Quartz Flash 101

[Du Manchu]

I am new to working with a quartz flash and am finding that it takes much longer that expected to cure shirts....initially.  Do these things require a good bit of run time to come up to temp.  I am finding it taking 10+ seconds or a double hit at 7+ to flash cure a shirt.  If I flash it 30 times just auto cycling I can get down in the 5-6 second range, but if there is a problem on press, or stacking  shirts for a few minutes, I am back to square one. Which resulting in bad prints, cleaning bottom of screens, etc... What gives?  Is this common?

A possible problem may likely be that my building runs 208v instead of 230v.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Dewey

[Zelko-4-EVA]

what size, brand and model flash are you using?

208v vs. 230v can be a problem, but can be resolved with the correct bulbs.

we have a cayenne that was shipped with 230v bulbs and didnt flash as expected.  when switched to the 208v bulbs, the flash worked as expected.

[Gilligan]

You have to figure that is about 10% less voltage than it is expecting.

[blue moon]

I am new to working with a quartz flash and am finding that it takes much longer that expected to cure shirts....initially.  Do these things require a good bit of run time to come up to temp.  I am finding it taking 10+ seconds or a double hit at 7+ to flash cure a shirt.  If I flash it 30 times just auto cycling I can get down in the 5-6 second range, but if there is a problem on press, or stacking  shirts for a few minutes, I am back to square one. Which resulting in bad prints, cleaning bottom of screens, etc... What gives?  Is this common?

A possible problem may likely be that my building runs 208v instead of 230v.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Dewey

we are in the same boat. Especially on the MHM presses, flashes are not fire and forget, you do have to keep an eye on it (your platten temperature will impact the flash time so you'll have to adjust as you go). If you are running honeycomb plattens, they do not retain the heat like solid aluminum so the flash times are longer. On top of that, MHM starts counting before the press turns (as it is preheating the bulbs) so what seems like 6-7 sec's is really 4 - 5.

pierre

[RICK STEFANICK]

another thing you can do is cycle your press and heat up your pallets prior to starting production. or maybe find a white that has a quicker flash time. also you could run a higher mesh to better control the thickness of the image your trying to flash.

[ebscreen]

Pierre, there should be an adjustment to change when the press fires the flashes, by index or after index.

Tradeoff is electricity ($) or time, you decide.


Quartz flashes do take some getting used to, and you are right, especially in the winter you gotta keep moving.

[alan802]

It takes about 6-10 indexes for our flash to get fairly warmed up, but we are never in the 5-7 second range for flashing.  We usually start at 4-4.5 and go down as the press indexes a couple revolutions.  On long runs with 2 flashes going, the pallets get pretty warm, not hot, then our flash times are down to at least 2 seconds, even for thick 110 ink deposits.

[ebscreen]

It takes about 6-10 indexes for our flash to get fairly warmed up, but we are never in the 5-7 second range for flashing.  We usually start at 4-4.5 and go down as the press indexes a couple revolutions.  On long runs with 2 flashes going, the pallets get pretty warm, not hot, then our flash times are down to at least 2 seconds, even for thick 110 ink deposits.

How many watts or amps/volts?

I love/hate honeycomb pallets.

[alan802]

They are labeled 208-240V and 26 amp.

[ebscreen]

They are labeled 208-240V and 26 amp.

I'm assuming 3 phase then?

26 amps is super small for single phase.

[alan802]

Oh yeah, 3 phase.

[inkman996]

With our flash we always preheat the palettes, several full rotations at about 5 seconds really works well. Once printing we start slowly lowering the flash time as everything gets heated up and by time we get to the sweet spot of time its no more than two seconds. Fortunately on our machine we have a preheat for the flash, adjustable for idle time and for how long to actually preheat. I have it set to preheat for 6 seconds, unless we walked away for like a half an hour that is more than sufficient to preheat the bulbs and get rocking again.

[Inkworks]

With our flash we always preheat the palettes, several full rotations at about 5 seconds really works well. Once printing we start slowly lowering the flash time as everything gets heated up and by time we get to the sweet spot of time its no more than two seconds. Fortunately on our machine we have a preheat for the flash, adjustable for idle time and for how long to actually preheat. I have it set to preheat for 6 seconds, unless we walked away for like a half an hour that is more than sufficient to preheat the bulbs and get rocking again.

Ditto, exactly. You need warm platens and the flash cure warmed up, then rock and roll lowering flash times as you go. If you need to stop for a while, raise the flash times when you start again.

Man I'm looking forward to more WB/DC this year.

[ebscreen]

Honeycomb pallets will cool down really quickly. If you get to your fastest/optimum flash time, and then have to stop for even just a minute,
you'll have to bump your time back up.

Like I said, love/hate.

[inkbrigade]

We preheat the pallets. Do about 2 sec flash time.