Whats better than Hotronix?

[tonypep]

My experience with all the dual shuttles is while they do not necessarily make you twice as fast, the will. . certainly speed things up greatly. It's equally important to have good operators who understand multi tasking

[ericheartsu]

zane or i are happy to chime in on this stuff if you want to dm or email us:
eric@Nightowlsprint.com
zane@nightowlsprint.com

[Admiral]

To minimize movement and because the presses are only 10sec/5sec, I just went with Hotronix air Fusion IQ 16x20.  I believe our set up is faster than a shuttle would be with our process.  If we pressed for 20+ secs, I would definitely consider the dual platens though.

I do dislike the reliability - chain is miniscule and loses tension, a board or two have gone bad over the years, one press we had issues with heating up and had to send it in to get fixed.  They definitely need to be built stronger.  No real issues with all the new ones we bought this year but it's the next couple of years I'm worried about...

I can't believe they haven't fixed the pins that go into the bottom platen to make it a more snug fit - the amount of play makes it so you can have crooked prints vs where the lasers are, if you don't make sure the handle secures the platens really well.  Poor engineering designs in those areas. 

We also anchored the base of our press to pallet racking so the lasers and the heat press don't come out of alignment.

[inkman996]

To minimize movement and because the presses are only 10sec/5sec, I just went with Hotronix air Fusion IQ 16x20.  I believe our set up is faster than a shuttle would be with our process.  If we pressed for 20+ secs, I would definitely consider the dual platens though.

I do dislike the reliability - chain is miniscule and loses tension, a board or two have gone bad over the years, one press we had issues with heating up and had to send it in to get fixed.  They definitely need to be built stronger.  No real issues with all the new ones we bought this year but it's the next couple of years I'm worried about...

I can't believe they haven't fixed the pins that go into the bottom platen to make it a more snug fit - the amount of play makes it so you can have crooked prints vs where the lasers are, if you don't make sure the handle secures the platens really well.  Poor engineering designs in those areas. 

We also anchored the base of our press to pallet racking so the lasers and the heat press don't come out of alignment.

Yea I do not get the platen changing system, it is so wobbly. If we dye Dye Sub we would never go near one of these units. Thing is their is scores of proven rigid platen changing systems already invented why try to re-invent something and in doing so make it junk?

[Rockers]

We're looking for a daul shuttle at the moment. Seems like MEM makes a solid press and a few other brands make similar looking MEM presses, painted a different color with different features.  Anatol has a nice looking one too, but I want to get some real user opinions on it. George Knight and Insta also are on my radar.

Our old hotronix clam has worked really well for a long time, but we are manually pressing way to much latley, so time for an upgrade

Sent from my SM-G990U using Tapatalk

We have several MEM presses. If you buy them directly on Alibaba you get a very good deal.

[mk162]

I will never buy a Hotronix press again.  Hands down the biggest POS i've ever used.  We were a few minutes from a fire a couple times with one.  We finally sold it for scrap.

I bought a Hix used about 20 years ago and it still runs strong.

We have a Geo Knight Dual platen hat press.  It's good.  My only complaint is the programming is clunky for settings.

We just got a Chinese dual platen press from Lawson and so far it's been amazing.

So I'd recommend Hix or Geo Knight.  The Lawson one is too new to really tell if it's durable, so far I love it though.

[Atownsend]

We skipped Lawson and ordered a dual platen pneumatic heat press on Ali baba last year. It took 3 months for it to arrive, but it's been totally freaking awesome and it was stupid cheap to get it here. It had a really sketchy two print 220v plug, with no ground. I ended up drilling a hole in the case and wiring up a ground wire and replacing the cord, which was not anywhere near the correct gauge for 220v imo. Not too hard though. All of the pneumatic tubing used metric connectors. But we were able to find them on amazon easily. Only other weird thing, it has a whacky automatic mode which is turned-on by a toggle knob labeled in Chinese. It will heat press your hand if not careful. So liability issues, yah probably? But we all know about it and joke about it at the shop. Probably not the best thing if you have a lot of greenhorns running around your shop. IT gets the job done every day, just have to do the math on Celsius to F LOL!

[GoWestRob]

We skipped Lawson and ordered a dual platen pneumatic heat press on Ali baba last year. It took 3 months for it to arrive, but it's been totally freaking awesome and it was stupid cheap to get it here. It had a really sketchy two print 220v plug, with no ground. I ended up drilling a hole in the case and wiring up a ground wire and replacing the cord, which was not anywhere near the correct gauge for 220v imo. Not too hard though. All of the pneumatic tubing used metric connectors. But we were able to find them on amazon easily. Only other weird thing, it has a whacky automatic mode which is turned-on by a toggle knob labeled in Chinese. It will heat press your hand if not careful. So liability issues, yah probably? But we all know about it and joke about it at the shop. Probably not the best thing if you have a lot of greenhorns running around your shop. IT gets the job done every day, just have to do the math on Celsius to F LOL!

Gotta be careful with pressing your hand!   Hospitalized for two weeks after a pressed arm.
https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/accidentsearch.accident_detail?id=125361.015

[tonypep]

Which is why I strongly support the units with a dead man switch.

[ebscreen]

Two handed operation (like a guillotine cutter) and an emergency stop button (accessible from where you may be caught) are a must.
I'd add an air pressure sensor and a thermal fuse for fire safety as well. China isn't exactly known for workplace safety.

We ended up building our own shuttle press. I can post the cad files and software if there is any interest.

[Sbrem]

Two handed operation (like a guillotine cutter) and an emergency stop button (accessible from where you may be caught) are a must.
I'd add an air pressure sensor and a thermal fuse for fire safety as well. China isn't exactly known for workplace safety.

We ended up building our own shuttle press. I can post the cad files and software if there is any interest.

That is what I like about the Knight DC16AP that we have, I can be fairly clumsy, but there is no way for even me to press my hand. Now, if you press someone else's hand, there is an emergency switch in the middle of the head. Do not press someone else's hand...

Steve

[spencer_L&KC]

we have a slew of presses, the only one I want to use as a boat anchor is the 360 IQ hat press. Biggest POS on the market. Don't buy into the heated bottom platen, no crease on your hats nonsense.


Anyone want to buy a 360 IQ hat press ? it works GREAT.... 

Man am I glad I saw this. I was seriously considering getting one of these, almost specifically for the bottom heated platen. Basically I will be pressing a lot of screen printed patches, and the top heat can smash/distort plastisol prints a bit, so I was thinking the lower heat option would be ideal to heat the glue from below and not heat up the ink too much on top.

I was originally considering a Geo Knight hat press and getting the lower heated platen add on for it. Do you have any experience with GK lower heat cap presses? Do you think the lower heat stuff is just a gimmick in general or it just sucks on the IQ360?

[CBCB]

I like the MEM dual table heat presses.  Much cheaper and work great.

Our MEM is doing well. It was a pain to get though. It’ll be easy for you.
My direct order was cancelled because Night Scabs here doesn’t like people saying stuff like this:

Just be careful not to buy a repainted version and pay twice the price.

There’s reasons they don’t talk about them out in the open. You might realize you can get the same thing direct for less than half the price.

[CBCB]

Which is why I strongly support the units with a dead man switch.

These MEM / East West units can get stuck down it’s extremely sketchy. We do not use the auto function because of this. Clamping your hand would suck but having it wedged/stuck together like ours has been would be brutal. Jaws of Life type thing.

[mk162]

we have a slew of presses, the only one I want to use as a boat anchor is the 360 IQ hat press. Biggest POS on the market. Don't buy into the heated bottom platen, no crease on your hats nonsense.


Anyone want to buy a 360 IQ hat press ? it works GREAT.... 

Man am I glad I saw this. I was seriously considering getting one of these, almost specifically for the bottom heated platen. Basically I will be pressing a lot of screen printed patches, and the top heat can smash/distort plastisol prints a bit, so I was thinking the lower heat option would be ideal to heat the glue from below and not heat up the ink too much on top.

I was originally considering a Geo Knight hat press and getting the lower heated platen add on for it. Do you have any experience with GK lower heat cap presses? Do you think the lower heat stuff is just a gimmick in general or it just sucks on the IQ360?

I just got my heated lower unit in.  I'll let you know what I think of it when the patch job I have comes in.  The platen is smaller than I expected, but it'll work.