registration blues

[sweetts]

You ever have a set of screens on a job that you could not get registered?? I had one today after 2 hours for messing with it I gave up. Tomorrow I will clean and reburn all the screens (5) and start over. Perhaps more trapping this time I don't get it, never had problems like this and nothing is different. The printing gods must be angry at me today for something. Oh well just venting. 

[Prosperi-Tees]

I have had alot of trouble until I started using smaller reg marks on the corners and centerlines top and bottom.

[JBLUE]

More trapping? If you have to trap at all you have other issues that you need to address. There is no need to trap if your mesh is tight and your press holds good.

[Frog]

The first thing I'd check is the films. Do they line up perfectly? If not, you are fighting a battle that you can't win.

I discovered, on a job for which I re-did one film, a discrepancy that I traced to the fact that I had printed all of the original films one direction on the media, while this re-do, I had shifted 90 degrees, resulting in just enough difference to screw up a nice butt registered job that burned and ran fine the last time.

[screenxpress]

Worst time I (personally) ever had was when I was burning films using a HP Laserjet. 

Damn fuser unit warped at least 1 out of 4 sheets making hitting registration an impossible target.

[sweetts]

I used two different films maybe thats it I dont know tomorrow is another day. This the the third +3 color job on the new press so I am still finding my groove on dialing the jobs in. Its good though heck if it always worked the first time I would have learned nothing right? Its not a paying job just a weekend project so no biggie. Some days just suck or all the crown and coke caught up with me.

[jsheridan]

The absolute first thing you do after the films are printed is check them for alignemt This is a big benefit of a registration system when you pin the films up, you can tell right away when something isn't right or even worse, missing information.

Like andy said, if the film is off there is nothing in this world that will fix it but a new film(s)

[JBLUE]

I used two different films maybe thats it I dont know tomorrow is another day. This the the third +3 color job on the new press so I am still finding my groove on dialing the jobs in. Its good though heck if it always worked the first time I would have learned nothing right? Its not a paying job just a weekend project so no biggie. Some days just suck or all the crown and coke caught up with me.

Exactly what John said. I had a job where I printed an underbase on a rolled film and used sheets for the rest. The underbase film actually shrank from a lot of ink deposit on the film (large patch underbase). I did not check it on the light table and burned the screens, set up the job, and got pissed when it did not line up. All that wasted time and I could have saved it just by checking the films before all that work was done. My laziness cost me on that one.

[Screened Gear]

The first thing I'd check is the films. Do they line up perfectly? If not, you are fighting a battle that you can't win.

I had this happen once. Film got messes up on the printer. The film was rubbing one side of the printer too much and skewed the print on the film. 

[Coyote71]

Had a job that wouldn't register on the 4th color no matter what i did. Films came to me from Elvis and I checked them to make sure they were good. Found my 4th station was loose. Reset the eccentric and reset the screen, All was good after that. We take for granted that our presses are tight and will hold well. If jobs start calling for more trapping, time to check the press. Just saying

[sweetts]

gonna double check films then press will let ya know sometime this week. Errrr

Sent  from samsung gem(the worst smart phone ever)

[jason-23]

I had a problem like this before and it had nothing to do with my screens, art or films. The center shaft nut on the vastex was loose causing it to shift all over the place. tightened her up added some lube and we are good to go. justa thought.

[mooseman]

It could be a lot of things but most likely like everyone said it is your films.
We have had this issue once or twice and here is what we discocered.

the primary culprit was the way the film fed into the printer. If it is not perfectly square to the feed rollers the film will distort on the way through making very little change in the center of the distress but unacceptable change in the outer reaches like where your reg marks are.
We now take the PITA time to carefully inspect the condition of the film (we feed our 3000 from back one sheet at a time) as the printer pre loads it to the roller if it looks off we cycle the film through and reload the sheet again.

Also we have gone to putting very little authority in our reg marks. We start with a film on the platten, tape it down, register the screen to it then add the second film over the first and register the screen to it and so on  using the marks as initial reference but using the image to image as the primary authority. We keep the films as placed on the pallet untill the job id all registered just in case we need to go back and check the bread crum trail of how we got to where we are.

We find reastically  this takes about 10 minutes on the high side per color using the clear tape over first color method. If we are exhausting more time than that there are mechanical issues in the films, screens press etc and refocus from there.

Focus on the films ........

mooseman

[jsheridan]

Also we have gone to putting very little authority in our reg marks. We start with a film on the platten, tape it down, register the screen to it then add the second film over the first and register the screen to it and so on  using the marks as initial reference but using the image to image as the primary authority. We keep the films as placed on the pallet untill the job id all registered just in case we need to go back and check the bread crum trail of how we got to where we are.

We find reastically  this takes about 10 minutes on the high side per color using the clear tape over first color method. If we are exhausting more time than that there are mechanical issues in the films, screens press etc and refocus from there.

This is how I did it.. 15 years ago!

With all the tech we have today with home made to bought registration systems, there is no reason for a piece of film to leave a screen room and end up on a platen board and used to align screens.. just sayen...

10 minutes is really high nowaday.. even on my manual in the garage I'mm at 2-3 per color with my home made reg system. 

[3Deep]

Since I didn't read everyone post I might being saying something thats already been said, but anyway Film always line your films up right after you print them out and that problem is caught right there.  What frames are you using if static frames the mesh could have come loose after your burn and washout, same with roller frame but not as much as an older static might give thats my 3 cents worth.

Darryl