"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
As the ink warms up, the body becomes thinner allowing you to print on top of the fabric as you need less pressure to clear the mesh
The downsides of a too thin ink would be opacity and fiber matte down. Easy to print though.
so the ink is at 72 when you pick up the bucket, right? and how long does it stay at 72?pierre
I love what you are attempting to accomplish Pierre!Everyone needs to remember though...... ink prices are vastly different...... ink quality is vastly different.... Typically reflected in pricing.For everyone who wants to chime in about the right ink, right speed, right production heat parameters.... Please remember what "quality" of white ink you are working with. Also whether the ink is made for cotton/low bleed (cheap)/low bleed (expensive).Proper production parameters for cheap cotton ink, will not be the same for expensive low bleed ink....Please post the name/type of ink you are talking about and what your typical production atmosphere is, run size, fabric type, etc...Case in point: The Comet White from Ryonet. I thought the viscosity was way to low for what we do. It would not matte fibers well. But I was testing on 100% 6.1 oz cotton. Those who loved it did their testing on tri blends and ring spun cotton. Different fabric gave different results with the same ink.Also, what mesh/mesh opening are you testing/printing your whites through? Screen tension? Off contact? Squeegee blade type/sharpness? Hard fill or soft touch with the flood bar?Let's make sure we talk about allll our parameters when we pitch in.This is my 2 cents coming from an ink manufacturing background and a production background.Keep the convo going!
so we can control the viscosity of the ink by controlling the temperature. Could we use the same ink at different temps to adjust for the substrate requirements? Why? Or, Why not?The ink temp is directly related to the platen temperatures. Other than the guys with a IIID, anybody else measure the platen temps? Regularly?pierre
Quote from: blue moon on April 25, 2014, 03:18:57 PMso we can control the viscosity of the ink by controlling the temperature. Could we use the same ink at different temps to adjust for the substrate requirements? Why? Or, Why not?The ink temp is directly related to the platen temperatures. Other than the guys with a IIID, anybody else measure the platen temps? Regularly?pierreWe have the new flashes from MSI that have the eye that reads the surface temp of the shirts/platens so yes I can control my heat. We also have honeycomb platens, that cool off very quickly and do not hold heat like the blue boards do. In fact the blue boards are known to get so hot you can't even touch them which in turn heats the inks in the screen well into the 90-100+ range.