About to buy an M&R Chameleon or a Sidewinder - Have a few Questions First

[sonicweaponprinting]

I think I may be set on a 6/6 w/ side clamps and airlocks. Now to find the right dryer to accompany it, as my 18" vastex DriBox aint going to cut it for long.

[ZooCity]

heres my take.. M/R is one great company and i love that chameleon.. never had a complaint from anyone male or female about running one. they also hold their value extreamly well.  the antec on the other hand are much lighter(the micros work really really good once you get used to them) and hold super tight registration without alot of maintenace, pallet levelling etc. over all unless you have m/r autos or are planning on buying one(so everything like pallets and stuff are interchangable) i would recommend the antec. in a manual.

^^this is a real good point^^ 

If it's going to be awhile before you'll want/need/have an automatic (and don't overlook the fact that screen sizes, etc. vary wildly on auto presses and who knows which one you might install first) then an Antec with Newman manual rollers would probably be the best thing going- light and tight. 

[sonicweaponprinting]

Just when i thought i had a good starting selection of square aluminum 20x24 screens to get me by on most jobs I get a 600 piece order w 8 designs and 3-4 print locations on each and use almost all of em up on one job! Now i cant see that happening anytime in the near couple years involving newman frames, theyre like 3x the cost, for a young shop, thats a lot of money on other shop stuff I could use. I do understand the difference in what can be achieved with them however, once the manual pays for itself.

[ZooCity]

Just when i thought i had a good starting selection of square aluminum 20x24 screens to get me by on most jobs I get a 600 piece order w 8 designs and 3-4 print locations on each and use almost all of em up on one job! Now i cant see that happening anytime in the near couple years involving newman frames, theyre like 3x the cost, for a young shop, thats a lot of money on other shop stuff I could use. I do understand the difference in what can be achieved with them however, once the manual pays for itself.

They'll pay for themselves pretty quick.  Nothin' wrong at all with statics though. 

Just look at your cost of remeshing (do you have to ship them to do this? add that cost in too.) and make the jump when it makes sense.  I see big sets of those square bar MZX manual rollers for cheap, as in not much more than a static, quite often it seems.   There is a learning curve but it is small and you can buy yer way out of it by getting mesh panels.  Get the other critical stuff first though. 

[starchild]

Another thing that should be considered is that, all press features and and benefits of each manufacture, does not make up the importance of knowing and appreciating all the variables the goes into producing a quality print. Screen tension control being at the forefront.. A chameleon running on 16 newtons.. Achieving quality and efficiency in the print process should be a printer's ultimate goal. I know I was caught up too..

A more affordable press with retention-ables, high volume mesh with minimum thread thickness, tension meter, pre-registration tool, thickness guage, digital off contact guage, bi-axial squeeges, .01 gram scale, educating oneself on the whole process..

Sorry folks the whole "bloated but good if one can afford it" press on 16's struck a nerve.. If you're passing on retensionable screens for a not needed press then you're missing the point and it would cost you..

[Denis Kolar]

Try to switch to Newmans if anyhow possible. I did it this Spring. I found used ones for around $20 each, and after spending few hours cleaning them, they look like brand new ones right now.
It is a night and day difference when using Newmans and it is really easy to print with them. I have print some jobs with them that I would not be able to do with the statics I had. I think that Newmans and Mesh Panels are pretty good combination (I do not like to mess with a bulk mesh).

Good luck

[IntegrityShirts]

heres my take.. M/R is one great company and i love that chameleon.. never had a complaint from anyone male or female about running one. they also hold their value extreamly well.  the antec on the other hand are much lighter(the micros work really really good once you get used to them) and hold super tight registration without alot of maintenace, pallet levelling etc. over all unless you have m/r autos or are planning on buying one(so everything like pallets and stuff are interchangable) i would recommend the antec. in a manual.

^^this is a real good point^^ 

If it's going to be awhile before you'll want/need/have an automatic (and don't overlook the fact that screen sizes, etc. vary wildly on auto presses and who knows which one you might install first) then an Antec with Newman manual rollers would probably be the best thing going- light and tight.

Antec has pallet adapters for M&R pallets.  I outfitted my 6/4 with them and they're nice.  So I can slide on sleeve pallets or the 14" pallets off the auto as needed.  Going to be selling off all my Antec pallets/brackets soon so I'll have less stuff laying around.  I also picked bought two side clamp adapters from Antec.  Very beefy and nice, but I need a couple more springs to hold the head up with an M3 in it.  I'm going to call Dave and give him a hard time about it.  You'd think that would be included in the kit to switch to side clamps.

[ScreenFoo]

Although this is a perennial topic, and I agree Newmans are great, don't beat yourself up.  If you fully comprehend ALL the basics, you will blow away half the people using rollers.

Which is the most important factor in screen printing?  All of them.

[Croft]

Have run and owned both I would go 6/6 the ladies that print for me on the Chameleon haven't complained or noticed a problem with weight. We have needed that configuration for a couple odd ball jobs where the spot needed to be somewhere other than straight across from the printer. I also think there is less movement needed and less of a push through to the next indent.

so, you think a chameleon vs. a sidewinder then? hard to tell the way its worded.

'I also think theres less movement needed and less of a push through to the next index'

do you mean the Sidewinder vs. the Chameleon? (please clarify) Thanks!

Sorry meant 4/6 and 6/6 not chameleon and sidewinder. I have used HIX premier machines both 6/6 and 4/6 that were good in the day but the Chameleon is better( 6/6). I also have a sports man so the interchangeable thing helps with less shirt boards. The distance to spin is shorter .    Only regret is no air clamps on manual would really help with TRILOC .
  On a side note I put off getting the TRILOC for a number of years but decided to get one and am really loving it for setups.

[Gabe]

All this positive talk makes me go take a look at an antec legend which is listed locally

[sonicweaponprinting]

I think the antec legend is equally as attractive, def. looks light, but its just there's so little info on the manufacturer's site. Why do they all do such a terrible job of showing their products, or putting decent video demo's out. I swear Vastex is one of the few who do this 'okay' but even they could do better. I really was into how the Vastex heads have left to right off contact angle adjustments, as well as front to back pitch adjustment. Does the sidewinder also have this?

Also, the Riley International heads seem to be some of the best designed heads or micro's I've seen, which look very similar to the sidewinders.

Does anyone know if the V2000HD heads are any different than in this video here?

Like Alan Johnston pointed out, this is a huge decision, pricing is having me leaning back towards vastex for the money, especially after seeing that M&R's warranty is only 2 years to Vastex's 25 Years? What gives?

http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=TRgPxcbrcuQ&feature=youtube_gdata (heads on V2000HD  I was curious if are most recent revision or version of)

[Binkspot]

There's two different heads on the Vastex, old and new style. Essentially the same, new are a little beefier and larger knobs.

Left and right off contact no big deal. You can do the same with any press using shims. But if everything is level should have no need for it.

A WELL BUILT manual needs no warranty, nothing really to ware out. Less then a little oil/grease, cleaning and an occasional adjustment you should be good for years of service. Any mentioned in this thread are good presses. My Sidewinder is six years old, we are the second owner and works flawlessly. The Vastex came with a shop we bought out, 12 years old. It has been through a fire, abandoned in an old building and has been moved to different locations at least four times. The only thing we have done to it is upgrade to the newer style heads only because they came with the DiGit system we purchased. I still have the old heads and just trying to think of something to build out of them.

Find a dealer or local guy or a upcoming show and take one for a test drive.

[ZooCity]

Left and right off contact no big deal. You can do the same with any press using shims. But if everything is level should have no need for it.

Nailed it.  Use flat screens.  Parallel your press and maintain in that way.  In my shop I have a "flatness standard" (expo glass) and the roller master and all screens are flat to it, press is paralleled to it.  If you load a screen and something is off you stop and re-calibrate the press until you are back in tolerance.  Therefore, a far more important feature is the ability to adjust the plane or "level" of your platens to your print heads. 

Off contact adjustments should not be a part of a manual print head.  They are unneeded fail points that only frustrate your ability to do quick setups and weaken an otherwise robust print head.

I've ran a: Rototex, Hopkins, Chameleon, Thunder and the only press that didn't go out of adjustment on the o.c. "camber" adjustment specifically was the Rototex b/c it didn't have it.   There is too much force there, especially with larger/heavier frames loaded, to hold that adjustment consistently, or at least too much force for all the designs I've seen to do it.  I think you could pull it off with a super robust back head assembly and maybe a click style system but central o.c. would make far more sense at that point.

Manuals should either have a metered shim system that you use under the screen, above the clamp or central o.c. In fact, central o.c. would be an immense benefit on a manual and not a difficult option to add, too bad nobody does it.  That and an auto indexer, but I digress. 

[sonicweaponprinting]

an auto indexer would rule, hah, have never seen one of those on a manual. Could be awesome for someone to build a base like the auto flashes that rotate and spin into place that you just slide any top of a mobile flash unit into and configure for balancing, etc... instead of having to buy a proprietary flash thats just super expsensive because it does a 90 degree rotation w/ a servo .. good idea though.

after also realizing a try-lock costs $2500, i'm kinda leaning back towards vastex, not because of quality or anything, but getting more for my money ... I mean, Vastex's VRS is around $975, yes, they don't have airlocks (this may be the decider, and tri-lock apparently only works best w/ the airlocks) ... so it's a tough call still. $2500 for trilock is kinda absurd, its 2 right angles!

[alan802]

I bought the vastex VRS with our manual press to work on our auto and it did not perform near as well as the triloc did.  We have modified our triloc but when we used it as suggested it worked great, and the VRS never got one job done without doing micro work.  I do think the regi systems are overpriced from a raw materials standpoint, but what they can potentially do for you can hardly be compared to a $2500 investment.  There are few investments in the $2500 range that can give you the ROI the triloc can give you.  Only the dip tank in our shop has given us such a quick ROI.

Maybe the VRS in conjunction with their press works great, but we didn't have the results with it and I modified it and cut it to pieces trying to get it to work like I wanted.  I can see a few things about it that would cause it to not work properly compared to the triloc and through my years of trying to build a regi system I've found it's the little minute details that matter most with them.  The stop blocks touching the frame at the corners is superior in my opinion to touching somewhere along the middle of the frame.