in the heads if the heads aren't wet capped. Once we had to change our print head, I was given the advice to cap the head in pink solution every night, if the unit is off for any time beyond a couple days, flush the head with the pink solution, cap it in pink solution as this is how the heads are stored before installed in the machines. We have used all the inks from starting with K, to D, to D2, and now D2A. The new one I think will be called Q, not sure, but I know of a guy a couple hours from me with a new unit that had issues with his print heads, he had an air vent near the unit that blue air into the unit getting by his cap and drying out the head. They replaced the head and he was having the same things I'm having with T9, so that led the tech to see it wasn't isolated. Single head units seem to see more of the issues on emulsion because of just the one head. My currrent work around is 12+ setting, but I want to be in a position to run 6+ and get the max speed. Anyways, my point is that not only will the new ink cure those interaction problems that some of us deal with having lines in our freshly printed images on certain emulsions, it supposedly doesn't dry in the head fast like D2a does. I know if I walk away from my unit for more than 20 minutes, the D2a will totally clog and I have to run a butt ton of cleanings to get it going again, yeah frustrating, but I just try to remember if I'm not tossing a screen right in, Cap that bad boy. Sorry to stray from the laser topic, maybe this one split at one time and I didn't see it. But M&R is working to resolve the issues with the inks that some have had.

Someone needs to put some videos up of the laser thing doing it's deal =)

Hey Bud,

Listen up. I have had every single one of your problems. I've had 9 heads in 2 years.

We just switched to the new K ink. It is not an end all be all. The D2A ink is much better for printing purposes.

Now on the other hand. The new K ink seems to be easier to keep the head clean, as it seams thinner than d2a. Which also equates to a thinner print on your screen, or more see through print on your screen, it doesn't wash out quite as cleanly as D2A does.

One thing you can do however is make sure you are running 1200x900 for d2a, if that doesn't work try 1200x1200. But then you'll need to adjust your rip curve as it will be putting down more ink.  On CP Tex, and chromablue we didn't see any banding issues at 1200x900. SO make sure you have perfect nozzle checks.

But if you are running 6 pass... you literally should have bulletproof black on your screen so you shouldn't have any banding what so ever. We run 12 pass all the time. So your issue may be that the murakami emulsions are super light sensitive, and may start pre-exposing right when you put them on the machine. Leads to bleeding/poor prints.

Also. Please do not flush every so often with the pink stuff. I've been told by a senior tech, that sometimes that can cause more issues. In your capping station use 50/50 distilled water and glycerin.

Above all else D2A absolutely will f*** up your print heads if you have any sort of air in your machine. Make sure the valves are still good.

Set your machine to cap right after you print. Also set it so the temperature goes down a few degrees when the machine idles.


I think we were one of the first shops to get this new K ink, and we've only had it for a couple weeks. So far we aren't having the clogging issues the D2a was having, but I'll report back if it gets worse.

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

Danny Updates?

PS. New K ink did not clog at all after being away for 11 days.

[alan802]

Still no new info pertaining to this unit?  That's disappointing, I'd love to get a review from multiple shops on this because later this year we might be going DTS, finally.  Saati, do you monitor discussion forums?  If so, I'm sure you have a few of these sitting in corners collecting dust that you could crate and ship to SRI for a thorough testing.  If it's strong and ready for heavy usage then a proper long-form review could move a lot of units.  We could be persuaded easily if we saw a few shops having good luck with them.  But right now, this looks bad.  Unfortunately no news means that people will let their imaginations run wild, that's how conspiracy theories get going a lot of the time.

[DannyGruninger]

Still no new info pertaining to this unit?  That's disappointing, I'd love to get a review from multiple shops on this because later this year we might be going DTS, finally.  Saati, do you monitor discussion forums?  If so, I'm sure you have a few of these sitting in corners collecting dust that you could crate and ship to SRI for a thorough testing.  If it's strong and ready for heavy usage then a proper long-form review could move a lot of units.  We could be persuaded easily if we saw a few shops having good luck with them.  But right now, this looks bad.  Unfortunately no news means that people will let their imaginations run wild, that's how conspiracy theories get going a lot of the time.

Still lots of testing to be done. We had to ship the unit to long beach shortly after we received it so our testing was very limited. I'm opposed to stating my opinion on the unit until we can do more testing with it. We saw some very promising results as well as some negative aspects that are/have been addressed. The unit is on its way back here for us to do more testing along side saati the first week of march. Once we can dial in more of the workflow and have more emulsions that we have tested I will share those results. The machine itself does have a lot of potential and I'm confident once we have more time with it we will look at making it our standard solution.

Alan, if you want your more then welcome to come up here during testing with saati as I doubt they will have any issue with that. Reading between the lines of your other posts that might be the best thing so you dont think I'm making up something that isnt true 

[alan802]

Still no new info pertaining to this unit?  That's disappointing, I'd love to get a review from multiple shops on this because later this year we might be going DTS, finally.  Saati, do you monitor discussion forums?  If so, I'm sure you have a few of these sitting in corners collecting dust that you could crate and ship to SRI for a thorough testing.  If it's strong and ready for heavy usage then a proper long-form review could move a lot of units.  We could be persuaded easily if we saw a few shops having good luck with them.  But right now, this looks bad.  Unfortunately no news means that people will let their imaginations run wild, that's how conspiracy theories get going a lot of the time.

Still lots of testing to be done. We had to ship the unit to long beach shortly after we received it so our testing was very limited. I'm opposed to stating my opinion on the unit until we can do more testing with it. We saw some very promising results as well as some negative aspects that are/have been addressed. The unit is on its way back here for us to do more testing along side saati the first week of march. Once we can dial in more of the workflow and have more emulsions that we have tested I will share those results. The machine itself does have a lot of potential and I'm confident once we have more time with it we will look at making it our standard solution.

Alan, if you want your more then welcome to come up here during testing with saati as I doubt they will have any issue with that. Reading between the lines of your other posts that might be the best thing so you dont think I'm making up something that isnt true 

You are reading toooooo much between the lines .  I'm getting lucky to attend a workshop in March, I doubt I can swing another trip so soon.  Seeing that I haven't been able to leave this place for more than 2 days at a time, for the last 8 years I'm still thinking something will happen to keep me from going to the workshop. 

I've put a lot of thought into this piece of equipment recently, it's pros/cons and potential so therefore I need to be careful with the info I ingest about it.  That may sound strange to some but I will elaborate.  I desperately want this technology to work well.  I mean I REALLY REALLY REALLY believe this is the answer to virtually all of the troubles that have plagued traditional wax/ink DTS machines all these years and furthermore, I honestly believe this could be the reason why I've had this intuition to not dive into a DTS/CTS unit all these years.  Unfortunately I currently don't know ANYTHING about the actual issues that may hurt it's effectiveness and quality of performance.  The way most people feel about DTS is the way I feel about this technology.  And if the price is reasonable, and performance can match the competitive technology...there I go again, dreaming about something that might not ever be a reality.

[DannyGruninger]

Quick update here after having Saati come back out to do more testing with us here. Originally we had some issues with the distance between the screen and the laser due to the registration frame that was on the unit. We had to modify this template in order for the screen to be at the correct focus distance from the lasers. During the initial testing I did not see the results I had anticipated but this was due to our registration jig. After re machining the jig correctly which allowed the screen to be at the correct distance we immediately started to see the quality difference. When we originally went from ink jet dts to wax dts we felt that we saw a large improvement in dot/edge quality and now that we are dialing in the laser we are seeing the same results moving from wax to laser. I will 100% say the quality of the edges and dots coming off this laser are nothing short of amazing. I am extremely impressed with the overall quality of the dots/edges,etc that we are imaging off the laser. Quality wise it's absolutely amazing as far as how the detail is coming out. Again we thought wax was really great but when you compare screens made with wax dts vs laser theres almost no comparison imo.

Theres some workflow/software issues that need to be addressed in order for the machine to really be a star imo. My guess is they are 85% there with everything and with just a little more work for workflow/software related items the machine will 100% be an industry shake up. I'm confident that once we can workout these software related workflow issues it will be head and shoulders above everything else that is an option out there.

It takes a lot to impress me regarding screen quality and I am certainly impressed with the screens I'm seeing come off the machine. For anyone that felt like dts was not giving them great resolution this is probably something that needs to be looked at.


I'll get some macro shots of dots/edges next week and revisit the thread but overall I'd say the machine is ready for lots and lots of shops right now and with some workflow related progress the machine will be able to work in any textile print shop.


Danny

[Maxie]

Danny, thanks for the update.
Now all we need is to get Saati to drop the price a bit, when you take into consideration that it has no heads that block up and no inks or wax it's great over time but for smaller shops it's still expensive.

[Alex M]

I doubt the price can drop much bc there is no after sales consumables. All the cost of support has to come from a onetime machine sale.***

*** unless they do what Kornit does and charge for service contracts


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Printwizard]

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.

We have been running all our CMYK and simulated process plastisol a on white base (with Lycra added makes it flatter) and been running 85 and 95lpi for the last 15 years.  We use old school imagesetter film still.  But saw this at ISS Longbeach and thought it was awesome.   But at 12-14 screens an hour its some big coin.  Imagine if they leased it like a photocopier and charged $150 a month plus $2-5 a screen usage rate. Everyone would have them and they would be shipping these units to tens of thousands of factories around the world...  Hell, I'd even contract to use their emulsion!!

[Doug S]

What is the going rate for one of these units?  I’m sure it will be out of my league but I’m curious.  Print wizard, that’s a pretty interesting idea.  I’m like you, I believe most would be on board with that unless they were needing to pump out several screens per day.

[1964GN]

The number I heard was 90k but I don't know how accurate that number is.

[LuckyFlyinROUSH]

Did we ever find out how quick it was? Did you say 15 screens an hour? 23x31?

[Jepaul]

Danny, how about a video of it imaging and standard full size back print?  Say 13.5”x17”.   

I heard these things are closer to 2 mins per screen at that size?   If true this tech is a long way away at $90k each. 

[zanegun08]

imaging and standard full size back print?  Say 13.5”x17”.   I heard these things are closer to 2 mins per screen at that size?

The size of the print doesn't make a difference because it always has to expose the full screen.  On a 23" x 31" that is correct depending on mesh and emulsion, 2-3 minutes per screen.

A hybrid of this, and a full LED exposure would be neat, where it could laser only the image area, and then somehow mask off that area or turn off LED's in that area and expose the rest quicker.  That way if you are doing a small print the total time could come way down.

No consumables is great, and depending on how many screens you are doing, this compared to a wax unit at around 200 screens a day works out to about after 3 years you are ahead as long as there are no need for replacement laser or parts.  Just higher cost up front by almost a factor of two.  May be faster break even / get ahead as compared to a Inkjet CTS as still consumables and more finicky print heads to replace at higher cost.

Cool tech, interesting to see where it goes.