Question for CTS users

[TCT]

For all you guys that have CTS machines, and say you would never switch back(think I read that somewhere ) and say your life has changed. What are say your top two favorite things about CTS?

Reading the other day that Danny would not screen print again if he had to go back to films, got my brain spinning. It is obvious from the "show your stuff" thread Danny is a beginner and has a long way to come....

To be serious, it got me thinking, I've been printing since 15 and it is all I really know how to do. I can't think of a legitimate single reason(I enjoy being broke and coming home looking like I taught 1st graders how to paint) I would chose to give it up.

To hear someone say they would chose to go into another industry if they had to go back to film really has me interested in what are the 2 top things people like about CTS.

[screenprintguy]

I don't think I'd "not be a printer anymore", but, I would do everything I could to stay CTS. There really isn't a way to explain more than has already been explained until you actually have a unit in house and are using it. It only takes a few jobs really to see it, but throw in your busy season and get into dozens of screens to 100 screens in a day with set ups that are multi color designs and see the majic, the time and money, and head ache savings. Some guys are still doing this, but personally the day we had our first I-Image installed, I stopped printing reg marks. With your machine and the pin reg, I would say you stand an ever stronger chance at being dead on and less human error than me with set ups. I've said it before and I'll stick to it, you just don't know until you have one in play. The one thing if not a bunch of others that is attractive with M&R for a CTS, if you are serious about it and speak with 244, I'm sure he would extend the try it for a few months to see the life change. He knows he can say that because there is no way you will want to give it back. When my epson had a few issues I got worried that I couldn't afford to get into a more expensive unit and tossed the idea of film back around and I said screw that mess, if it's going to be more money than what I already had in it, I needed to scrape and make it work because it's that big of a part of our system now. I have to say now having an ST, maaaaaaan, this thing is super impressive. I did my routine maintenance on it the other day, it's so easy. They really laid it all out perfect for the user to get to every single thing needed. It's just a serious machine built just for this purpose. After install, we had gone out of town and didn't get to soak all the training in so the next week I clicked a few wrong buttons, they have it set up where you call your tech, he connects to the computer remotely and the computer actually talks to the printer so they can diagnose the issue, 2 minutes and it was basically me changing a setting that I shouldn't have boom, back up and running. It's the real deal. I only have the single head ST and it's at least 2-3 times faster than the Epson model. The head only travels in the location it's printing, so less wasted time there. The image is more dense, halftones, "in my opinion", once you have the proper curve for your set up in the rip, are nicer. And the pre-reg is tighter, which I think has to do with the way you load the frame in on the ST vs the slant, you can get a better grip on it all I feel and it had nice viewing notches to see your corners touch perfect. It's just a super sweet machine and I dont' care large or small shop, it is a game changer. I had to "get over" the cost vs a film printer, and I got over it within the first week. Anyone, and there are a lot more users now, who own one will tell you the same thing. Why didn't they do it sooner!!

[DannyGruninger]

Glad I got your brain spinning there  .  Let me start off by saying perfecting my process wasn't a snap your fingers type of thing. Getting all my rollers perfectly flat and making sure I only had one small point of contact on each tri lock touching point, among other tedious items is what made cts really work wonders in my shop. It took me a long time refining items to really make everything happy and understand exactly how to improve. Im still refining things to this day and I'm dreading my upcoming expansion as I'll be introducing 600 new frames into the cycle. Not excited about that but we will adjust them and get through it.

To answer your question one of the absolute top reasons I love cts is because my shop started small and remains small(er) forcing me to either do a lot of the work myself or if someone calls in sick I must jump in to keep everything rolling so we don't fall behind. When one of our clients calls with a rush order needing shirts in an almost impossible turn around I can almost always tell them yes because cts has made our process so fast that I can work the job in or just stay late and knock it all out myself. I feel like the process of traditionally printing film, shooting through exposure using vac/glass, manually lining up registration marks on either a fpu or when you get to the press, etc etc etc makes the entire process far too cumbersome for 1 person to do in a quick mater imo. If I had to go through the traditional steps like I just mentioned after eliminating them would be hard for me to swallow and I would turn down a lot of rush jobs that I now never turn away. Also worth noting is having the ste version of our cts I believe is a huge workflow savings compared to a standard cts that can't expose at the same time. I'm a huge supporter of cts but even more so with the ste. The next top reasons is easily the fact of storing digital files vs having films stored in folders. While some shops have their film filling down I never could quite make it work real well before I went cts/digital storage. I would pull a folder and realize 1 of the films was damaged, faded, or just straight up not there so that was a painful process for me. Having everything saved in multiple locations with matching numbers has been amazing for us here. Overall I saw a lot of improvement in setup on press and overall out workflow speed was increased dramatically. Time to me is precious as I have two small boys and a growing family at home that I want to spend my spare time with. Without cts I would be stuck in my shop for many more hours then I am now so that's a big reason why I say if I had to go back to printing films I would find something else to do. Trust me I live eat sleep printing I'm sure as much as anyone here but from the benefits I've had first hand with cts I just couldn't do it any other way and I hope that does not sound ungrateful because I'm far from that. Alex of your going to long beach I'd be glad to spend some time explaining workflow items more in detail if you want.

[dirkdiggler]

not having to manage films and the headaches that come with it and the speed and accuracy are reasons enough to make the change, you really can't tell until you make the jump.  i dont know anyone who ever did it and went back.

[Dottonedan]

I'd like to speak on that a bit from the standpoint of someone who see's so many different shops that have had others brands and move up to ours, or those who have had our initial models and move up to the latest.

There are various s steps that this eliminates ad I could touch in each, but in a nutshell, I believe it to be a relief to start from finishing the art to then drop it in a folder and moments later, it's ib the screen room ready to print on a screen.

A couple things not touched on so much;

1, vector art (can be) completed by the artist and they don't have to "separate it" manually.

I've seen so many different setups. The most common is that rather than allowing the program or rip to do the separating, artist will have to copy the art for as many colors are in the art, select one copy of it, and change all but one color, convert that color to black,  change the other colors to process white and repeat for each other color. Then, they will either print each one at a time or gang them up on roll film. The time that it takes for the printers to print this film is very long. Then, strip it up on a carrier sheet with tabs for pin registration, then off to the screen room. You can finish an art file that is setup the same way it's supised to look (like you do for color mock ups) and send it to the RIP for it to separate it for you.

Then the screen room tapes it to the screen for exposing. All of that is eliminated. That's a major time consumer. You may have cut out 30 min.  Or more of "art prep time" alone per job.

For raster art, you still need to separate it as the RIP does not separate the raster into sim process seps. It does convert files to cmyk that simple tho.

There are many other benefits before you even start to look at how much money you are saving. There is the economic savings and there is the ease of the production flow. Two different things that have strong merit yet affect each other. Overall, It's just downright efficient no matter what brand you have.

2nd thing,
This is something not mentioned often, but considering the cost savings ( per screen), you could either keep your screen fees the same or, you can now decrease your screen fees making your co more attractive to the buyer. You could possibly take off 5.00 per screen and still cover and in some cases, profit on screen charges.
 

[Dottonedan]

Wow. As I had typed mine, all of that was being posted. Goes to show, there is so much, so many reasons TO GET ONE. It must be shorter to read if you had asked "what would be the reason NOT to get one. Lol.

[jvanick]

We are a small shop - read 40 or 50 screens a week during busy season.. and the time savings since we got the i-image are amazing.

Setup times are greatly reduced. We setup 4 different 3 color jobs yesterday and only had to micro one screen out of all of them.

There is absolutely no way that I would have gotten that done the old way.

We haven't printed a single registration mark either...

And... pinholes are greatly reduced due to no glass in the exposure unit as well as no films.

Now that we're dialing things in with the densitometer our half tones and gradients are improving too.

I never want to touch another piece of film ever again.

[screenprintguy]

We are a small shop - read 40 or 50 screens a week during busy season.. and the time savings since we got the i-image are amazing.

Setup times are greatly reduced. We setup 4 different 3 color jobs yesterday and only had to micro one screen out of all of them.

There is absolutely no way that I would have gotten that done the old way.

We haven't printed a single registration mark either...

And... pinholes are greatly reduced due to no glass in the exposure unit as well as no films.

Now that we're dialing things in with the densitometer our half tones and gradients are improving too.

I never want to touch another piece of film ever again.

That's awesome bro, glad you are getting the results you wanted!!!

[bimmridder]

I'm sure you'll get a ton of feed back here, Alex. My offer to stop in for a day (or more) is an open one. To you or anyone else interested. We can also show the wax and ink systems, the pros and cons of each, and why one might be better for you than the other. There are no simple answers. But much like Danny, I can't imagine being in this business without CTS. I've been saying that for over ten years. My door is always open.

[TCT]

Thanks for the input guys. I know it is something I would like to get. Danny's post just made me think of it in a different way. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone that went back to film, I wasn't questioning the functionality of it at all. I follow what is going on with them and their advantages pretty close. I just thought to myself I didn't remember specific things people enjoyed in particular(aside from savings on Scotch tape), it seemed like it was a overall love of everything about the system. Which I understand. Still I was/am curious.

So it sounds like(correct me if I'm wrong)
- minimal if any registration
- increased speed over all processes


I know eventually we will end up getting one. It is just hard to think of spending money on one now when we should of bought a new dryer and replaced our glorified 1 maybe 2 color red auto last year. I am not doubting that they are not worth every penny and the time savings will probably pay for itself very quickly. Guess I'm more of the 16yr old that wants a old Camaro that needs work over the safe and reliable Volvo...


Dan- side question, have you had to, or what is the procedure in setting one up in a shop that doesn't run M&R presses? I know Rich said he wouldn't modify them for other presses(I saw a  early one that M&R made for MHM's but I think it may of been a 1st generation) and I don't blame him one bit. But Dan if you were to come do a install, would you set it up and be off? I can't see you guys justifying(again totally understandable) staying around a half day or full day while we modify a unit so we can be shown how it works. Guess I'm a little curious how that would go?

Brimm- I am taking you up on your offer to stop by, I just can't promise it will be before you retire!

Danny- I will be at Long Beach, I may take you up on your offer. Who knows maybe I could show you how to improve your printing techniques!

[ericheartsu]

one more thing too, is that it eliminates alot of goof ups regaurding placement. All of your art is printed in the same spot on each screen.

So say you have a 10 color job, 2 of the 10 films could have been a little mis-aligned, 1 of the films could have shurnk or not printed right. With the CTS it's rare that a screen won't print right (rare, but it does happen). and even if it does, you can make another screen in under 2 minutes.

Like Danny, it's my favorite piece of equipment in the shop. But there is a small learning curve for it for sure.

[Alex M]

Alex,
Call me tomorrow about the I-image...o r we can speak in LB. I have a few things to show you on the I-image.

[DannyGruninger]

For a more specific reason and this is not top of the list by any means but since pineholes have been mentioned here I will say for me that was a certainly a big positive I saw going cts. When I was using film I felt that it was somewhat difficult keeping my exposure glass clean enough not to cause pinholes. Cleaning the glass was cumbersome to me as well as looking at every screen under light to check. Now with my cts and more specifically ste I have had only a few pinholes in the last year. I have guys who work for me that don't know what pinholes even are because it's no longer part of our process. Cts for me has eliminated several steps to "my process" so overall it creates savings upon savings upon taking more work and more work yadda yadda yadda lol......some shops that have everything dialed in using films cts is not the answer but for shops who might be struggling with one or more items or want to just easily increase the flow then cts is a smart move. It's not for everyone just like everything else in this world but for the mass majority of shops cts will increase all aspects of positive growth plain and simple. Put it this way a former employee of mine started his own shop with a partner after working in my shop for a few months and a 3 head I image ste2 was one of the first purchases they made. It's because he saw working in my shop cts allowed us to get more done then anywhere he's ever worked in his 30 yrs in business. I've had several shops come watch my shop run as I've allowed this to happen and after leaving they've all went and bought cts machines. It's allowed my shop to get more done for its size then I ever imagined and once people see it in person they feel the same. I've never been around many other shops but when we compare numbers it's usually surprising and I give lots of credit to cts + hardwork refining cts/cts workflow. But like I said it's not right for every situation, mine it was. When I started cts I was 15 screens a day, now I'm 65 screens a day some days doing 100-120, and in two months I will be at 200 a day but would not be possible without cts. I'll see ya in lb I'll be planning to drop by the day time meetup if we don't get tied up I'll be happy to answer questions if any come up

[GraphicDisorder]

Speed is what id echo most here.  I have been able to take last minute jobs that otherwise id either have to pass on or would have to work into the night to make screens for.  Generally doing this with zero added labor due to how fast it is, just have our guys output/burn that job while someone is setting up or breaking down the press.  Registration time savings as well, we were decent on film but CTS has been another level. 

I think for shops that have dedicated people for screens ONLY, CTS will be harder for them to wrap their head around it and it wont always make sense in that context. In our shop we only have 3 staffed people in our screen print department and they all need to be printing as much as possible.  BUT they also have to do all screen imaging/burning so the faster I can make the process the more jobs we can print that week.

It's nice that now each week basically 1 thing we barely worry about is screens.

[bimmridder]

Art files were a HUGE pain in the arse for us, pre-CTS. Finding and filing was almost a full time job, when we finally got around to doing it. There seemed to be time to do it, but I know that was my own fault. We have so many files it's insane. Right now we have over 19,000 files. Now they all reside on a server. Access to any file is a few keystrokes away. If we had film, Lord knows how much room this would take. That square footage is used for better purposes now. CTS is great. So is not having to deal with film.