I image ste

[Croft]

At what point would you consider one of these?  , qty of screens per day ?

 Is there a min they need just to keep the printing heads running smoothly

[ericheartsu]

this is a highly debated topic.

We've had one for over a year now, and not only is it easier in every way possible, but now that we've got our emulsion and machine dialed in, our screens are better than ever.

On average we do 15-20 screens, a day, Sunday to Friday.

[ZooCity]

Heck, I want one just so I can output final files and fuhgettaboutit.  Outputting, pinning, foldering and moving the folders to the screen room kinda bogs down art staff that are best served doing other work.  No sense paying your art staff to file clerks.

Watching the debates I now feel strongly that it's not really about your screen volume.  Don't get me wrong, it'd be dumb to invest so much in a machine like this if you are doing 5 screens a day.  However, the best benefits seem to come from other areas besides throughput.  I'm sure these CTS zealots on here will fill you in more but I see, in rough order of benefit- faster setups, shorter exposure times, better resolution as the big ones with perhaps the biggest of them all being the change you will be forced to make in the flow of art > screen.

[GraphicDisorder]

Depends on your situation I would say. If you have a dedicated screen staff I might not jump right in to one. If you are like my shop where my printers are also the screen people. CTS made our flow much better and it's saving me a dedicated screen person (cost more than a CTS). Every shop will be different. We are only doing about 100-125 screens a week. It made sense for us and id do it again without hesitation. Probably sooner knowing what I know now. 

There is some quality of life for your shop/employees/flow/etc that you can't find on a ROI.

[Dottonedan]

Agreed.  Some of the shops buy them for the ease of setups with Tri lock alone.  Customers buy STEII - 3 heads down to the ST 1head and may only do 20-50 screens a day.  One shops tells me they do 40 a day, but I've been there all day and have seen them only print 6 screens.  For many, I an ease of production flow. I guess if your a Co that does have the money, it's nice to improve your flow, if you are tight for $ we have options best suited for tighter budgets.

Things that they improve:

Image quality for most shops.
Supplied RIP and preview softare with dot gain control.
Options for density and speed control for type of art printing for fine detail or solid bold athletic prints.
Fast and great exposure times.
No film storage/archiving.
No more film cost.
No waiting time on film to print.
Artist focus on art and not printing films.
No waiting on screen room to strip up film into screens.
No lamp replacements every 6 months or year.
No broken exposure glass to replace.
No cleaning the glass to avoid pin holes.
for re-orders.just pull up from a file folder on computer or network archive by job number.
You can use your screen print production program on the same computer as machine so that screeb room can update everyone on status.
Ink cost can be .03-.17 cents per print.
Exact set ups as best as humanly possible.

Many that buy for the Tri lock ease  only, look at the ability to add a few more jobs out the door per day.
Some shops drop from setup times of 1 hr to 15 min easy. X however many jobs they can fit in per day, that allows them more production room at end of day. I'm s been said that alone, will pay for the machine quickly, all other benefits are icing and all the more reason.



There may be other benefits I'm overlooking.

[Zelko-4-EVA]

At what point would you consider one of these?  , qty of screens per day ?

 Is there a min they need just to keep the printing heads running smoothly

we bought the i-Image ST one year ago. its the two head model because the film printer was getting too old to fix, parts were too expensive, film was too expensive.  we were buying 3 or 4 rolls of 36" wide, waterproof film per month.

we average between 50-75 screens per day.

the printheads havent clogged or had any issues - even after leaving it on over a 3 day weekend.

we buy about one bottle of ink per month, sometimes two (depending upon the workload).



 

[Dottonedan]

(Quote) Is there a min they need just to keep the printing heads running smoothly?

No. If you do a nozzle check every day in the am, you can keep it ready all for that one day you need it. The inks are designed to not dry quickly. Takes a long time like a day or three to dry in the air. This is another reason why our heads don't have issues with clogging ink. If anything, it's air the gets trapped in the lines over time and needs purged out. Air can block a few jets and is why  you do nozzle checks every day. A lot of Air leaves streaks in solid prints. The only reason you get a lot of air is when leaving it off for long periods of time (days) and trying to print a screen right when you first start it up. You can leave it off for a week but you will need to purge some air out for a few minutes at first.  When it's on, it regulates air pressure and keeps negative pressure in the lines. It's often best to leave it run. It also will do an auto clean during the night.

[alan802]

The 4 manufacturers that I've personally spoken to have all given roughly the same number of screens for the average single/double auto shop and it's been consistently in the 40-50 screens per day mark.  I thought that over the years that number would come down a lot but that has always been the number given to me, as recently as a month ago.  By no means does that mean you should or shouldn't buy one if you're over/under that number, it depends a lot on how you operate with film, in my opinion.  Our numbers will not be the same as the shop that doesn't use a good regi system or struggles to handle/catalog film, and a myriad of other variables come into play.  If you think film is a hassle, you have long setup times and generally struggle during pre-press, I'd say cut that 40-50 mark in half.

[dirkdiggler]

if you can do it, do it, no matter how many screens you do.  thank me later.  I might just quit if I had to go back to film.

[jvanick]

depending on the time of year, we're doing anywhere between 15 and 25 screens a day... (this number fluctuates a lot).. but...

we love our slant i-image (even if we do have to deal with the epson quirks)

case in point, we set up a 8 color job today, and only had to touch 1 screen a smidge... total setup time was about 40 minutes from starting to tape the screens to the first shirt loaded.

with film, there's absolutely no way we would have been able to do it that fast.

Plus my back loves the fact that there's no regi marks to tape.

if I had to go back to film, I'd quit... no questions asked.

we still use film for our cap film jobs (24 mesh with 400 micron stencil), and it sucks.

[dirkdiggler]

and the day you trade in that slant, best day of your life, you cant imagine how much better it is until you do it.

[Maxie]

All I read about is the I Image.      Is it the best CTS in the market?
How reliable is it?
How much servicing does it require?
I don't think there are any in Israel and I don't think the M&R agent will know anything about the unit.

[Frog]

All I read about is the I Image.      Is it the best CTS in the market?
How reliable is it?
How much servicing does it require?
I don't think there are any in Israel and I don't think the M&R agent will know anything about the unit.

Betcha if that's true, it will change next week!

[ZooCity]

Is the STEII basically a one way trip for the screen?  That is, will it start printing the next screen while screen 1 is in the expo bay?  My guess is you need to separate the imaging from expo if you have a fast imaging CTS and long exposure times. 

We're in that 15-30 screens a day range currently.  Those of you in that area of throughput, roughly how much screen room labor would you say a CTS replaces?  20hr/week, etc.

Great thread with solid talk about this technology, that's refreshing. 

[ericheartsu]

Is the STEII basically a one way trip for the screen?  That is, will it start printing the next screen while screen 1 is in the expo bay?  My guess is you need to separate the imaging from expo if you have a fast imaging CTS and long exposure times. 

We're in that 15-30 screens a day range currently.  Those of you in that area of throughput, roughly how much screen room labor would you say a CTS replaces?  20hr/week, etc.

Great thread with solid talk about this technology, that's refreshing.

The STe II is not what you are asking about. It's essentially the same as the STE, just has a giant bay of LED lights (which if i'm not mistaken is the exact same size as the starlight), in the back. One thing we are finding, is that there are a ton of different settings, not only for exposure, but also for printing. We now have three different print settings depending on the complexity of the design.

but anyway, you have to print, then you have an option of exposing with the LED light strip up front, or the back bay.

Most M&R techs know some things about the STEs, but for the most part, it's a different division. Our M&R territory sales manager was a M&R tech for a long time, before stepping into his new role of regional sales, and he only knows the basics on the STEs.