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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: sqslabs on February 05, 2015, 11:31:53 PM
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A bit surprised there hasn't been more talk of this dryer on here. I haven't even seen it in person and already want one.
To those who were at ISS LB, what's the scoop? Good, bad, too expensive, not blue enough, too brown? This thing looks nuts.
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Its quartz. Thats enough right there as fare as I am concerned. Its a cool concept but I think it needs more refinement to be practical. It was pretty wide too when we walked by.
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It's a REGULAR electric dryer with fancy sensors, some computer monitors, and unnecessary exterior panels to make it look smooth.
I was lucky enough to get in to the show a day early when everyone was still setting up. It is literally 3 separate Brown dryers joined together and then covered with exterior panels to make it look special. Throw a 24" (may have been a bit larger) computer monitor on top, a temp probe inside, barcode scanner at the entry, tie that into a computer about as powerful as a Raspberry Pi 2(sorry if I lost you there) and here is the key- DON'T paint it brown and partner with a big name like Kornit. All of a sudden a dryer made by a company that many would not consider to begin with is getting a ridiculous buzz.
Sorry I didn't mean to be a dick, but I was amazed at what a little smoke and mirrors was capable of.
It's a regular electric quartz dryer with some sensors.
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/insert Smokey from Friday saying DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN
Well okay then. It does have three separate temp zones though right? I'm wondering if that just wasn't possible with gas or if Brown just didn't want to go that route. I have a split belt dryer and wish it had separate temp zones. Belt speed adjustment is nice and all, but with silicone and other low temp inks gaining traction, the difference in curing temp between certain inks will make it tough to run them at the same time even on a split belt.
In any case, it sure does look cool but I won't be buying one. Especially now that Alex hurt my feelings. :'(
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I just looked at their website and as much info as I could on this dryer and I'm not sure what to think. Is there anyone here that would be able to use all that jazz? I know we need a dryer with some ability to change temp and belt speed but we're running 2 textile plastisol jobs down the belt at most so I need one wide belt. It's got scanners and temp probes and 3 belts? Temp probes on our International are cool but I can't remember the last time I used them.
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I wonder if this press was made by a different manufacturer would the initial thoughts be similar?
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/insert Smokey from Friday saying DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN
In any case, it sure does look cool but I won't be buying one. Especially now that Alex hurt my feelings. :'(
After I posted, I thought to myself, damn, hope I didn't come off the wrong way to Brett! ;D
Dude it was just such a "buzz" at SGIA, SPSI went and got exclusive rights to distribute it here locally when they would never touch another piece of Brown equipment in a million years. People were talking about how it was going to change things, and it was all I could do to not puke on the floor. I have nothing against Brown whatsoever, they have their market they do well in. I even have a Brown flash. I do think part of the WOW factor is that these "new" ideas and use of technology came from a company you didn't expect it to come from. Although to be fair, they were forward thinking and the first when they integrated the Ipod dock into their Electraprint...
Other dryers have temp sensors in them. Other dryers have digital displays, smaller ones, but they are touch screen...
I just think you could essentially just buy 3 separate 24" belt brown dryers line them up next to each other, and set them at different temps/belt speeds and save your self 40% or so for the SAME THING.
Make me a split belt GAS dryer that can have different temps for each belt, and make those belts each a MINIMUM of 36" and we will talk. Well, maybe not, I wouldn't have the room, but I would day dream with you. ;D
Bret you know you are my boy, we have just been re modeling a lot here these last 2 weeks and I'm wound pretty tight! Plus, when has ANYONE ever known me to not be extreme? ;D
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my understanding is that the dryer actually tracks the temp of the garment and the ink. If the garment is heating up and the ink is not, it stops, lets it cool down and applies heat again. You can limit the max garment temp and it will stay under it. again, as I was explained, it does that for each individual shirt. you can run a 275, 330, 300 one after another and by virtue of the barcode it will know what the required temps are.
How useful it is in the long run, I don't know, but certainly measuring the ink and garment temp of each individual piece seems like a good idea.
pierre
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Are the elements running lengthwise? That would be slick to be able to turn down one side of the belt heat for poly or whatever.
Kind of like a split belt but without dealing with two belts and their associated drive mechanisms, and still having one large
belt if need be. Not sure how well it would work what with the whole oven temp but that would be cool if it worked.
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Are the elements running lengthwise? That would be slick to be able to turn down one side of the belt heat for poly or whatever.
Kind of like a split belt but without dealing with two belts and their associated drive mechanisms, and still having one large
belt if need be. Not sure how well it would work what with the whole oven temp but that would be cool if it worked.
each tunnel has independent element(s?) that is an instant on/off. you can mix the shirts any way you want even on the same belt as long as you scan the barcode so it knows how to cook that individual shirt and ink.
There are actually three belts. . .
pierre
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I spent some time looking at it in Vegas and then LB. It's really impressive in my opinion. The major advantage is that you can run many different types of material through it and not have to alter dryer settings for each different part.
This is accomplished by preprogramming material profiles and librarying the parameters for each. They have bar codes printed and mounted next to the infeed. You place the material on the belt and then quickly scan the appropriate bar code. The bar code tells the dryer what kind of material you just put on it. It will then adjust bulb intensity and belt speed as it goes through the tunnel to accomplish the perfect cure. It really is amazing.
I think it is very desirable for the online merchandisers who offer 2000 different product s– one at a time.
Seriously folks – I know some very smart – very experienced guys that are really impressed with it. It could possibly start a new wave of drying technology. It definitely is not or everyone – but wow – way to think ‘outside the box’ – no pun intended.
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Just took a quick look at the dryer and I'm going hmmm, three 24" belt's so my question is how would you place press. Most of us place our press on the side of the dryer and load from the side, this dryer looks like you would have to be in front or reach over to toss a shirt on if your using the middle belt. From what I see and in my mine cool machine, but looks to be very cumbersome in full production mode I would think :-\
darryl
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This dryer technology thought process is making a lot of people take notice.
I think you will find that as the tech evolves you will see acceptance similar to CTS and LED stuff.
Established companies start saying you can't do it that way but the stranger members of our industry will kind of embrace the square peg fits in a round hole "outside of the screen thinking" the FireFly represents.
Keep in mind that I have both CTS and LED on my shop floor, that puts me squarely in the you never know until you try it camp on this subject.
~Kitson
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Brown Mfg. blog gives a little more insight:
www.brownmfg.blogspot.com (http://www.brownmfg.blogspot.com)
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The dryer at the Kornit corporate office is like this. Quartz that turns on when the shirt enters the dryer and off when there is no garment.
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From my standpoint.. I see it as a nice tool of not having to adjust the dryer speed or temp across the wide range of garments we now print on. It's hard enough getting the press ops to adjust the flash temps of the flash on a daily basis let alone the dryer settings.
Being that it is a brown and their history.. had this been a blue creation the drones would think it was the best thing to ever happen, let that thought sit in.
I hope they hit It outa the park with this as they need the recognition for what they accomplished.
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From my standpoint.. I see it as a nice tool of not having to adjust the dryer speed or temp across the wide range of garments we now print on. It's hard enough getting the press ops to adjust the flash temps of the flash on a daily basis let alone the dryer settings.
Being that it is a brown and their history.. had this been a blue creation the drones would think it was the best thing to ever happen, let that thought sit in.
I hope they hit It outa the park with this as they need the recognition for what they accomplished.
That was my thought too"
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Are the elements running lengthwise? That would be slick to be able to turn down one side of the belt heat for poly or whatever.
Kind of like a split belt but without dealing with two belts and their associated drive mechanisms, and still having one large
belt if need be. Not sure how well it would work what with the whole oven temp but that would be cool if it worked.
The first dryer I used was a Cincinnati in which the elements ran lengthwise; as they aged, they sagged and after that they would either scorch or under cure. When we called Cincinnati about it, they sent us all new elements in reflectors that ran the other way, problem solved. Now many years later, they might be developed so that they wouldn't sag with aging, but I believe that was the reason for rods traversing the belt instead of running lengthwise. (BTW, never a fan of Brown)
Steve
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Being that it is a brown and their history.. had this been a blue creation the drones would think it was the best thing to ever happen, let that thought sit in.
I doubt it, the whole thing seems like a gimmick to me, we run more strange, different things down our dryer than anybody I know and I can't see a use for this unit. We now have two dryers for different things, but they don't need to constantly change as we alternate objects down the tunnel, it really makes no sense at all to me no matter who built it. Maybe if you're an extremely busy mall shop who does thousands of different items 1-off all day, but even then I don't know one of those that would be busy enough to need this.
-How is scanning a bar code faster than adjusting two knobs?
-Do you have to wait for one item clears the tunnel before putting a different item down it at a different setting?
-Has anyone addressed how this thing would be suitable for production with at best 1 belt infeed in the ideal distance from an unload station and the other two further away?
-2-3 different units would give you more flexibility due to having better positioning options of separate units.
- What sort of shop would this be suited for?
In the last little while we've heat-cured: Wine glasses, Decanters, cowbells, golfballs, umbrellas, cotton shirts, poly shirts, waterproofed cordura nylon with vinyl ink, flashlights, bike bells, transfers, metal signage with epoxy ink, alupanel signage with epoxy inks and wooden winebox lids with gp ink, and having 3 units in one would make for a crazy shop layout where everything ended up in the same space for dryer offload, I don't know how that makes any sense, 3 separate units would be so much better.
Am I missing the point of this thing? who would use it? Is it suited for mass production, or just sampling? I see where having a quartz dryer that only cures when items are in it may provide some energy savings over an oven that stays at temp all the time, but does it get into gas-dryer efficiency levels?, and the inclusion of optical heat sensors to mitigate scorch and poly-dye migration problems makes sense, but we manage that even with our 30 year old HIX with no air and no digital read-outs of temp or speed, just analogue dials with sharpie marks where they need to be set. 8 years on that dinosaur without issue, best $200 I ever spent.
had M&R built this I'd be wondering what the heck they were thinking too. Yes it includes a few neat sensors, but I think it reeks of gimmick with no real-world application, or at least none that haven't been addressed by something simpler and less cumbersome. Heck, couldn't you just have 5 programmable pre-set buttons on a dryer control panel? How does a bar code scanner make more sense than pushing a single button?
Having quartz flash-cures that auto adjust makes complete sense to me as we adjust those all the time, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why you'd want a dryer that does the same as once it's up to temp/speed, why touch it? Runs of 12 pieces where every one needs a different cure profile?
If I'm completely out to lunch, somebody let me know...
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From my standpoint.. I see it as a nice tool of not having to adjust the dryer speed or temp across the wide range of garments we now print on. It's hard enough getting the press ops to adjust the flash temps of the flash on a daily basis let alone the dryer settings.
Being that it is a brown and their history.. had this been a blue creation the drones would think it was the best thing to ever happen, let that thought sit in.
I hope they hit It outa the park with this as they need the recognition for what they accomplished.
john we would never build that type of dryer for multiple reasons. One to ponder is the dryer pulls 150 amps on 208 volts. Not logical for large or small shops but I could be wrong
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i for one think it's pretty neat. It's clear there are some flaws...like that is way too much power. But if you are running DTG machines, something like this is awesome.
Maybe too many features, and I of course prefer gas over electric.
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Some of the specs call for 480 volts dependent upon number of lanes and lane width...
http://brownmfgdigital.com/handlers/assetdownload.ashx?id=38 (http://brownmfgdigital.com/handlers/assetdownload.ashx?id=38)
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One to ponder is the dryer pulls 150 amps on 208 volts. Not logical for large or small shops but I could be wrong
150 amps.. wow! that I didn't know and is a major draw for any shop.
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once the manufacturer got involved this topic was split to make it easier to find the correct information. Rest of the thread can be viewed here:
http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,14246.0.html (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,14246.0.html)
pierre
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From my standpoint.. I see it as a nice tool of not having to adjust the dryer speed or temp across the wide range of garments we now print on. It's hard enough getting the press ops to adjust the flash temps of the flash on a daily basis let alone the dryer settings.
Being that it is a brown and their history.. had this been a blue creation the drones would think it was the best thing to ever happen, let that thought sit in.
I hope they hit It outa the park with this as they need the recognition for what they accomplished.
This is my first post on the board. And I have to agree with jsheridan, If blue 244 does not produce the equipment most or blue drones do not give any other equipment company the time of day, let alone the chance to defend there product. I'm guessing blue 244 and his company have never produced a subpar product. Simply put, if blue 244 didn't build it no one can. You would think blue 244 would be the bigger person and once in a blue moon compliment another company for thinking outside the blue box. Believe it or not competition can benefit both parties. But Im just a troll as you call it and blue 244 and his sheep really do bully the hell out of this forum. M&R is gonna sell equipment either way, but you would think they would welcome another supplier to compete head to head with any of there stuff, but all I read as I troll from blue 244 is all things are not created equal, because if he didnt build it no one can.