my field trip

[alan802]

I've watched a few videos of the flashback in action and noticed how production numbers were very slow, I think I remember seeing 2-3 shirts per minute being done when doing a PFPF.  Using it as a standalone in it's own print head without a screen would be the way I used it most of the time.  I was surprised however at the flash's ability to gel as quickly as it did.  The shuttle was moving at a nice clip and still gelling the base.

[jonbravado]

I took an M&R gauntlet & sportsman operator and put them on this freedom.  The MAIN complaint with the freedoms/javelins is printing hi opacity white ink with a v-squeegie, but we did the chopper upgrade and solved that problem completely.  Running our press that fast was actually quite smooth.  They dialed it in, delay, flood, print speed with no flash and a short print stroke (smaller front imprint) - and the press indexes every 5 seconds - no bad rattling or jumping (i do have 2 flashbacks opposite one another - maybe that helped with balance?).  The guys at spot color sold us the press and it was tip-top when we got it - they do a great job of checking out everything they sell.  And we've taken care of it.    My printer actually enjoys printing with the v-squeegies - and there is advantages to the v-squeegies on setup (not for cleaning though) and definite advantages for discharge/waterbased.   We hardly ever print that fast - normally 300-350 hour is a good production rate for that machine with a good operator on a flash job.  But last time I checked that's a LOT more shirts than a manual can do with flashes involved.  I'd have to disagree on the 'stay away from a used freedom/javelin' - ours has gotten us to a very good point in our market and our volume of business - way more than paid for itself.  If you are banging out more smaller jobs (under 500 pcs), it's perfect - setups are quick.  If you are contract printer with 1000's per print - I'd not get a press with flashbacks.  They do limit you a bit on larger runs that require a flash.  But if the pallets are warm, you can zip that thing in and out and it speeds up a good bit.  Pros and Cons indeed.  But i don't regret getting a Freedom as our first Auto - not one bit.  I can see the servo index being a huge plus on fast/long runs - now you got me thinking........

[Gilligan]

The flash back isn't as much as a hold up as you might think.

In fact, we love ours a LOT.  We have been able to run 6 color jobs that we just wouldn't have been able to do if it wasn't for the flash back.  Fitting in an 8 color press would have been extremely tough but I guess I could have done it... but it would have probably been a Diamondback and then we would have had air heads vs AC heads.  Now we have a smaller foot print, AC heads and we can use EVERY head.

What lots of people don't think about is that you just run the Flashback in head 2 in "table up"mode and it flashes like any other flash... just a tiny bit slower since it shuttles.

Even in PF mode (we were too green to realize that we should have moved it to head 2 as I just described) we were rolling some left chest at 500 pcs/hour.  If we would have moved the flash to head 2 then we would have been able to print faster than my guy was able to load.

He can load faster now and we still have never run this press at full speed yet.  Either we don't engineer the job to take advantage of the situation for one reason or another or we just aren't in a rush to bother with it.

I could buy a standard flash, but we don't have the space to really have one and I can't see myself kicking myself too much about that.  The flash back has us moving along just fine.  I just went time it and at ALMOST full stroke and slowed down a bit because of a recent job it takes 8 secs to shuttle out and back.  So that's 450 times an hour... lets knock that down for table up and down and maybe we are looking at 400 shirts an hour.  To be honest you could run the shuttle out faster and just draw it back slower... I just don't like the idea of the abrupt stop.  I tune the shuttle out to be comfortable for the bulbs and set the retract for the ink.

So, unless you think you will be running a 3 person printing team I can't see you really being slowed down by a flash back anytime soon.  If you are running a 3 person team and have an unloader then yes, you could be losing some production time because of the flash back.  I'd have a hard time seeing myself with a 3 person team in my current situation very frequently.  Isn't the notion for shops our size to do about 100k per employee... so I'd have to still have another 2 people out front (we all know I'm not going back there and sweating )... so that means 5 people in the office, and if we are pulling in 500k/year then I'm getting a bigger shop.   At that point, I'll get a standard flash and use the flash back when I need more colors... OR, just add a 2nd 10-12 color press.