Has this been invented

[rmonks]

I was just thinking the other day when registering a 4 color job why doesn't someone invent a press that has some sort of laser registration system on it so that all you do is pop the screens in push a button, and the lasers see the registration marks and move the screens around and puts them all on the mark. Someone please get busy on this, OR has it already been done.

[royster13]

Does a DTS not do what you are asking?....

[kirkage]

DTS/Tri-lock is pretty darn close

[blue moon]

my understanding is that there was a press 20 or so years ago that did this, but was rather clunky and unreliable. Also ppl did not want to pay for it . . .

pierre

[mk162]

i think it's best off with good prepress and a system like MHM where the screens fit into a set place...similar to plates in offset printing.

[tonypep]

Yes. M&R did it. Proved unviable in real world production. We had the prototype at OATS.

[3Deep]

I'm sure there has been plenty of great ideas on paper that got scrapped in real world production, kind of reminds me back when I was in the home building biz, the draftsmen would give this nice drawn out blueprint just for us to tell him it want work that way.....why, huh looks good on my blueprint, what do you mean won't work LOL.

Darryl

[tonypep]

Basically it was a big box on wheels. We had nine 14 color Challengers and the unit required air and electricity so ridiculously long air lines were required, as you had to move it from head to head. Lasers guided solenoid motors. Cant remember why we needed air. On its own, away from the press, it worked perfectly. On press not so much. The scheduling department actually had to add time to the setup whenever we would use it. CTS+ TriLoc=way better

[jvanick]

having played with TriLoc at a recent workshop we went to, I think DTS+TriLoc is definitely the way to go...

they didn't have a DTS, so we registered the films with the carrier sheets by hand, using a loupe on the light table with the carrier sheets...  when we went to press, 7 out of the 8 screens registered perfectly without a touch of the micros.. I'm sure the one that didn't was just a slip up during taping of the film to the carrier sheet..

I was blown away at how easy and fast it ended up being.

one thing tho that I wish for and will be looking for if I can find it in our next press is a micro system that allows you to keep all 4 corners locked down as you micro...  having to unlock the back of a screen to do a quick micro adjust seems to introduce a lot of uncertainty in our shop... 

[rmonks]

Basically it was a big box on wheels. We had nine 14 color Challengers and the unit required air and electricity so ridiculously long air lines were required, as you had to move it from head to head. Lasers guided solenoid motors. Cant remember why we needed air. On its own, away from the press, it worked perfectly. On press not so much. The scheduling department actually had to add time to the setup whenever we would use it. CTS+ TriLoc=way better

Yes laser guided servos or solenoids

[jsheridan]

that and hundreds of others 'devices' have been thought of or made for us over the last 25+ years

and guess what..

this industry is so facking cheap,  that nobody want to pay for it or anything for that matter so it never makes it to the real world.

[Action1]

We put a good deal of time and effort into developing a laser alignment pallet. The cross hair lasers were mounted under the pallet and  pointed at the screens. The machine vibrations made it impractical and we scrapped it.

[T Shirt Farmer]

 @39 seconds in

Direct Screen Printing onto Mugs.flv

[tonypep]

One point often overlooked by supply side companies is what will retail bear? Think of belt printers. Sure, they worked but do you know the price tag on one of those? It often took six people to run one. Plus three on pre-treat. Plus oversize screens, sinks exposure units, etc. How in the world can you pass all that on to the end user? Or the inline flock/foil contraptions. They run so painfully slow I almost cried. Think you can get an extra say two dollars a unit? Even though you should most probably did not. And as those things were not really designed to be installed and removed as needed that auto becomes a dedicated machine so most would need to have enough of that business to justify the purchase dollars and extremely low volume. To add further salt to that wound you have the extra raw material $$ of flock and foil. So, just because something works, it doesn't mean it should work.
It's a t-shirt

[bimmridder]

I was once talking to the owner of an equipment company. Just shooting the sh!t for the most part. Options and add ons came up. He told me how one of his sales guys asked about putting an option on a machine, asking why they hadn't done so yet. The owner got back to the salesman a few days later with the real life cost to the customer for that option. He asked the salesman if he could sell it to the customer at that cost, to which the salesman said , "no way". Just because it CAN be done does not make it should be done.