Average time length for heating pallets?

[Dottonedan]

Wether it’s 6 color or a 14 color, What’s about the average “time” needed to heat the pallets up? How do you gauge when it’s ready?
I’m thinking just as long as the pallets are warm and glue is softened, then it’s go time. Near common sense. 5-10 times around the flash max of heating pallets.


Since I’m not a seasoned “print expert” I thought I’d confirm.  My guy is a mental drifter. He gets on something and ...is off mentally on something else and is letting the pallets heat up now for what seems like 15-25 minutes. So I check in on why I’ve been hearing the press run for a long while now...but no shirts on the pallets. He’s doing that, standing there swatching them.


He’s arguing that they need to be heated up for a "long time". Now mindya, this is my know it all...4 months in the industry (2nd wk on the press) millennial guy.  He can spend 2 -5 minutes just explaining this thought process trying to convince me that his way is good...or why he should do X...while I already know the answer. But I don’t want to be that guy that says “Just do what I say”.  So I listen to his explanation that most always doesn’t make sense. On this note, I’m sure he doesn’t need 15-20 minutes to heat pallets up.


On a positive note, He’s actually printing pretty well right out of the gate. I let him set it up and view the test prints first...I’ve been having to make changes, but he getting it.

[3Deep]

Really depends on what your printing in my shop anyway, if we are printing white ink flash and everything else wow, I'd go around about 5 to 6 rounds full flash until I can feel the underside of the pallet getting warm, 15 to 25 minute the pallets are hot as hell I'm thinking and normally after that long of printing I'm backing off my flash time anyways.

[ericheartsu]

will depend on so many factors, but in my opinion, at 15-20 mins, your pallets will be SMOKING hot.

[GraphicDisorder]

May do 15 minutes on the first warm up of the day in the winter or something.

[inkman996]

We just do several full rounds then start printing and adjust flash time as we go. Really all we are doing is warming the flash itself up and softening the glue some.

[Doug S]

We use 2 flashes to warm up.  In the winter, we will set the counter at 0 and when it reaches 48 with a 20 second flash the pallets are at around 140 degrees.  In the summer we usually let the counter go up to 36. 

[Dottonedan]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!
Just to make more sense of it,  this is our 6 color auto. 8 pallets. Our 18 color is in another building and we aren’t using it unless we get bigger orders. That’s almost never.


Heat time should be a little faster on this 6 color. Based on what you all have said, a 10-15 min max should work is what I’m gathering.

[Admiral]

No one seemed to mention presses here so I will add that to the mix.  On most of our presses (G3s, Cobra) it just takes 3 revolutions max.  On our Sportsman 10C much longer since pallets index slower, raise and lower and miss a decent amount of the heat the other presses would already be getting.

I do love presses where the platens don't raise up and down!

[Orion]

 It is not exactly the time it takes but the time it takes to reach the desired temperature. Monitor the pallets as they warm up with a non-contact thermometer. Check them at the unload station. I like between 120f-130f. Intermittently check during the print run and adjust flash time accordingly. I don't like to get pallets up over 155f, that's when things go wrong. Adhesive can fail. If you have lots of ink in the ink well higher temperature pallets can cause the ink to gel in the screen.

[Sbrem]

We'll let it rotate and flash for a few turns, find something else to do for a couple of minutes, and use the "touch test" as in "Yeah, that's good." Very scientific...

Steve

[Raw Paw]

This is wild...  We typically warm up the pallets one rotation, beyond 2 full rotations I can't imagine wanting the pallets any warmer.  That said, we have aluminum pallets which heat up much faster than rubber.