"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day. we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
Quote from: ffokazak on October 09, 2018, 05:55:35 PMWe have an ST . Difference is amount of print heads. ST can have up to three. Also the obvious gantry system. Best move I ever made was cutting my two head down to one head. M&R helped with the transition. Reason is, you are only risking one head. If an employee strikes it, its about 1100$ . Not 2200$Clogging, heads wearing out etc are part of ownership. get prepared to spend on new heads. We've got 2 years from heads before. Plus, calibration Everything seems to slip a bit in our industry over time. it doesn't make it broken, it just needs calibration. A one head machine is really zero calibration. there is nothing to line up. The image quality we saw from a one head machine is far more crisp than our two head setup ever was. Dots are perfect and there is less downtime. If you are running 500 plus screens a day, sure you need the speed. But with a creative workflow, the single head didnt slow us down very much at all. Vs film it is still far far superior for quality, pinholes and time. If I need to replace, the single head in the S wouldn't be a detrimental factor.This above. We do daily cleanings and we are only about 60 screens or so a day but be prepared for a yearly head replacement. Plus the service tech / hotel / airplane tixs unless you do it yourself. But that will be across all machines since they are machines. And when we do start to average over 100 screens a day we plan on two machines instead of a single faster one. Same reasons as above and if one goes down (which it will sooner or later) you still have the other. We still keep our film output running once a week and if I had a dollar for every time that machine has saved us I would be on vacation now.
We have an ST . Difference is amount of print heads. ST can have up to three. Also the obvious gantry system. Best move I ever made was cutting my two head down to one head. M&R helped with the transition. Reason is, you are only risking one head. If an employee strikes it, its about 1100$ . Not 2200$Clogging, heads wearing out etc are part of ownership. get prepared to spend on new heads. We've got 2 years from heads before. Plus, calibration Everything seems to slip a bit in our industry over time. it doesn't make it broken, it just needs calibration. A one head machine is really zero calibration. there is nothing to line up. The image quality we saw from a one head machine is far more crisp than our two head setup ever was. Dots are perfect and there is less downtime. If you are running 500 plus screens a day, sure you need the speed. But with a creative workflow, the single head didnt slow us down very much at all. Vs film it is still far far superior for quality, pinholes and time. If I need to replace, the single head in the S wouldn't be a detrimental factor.
Quote from: Zelko-4-EVA on October 10, 2018, 02:42:43 PMour 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day. we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%. That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?
Quote from: brandon on October 10, 2018, 03:21:37 PMQuote from: Zelko-4-EVA on October 10, 2018, 02:42:43 PMour 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day. we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%. That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?T6 is just an updated type K, they are made by the same manufacture and M&R will likely switch you to it once they "go through the list". The S was one of the last two projects released while I was still with M&R, it is a great machine for the money as you are getting 90% of a 1 head ST WITH a smaller format! This is a huge advantage for most shops looking at CTS. i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K.
Quote from: brandon on October 10, 2018, 03:21:37 PMQuote from: Zelko-4-EVA on October 10, 2018, 02:42:43 PMour 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day. we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%. That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K.
Quote from: Zelko-4-EVA on October 11, 2018, 06:56:15 AMQuote from: brandon on October 10, 2018, 03:21:37 PMQuote from: Zelko-4-EVA on October 10, 2018, 02:42:43 PMour 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day. we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%. That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K. That's great. The D2 that came with ours just ate the head alive. The T6 is way better but still has issues. Maybe on our next head replacement we go back to K ha!
What ink comes standard in the I-IMAGE? K UV Blocking ink?
Quote from: RICK STEFANICK on October 15, 2018, 11:09:51 AMWhat ink comes standard in the I-IMAGE? K UV Blocking ink?M&R can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the T6 now.
another question on the ST how easy is it to gang orders up on opposite ends of a screen, I know the one end may not be trilocable but would be something I would need. We gang screens up very often which creates extra revenue.Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.