Laser to Screen (LTS)

[blue moon]

MFG specs the laser life at 10k+ hrs. At current output that is btwn 10-15 years BTW.

That may be at one shops current output, but the average output (for a typical shop that can/need to buy lasers)  is double that production.  That boils down to 5-6 years roughly.

FYI Price wise, 3 head STE and a Saati laser are close in price, way closer than ive seen posted in this thread. So if you are already considering a 3 head STE, you are already in the ball park of a Laser, they are less than 10k apart.

For me right now, wax seems like the move. Just to be honest.

As Dot Tone Dan mentioned, humidity issues go away with a wax unit. Depending on your setup (if your CTS is in the screen room where you are drying them), being able to run a dehumidifier and not worry about dried up heads could be a big deal.

We are running the the wax unit and are pretty happy with it.

pierre

[blue moon]

MFG specs the laser life at 10k+ hrs. At current output that is btwn 10-15 years BTW.

That may be at one shops current output, but the average output (for a typical shop that can/need to buy lasers)  is double that production.  That boils down to 5-6 years roughly.

FYI Price wise, 3 head STE and a Saati laser are close in price, way closer than ive seen posted in this thread. So if you are already considering a 3 head STE, you are already in the ball park of a Laser, they are less than 10k apart.

For me right now, wax seems like the move. Just to be honest.

I think your only reason for changing at all goes back to A, Production increase.  B, Quality increase (if you can).

If I understand you correctly, you will want to stay with exposing on the current outside source (outside the machine) because you don't believe that there is much difference in time from taking a screen off, walking it over a few steps and exposing...then back to machine and printing another.  Once you package everything together, THIS part is what will really make the difference over ALL LASER CTS.
Doesn't matter if you get Laser, or Wet ink  or even WAX. (is there WAX that exposes on the machine?) If it can expose ON the machine, that's increases production. There's a time saving factor there.

Yes we will still use a starlight if we went wax. For me that seems fine, load a screen into the wax machine, image it, take screen out, put new screen in start the image, put first screen on starlight, expose it. Repeat. It will be a fluid flow there I believe. It should be able to out run us by far right now even. What we may do is add a eco rise to help with developing the image to speed that up too.

eco rinse is a great piece when you have the volume. We have one person doing everything screen related (de-ink, remove tape, reclaim, coat, image, expose and tape) and can do 100+ screens per day.
eco rinse makes a huge difference in time and quality of life. Not having to use the pressure washer makes your screen guys life soooo much better.

pj

For sure. We dont use pressure washer to delevope them now though, just post expose tank and a quick hit of water.

you might not see the benefits then. you still have to walk the screens to the unit, secure them, close the doors, start the process. It all takes a tiny bit of time. If your rinse is 15-20 seconds, the advantage might not be worth it. If you are spending a min or so, then yes.

pj

[bimmridder]

eco rinse is a great piece when you have the volume. We have one person doing everything screen related (de-ink, remove tape, reclaim, coat, image, expose and tape) and can do 100+ screens per day.
eco rinse makes a huge difference in time and quality of life. Not having to use the pressure washer makes your screen guys life soooo much better.

I still think there is a much better option

[blue moon]

eco rinse is a great piece when you have the volume. We have one person doing everything screen related (de-ink, remove tape, reclaim, coat, image, expose and tape) and can do 100+ screens per day.
eco rinse makes a huge difference in time and quality of life. Not having to use the pressure washer makes your screen guys life soooo much better.

I still think there is a much better option

don't be stingy, SHARE!

pj

[bimmridder]

If room allows, and you do a "large" (I don't know what justifies large) the Bluewater Labs developer is nice. My screen girl pulls a screen from exposure unit and set it on the conveyor. One step away.  Doesn't get touched again until person that tapes pulls it off conveyor in taping area. Dry and ready to tape.

But don't let this derail the thread. It's about LTS still

[blue moon]

If room allows, and you do a "large" (I don't know what justifies large) the Bluewater Labs developer is nice. My screen girl pulls a screen from exposure unit and set it on the conveyor. One step away.  Doesn't get touched again until person that tapes pulls it off conveyor in taping area. Dry and ready to tape.

that does look nice! You happy with it?

pj

[GraphicDisorder]

MFG specs the laser life at 10k+ hrs. At current output that is btwn 10-15 years BTW.

That may be at one shops current output, but the average output (for a typical shop that can/need to buy lasers)  is double that production.  That boils down to 5-6 years roughly.

FYI Price wise, 3 head STE and a Saati laser are close in price, way closer than ive seen posted in this thread. So if you are already considering a 3 head STE, you are already in the ball park of a Laser, they are less than 10k apart.

For me right now, wax seems like the move. Just to be honest.

As Dot Tone Dan mentioned, humidity issues go away with a wax unit. Depending on your setup (if your CTS is in the screen room where you are drying them), being able to run a dehumidifier and not worry about dried up heads could be a big deal.

We are running the the wax unit and are pretty happy with it.

pierre

We don't have a screen room. Our entire screen print department other than artists are out in the warehouse, 45-115 temp all year around.

[tonypep]

If room allows, and you do a "large" (I don't know what justifies large) the Bluewater Labs developer is nice. My screen girl pulls a screen from exposure unit and set it on the conveyor. One step away.  Doesn't get touched again until person that tapes pulls it off conveyor in taping area. Dry and ready to tape.

But don't let this derail the thread. It's about LTS still

I thought this thread was about electric cars

[Evo]

I thought this thread was about electric cars

Sure.

How many screens per day can a Tesla develop vs a Rivian?

[Dottonedan]

As Dot Tone Dan mentioned, humidity issues go away with a wax unit. Depending on your setup (if your CTS is in the screen room where you are drying them), being able to run a dehumidifier and not worry about dried up heads could be a big deal.We are running the the wax unit and are pretty happy with it.pierre

Let me also say, (the idea that there is a concern for heads drying up), is not currently legit.  The ink "issue" was only on one type of ink that is now not used. Not used since about 3 years now. But when they were using it and people were seeing "ink" issues, It was not ALL drying issues. It was in both directions. Using the same ink, some environments were too wet/humid that allowed the screens to be too damp on the surface and the ink would not bond like it should, ...while in other shop environments were too dry (using the same ink).  This made it very difficult to identify how to treat it. The window of good opportunity was very small. This also caused Debre buildup in a faster amount of time and added to clogging heads/dried junk in and around the heads that required much more cleaning maintenance. Nobody likes cleaning.

WAX, doesn't rely on water and makes this a nice benefit.  However, Extreme environments of high heat may play a role in the quality of the screen stencil if kept in that environment for a long time.  Extreme heat may be 100-120 degrees may soften and gravity may elongate the image to a very small degree.  (and I've seen some screen rooms that were really hot near 110-120 but also very humid). As you can imagine, this may affect the wax integrity slightly while sitting on the screen, standing vertically against the wall for very long before exposure.  Don't stack and let them pile up and remain in the heat for extreme amounts of time if you're in a very hot environment. Doesn't happen?  Well, there are some shops that do 1000 screens a day (2 shifts) so, there's a lot of sitting around if you get too far ahead on screens.  If using wax, this might get into being a problem but for 95% of wax users, not a problem.

[GraphicDisorder]

As Dot Tone Dan mentioned, humidity issues go away with a wax unit. Depending on your setup (if your CTS is in the screen room where you are drying them), being able to run a dehumidifier and not worry about dried up heads could be a big deal.We are running the the wax unit and are pretty happy with it.pierre

Let me also say, (the idea that there is a concern for heads drying up), is not currently legit.  The ink "issue" was only on one type of ink that is now not used. Not used since about 3 years now. But when they were using it and people were seeing "ink" issues, It was not ALL drying issues. It was in both directions. Using the same ink, some environments were too wet/humid that allowed the screens to be too damp on the surface and the ink would not bond like it should, ...while in other shop environments were too dry (using the same ink).  This made it very difficult to identify how to treat it. The window of good opportunity was very small. This also caused Debre buildup in a faster amount of time and added to clogging heads/dried junk in and around the heads that required much more cleaning maintenance. Nobody likes cleaning.

WAX, doesn't rely on water and makes this a nice benefit.  However, Extreme environments of high heat may play a role in the quality of the screen stencil if kept in that environment for a long time.  Extreme heat may be 100-120 degrees may soften and gravity may elongate the image to a very small degree.  (and I've seen some screen rooms that were really hot near 110-120 but also very humid). As you can imagine, this may affect the wax integrity slightly while sitting on the screen, standing vertically against the wall for very long before exposure.  Don't stack and let them pile up and remain in the heat for extreme amounts of time if you're in a very hot environment. Doesn't happen?  Well, there are some shops that do 1000 screens a day (2 shifts) so, there's a lot of sitting around if you get too far ahead on screens.  If using wax, this might get into being a problem but for 95% of wax users, not a problem.

Fair points, Mark seems to think we'd be fine, we dont stack screens really either, we basicially image them right away.  I haven't 1000% made up my mind but most likely going to give the Wax a go. Spoke with some laser users, its bleeding edge.

[Dottonedan]

You will of course have to re-rip all of the saved.prt files again in the new RIP that would be re-orders from the old printer. .prt don't read as .tif's and they don't load the same way. Orientation is different.
To me, re-ripping has never been an issue. Short time.  But there will be a difference in halftone output when comparing the wax with what you're accustom to in the I-Image. If I remember right, you were using some curves from DannyG that were pretty open in the shadow tones.  The wax machine has a little more gain than the I-Image in the shadow tones (1 head to 1 head comparison) so be sure to look at that and adjust accordingly. It's not a problem. You just need to find the sweet spot that looks similar. Using a good curve provided by someone else or the default it comes with, won't be good to match back to what you were doing. So re-orders need some care.

[cleveprint]

We put a Douthitt in back in winter of '21. 95% of the stuff we print is spot color. Maybe 20 sim process jobs a year. So me going down the dot rabbit hole is not really worth the time or effort to be honest. But what we have produced blows our mind compared to film.

The only thing I can say about the wax machine is that it is as close to maintenance free as you can possibly get. Turn on, print, add wax every 100 screens or so, turn off. Rinse, repeat. A little grease every 6 months in 5 spots. We had a few vacuum issues that were user error adding wax too early and was solved very quickly. Mark and John are unbelievable. One text and you have a call back within the hour from someone.

We wanted the least amount of hassle possible when we bought our first CTS. Im sure the other brands are similar, but our unit is a workhorse. Maintenance free, easily fixed if something does go wrong and top notch customer service. If i had an unlimited budget and time to research, I think Id still end up where we are now for our shop.

[Orion]

As Dot Tone Dan mentioned, humidity issues go away with a wax unit. Depending on your setup (if your CTS is in the screen room where you are drying them), being able to run a dehumidifier and not worry about dried up heads could be a big deal.We are running the the wax unit and are pretty happy with it.pierre

Let me also say, (the idea that there is a concern for heads drying up), is not currently legit.  The ink "issue" was only on one type of ink that is now not used. Not used since about 3 years now. But when they were using it and people were seeing "ink" issues, It was not ALL drying issues. It was in both directions. Using the same ink, some environments were too wet/humid that allowed the screens to be too damp on the surface and the ink would not bond like it should, ...while in other shop environments were too dry (using the same ink).  This made it very difficult to identify how to treat it. The window of good opportunity was very small. This also caused Debre buildup in a faster amount of time and added to clogging heads/dried junk in and around the heads that required much more cleaning maintenance. Nobody likes cleaning.

WAX, doesn't rely on water and makes this a nice benefit.  However, Extreme environments of high heat may play a role in the quality of the screen stencil if kept in that environment for a long time.  Extreme heat may be 100-120 degrees may soften and gravity may elongate the image to a very small degree.  (and I've seen some screen rooms that were really hot near 110-120 but also very humid). As you can imagine, this may affect the wax integrity slightly while sitting on the screen, standing vertically against the wall for very long before exposure.  Don't stack and let them pile up and remain in the heat for extreme amounts of time if you're in a very hot environment. Doesn't happen?  Well, there are some shops that do 1000 screens a day (2 shifts) so, there's a lot of sitting around if you get too far ahead on screens.  If using wax, this might get into being a problem but for 95% of wax users, not a problem.

Fair points, Mark seems to think we'd be fine, we dont stack screens really either, we basicially image them right away.  I haven't 1000% made up my mind but most likely going to give the Wax a go. Spoke with some laser users, its bleeding edge.

The wax is water soluble, I would worry more about storing printed screens in humidity than in heat. The melting point of wax is well above 200 degrees.

[inkman996]

Wet ink still has environmental issues. If we do not moisten our screens before printing with the I Image the ink spreads out when being sprayed on a screen to dry. We tried setting up a humidifier several times but it never worked so we wipe the screen with a lightly damp rag before hitting print. Works perfectly. I think our issue is because our screen room is AC and that really drys the air up.