Which direction do you print in?

[Maxie]

I recently visited a friend and noticed that he was printing with the flood bar on the outside and the squeegee on the inside.     Print stroke in to out.     I have always printed the other way, squeegee of the outside printing, out to in.    I assumed that this was the way to print.
How do you print and does it make a difference?   We were both printing on MHMs.

[jvanick]

being able to print from the inside out would be great for things like hoodies, henleys, etc so that you don't run over the buttons or edges.

unfortunately most presses don't support operation like that (at least not without modificiation)

be happy that your press offers it!

[brandon]

A certain man from Texas has talked about this forever. And. I'm almost 99% certain John Sheridan on here has modified a M&R press before to do this. Or posted instructions on how to.

[Maxie]

Does the M&R press only print in one direction?
If which one?
On the MHM you can switch between the flood bar and the squeegee.    I thought this was standard.

[brandon]

To make sure we are talking about the same thing you are basically saying a pull stroke vs a push stroke, correct? Sorry, operating on limited sleep today

[jvanick]

I think he means that the print carriage is running opposite of how most presses are setup...

that is the print stroke starts at the 'inside' of the platen and travels towards the outside...

[brandon]

Ah. I'm really sleep deprived today haha. 7 month old and a 14 year old lab up all night. Anyway,  you can print either way then on M&R presses then as far as I know. That would be the fill / flood position for water base inks. We are in a high humidity environment and use thin thread so we print like plastisol though. But I do know that man from Texas modified his presses in Mexico to print with a "push" instead of a "pull."

[jsheridan]

A certain man from Texas has talked about this forever. And. I'm almost 99% certain John Sheridan on here has modified a M&R press before to do this. Or posted instructions on how to.

Yes I did modify a Formula to print with a push stroke. It worked, however I never got to use it for a production run as it was a mere test to see if it was possible.

It required some setup and worked best with harder blades.

[jvanick]

Ah. I'm really sleep deprived today haha. 7 month old and a 14 year old lab up all night. Anyway,  you can print either way then on M&R presses then as far as I know. That would be the fill / flood position for water base inks. We are in a high humidity environment and use thin thread so we print like plastisol though. But I do know that man from Texas modified his presses in Mexico to print with a "push" instead of a "pull."

'front' flood position doesn't do anything for the print stroke... it prints exactly the same way except that it floods immediately after the print stroke finishes.

what he wants to do is put the squeegee where you normally have the flood bar and have the press 'print' backwards.

[brandon]

John posted so yeah, you can modify it.

[jvanick]

I believe you'd take steps to modify a print head to do so:

swap the flood and print choppers (or air hoses -- however M&R uses different size air hoses, so you'd have to dig into the head to do so)

swap the front and rear proxes so the machine 'thinks' it's still running correctly.

change the direction of the carriage drive motor since I believe those motors are 3phase, just swap any of the 2 phases on the motor (if it's a A/C motor sytem), or swap the air hoses on the stroke cylinder.

certainly not a 'software' or easy to change over option.

[Maxie]

WIth the MHM you can put the squeegee and flood bar in either the front or back holder so you can print in both directions, this is not pushing, I would call pushing what you can do by hand, having the squeegee at a angle going away from you.
With water base you can flood after the print, with plastisol we normally flood just before the print.
I'll try and post a video tomorrow.

[DannyGruninger]

Yeah with all our roqs you have the option to print either direction. It's just a matter of one selection in the control panel then swapping your flood/squeegee bars. We've done a small amount of printing this way and didn't see any differences in the prints.

[Binkspot]

Our press will print from the center out, just a matter of selecting the proper menu items. Used it often on uniforms to get sponsor names close to a shoulder seam or above pocket.
As far a changing your machine, don't think it would be as simple as swapping some hoses and wires. The press would be looking for the wrong prox switch.

[brandon]

From what I remember from years and years ago is the printer I was mentioning in Mexico did this as his shop was primarily plastisol with heavy volume. Harley and other big name accounts. He was printing with less pressure and according to him saving about 20% on ink costs by laying less down. That adds up over time. He is a pretty serious guy so I don't think he would be pulling numbers out of the air.