Drying cabinet?

[jvanick]

I actually bought the one from him on wednesday before we all went to MindsEye...  It arrived on Monday...

being able to have ready to go screens an hour or so after coating is awesome, and NOT bringing the humidity up in the screen room is really nice too.

[Inkworks]

Well it ain't factory made but, here is ours for post reclaim and post coat drying:



You can see the hepa filter over the air intake, a small bathroom fan sucks air out of the other side. Sucking air stirs up much less dust than blowing air.

Post exposure and post block-out we have a rack with a good fan built in under the light table:



Blowing air dries fast, we are a very low humidity area year round too, which helps too. it's pretty much as fast as propping them in front of a box fan, and they don't tip over and break mesh anymore.

[Screen Dan]

Next to the coating room we have a 8'x8' room with a pocket door, small 1500w space heater and dehumidifier...we can fit 4 full racks of 24ea 23x31 frames, they dry after reclaim in about 45 minutes.  20-25 minutes if we double-space them in the rack.  Same time frame to dry after coat...at roughly 100f degrees...give or take 10 degrees depending on volume. 

As soon as the screens are washed they live in racks until the get masked...a drying cabinet would be such a hindrance to load and unloads two hundred times a day.

But, we had the room and had to come up with a solution for our volume.  If we had lower volume a small drying rack looks like a killer idea...especially if the drying room was replaced with a pass-through drying rack right next to the CTS, which we've considered doing...but the load/unload process happens enough as it is after being washed and de-stenciled.

[ZooCity]

Next to the coating room we have a 8'x8' room with a pocket door, small 1500w space heater and dehumidifier...we can fit 4 full racks of 24ea 23x31 frames, they dry after reclaim in about 45 minutes.  20-25 minutes if we double-space them in the rack.  Same time frame to dry after coat...at roughly 100f degrees...give or take 10 degrees depending on volume. 

As soon as the screens are washed they live in racks until the get masked...a drying cabinet would be such a hindrance to load and unloads two hundred times a day.

But, we had the room and had to come up with a solution for our volume.  If we had lower volume a small drying rack looks like a killer idea...especially if the drying room was replaced with a pass-through drying rack right next to the CTS, which we've considered doing...but the load/unload process happens enough as it is after being washed and de-stenciled.

Our drying situation is almost identical, but in about a 4x8-10 space.  8x8 would be really nice.  We don't have that kind of screen throughput and our cab lives at about 75˚, give or take 10˚.  Saves energy and I have a belief that you want to let screens dry a little slower.  Nothing gets touched until it's dried overnight typically.

At the same time, we also have a drying cab I build years agos with thick melamine.  It's chambered with baffles.  Filter air in, small space heater warms is, bathroom vent fan draws the air through.   It's outside the screen room and is used to dry anything we want in a hurry whether it be degreased screens, resolved ones or freshly coated.  Just like Screen Dan said, it takes about an hour to dry a set of them in the 95˚ box. 

[jvieira]

Hey guys, our drying cabinet is integrated with our exposure unit but only holds 4 screens, which is definitely short for our needs.
We have a DIY drying cabinet made out of a baby cradle with melanine sides and top only with a dehumidifier in but it is also not ideal.

I'm looking into the Vastex vdc-253610 and it's looking OK (10 screens).
Another option would be the new Ryonet drying cabinet, which is $420 cheaper.


As most people here, don't have much time for DIY stuff and, tbh, I'm terrified that something might go wrong with the dehumidifier and it catches fire as I'm sure the insurance company is likely not to pay.

Does anyone recommend a proper cabinet that doesn't cost much?

[Rockers]

I actually bought the one from him on wednesday before we all went to MindsEye...  It arrived on Monday...

being able to have ready to go screens an hour or so after coating is awesome, and NOT bringing the humidity up in the screen room is really nice too.

An hour, I thought that thing would be faster.

[jvieira]

With our small 4 screen cabinet we do it in 10 minutes. it used to take us 30 before we used the wet/dry vac

[Sbrem]

We got a big ass one way back in the mid nineties at an auction for $300. Holds 36 hand screens, 20 - 23 x 31's. Ours has a heater inside, not a dehumidifier. Works super well; prepped screens dry in 5 minutes if you're in a rush, coating can be 10 - 15 minutes depending on the mesh. Worked 20 years without one, just fans, but this is soooooo much better...

Steve