TSB
screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: Frog on September 19, 2011, 06:22:39 PM
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There are probably many who don't even know of this technology, and others who do and merely drool with desire. Then, there's a small group of actual users out there as well.
Maybe they'll chime in. ;D
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Dave has mentioned quite a bit on this subject on another thread, does someone want to merge some of that info into this thread, it's good stuff.
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I'm a drooler.
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Ding-dong-g-g-g
(bad chime imitation)
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There are probably many who don't even know of this technology, and others who do and merely drool with desire. Then, there's a small group of actual users out there as well.
Maybe they'll chime in. ;D
I may in time
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Okay, I am making the post, but these links and contribution were sent to me by Dave (bimmridder)
Here's a link to an article on the subject from Printwear http://printwearmag.com/article/sizing-stencil-systems#.Tni49KMniEM.email (http://printwearmag.com/article/sizing-stencil-systems#.Tni49KMniEM.email)
and included the pdf content of material he sent to the author.
Thanks Dave
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Yea.. this is next on our big purchase list. It's gonna be a few years still though. I wish the stupid price would come down a bit.
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What's M&Rs going for?
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What's M&Rs going for?
I think one of the models is in the mid to low 30's. I think a DTS or a dryer will be our next major purchase.
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I would go dts, unless your dryer is in bad shape. It all depends on what you are looking for though. I could see a DTS really speeding up the screen room. But an oven can also cut costs in utilities and repairs depending on the age of it.
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Alan, how many screens are you making per day? On an average day.
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Alan, how many screens are you making per day? On an average day.
We are averaging 18-20 a day now. There are days when we might only do 10, but more days when we do 30. I really think DTS would increase our production capabilities by a very large margin, but the temptation of a more efficient dryer is strong. Our old Texair is electric and gas, and the money we spend running the old dryer is probably double what it would cost for a new dryer payment. I'm really thinking we would save a few hundred dollars a month and have a new dryer if we went that route.
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I like the idea and all, but wonder how much film, ink and printers I can buy for 40K... for the less expensive ones I've seen...
Steve
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If you're wondering,do the ROI. I'd imagine anyone selling CTS would have a ROI available. Plug in worse case scenario.No candy coating. See what you get. You might be surprised. And it's not just film and ink! Imagine a CTS with integrated registration system. I'm telling ya.
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The last time I sent a multi color design to Ace for transfers, I was surprised that they told me to not worry about reg marks fitting because they don't need them with their DTS system.
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The last time I sent a multi color design to Ace for transfers, I was surprised that they told me to not worry about reg marks fitting because they don't need them with their DTS system.
What are registration marks? I know it's petty, but if you want to count pennies, we use one small piece of tape on the print side to tape off the information box. No reggies to tape off anymore. (Except on 4CP)
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Imagine a CTS with integrated registration system. I'm telling ya.
You don't have to tell me. That's the main attraction in my opinion. I'll agree with the Captain of the Ink Brigade here that the price is retardo though. Not saying the gear isn't worth it's asking price just that smaller shops aren't going to get a return in a reasonable amount of time if they're replacing a decently managed pre-press system with the CTS. If you're replacing a really awful pre-press routine with CTS then, of course, it would justify itself just because it made you eliminate a critical set of error points.
I'm sure the final, resolved on screen, dot and fine line quality is super rad with CTS as well and could be enough in and of itself for some operations to justify it. Why bother with an imagesetter by comparison?
Out of curiosity, what were you doing before going CTS?
Also, we often wreck up a color or two on our films due to poor overprint settings or something. This is like a semi-weekly thing. I would hate to do that with coated screens. Then again it would teach you in a big hurry to learn the overprint settings, etc. as you couldn't afford not to. Do you run into this much?
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Before CTS we were film. We had an Oyo thermal imaging system, but got tired of fighting all the issues at the time. We went to an Epson 7800 I think it was. I've said this often, but need to repeat it. We do a lot of short runs (48-288) and high screen count. Six to eight colors is common. Doing 15-30 jobs a day, you can imagine the film cost alone. We have used Tri-Loc since it became available, though not as it is designed. I modified its use to work better for us.
I think somewhere I stated that art issues can be more easily recognized. How much film waste do you have? I'm embarrassed to say, but we didn't know how much until we really dug into it. This was a problem in itself. The artists fought almost to their death to avoid going CTS. How would they catch their mistakes. They wouldn't have film to look at and check for errors. They wouldn't admit it, but a lot of errors were caught, resulting in outputting the same files over again. CTS MADE THEM BECOME BETTER at their job. There is software for proofing. Yes, mistakes still happen, but very rarely. If you are lucky enough to catch it when you are imaging a screen, the wax (on my I-Jet) can be wiped off and the screen imaged again. The screen isn't toast.
And fixing that mistake? It's all digital. The artist corrects the file, sends it to the machine again, and you have a screen in 10 minutes. Do that with film and how long will it take. And will the new piece of film even register to the other pieces you've imaged, or do you now have to scrap the job and output the entire job again?
Hope this makes sense. I know I tend to wander, but I'm trying to help you understand the benefits.
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We proof our films to paper through a laser printer first, to make sure everything is correct before going to film. The laser printer proofs come out pretty fast, so not much time lost at all. As for film, we tend to use $150 - $200 a month. In the days of PMT film and darkrooms and cameras, film was far more expensive than it is today. Unless we had considerably more volume, I couldn't justify the expense. We have an MHM and the registration unit is unbelievably easy to use. You can line up 4 films on 4 screeens in about a minute and a half, maybe less if you want to show off. Still, I'd love to have the bragging rights of having one...
Steve
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Hope this makes sense. I know I tend to wander, but I'm trying to help you understand the benefits.
No that makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing.