Greets from Germany/Equipment

[volker]

i wonder if there is a threat which asks for the equipment of the members and asks them to tell about their satisfaction or disappointment.....
this would be very helpful for all members to be more successful in their daily work.

we print on a "small" 10 pallet e-type, one 12 pallet s.type, two 14 pallet s-type and one 16 pallet 3000 mhm. we have a big splitbelt sroque gasdryer, a 180cm belt delta systec gas dryer (that's a small german company) and three different 1 meter belt electric panther dryers which also work perfect and have an extrem low price.
for screenmaking we use an autocoater from gruenig and an dts exposure unit from signtronic with a combined wash/developing and airdrying unit. the dts has a 10screen magazine and can spit out a ready for print screen every four minutes. the quality is amazing and is probably better then our old system with a heidelberg herkules filmrecorder.
we printed maybe around 30 jobs a day with 10 sreens each in average, what needs 300 films to be put in an archive every day. if you calculate 264 days working during a year this makes ca 80000!!!!!! films to be stored every year in case your customer wants a reprint. the needed space is enormous. we only need some space on a nice computer backup now. no more handling time with films anymore.

the washing unit is from gruening and is feeded by a 20screen magazine. it washes and dries a sreen every 3-4 minutes. depends what program you use (plastisol or discharge screens for example).
the results are perfect - screens never looked better before. sreens can be coated after 10 minutes drying in a "heatbox". i do not know the right word for it.

[StuJohnston]

I saw this was split over here and decided to reply here instead of your intro thread.

The reason why I asked about the auto coater is because now that my screens are getting as tall as I am, I feel like I would be better off with a machine to do the work. So far, most have said that they would prefer to just pay someone, but unless I can find someone taller than eight feet, that isn't really an option. How do you feel about the coater you have?

I just checked out a video of a Grünig coater and it has dryer?

On the subject of general threads there was a series of threads called "Auto wars" at least I think that's what they were called and the idea was the each thread focused on a specific part of an auto and people would upload videos of their machine's to show how they work. BTW German equipment is pretty awesome, I have a thieme/kippax clamshell that I love dearly. It's also the reason for the auto coater question.

[volker]

the auto coater is extremely useful when you print halftone separations. once the printing is started the colors do not change like this often happens when you do the coating manual. so there is no remarkable dot gain. do you understand what i mean? it is really difficult for me to explain that in english
so everytime you need standards that can be repeated when ever you need it, in my eyes, there is no other way than to work with an auto coater.
our coater has no dryer. we put the coated screens in drying cabinets.

gruenig is not a german company by the way. they are from switzerland. and what is a clamshell?? i can not find a translation for that.

[TCT]

I thought that was a S.Roque dryer, that green is hard to miss! How do you like the dryer? We are considering a S.Roque dryer but they are more expensive than other dryers here in the states. S.Roque says the extra money spent on the dryer is worth it because they are more efficient than the other brands. Since they are cheaper to run, the money will be justified in the long run. 
That is all good and well, but it would be nice to hear from a user!

[StuJohnston]

Whoops, I saw the umlaut and assumed. A clamshell is a semi-auto flatstock press. My press is basically the same as the picture attached, only with a little more simple membrane pad. Also mine says KPX/THIEME on the front. The max print size is 160cmx122cm.

I totally understand what you mean, you are pretty clear in your explanation. I was just curious if you had any complaints about the way that the coater worked because I haven't heard much positive about them.

TCT, I bet Rich would have something to say about the efficiency lol.

[volker]

hey tct. we are very happy with our new sroque dryer. we have perfect drying results and it seems that we are saving a lot of energy in comparison to our second dryer from delta systec, which is 15 month old and should have a very low gas consumption too. give me two more weeks and we have the second month using it. we then will be able to say more.
installation was perfect and stressfree as can be

@stujohnston: i understand. flatstock presses are not in use in my shop and in germany we call them (wordly translated) half automatics. regarding the coater i have to say that it was a very good choice to get one.