Metal Conveyer belt

[Inkworks]

So the teflon belt on my old hix dryer has sen better days, in no small part due to the variety of stuff it sees including all sorts of heavy and odd shaped parts from the padprinter and parts screen side.

Is there any reason to not switch to a metal belt? Like this:



The only thing I can think of is the potential of the metal heating up and leaving marks in a back print on a shirt while we dry the front print, but then I'd assume the metal joint in the belt would have that problem too and i've never had that be a problem.

The metal belt would be great for many of the parts printing projects we do, but I don't want to cause trouble for the t-shirt side of things.

[Binkspot]

The weight of the belt may cause other issues, damage to end rollers, guides and or drive motor and gear box. You may even break the belt trying to remove the sag and tightening it  Also need to consider the diameter of the rollers. If the belt is made to be run around a 10" dia roller and yours are 6" it may cause premature failure, like bending a paper clip back and fourth. It appears to be coated which may become sticky or melt going through the dryer. I would also assume if it is not made to be run in the heat of the dryer it may become weak and fail in a short amount of time and the worst possiable time.

[Inkworks]

Oops, if the picture is a coated one my bad, the ones I'm looking at are raw stainless. My current teflon belt actually causes problem with glass products where they touch the belt, it leaves an invisible residue that will fish-eye prints if printed there on subsequent prints.

The metal belts hinge where the go around the rollers. I know of a local parts print shop that has a metal belt that must be 25 years old. My main concern is if they'll cause problems with t-shirts due to the metal heating up as it goes through the dryer. I did a couple of very small runs on one once.

[Frog]

Man, my power went out just before I could post, but it's back, so here it is.

I know that they have been used. The shop I last worked in, Andy's back in the day, started at his house with some 12 foot National or something with a metal link belt like that.
He did not tell me that it gave them any trouble, merely that they went bigger and gas.

I almost got it from him, but got an old Harco instead.

[Inkworks]

It would be somewhat temporary anyways as the 24/14 Hix will eventually be a dedicated part printing dryer and we'll get a small/medium gas dryer for the tee's so we can properly cure WB/Discharge in one pass.

[3Deep]

Inkworks, don't know anything about the metal belt, but when we use to pad print I would put our items in one of those cheap baking pans you get from the dollar store..ie golf balls pens wine glasses cups it was just a little easier to handle that way for us Oh and a pair of cheap gloves to handle the pan if it got to hot, which at the temps we run was never a problem.

Darryl

[Inkworks]

We actually have a batch oven about the size of a normal refrigerator that will hold ~100 wineglasses or the like, but we've moved way beyond that. We ran 3350 wine glasses Monday, 2300 today, and 1070 more are due tomorrow, plus some other stuff. That's the conveyor running max temp all day, and the weight has taken a toll on the old Teflon belt. Plus the metal belt will allow us to use the whole width of the belt and run it a little slower which would be good as we really flirt with proper cure at 24 glasses every 90 seconds that we run when we're really rolling. We're probably picking up another padprinter soon too.

....not bad for a $200 oven  Right now 5 presses feed the conveyor at different times (Auto and manual shirt presses, pad printer, rotary silkscreener and small clamshell screen press)

I think I'll do it unless someone has a "metal belts wreck shirts" story. I'll probably extend the outfeed another 2' while I'm at it, maybe even see if I can have that extra 2' pivot down out of the way when I don't need it.

[ebscreen]

I'd always wondered if the joints in the belt would snag shirts.

[Frog]

I wish that I could have had real hands-on experience with the unit I mentioned, but as I said, I, at least did not hear a discouraging word said about it.
My first thought was the obvious longevity potential.

[Inkworks]

Some pics from today's run showing a burdened belt (imagine 14' of glass)and the wasted space on the sides, you can see a rip in the second pic on the right hand side. Also a few pics of the finished product (for Gilligan). The etch look padprint is 100% dishwasher safe and is indistinguishable by naked eye from sandblast of the like except this gives much better detail and crispness of image....oh and and vastly increased through-put.  .