All in one press/dryer?

[tonypep]

Joe Clarke

[Nation03]

JC?
What is everyone's opinion of the best 110 volt dryer on the market?

If it were me, I'd go with the Vastex D-1000. As small as it is, at least is has a 26" wide belt so loading shirts on there won't be as big of a drag then on the D-100 (18" belt). And for a home operation it seems easy to move around and it won't take up much space. I guess the main downside is no exhaust, but if it's not bitter cold in your area, just pop open some windows or the garage door haha. 

[Crazy Mike]

If you go to a small dryer you my want to use low temp cure inks.

[Prince Art]

As for 110 dryers, I don't even know what units are available. But if it was my only option, here are a couple things I'd investigate:

1. For the money, is it really much of an improvement on just curing shirts with a flash unit? At least a couple of companies make stands for flash units that allow multiple shirts to be cured via flash in a carousel manner. (Far from my preference, but I'd hate to spend a lot more money for the same performance in a mini-dryer.) But this is only relevant to the idea of using 1 tiny, slow dryer. So...

2. I'd look at the time it took to get a good cure on the 110 dryers out there. If it was abysmally slow, I would consider getting TWO of them, and use both. Either set up so that all shirts go through both; or, run them side by side; or, stack one on top of the other (if space was super tight.) (Run on different outlets/circuits.)

3. I've seen at least one standalone conveyor unit out there (no dryer attached) - may have been on eBay. I'd even consider getting one of these, getting 2 or 3 110 flash units, plugged into different circuits, and constructing some kind of  tunnel around them. (Plenum board?)

The bottom line is there's just no way I'd want to reduce my printing output to something like 30 shirts an hour, if the dryer was the bottleneck. I'd be thinking as far outside of the box as I had to to be able to cure as fast I could print.

If you go to a small dryer you my want to use low temp cure inks.

^This too! Very good advice.

[Maxie]

 Saw a great dryer made for DTG.
Looks like a chest of drawers.
The draws had a metal screen base and it had hot air circulating through the draws.
You lay a shirt in a draw and let it cure, no moving belt.
This system can cure plastisol, water base and discharge.
Also compact, the draws need to be the size of a shirt.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Hmmm didn't think about low cure inks... who makes them?

[Nation03]

I just got a gallon of One Strokes ELT-S series. Cures at 270. I'm more than impressed with it. Prints really well and stretches really well. It's pricy at close to $150 per gallon, but it's awesome ink for sure.

[Frog]

not knocking the One Stroke, but, of course, there are also low cure additives for standard inks available from International Coatings, and probably others.

[Prosperi-Tees]

What are the drawbacks to low cure additives besides probably not a great idea when it's 110 degrees in the shop I would imagine. Any issues with durability etc?.

[Homer]

thinking outside the box here, I wouldn't be bothered by any of this. I remember working in a small confined area and it was brutal. I would invest my money in 2 or 3 really nice heat presses, get set up with a decent transfer supplier and go that route. No press, no dryer, no inks, no chemicals. On top of that, find a quality contract shop and send out the large orders. Focus on selling, not printing.

[RICK STEFANICK]

OK, Tons of options. If you are going to be manually printing BBC INDUSTRIES has a few dryer options that will keep up and cure just fine without all these additives and ink mods. I'm assuming your going into a small space you need to keep it simple, clean and efficient. Just like Jason said small spaces can be miserable and that is the truth. If you have to start moving around modifying inks , keeping more inventory etc. its gonna suck week number 2.

[Frog]

What are the drawbacks to low cure additives besides probably not a great idea when it's 110 degrees in the shop I would imagine. Any issues with durability etc?.

These are just knocking down the cure by twenty or thirty degrees. 110 in the shop ain't gonna' do a thing except make you question your choice of location for this profession.
And no, I haven't seen or heard about any durability issues.

[Crazy Mike]

We have been using only the One Stroke ELT-S ink for 18 months.
Everybody likes them here. Also they are only 90 miles from us which helps.
Helps that we don't have to over heat all the poly stuff we have to print.

[Crazy Mike]

One thing you could do is flash dry shirts, stack them and then finish curing
with a hot press. This way you can get by with one 20A 110 outlet if you
only have the flash or hot press on one at a time.

[Nation03]

thinking outside the box here, I wouldn't be bothered by any of this. I remember working in a small confined area and it was brutal. I would invest my money in 2 or 3 really nice heat presses, get set up with a decent transfer supplier and go that route. No press, no dryer, no inks, no chemicals. On top of that, find a quality contract shop and send out the large orders. Focus on selling, not printing.

I like this idea. I always told myself if I ever went back to a home operation, I'd probably ditch screen printing and just do a nice DTG setup and find a niche. Might be my retirement plan lol.