"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
I have seen some guys talking about how great a ticana is, I have a Ticana and a red chili. I purchased the ticana to be my main flash, and the red chili to be a movable secondary flash. I have about 14K prints on my sportsman now, and I find that even after the ticana is heated up, the cured ink is semi striped if you do a white, and flash, and a secondary white, or other top color. When I use the red chili, this problem is eliminated. I have tried every combination of dwell time and power settings, and my red chili is far superior. Both are set to the same height from the pallet, and if I set the dwell times to match, or use the quartz dwell timer on press( I have press cables for both) the red chili will not leave striping, and the ticana does. The stripes seem to be between the bulbs. To the touch, the ticana leaves the white with no tacky in it, The problem lies once the piece has gone all the way through the dryer. If I reduce the power, or time, the ink is not cured enough to put a second color over.I am using wilflex quick white as the under-base.
This last job that striped was a 500 piece, white on white, shirt was 100% cotton Kelly green. White on 135/64 in 1, Ticana in 3, white on 160/64 in 10. 2.5 second flash time, 4 second index. I thought they looked great coming off the press, and the person catching did not notice the striping. I was helping box them when I noticed. It was almost every one. The pallets were pretty hot to the touch. I do know my Ticana and red chili had two separate part numbers for the bulbs, but not sure if one is short wave and the other med, or what. Which is better? They are both set on 100% power, but the red chili seems to work better.Could the flash being too hot cause it? Why would you only see it after the ink is cured through the dryer?
2.5 seconds on a Tacana is WAY to long. Especially for 500 shirts. I usually start on 2 after the pallets are hot and lower to 1.5 or 1 at about 50 shirts in. Been using Tacana for 14 years that way with no problems.
I am located in northern Kentucky. The ink used is wilflex quick white.
Quote from: Jwcontractscreen on February 28, 2014, 08:14:39 AMI am located in northern Kentucky. The ink used is wilflex quick white. that ink flashes pretty quick normally. It still sounds like its too hot.