Stampinator for Manual presses?

[spencer_L&KC]

Has anyone tried the new Stampinator for manual presses? The company claims you can fully cure plastisol and water based prints with it, on press. They claim it can replace a conveyor dryer. Obviously there are some limitations, but still seems pretty great. Price is a bit steep though.

Anyone had a chance to work with one yet?

[zanegun08]

I claim you can cure your shirts in your home oven and you probably already have one, and those cost less than a manual stampinator ($6500) vs a home depot oven ($500) or a heat gun ($30).  You could probably cure your inks with a magnifying glass and the sun as well, or if you print water base, the air will literally cure your inks.

In line heat press is an amazing tool for heat pressing inline, however it will never replace a conveyor dryer in terms of efficiency or getting a proper cure.  I don't really understand why they try to advertise all the gimmicks of applying transfers on press, or foil, or whatever when what inline heat press is good for is for pressing your inks inline.  Yes it can be used to par cure your under base, however I recommend using a flash before still if you have room.

You'd be better suited to buy a little buddy dryer, a infared flash, and heat press, can probably get all 3 for $6500.  If you are printing plastisol, once you heat press a shirt and then run it through the dryer, the inks tend to puff back up a little bit and don't have the same smooth finish anyhow, so where inline heat press works best is for making a super smooth base to print your colors on, or pressing out your sins (bad printing) on press, and then curing it in the dryer.

Depends on the equipment, space, electricity, but looking for a used dryer would be good, but the little buddy isn't bad it's just an infared flash in a box with a conveyer, can be ran off 110v, and are good for mobile printing or events if you end up upgrading later. (you should)

I don't think that the Manual Stampinator is a bad tool, but to go "sales guy" and say it can fully cure your prints on press is not true.  To cure water base properly takes 2+ minutes in a forced air gas dryer, the Stampinator is just a GeoKnight Heat Press element in a fancy box with a hefty price tag.

There are a lot of under cured shirts in the world though

[Admiral]

IMO it shouldn't be used to cure shirts.

It's to make a much smoother print, which helps with vibrancy by getting the fibers down.  I think of it like a smoothing screen but can also be used to flash cure the ink.  Full cure on press sounds like a terrible idea to me, any which way it's done.  I figured out how to do it but with a very unique use case and only in that case.  Luckily we didn't need to use that method, it was just if we had too much production and had to use one press without the dryer.  Would not recommend to use in this way at all.

[CBCB]

I heard the manual setup is faster for transfers than the new ROQ. That’s a big flex.

Much like their main product, the list of things it can do is quite long. It’s truly great at only a few of them though.

I don’t mean that in a bad way either. Not all the features are equal though. I wouldn’t wanna cure a shirt though. Maybe a neck tag actually. Might try that.

[spencer_L&KC]

I claim you can cure your shirts in your home oven and you probably already have one, and those cost less than a manual stampinator ($6500) vs a home depot oven ($500) or a heat gun ($30).  You could probably cure your inks with a magnifying glass and the sun as well, or if you print water base, the air will literally cure your inks.

In line heat press is an amazing tool for heat pressing inline, however it will never replace a conveyor dryer in terms of efficiency or getting a proper cure.  I don't really understand why they try to advertise all the gimmicks of applying transfers on press, or foil, or whatever when what inline heat press is good for is for pressing your inks inline.  Yes it can be used to par cure your under base, however I recommend using a flash before still if you have room.

You'd be better suited to buy a little buddy dryer, a infared flash, and heat press, can probably get all 3 for $6500.  If you are printing plastisol, once you heat press a shirt and then run it through the dryer, the inks tend to puff back up a little bit and don't have the same smooth finish anyhow, so where inline heat press works best is for making a super smooth base to print your colors on, or pressing out your sins (bad printing) on press, and then curing it in the dryer.

Depends on the equipment, space, electricity, but looking for a used dryer would be good, but the little buddy isn't bad it's just an infared flash in a box with a conveyer, can be ran off 110v, and are good for mobile printing or events if you end up upgrading later. (you should)

I don't think that the Manual Stampinator is a bad tool, but to go "sales guy" and say it can fully cure your prints on press is not true.  To cure water base properly takes 2+ minutes in a forced air gas dryer, the Stampinator is just a GeoKnight Heat Press element in a fancy box with a hefty price tag.

There are a lot of under cured shirts in the world though

Yeah I fully understand all of that and agree. I was wondering where the water is supposed to go when "curing" WB prints. Part of the usefulness of the manual stampinator is that it can replace your flash, obviously there are limitations for stuff like puff, but you're supposed to run this thing instead of a flash. You press each pass of ink, not just the base. Then when all the colors are printed they said you press it again to cure it. I was skeptical that it could reliably cure prints on press, but the smoothing/flashing benefits are pretty great. Obviously this isn't really an issue with WB inks. I was just wondering if anyone here got their hands on a manual version and had some runs under their belt with it.

Also noticed the GeoKnight controller right away as GK presses are what we use, so we are familiar with those controllers. This was a positive for me when considering a MS. The price is absolutely ridiculous though thats for sure. I was actually pretty close to getting them to send me a beta unit to test before the manual version was finished and released. They had a setback of some sort and I was sort of forgotten I think.

We currently have a BBC Big Buddy 24" x 8' dryer and 18"x24" Black Flash. We are in St. Louis so BBC is very close to us. You mention to properly cure WB ink that you need a gas air forced dryer. Do you think it has to be gas? Wouldn't an electric air forced dryer work well? We are actually looking into upgrading to a new dryer when we move into our brand new studio. Been looking at the BBC Aeolus line (super spendy), Anatol dryers and even the Workshorse Quarts dryers (price friendly). Definitely want something air forced as we start to venture into WB printing. I am most curious about the quartz dryers from Workhorse as they seem pretty great and the price is nearly half that of the Aeolus line from BBC ($10K vs $18K). Thanks for the reply.

IMO it shouldn't be used to cure shirts.

It's to make a much smoother print, which helps with vibrancy by getting the fibers down.  I think of it like a smoothing screen but can also be used to flash cure the ink.  Full cure on press sounds like a terrible idea to me, any which way it's done.  I figured out how to do it but with a very unique use case and only in that case.  Luckily we didn't need to use that method, it was just if we had too much production and had to use one press without the dryer.  Would not recommend to use in this way at all.

Was just curious if anyone had a chance to use one on a run and how it went. I suppose I worded the OP poorly. What mostly interests me is the flashing/smoothing. I know it'll provide smooth prints, but the flashing while smoothing is valuable for me. We currently use an iron to smooth shirts, on a manual press, while loading. Smoothing the fibers down before any ink hits the garment works really well too. I have tried just about every smoothing technique out there, smoothing before, during and after printing, and pre-smoothing fibers works great for us. The difference in smoothness between pre-ironed garments vs non-ironed is enough to keep doing it. Yes it means more timely loading, but it also means no need to stand at a heat press after the run is over pressing them later, which a lot of printers do. I have done it on some jobs and smoothing the garment while loading (load all shirts first, then smooth them, then start printing like normal) is much faster than unloading the shirts from the catch bin and pressing them after. 

We are very capable of producing nice smooth prints without any smoothing techniques, but that is just an average print imo. If we can make them even better with just a little more effort, we are going to do it. That is why we take the extra 5-6 secs per shirt to smooth on press.

Another positive about pre-ironing is that it helps stick the shirt down to the water based pallet adhesive, but cuts down on how much adhesive is used. We mix our adhesive with more water. Without smoothing the tees before printing this would not be enough adhesive to hold the shirt down. Pre-smoothing sticks it down good and it comes off really easy. So the prints on those first 6-12 shirts do not get stretched before some lint gets on there.

In my last reply I brought up some new dryers we are looking into. Would love to get some more feedback on pros and cons of dryers. Gas is not an option so im looking into electric. We are building a new building/studio and construction should be done by Dec/Jan. When we move in we will be ready to upgrade. Anyway, I am going to start a new topic about dryers to not derail this one. Thanks for the reply.

I heard the manual setup is faster for transfers than the new ROQ. That’s a big flex.

Much like their main product, the list of things it can do is quite long. It’s truly great at only a few of them though.

I don’t mean that in a bad way either. Not all the features are equal though. I wouldn’t wanna cure a shirt though. Maybe a neck tag actually. Might try that.

Yeah I was mainly curious how it worked overall during a run. I just mentioned the full cure because it seems to good to be true. Doing transfers is an added bonus, but we dont really do many transfers. Been considering getting into printing our own plastisol transfers or using DTF transfers. Im just a screen printing geek and want to print everything directly. We will hand print size tags. I have also been thinking about trying to print sheets of plastisol tags, on that film that Night Owls and others sell. Thanks for the reply.

[Evo]

I was wondering where the water is supposed to go when "curing" WB prints.

Given enough time you can cure WB ink with any sufficient heat source. First get the water out, then heat the ink long enough for the medium to cure and properly bind to the fabric.

For *production* you want heat and forced air because it will evaporate and exhaust the moisture from the ink film quicker than other methods. Gas dryers are typically the most energy efficient at this because you can have on energy inlet (burner section) and distribute that heated air over a long enough tunnel to get the correct cure time. Yes, you can cure WB in a short tunnel with no forced air and a very slow belt, but your press will be at a crawl.

Can you cure WB ink on press with a hot plate of metal? Wash test and find out.

[spencer_L&KC]

I was wondering where the water is supposed to go when "curing" WB prints.

Given enough time you can cure WB ink with any sufficient heat source. First get the water out, then heat the ink long enough for the medium to cure and properly bind to the fabric.

For *production* you want heat and forced air because it will evaporate and exhaust the moisture from the ink film quicker than other methods. Gas dryers are typically the most energy efficient at this because you can have on energy inlet (burner section) and distribute that heated air over a long enough tunnel to get the correct cure time. Yes, you can cure WB in a short tunnel with no forced air and a very slow belt, but your press will be at a crawl.

Can you cure WB ink on press with a hot plate of metal? Wash test and find out.

I suppose my question about curing with a Stampinator is because if it is pressing the print, there is no where for the water to escape while its being pressed. Maybe it could escape out of the sides? Would the bottom of the press get wet?

Ultimately I do not plan on curing prints with a Stampinator, im just curious about it. Thanks for the reply.