Anyone own a Riley Roq manual press?

[Prosperi-Tees]

Sidewinder with all the options stomps all over that thing for $7k. You can get a 6/4 with side clamps AND air clamps for that price. The Sidewinder is what a Hopkins press wishes it could be when it grows up.

Is that the current price? Does anyone know for sure?

[zanegun08]

Sidewinder with all the options stomps all over that thing for $7k. You can get a 6/4 with side clamps AND air clamps for that price. The Sidewinder is what a Hopkins press wishes it could be when it grows up.

Is that the current price? Does anyone know for sure?

I paid over 8k for a 8/4 Chameleon, I like the RileyROQ presses, love their pallet system (albeit never used it in production setting).  The first press I learned on was a Hopkins and it was great.  I personally hate side clamps, why would you limit your press to only take 25" x 36" screens, we have 1 press with side clamps, hate it, so dumb, I don't care if the registration is better, if you can't ever use a bigger screen you are so limited, want to turn a screen sideways, nope, want to do anything creative, nope.

The only thing I don't like about the RileyROQ is that you have to spike your hair and smile a lot while you print on it.  (but I've never used it in production setting)

[ZooCity]

Yeah we still have the Thunder.  After the design revisions they made on v.2 it's great.  I'm the only one that ever prints on it except for ink tech sampling out discharge swatches.  I love it despite the hassle initially and corner cutting on the build.  I think it's the best design out there honestly, just wish it had a better build, better company backing it.  It's light, has air side clamps with feet instead of those stupid bars of al, runs M&R platens and holds reg well.

If the riley roq doesn't hold auto screens, no point imho.  It needs to be 100% compatible with the auto tooling, down to pre reg devices used to be an effective compliment to an auto press line.  As a press for a manual only shop, what's the attraction?  There are way better manuals out there than the hopkins style and they all take readily available or very easy to fabricate platens. 

One thing I've always done with our side clamping manuals is ordered one rear clamp.  10-15min of swapping the head out and you can run any size screen to print some big posters or get that weird image location.  Best of both worlds in a way.  We really can't use rear clamps effectively since we're all M3 roller frames but I totally get the need for them once in awhile.

I like this thread, makes me want to bring more manual printing back into the shop, get back to the roots.

[zanegun08]

If the riley roq doesn't hold auto screens, no point imho.  It needs to be 100% compatible with the auto tooling, down to pre reg devices used to be an effective compliment to an auto press line.

One thing I've always done with our side clamping manuals is ordered one rear clamp.  Best of both worlds in a way.

I like this thread, makes me want to bring more manual printing back into the shop, get back to the roots.

Yeah, that is a really dumb oversight for them to make side clamps that can't accommodate 25" x 36" screens, or even at least 23" x 31.  Speaking of, I wonder if our side clamp M&R Press can do 25" x 36"?

That's a great idea on just changing out one, but I feel like the other heads would block it from raising all the way up with a truly jumbo screen.  We have 7 manuals, and run a second shift with 3 manuals, how are you all not printing jobs on manuals?  I would love to raise our minimums, but not realistic for our business model unless we want to turn people away. We print a lot of technical stuff, even large orders that go to manuals. 

I think we run some orders on manuals that should go auto, and visa versa, haven't really found our sweet spot since setup times are slow on both, that is what the killer is.

[Evo]

Sidewinder with all the options stomps all over that thing for $7k. You can get a 6/4 with side clamps AND air clamps for that price. The Sidewinder is what a Hopkins press wishes it could be when it grows up.

Is that the current price? Does anyone know for sure?

It's around that. Not sure what our final was with crating, freight, etc.

[Prosperi-Tees]

 author=ZooCity link=topic=17979.msg170554#msg170554 date=1465438575]
I like this thread, makes me want to bring more manual printing back into the shop, get back to the roots.
[/quote]

I'm going to all manual printing, going to sell the auto, and downsize our shop fairly soon  hopefully in a small air-conditioned space. I'm going to try and carve out a niche somehow and become specialized in something that not many are doing, I'm just not sure what that is yet. Possibly get a small 2 color Volt just to bang out the high qty 1 color prints we do quite often.

[Evo]

Yeah, that is a really dumb oversight for them to make side clamps that can't accommodate 25" x 36" screens, or even at least 23" x 31.  Speaking of, I wonder if our side clamp M&R Press can do 25" x 36"?

I owned a Chameleon 8 color. It can do 26" wide frames easy. (as can the Sidewinder) The Chameleon can probably do 26" x 136" if you wanted, as the spring tension can be ramped up to hold just about anything. The Sidewinder has fixed spring tension, which is about one of the only thing that sets it apart functionally from the Chameleon aside from number of colors.

[Evo]

 we have 1 press with side clamps, hate it, so dumb, I don't care if the registration is better, if you can't ever use a bigger screen you are so limited, want to turn a screen sideways, nope, want to do anything creative, nope.

I've pulled one side clamp off and the Chameleon held the screen with the other side clamp no prob. The heads are that burly. It wasn't to get creative though, it was cause I burned the image in the wrong damn spot. 

[ZooCity]

If the riley roq doesn't hold auto screens, no point imho.  It needs to be 100% compatible with the auto tooling, down to pre reg devices used to be an effective compliment to an auto press line.

One thing I've always done with our side clamping manuals is ordered one rear clamp.  Best of both worlds in a way.

I like this thread, makes me want to bring more manual printing back into the shop, get back to the roots.

Yeah, that is a really dumb oversight for them to make side clamps that can't accommodate 25" x 36" screens, or even at least 23" x 31.  Speaking of, I wonder if our side clamp M&R Press can do 25" x 36"?

That's a great idea on just changing out one, but I feel like the other heads would block it from raising all the way up with a truly jumbo screen.  We have 7 manuals, and run a second shift with 3 manuals, how are you all not printing jobs on manuals?  I would love to raise our minimums, but not realistic for our business model unless we want to turn people away. We print a lot of technical stuff, even large orders that go to manuals. 

I think we run some orders on manuals that should go auto, and visa versa, haven't really found our sweet spot since setup times are slow on both, that is what the killer is.

Careful planning in prepress and a decent platen selection I guess?  We just kinda make it work.  It doesn't hurt that our avg order is around 300pcs and is mostly cake work with standard image placements.  My crew is also way too slow moving to effectively print on a manual. I jump on it for the super short runs and bizarre image placements.  It's still fun but my body is racked from prior years of manually printing long past the time when I should have had an auto.

The only thing that really limits what you can do on an auto is lack of the precise blade and stroke control and placement you have manually printing.  Deeper control and quick access would be huge on an auto but I understand that you can't make a machine do what human hands can without a lot of serious over engineering and no machine reacts to physical feedback.

With the single rear clamp on a manual you have to get creative with the placement of adjacent heads and possibly take a side clamp off.

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[Nation03]

Thanks for the info Zoo. I always liked the Thunder, looks like a solid press. I wanted to get an 8/4 for a while. My main setback is pallet leveling. One of the main reasons I love the Legend is that there is no pallet leveling needed. That's also a big reason why I'd like to go with an s.roque when automating, but I think even a 6 color would be out of my price range anytime soon.

I'm in a similar situation, Gerry. I was considering a 5 color volt. Most of my work is 1-3 colors anyway and if I can avoid getting a compressor and chiller and bigger screens, that might be the better option for now. It would definitely help boost my production.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Yeah I can count on one hand how many 3-4 color jobs we have done this year.

[ZooCity]

Just to be clear- I do not recommend Anatol overall.  I'm happy with our press now but it's been re-engineered, rebuilt.  As it came it was a total train wreck and they drug the issue(s) out far too long.   Good overall design, terrible execution seems to be the mantra with this co.  I would not buy again.  Didn't want to give the impression I was endorsing here.

Nation, the platen leveling is actually much better on the Anatol than our M&R machines, past and present.  It has a 4pt leveling system that's easy to adjust and holds parallel well.

[Nation03]

I hear ya. I'm skeptical about purchasing anything from them in general based on all the horror stories I've read over the years. I'll probably just keep my eyes peeled on the used market for an auto.