STE II

[ericheartsu]

So we bought and ordered an STE II. It arrived on Tuseday, and our tech showed up for install on Wed.

Tech spent all day Wed. Installing the machine. Thursday morning we started with the training. If you know how to use a computer and printer, then you know how to use this machine. Simple as that.

Our Tech, flew in from South Carolina. His name was Lester, and he was awesome. Made learning about the software and the machine a breeze. We were making screens within 10 minutes of him showing us how the rip worked.

We run all of our screens with Xenon Nova (a diazo emulsion), with a 1/1 sharp side. So far we've made about 40 screens. on our non halftone screens, we are exposing them at about 23 seconds. With our halftone screens we just dialed it in, at 12 secs.

We are running our first discharge job with a screen exposed this way later today, as well as a previously printed 8 color sim process job. So i'm super excited to see what the results are!

I'll update more after we do some printing, but right now we have to print 2000 shirts with an 8 color front, and 1 color discharge back by 6pm!

[ZooCity]

Hell yeah Eric!  Very jealous, that unit sounds fantastic. 

Watch out for big changes in dot gain from your previous sim pro run using film and the one on the STE II, I'm guessing the DTS printer and process will have far less gain.

[bimmridder]

It's a game changer. Happy for you

[Alex M]

So we bought and ordered an STE II. It arrived on Tuseday, and our tech showed up for install on Wed.

Tech spent all day Wed. Installing the machine. Thursday morning we started with the training. If you know how to use a computer and printer, then you know how to use this machine. Simple as that.

Our Tech, flew in from South Carolina. His name was Lester, and he was awesome. Made learning about the software and the machine a breeze. We were making screens within 10 minutes of him showing us how the rip worked.

We run all of our screens with Xenon Nova (a diazo emulsion), with a 1/1 sharp side. So far we've made about 40 screens. on our non halftone screens, we are exposing them at about 23 seconds. With our halftone screens we just dialed it in, at 12 secs.

We are running our first discharge job with a screen exposed this way later today, as well as a previously printed 8 color sim process job. So i'm super excited to see what the results are!

I'll update more after we do some printing, but right now we have to print 2000 shirts with an 8 color front, and 1 color discharge back by 6pm!

Glad to hear all is well!
Thanks for the kind words about Lester, I will be sure to pass them on to him.
Let us know if you need anything else.

[blue moon]

So we bought and ordered an STE II. It arrived on Tuseday, and our tech showed up for install on Wed.

Tech spent all day Wed. Installing the machine. Thursday morning we started with the training. If you know how to use a computer and printer, then you know how to use this machine. Simple as that.

Our Tech, flew in from South Carolina. His name was Lester, and he was awesome. Made learning about the software and the machine a breeze. We were making screens within 10 minutes of him showing us how the rip worked.

We run all of our screens with Xenon Nova (a diazo emulsion), with a 1/1 sharp side. So far we've made about 40 screens. on our non halftone screens, we are exposing them at about 23 seconds. With our halftone screens we just dialed it in, at 12 secs.

We are running our first discharge job with a screen exposed this way later today, as well as a previously printed 8 color sim process job. So i'm super excited to see what the results are!

I'll update more after we do some printing, but right now we have to print 2000 shirts with an 8 color front, and 1 color discharge back by 6pm!

Why are your halftone screens different from the spots?

Pierre

[Frog]

So we bought and ordered an STE II. It arrived on Tuseday, and our tech showed up for install on Wed.

Tech spent all day Wed. Installing the machine. Thursday morning we started with the training. If you know how to use a computer and printer, then you know how to use this machine. Simple as that.

Our Tech, flew in from South Carolina. His name was Lester, and he was awesome. Made learning about the software and the machine a breeze. We were making screens within 10 minutes of him showing us how the rip worked.

We run all of our screens with Xenon Nova (a diazo emulsion), with a 1/1 sharp side. So far we've made about 40 screens. on our non halftone screens, we are exposing them at about 23 seconds. With our halftone screens we just dialed it in, at 12 secs.

We are running our first discharge job with a screen exposed this way later today, as well as a previously printed 8 color sim process job. So i'm super excited to see what the results are!

I'll update more after we do some printing, but right now we have to print 2000 shirts with an 8 color front, and 1 color discharge back by 6pm!

Why are your halftone screens different from the spots?

Pierre

I'm hoping that they're different meshes

[ericheartsu]

Typically our halftone screens are on either 230, 272s or 305s. But to be honest, with this emulsion we are using, we've always been kind of baffled as to why halftone exposure is usually about half of what a standard blockier image is.

Even when we were using films and our richmond 7k, we'd expose our halftones at 40 units, and solid, blockier images at 70 or 80 units, depending on what the purpose of the screen was.

We did our first run of shirts on Friday with screens made through this bad boy. We did a run of roughly 800 shirts. 8 color sim process front (one color was a discharge color, the word "passanger"), and a one color discharge back print.

The front print registered super easy (we did not use a tri lock, as it's on a non compatible press), and we had ZERO issues with pinholes, or the screen breaking down with the discharge print.

The back print, registered very easy, (used a different press, but did not use the trilock), and was a one color discharge print. The only issues we had was a slight screen breakdown, but this print was printing about 1/2 an inch below the collar. The breakdown could have been avoided with proper screen taping, but we were in a rush to get this job out.

[Frog]

Typically our halftone screens are on either 230, 272s or 305s. But to be honest, with this emulsion we are using, we've always been kind of baffled as to why halftone exposure is usually about half of what a standard blockier image is.

Even when we were using films and our richmond 7k, we'd expose our halftones at 40 units, and solid, blockier images at 70 or 80 units, depending on what the purpose of the screen was.

How are you determining what is the correct exposure? Do dot areas fill in or bold areas wash out when the same exposure is used on the same mesh counts with these two different types of images?
It shouldn't be the case. Though I'll confess that I do very little high end type work, I was always taught that an exposre time (or units) is determined by the emulsion deposit and not by the image itself.
The emulsion, of a given thickness, is either cross-linked or not, and shouldn't "know" if there is detail or not.

[ericheartsu]

I wish I knew the technical aspects more. We quote ALL screens the same, except for our low meshes.

But it would be great if anyone could chime in and teach this youngin a lesson

[blue moon]

I wish I knew the technical aspects more. We quote ALL screens the same, except for our low meshes.

But it would be great if anyone could chime in and teach this youngin a lesson

get an exposure calculator from Nazdar and expose your screens. You should have the step #7 be the same color as the rest of the exposed emulsion (there should be no difference between the first seven steps, the first visible one should be the .

pierre

[DannyGruninger]

If you can figure out how to do an exposure calculator on a screen made with the wet ink out of the i image ste let me know...... Doing the "step wedge" for the dts screens isn't really something I've figured out how to do well yet. Using film, etc no problem but the times are vastly different then the ink sitting on screen.

[ericheartsu]

i was just thinking of that danny!

[blue moon]

If you can figure out how to do an exposure calculator on a screen made with the wet ink out of the i image ste let me know...... Doing the "step wedge" for the dts screens isn't really something I've figured out how to do well yet. Using film, etc no problem but the times are vastly different then the ink sitting on screen.

I am talking about the 21 step scale. It is a small piece of film you stick on the part without the print. Since it is so thin, it should be fine with your sensor on the STE.

pierre

[blue moon]

http://www.stouffer.net/TransPage.htm

[mk162]

but you're still shooting through something that will block some UV light, or are those made to not block any UV