eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)

[GKitson]

I knew I would get "busted" on the random light issue.  At one time we had a flexible hinge cover on the door the prevent the light infiltration into the screen room when the door was opened, but it fell off/apart and we have not gotten around to replacing it.  Probably is an issue but our sim process is looking good!

Thanks for keeping me honest and on top of my game.

~Kitson

[GKitson]

Couple of you e-mailed or PM'ed me on this so I thought I would share for all.


Kind of a hard question to answer how many screens per hour from the CTS due to our work flow, one of my guys will 'load/select' the RIP'ed files from our hot folder and then 2-3 of my staff members who are primarily responsible for doing other things will load screens as they walk by the screen room, when the I-Jet stops making noise somebody changes the screen.  Just started training the office manager to swap when she walks by and does not hear it making noise.

Kind of  brainless really, we almost never have somebody "just standing there".   Left chest and small center chest designs take about 30 seconds so it is not worth walking away , however 14x16 high coverage stuff may take 3-4 minutes and nobody is standing there watching/waiting for those.

Last time we did 'time trials' we averaged about 25 per hour which is less than half of exposure washout productivity, so we build piles until it is worth turning on the light.

Usually 2-3 days out on screenmaking and about an hour or two behind the art department.  About 500 screens in the rotation, but you know how it is, never enough of the right mesh when you need it..

[screenprintguy]

Greg, let your guy in that video know he's a rock star  . He is in a ton of your Impressions mag pics when you do write ups about your shop's system. Seen  him in pics doing everything from de-ink screens, DTS, imagining screens, looks to be a great employee to count on.

[bimmridder]

We have a similar set up to what Greg has. We do things a bit differently though. I have one guy in my screen room during "normal" season. He coats screens using a Kiwo Simplex. As he is coating, he is also imaging on the CTS, building up a supply of screens to expose, develop, and tape up. He does all these tasks. Normal season will be 100-120 screen per 8 hour shift. After he's finished coating, he will begin the process of exposing, developing , and taping up screens. We get a nice little loop going in this area. We are also making the screens we need tomorrow today. When we get busier we do 150-200 screens in a 8-10 hour shift.  When this happens we bring in another person to help on the pre press and reclaim side. This person bounces back and forth from helping each are as needed. Working a day ahead allows more flexibility on staging jobs for press, and NEVER having to wait for a job to go on press. A lot more to it, but that's the abbreviated version.

[volker]

in some other threads i discussed cts with some people. i got the impression that it is a theme that is very interesting for all of us. so i looked for a thread that covers this theme.
i just found this thread and i wonder why you are not talking about real cts. would you call a system that put ink on an offset plate a ctp? a ctp imagesetter puts light on the printing plate, washes it, drys it and spits it out ready to use.
so if you have a cts system that has a magazine with 10 or 20 screens that can do the same job like a ctp imagesetter is the right choice for me as long as you have a daily capacity of 60 screens minimum. there is no discussion about roi when you just need to put the screens in, start the printing spooler and come back after 40 or 80 minutes to put new screens in.
no time wasted for archive films, wash out screens, putting screens in drying cabinet and stick films on the screens. no time waisted waiting for the vacuum beeing ready and no time wasted for exposing.
we have a system like this and i can tell you it is better than we ever have dreamed of.
if you look at the accuracy it is so much better than all ink spraying systems you can buy. no need to discuss about ink, opacity and edge sharpness. a shop which has a certain amount of screens really should use a system like that, which never has trouble with his wive at home, never comes too late to work and does not need holidays. a system like this does not need to get trained when the old worker decided to do something other. every printer in the shop can learn in a very short time to start the printing jobs and will find some minutes every hour to start the next jobs after he reloaded the magazines.

so if you talk about spraying ink on films or directly on sreens there is no real difference i see. here its hard to calculate a return on investment. may be someone has a system spraying ink on the screens, transport them automatically to exposure, transport to a washing booth and finally to a module that blows them dry. that would be a thing to discuss. as long noone has it the system i talk about is the only choice. i attach a snapshot from our system and a youtube clip showing a system doing the job. it starts beeing interesting from minute eight after they showed some sreen stretching. with best regards.

Digital Screen Making ~ STM-TEX ~ perfect screen process

[ScreenFoo]

IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent. 

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it. 

[blue moon]

IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent. 

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre

[BorisB]

IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent. 

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre

At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.

[244]

IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent. 

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

You might want to see what we are having in our booth at the SGAI. screen imaged and exposed in 40 seconds for a fraction of that!

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre

[BorisB]

Confession of Equipment Junkie

Most of Equipment in our Prepress is similar to what you can see in volker's video. Grunig G-112 for reclaiming & developing screens, Grunig G-104 for removing ink from screen, Autocoater  from Grunig as well.  Biggest differences in our setup are two:
-we have manual moving of screens from phase to phase
-we don't use CTS according to Volker's definition. We use inkjet based printer for printing opaque black ink onto the screen, then expose it.

Now to confession: our not real but fake CTS (to stick to above definition) is valid purchase with rather short and quantifiable ROI. But the other part.... All those fancy  machines like in video..... They will never ever beat Greg's or Dave's setup.... reclaim tanks are best value for money.... ROI for G-112 and G-104? Like never?
And one more small detail. We spend more on screen chemicals than before buying automatic machines for reclaim and screen wash..  Maybe we are too stupid too setup proper programs on machines.. However we tweak them for four years now... Still no significant reduction of cost and still higher cost per screen than before.

Boris

[volker]

IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent. 

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre

At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.

@baumanb: the dle-eco did not work properly in my tests, what was a pitty because the company making them is just half an hour driving far from our shop. on the photo you have signtronic on the left and the much cheaper dle-eco on the right side.
by the way: did you sell me your t-shirt folding machine about two years ago???

@244 it is the question what you expect from a cts. so if you try to compare an ink system to an imagesetter or a dle sytem i have to say that the quality can not compare. in ink sprayer is far away from the quality you get from a dle. a ink system needs at least minimum one worker being busy all the time.
a dot sprayed by an ink system has 30% of the outer dot not beeing opaque, so a dot easily can gain or loose around 30& or much more. if you want to prints seps in a perfect quality this is a knock out! even between an "old" imagesetter i had big differences between agfa and heidelberg when compared the dots with a table microscope.
so if you have a smaller shop or need screen with a accuracy that is less important an ink sprayer is a nice choice.

@blue moon. in my shop i have an roi after less that three years.

[volker]

Confession of Equipment Junkie

Most of Equipment in our Prepress is similar to what you can see in volker's video. Grunig G-112 for reclaiming & developing screens, Grunig G-104 for removing ink from screen, Autocoater  from Grunig as well.  Biggest differences in our setup are two:
-we have manual moving of screens from phase to phase
-we don't use CTS according to Volker's definition. We use inkjet based printer for printing opaque black ink onto the screen, then expose it.

Now to confession: our not real but fake CTS (to stick to above definition) is valid purchase with rather short and quantifiable ROI. But the other part.... All those fancy  machines like in video..... They will never ever beat Greg's or Dave's setup.... reclaim tanks are best value for money.... ROI for G-112 and G-104? Like never?
And one more small detail. We spend more on screen chemicals than before buying automatic machines for reclaim and screen wash..  Maybe we are too stupid too setup proper programs on machines.. However we tweak them for four years now... Still no significant reduction of cost and still higher cost per screen than before.

Boris

calculating the roi also depends very much on the money you pay your workers. as far as i know my workers earn three or four times more than workers in your country. so needing less workers is a big issue for me.
we save a lot of chemicals now.

[244]

IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent. 

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre

At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.

@baumanb: the dle-eco did not work properly in my tests, what was a pitty because the company making them is just half an hour driving far from our shop. on the photo you have signtronic on the left and the much cheaper dle-eco on the right side.
by the way: did you sell me your t-shirt folding machine about two years ago???

@244 it is the question what you expect from a cts. so if you try to compare an ink system to an imagesetter or a dle sytem i have to say that the quality can not compare. in ink sprayer is far away from the quality you get from a dle. a ink system needs at least minimum one worker being busy all the time.
a dot sprayed by an ink system has 30% of the outer dot not beeing opaque, so a dot easily can gain or loose around 30& or much more. if you want to prints seps in a perfect quality this is a knock out! even between an "old" imagesetter i had big differences between agfa and heidelberg when compared the dots with a table microscope.
so if you have a smaller shop or need screen with a accuracy that is less important an ink sprayer is a nice choice.

@blue moon. in my shop i have an roi after less that three years.

I would strongly suggest you have someone stop in our booth with a high powered microscope and check out our dots while we are doing a complete screen every 45 seconds including exposure. Things have the tendency to change in technology and maybe what you looked at before was older technology. Just a FYI.

[Ron Pierson]

244 - which booth at which show please?? I would LOVE to see this.....VERY interested!!

[blue moon]

244 - which booth at which show please?? I would LOVE to see this.....VERY interested!!

Ron,

SGIA in Orland. I think it's next month or early November.

Are you going?

pierre