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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: Mr Tees!! on August 29, 2011, 11:26:39 AM
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hey Gang! I finally got a minute to post about the "Build-Your-Own-Boomerang" dryer project from two Vastex EC1's
Here is what I began with, a 30" EC1 with belt extensions and a two-panel DB30 chamber behind that...
(http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo67/MisterTeesOnline/Shop Pix/2011-06-07210156.jpg)
Took off all the chambers, added one more conveyor extension:
(http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo67/MisterTeesOnline/Shop Pix/2011-06-07221837.jpg)
Here is the dryer with the second conveyor added. The black spacers you see are sections of 2x6 painted black. Im hoping in the future to see if Vastex might hook me up with the dryer extextion sides ony, for a cleaner appearance (Mark, you readin this? Me and my brown-nose love you guys! :-*):
(http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo67/MisterTeesOnline/Shop Pix/2011-06-08191317.jpg)
I didnt take many pics from that point. Put the chambers back on (four panels now, after adding the second EC1 chamber) and wired up all the accessories to a powerstrip...an exhaust box on each end, both converyor plugs, and a forced air bower which is installed in at the end of the DB30 chamber.
(http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo67/MisterTeesOnline/Shop Pix/2011-08-26131923.jpg)
(http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo67/MisterTeesOnline/Shop Pix/2011-06-24192134.jpg)
Here is a video of it (and myself) in action:
<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N2WO-_JG3y4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
...Just been wanting to share this for awhile! hope you guys dig it!
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k, a couple of things...forst off, nice job, that looks like quite the project.
Do you find that loading them on the belt that high up is going to kill your arms after a while? Also, how high can you stack the shirts on the loader above the platens?
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Glad my old dryer is being put to good use. Awesome!
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You should have sold your idea to Vastex maybe picked up that extra belt for free ;D
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AWESOME!
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Man, that is sweet!!!
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Super cool. Must be nice to not have to stop and catch ever.
Have you considered encasing the second belt to give it some hot forced air from the main chambers? I figured that having the shirts return to you was half the benefit of a return belt and the other half was getting 2x chamber time out of your dryer footprint.
It looks like you're getting a lot of benefit out of the return though.
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Nice one there Mister!!!
Can you sell that to Vastex ;) ? Mike?
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Pretty dam neat!!!! I would love for you to post this over at my Mom&Pop shop on SPOF if thats ok with everyone. I will keep any noise down if you posted it...love it
Darryl
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...Thanks everyone! It was fun! This is what happens when you are a one-man shop...you just start printing and thinking, the wheels start turning, and you end up with some kinda crazy idea like this.
...Shawn, thought about approaching Vastex about it beforehand, but ehhhhh.....I was actually a bit concerned about something here voiding my warranty or something ridiculous like that. I hope they see this and can maybe at least offer a way to get the dryer extention side pieces by themselves. Besides, our buddy Brandt here at Graphic Disorder was nice enough to sell his old EC1 to me at a fair price, even though he wasnt really SELLING it.
...speaking of which, Brandt, it was a blast meeting you and Shelly! Brandt's shop is awesome (once you find it, that is ;))...one day when I get in a bigger building and have natural gas available, you may wanna think about installing Lojack on that Boomerang...just sayin ;D
...Brad, yknow, i was kinda worried about that too, especially when I got the two conveyors together and saw just how high it was. But if you look at the first pic you can see I had the dryer on blocks anyway to raise it up. I just kinda like it up high like that, its just more comfortable to me. I usually put about 100 or so at a time on that loader station mounted on the press. I could probably get more, but im not all that tall, so thats a good number. That contraption is actually my homebrew laser guide system, and one day I realized I could just put a board on top of it and load shirts from there. Maybe I will show some pics and stuff of it here too. As you can tell, I LOVE to engineer stuff to make the job easier or quicker.
...Zoo, the way the Vastex dryers are made, the top level with the chambers actually has a floor that the sides attach to, and the belt kinda rides along the top of it. Heat cant really penetrate that. I also left some openings between the conveyors in case the power went out or a shirt got caught in there, so it could be easitly removed. The nice thing about it is that because the top belt has about a foot of outfeed before it drops, the shirt is pretty hot. by the time it runs back under and to me, its almost back to room temperature. I would like to extend both conveyors one more time for some more infeed/outfeed, but im close to the garage door here as it is, and will probably have to upgrade the conveyor motors at that point. Another thing thats cool is that each conveyor is controlled independantly, so I can fiddle with the speed infinitely to keep a good rhythym. In the case where I have a BIG RUSH run and it benefits me to have someone here catching, I can turn the bottom conveyor off entirely.
...3deep, no offense, and clearly I love to share and help, but I prefer not to post anything over there these days. I saw that Johhny had already posted my video, but I like Johnny and he found it on his own so its cool. Feel free to post a link to here if you wish
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Pretty dam neat!!!! I would love for you to post this over at my Mom&Pop shop on SPOF if thats ok with everyone. I will keep any noise down if you posted it...love it
Darryl
Are you sure that it hasn't already been copied and pasted? It's been known to have happened. ;D
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No problem just thought I would ask and not grab someones stuff and post.
Darryl
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Thanks for considering my wishes beforehand and actually asking, Darryl. If everyone was that considerate, I wouldnt have a problem with it, Yknow?
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Besides, our buddy Brandt here at Graphic Disorder was nice enough to sell his old EC1 to me at a fair price, even though he wasnt really SELLING it.
...speaking of which, Brandt, it was a blast meeting you and Shelly! Brandt's shop is awesome (once you find it, that is ;))...one day when I get in a bigger building and have natural gas available, you may wanna think about installing Lojack on that Boomerang...just sayin ;D
Was no problem! We like our ship hidden away so your not the first to say that, but its great for keeping people out of our hair.
I will go ahead and install a lojack on that boomerang now! Haha.
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Good job, great idea, perfect for the one man shop. Nice clean shop by the way...
Steve
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We love it!
We have had a few inquiries, and a few ideas bounced around about this exact idea. Our apprehension on the subject came from the shirts folding over themselves as they dropped down to the lower level. We were worried that this would cause a sticking issue with a thick full front print.
Much applause to you though, you really did a great job on that project! I take it you are controlling each chamber individually? How's the belt speed for you? Are you running at max speed? We could supply you with different sprockets and even an HD motor to handle that length of belt and give you a different range of speeds if you'd like. I'm actually very curious to what sprockets you are currently using? It looks like you are using the Drive off of an older EC-I and maybe the DB-II-30? The early EC-I and the Dri-Box dryers are the only ones that used belt speed controls on the conveyor in recent history.
You made the owner say, "Whoah!"
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You could always put cooling fans at the end to help cool the image, or misters...but I am not sure how that would work.
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AWESOME, thanks for the compliment!
I was concerned about the sticking issue too, but so far, so good. I have an exhaust hood mounted on the end that hepls cool the shirt, and I run the bottom conveyor at about twice the speed of the top one, so it kind pulls the shirt when it falls and help flatten it to some extent. You may remember I picked your brain a month or so ago concerning temp/belt speeds, the idea here was to run the belt barely fast enough to keep up with production, and at a lower temperature. These dryers are EC1s, the original one is a 2006 according to the serial plate, and the second one is a 2008. (the DB30-II box I purchased as separately when I bought the auto) The chambers and the conveyors are identical, although I turned the bottom conveyor the other direction (with the controller near the press) instead of fiddling with any wiring to get it to run the opposite direction.
Yes I am running each chamber individually...the first EC1 is set at 700, the second EC1 at 625, and both panels in the DB 30-II are actually set at about 4.5. All panels are 3.5 inches above the belt (I just lined em up to the inside railing). I have the scrub-air option on the final panel that runs continuously as well. I have a pretty wide window for belt speed with this setup, but I get a full cure at belt speed of 45 no problem, and have had it up to 60 with some delicate fabrics and still get a thorough cure. The ultimate goal here is to be able to cure waterbase inks at MY production speed, which as you can see isnt all that fast for an auto. First im going to work on plastcharge, which I will be experimenting with this week. I realise I am probably going to need some exhaust stacks at some point too.
If I do any more upgrades i will probably need the HD motors, so I will be in touch at that point. Would it be possible at all to get the side pieces of the conveyor extensions to install in place of those 2x6 sections? I know its not something you normally sell by itself, but I dont need the belt or the aluminum floor piece. Im thinkin I would need 6-8 18-inch sections to do it right.
One other thought: have you considered offering dryers with the same panels as your forced-air flash? I have one of those now, and it would seem beneficial to printers that want to get into waterbase and plastcharge inks.
Thanks for looking, Mark! THIS is what makes these forums so great!
EDIT: just realized this was Mikes post , Not Mark, which means we havent spoken yet. Sorry for the confusion there... :-[
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That's pretty awesome. At first I was like... umm, what's the point? Which just shows my lack of experience.
As soon as I saw the video I was like "AHHH! Genius!!!" :)
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Talk about thinking outside the box, dude you better patent this before anyone else. I have a question though, why are the flood and squeegees running up and down if you are not using them? If that is normal, there is no way I would go with a machine that did that, OMG that would drive me crazy. Seriously, I would buy a dryer like your invention, I run an auto and then have to go back and stack, what a waste of time I'm thinking, I have on long runs gathered up shirts to stack at the load station while I'm waiting for the press to finish printing and index to load another shirt, geez anything to save time with a one person shop.