Saati Lazer Exposure unit.

[Jepaul]

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.

I can’t see how that would make sense for shops right now at that speed? And at $90k only the really large shops can afford it?  2mins a screen let’s be conservative and say you’ll take an average 1 min between screens. That’s only 20 an hour or 160 a day for 8 hours.  Here at Liquid Graphics it would take 7 of those units.  Yikes!   Am I thinking about that correctly!

If the detail and consumable cost is the driving factor why not just go with the new Signtronic STM unit for $150k that will image in less than 60 seconds?  Sure you have to expose it afterwards but it’s still quicker overall I would think.   

Danny, have you done any printing tests?   
How does the emulsion hold up on long runs? Can you use any emulsion with it?   
Do you have to post expose?

When this thing could play in the 50k range and image 23x31 in less than a minute then I start seeing a big draw.   Right now it’s too close to proven tech like the STM, but then again my 70” TV was 5k five years ago.  Now it’s $1500. 

[blue moon]

part of the problem is nobody is thinking long term. Just like the CTS was going to eliminate film and tape, it is having to deal with head replacements (which are not cheap). There is always something that will have to be maintained or fixed and more expensive the unit, more expensive the repairs and maintenance.
The laser unit has 90 something laser modules in the traveling head which is moving at breakneck speeds. how do you ensure none of them get loose and move out of alignment? And then, what's it going to cost to bring in a tech to get everything back in place? What happens when one of the lasers quits or is putting out less light due to a bad connection?
As Jeffrey said, this is new technology that is very, very cool, but it is slightly early; at least for my taste. The prospect of image-setter quality dots, no consumables, no undercutting is very appealing, but we'll wait for the technology to mature a bit.

pierre

[DannyGruninger]

JP and Pierre you guys are spot on with it. Current configuration I can see it putting around 150 screens through it in a day which workflow wise is nowhere near a dts printer combined with exposure units. My opinion is in a print shop dealing with textiles time is money. With a single operator we can make over 150 screens here before lunch using wax dts and metal halide exposure then that person is helping in other key areas of the shop. I’ve always said seconds turn into minutes which turn to hours which turn to days which turn to dollars. We make money being efficient not dealing with small slowdowns. What I’m seeing with the laser is it needs to be looked at not as a printer like a dts but like an exposure unit which is what it really is. Certain aspects that create huge slowdowns right now in production is the reintroduction of pin holes due to the screen laying on glass where with dts we do not deal with glass therefore eliminating pinholes. Some Guys in my shop running presses don’t even know what pin holes are because it’s somethinf they’ve never had to deal with. When my screen guy has to become a semi professional glass cleaner and my press guys have to stop to tape pin holes this is a huge problem for workflow efficiency bottom lines. The technology is not fully there yet but with certain changes there’s no doubt eventually these will be making screens much faster without issues like pin holes, field incident reports that cannot be handled quickly, etc. We will be doing much more testing on press with screens this week and start hammering on the machine to see what we can do to improve the workflow. Like any technology it takes time, nearly every time we have introduced something new it took months for us to really make it as good as we thought we could. This thing screams long term potential but for current workflow it’s hard to beat a solid dts with a way to exposure multiple screens at once. And like Pierre leaded onto with our dts we have one print head to deal with if we have an issue but the laser has 96 we are dealing with. Now if the bank of lasers was a drop in unit that all machines had one that came with it as a spare problems like that go down.

[Colin]

Danny:

You chase high quality dot edges/detail/high lpi - Which you know I am a huge fan of.

Is it worth it to you - right now in your shop- to have a unit like this in your repertoire for designs that need high quality screens?  Or are you able to get the same - perceived - quality with wax?

[Jepaul]

Danny:

You chase high quality dot edges/detail/high lpi - Which you know I am a huge fan of.

Is it worth it to you - right now in your shop- to have a unit like this in your repertoire for designs that need high quality screens?  Or are you able to get the same - perceived - quality with wax?

If we could just get customers to pay; By The LPI, we would be in business!  LOL.    Not unheard of though I guess.  Target Graphics still does it I think.

[DannyGruninger]

Danny:

You chase high quality dot edges/detail/high lpi - Which you know I am a huge fan of.

Is it worth it to you - right now in your shop- to have a unit like this in your repertoire for designs that need high quality screens?  Or are you able to get the same - perceived - quality with wax?

You bring up a very valid point of discussion. We are doing more and more work with inks such as virus 4cp waterbase. As you know to maximize the benefits of these ink platforms the better quality of screen output the better finished product as well as ability to produce reprints. I’m currently working on linearizing our output on the laser unit in order to start seeing the difference in quality of any on a textile garment. We see difference in quality on the screen but how that translate to the garment is still up for discussion. The quality that I’m seeing on screens is impressive but workflow is such a key part of the equation that for this machine to be game changing it needs to be improved. For now we are using the laser for anything with critical detail as quality of exposing the emulsion is nearly perfect quality.

[Colin]

I.e.  Lets create perfect screens and then make our t shirts print like they are paper  

That way you can chase higher lpi because of perfect dot shapes, get cleaner dot deposits, potentially even less dot gain than you have experienced with the ROQ platens..... Do the people working in your shop truly realize what you guys accomplish and work towards?

[ZooCity]

Resolution is real factor if you are running the virus 4cp, those seps are rosette and my opinion is that res really counts there.   You are also laying down a double base of HSA white before printing the top colors which is as close to a sheet of paper on t shirt as you'll ever get!

[Colin]

Which to me - sounds like a part of printer heaven... as long as the inks dont get tacky and pick off that super smooth base

Out of all of us, I know Danny can pull it off. 

My question is:

How smooth can that base get?  Maybe throw in a 3rd white using all super high mesh counts?  It would keep the platens super warm and the honeycomb platen has more to overcome when it comes to -retaining- heat.

Can Danny get even less dot gain out of the ROQ platens than he does currently?

With less dot gain, he can go higher LPI and start printing like hes using photographic paper.  With super smooth laser edge quality and a tightly controlled eom, he can start printing like he's using a Heidelberg....

Now whats the highest thin thread mesh available?  I heard from Murakami that they are testing super high S thread that is stable at over 30 newtons....



Now, after all this super fun geeky stuff is over, can we make more money offering what we can get out of this?  What is our ROI for this?

Or long term, is it easier to drop in a digital printer and add bump plates?



For what its worth: if I had the extra cash in a shop like Danny's I would push like he is, just to see whats possible. 

[Maxie]

This is from the horses mouth:
The LTS list is 88,995.  It comes with a computer but no rip software.  You need to supply the LTS with a 1 bit tiff file.  Two year warranty.
I understand that if you do a deal to use Saati chemicals you can get a better price.
So all the small guys are still looking for something afordable.

[mk162]

I heard it was under $80 from a Saati Rep.  Maybe that was the price with buying their chemicals..or the maybe $88 includes install and training, shipping, etc.

[Rick Roth]

The Saati laser looks pretty impressive. They were selling them for 77K at the show not 90. I haven't run the math but it is complicated.  Some considerable cost savings as no expensive head replacements like DTS always need, no consumables, one step process and simplifying our processes always saves labor dollars, and no bulbs to buy or to figure out if they need replacing. That all is before we all figure out if this technology exposes superior screens, which it appears to do.

The only other thing I'll say is that if dealing with Saati, I feel better than I would with some other companies because they never try to BS me and they stand by their products and equipment. They even were extremely helpful to me when I reclaiming power washer was broken and it turned out to totally be our fault from a building wiring issue.

We asked a lot of questions and they seemed to have solid answers about this unit. We still use film and we are thinking of leapfrogging over DTS to the laser.

[brandon]

Thanks for posting Rick. Very good info to have planning for the future. We like our CTS unit but technology is advancing so fast it is an amazing time for sure

[mk162]

The Saati laser looks pretty impressive. They were selling them for 77K at the show not 90. I haven't run the math but it is complicated.  Some considerable cost savings as no expensive head replacements like DTS always need, no consumables, one step process and simplifying our processes always saves labor dollars, and no bulbs to buy or to figure out if they need replacing. That all is before we all figure out if this technology exposes superior screens, which it appears to do.

The only other thing I'll say is that if dealing with Saati, I feel better than I would with some other companies because they never try to BS me and they stand by their products and equipment. They even were extremely helpful to me when I reclaiming power washer was broken and it turned out to totally be our fault from a building wiring issue.

We asked a lot of questions and they seemed to have solid answers about this unit. We still use film and we are thinking of leapfrogging over DTS to the laser.

The screens I saw from it were far superior to an inkjet DTS.  If I was thinking about spending $40k on a new DTS, I would have to look long and hard at the Saati unit.

[Jepaul]

The Saati laser looks pretty impressive. They were selling them for 77K at the show not 90. I haven't run the math but it is complicated.  Some considerable cost savings as no expensive head replacements like DTS always need, no consumables, one step process and simplifying our processes always saves labor dollars, and no bulbs to buy or to figure out if they need replacing. That all is before we all figure out if this technology exposes superior screens, which it appears to do.

The only other thing I'll say is that if dealing with Saati, I feel better than I would with some other companies because they never try to BS me and they stand by their products and equipment. They even were extremely helpful to me when I reclaiming power washer was broken and it turned out to totally be our fault from a building wiring issue.

We asked a lot of questions and they seemed to have solid answers about this unit. We still use film and we are thinking of leapfrogging over DTS to the laser.

The screens I saw from it were far superior to an inkjet DTS.  If I was thinking about spending $40k on a new DTS, I would have to look long and hard at the Saati unit.

So you would spend $77k on this?   Where did the $40k come from?

Anyone know anyone actually printing with this unit?  The one shop I know that has it can’t use it because the emulsion breaks down after 200 impressions and apparently even post exposing doesn’t fix it. 

Do you have to use a specific or proprietary emulsion with it did they say?