OK I am game. This is for Bimmridder. Lets Talk DTS

[Printficient]

Direct to screen.  What are the advantages?  What amount of screens a week make it worth while? Which units do you recommend?  Let it all out. 

[squeezee]

When they work they are good and avoid using film.
BUT...They are a bottleneck in the workflow and if they are out of use then you have a problem.

[Printficient]

When they work they are good and avoid using film.
BUT...They are a bottleneck in the workflow and if they are out of use then you have a problem.

There is a shop that has 2 Kiwo units that go through 800 to 1000 screens a day.

[bimmridder]

I have had a Kiwo I-Jet for four years. We are running one shift and doing up to 150 screens pretty easily. Our set up is one person images, exposes, develops, and tapes up screens. A good person can do all this plus coat screens. (OK we have a coating machine, so we can coat and image at the same time) I know three other shops that have the same brand machine, and they all feel the same as me....this machine alone has helped us grow. I have never experienced more than a few hours of down time, and that has been rare. Perhaps three times? Since we image a day ahead, even a little down time won't kill me. It may be  a strain, but it won't shut us down. As far as a bottle neck, I'd beg to differ. Imagine life without film. Everything is digital, stored on servers (and backed up of course) A few keystrokes and you have your files. I will go into much more detail later, but have to split for now. I will also search for a few articles on the subject. Throw your questions and opinions my way. I'll answer and respond as best I can.

[Printficient]

I have had a Kiwo I-Jet for four years. We are running one shift and doing up to 150 screens pretty easily. Our set up is one person images, exposes, develops, and tapes up screens. A good person can do all this plus coat screens. (OK we have a coating machine, so we can coat and image at the same time) I know three other shops that have the same brand machine, and they all feel the same as me....this machine alone has helped us grow. I have never experienced more than a few hours of down time, and that has been rare. Perhaps three times? Since we image a day ahead, even a little down time won't kill me. It may be  a strain, but it won't shut us down. As far as a bottle neck, I'd beg to differ. Imagine life without film. Everything is digital, stored on servers (and backed up of course) A few keystrokes and you have your files. I will go into much more detail later, but have to split for now. I will also search for a few articles on the subject. Throw your questions and opinions my way. I'll answer and respond as best I can.

At what cost for answers? 1 beer 2 beers?

[bimmridder]

For you Sonny, only a 12 pack.

[Orion]

No vaccuum or glass needed for exposure. This drastically reduces the time on exposures. How about 75% quicker exposures? The dmax value of the wax KIWO uses allows you to fully expose the screens without lower percentage dot loss and fully exposed screens will  also benefit when it comes time for reclaim. Say good-bye to pinholes too.

[DouglasGrigar]

An excellent product that eliminates many problems with imaging stencils...

It is amazing how the elimination of glass, vac, positive film, aid in the formation of the photo-reactive stencil.

One of the “next-step” items for the industry that just seems to be a sleeper for the moment.

[Frog]

Side question: what about projection? Is that completely dead?

[DouglasGrigar]

Side question: what about projection? Is that completely dead?

No, but almost.

There are even direct-to-stencil inkjet printers large enough to take the place of some if not most of the projection methods.

One emulsion used exclusively for projection - the only existing example of the sixth type of emulsion (photopolymer only) was dropped from the market by ulano over 4 years ago...

[blue moon]

Side question: what about projection? Is that completely dead?

No, but almost.

There are even direct-to-stencil inkjet printers large enough to take the place of some if not most of the projection methods.

One emulsion used exclusively for projection - the only existing example of the sixth type of emulsion (photopolymer only) was dropped from the market by ulano over 4 years ago...

what about laser? Douglas and Sonny, any experience with those systems?

[yorkie]

The next evolution which needs to happen with DTS is "mesh awareness".

With the speed of todays computers, it is possible to add a camera to the head of the DTS printer and gain awareness of where the mesh exists, then modify the output accordingly. Screen moires would be eliminated and individual screen cells could be accessed directly. This would allow "dithered" output at mesh resolutions.

If it were my design, i'd be using an inkjet printer and a single point light  source. this choice would be made for both speed and halftone control within a mesh cell. The downside to a laser, is that it takes as much light energy to expose an emulsion, with a laser or with a big bulb. In about 1 minute, i can expose the entire screen, where mesh cell by mesh cell, each cell still needs total of that same 1 minute of light.

In the future, LCD technology may make a resurrection of projection, I'm not seeing it on the horizon.

[BorisB]

regarding LAser units: Last year I was shopping for DTS. Kiwo offered me their older model of ScreenSetter, which uses Laser. It's price was 150.000$ for used 2003 unit which they had in stock. Now they all use DMD units for high end applications. It means thousands of micromirrors that change angle and thus reflect light or not.  But all these cheaper  DMD units were over 200.000$ with no big difference in quality vs. ink jets.

Finally we bought ink jet unit based on Epson 9880.

Ease of use:
Person running it, never used computer before. It took me half an hour to learn her.
Ink is very stable. After initial installation i got ill for over a month. Nobody even turned it on for nearly two month. I just started it, printed nozzle test and not a single nozzle was missing. 

Running costs:
It's cheap to run. We make roughly 600 screens with image size 45x65cm with one liter of ink that costs 200$ Printhead costs around 800$ but I don't know for how many mil of droplets it will work.

Reliabilty:
No downtime yet, but we use it only since this January.

We started using it for Transfer department only. And I am super happy about this investment. Actually monthly Invoice for film and chemistry for imagesetter equals monthly payment for CTS unit.
After the rain (of orders) season we make switch in direct printing. And that will save as ton of time.. But I started with part of production that was easier to adapt. It was easier because of workflow we use there and because my transfer printers are less stubborn. Now after half a year ludditism movement is slowly dying and we can move on.

I believe only KIWO and CST are making units using all three different technologies. DMD, wax, inkjet.

For some general technology info here is link to Kiwo's website dedicated to DTS or CTS:

http://www.computertoscreen.com/index.html

[BorisB]

Speed:
It takes 8 min to image screen with image that's 45x65 cm. We print at 720x720 dpi.

Quality:
We print 65lpi halftones and they look ok. Dots are not as sharp and round as when using imagesetter, but after you apply transfer to T-shirt you don't see this difference anymore. On paper and with magnifier there is notable difference. But we wash out 5% dots easier.

[blue moon]

Speed:
It takes 8 min to image screen with image that's 45x65 cm. We print at 720x720 dpi.

Quality:
We print 65lpi halftones and they look ok. Dots are not as sharp and round as when using imagesetter, but after you apply transfer to T-shirt you don't see this difference anymore. On paper and with magnifier there is notable difference. But we wash out 5% dots easier.

this is interesting! I always wondered what the deal is with the smaller dots. Few ppl I talked to said they were now seeing much smaller dots open up. The problem is I don't know what they were holding before the switch. My fear was that they could only hold a 6-8% dot and are now seeing a considerable improvement. In my case, we are holding a 3% dot on 330's and we are limited by the mesh. Many ppl said I would see improvement in halftones by switching, and I am starting to question that. Yes, I would not lose anything and potentially the dots could be crisper since there is no film to scatter the light, but  . . .

What kind of imagesetter did you use before the CTS?