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RichardGreaves · April 18th, 2007

Low and slow is best. Low temperature for longer - so the heat can penetrate the ink film and heat up the shirt under the ink where the ink bonds to the shirt. It does no good to cure the surface of the ink, but be in a hurry to move on and the contact point where the ink touches the shirt is not heated enough. Imagine cooking hamburgers or pancakes only on one side.

Another lesson is to pre-heat your home oven to 320°F and put a shirt in it for 10 minutes. No damage. The shirt can handle it. But if you take the shirt to 360 - 370 you saw the damage to the shirt when you scorched it.

The danger with flash panel units is that they are actually between 900 and 1200°F like any infra-red panel. Too long under the panel and the shirt goes to 400+°F and you start to see smoke.

Mark Twain wrote, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." If all you have is an IR panel, you can do excellent work, it's just more time consuming and and more nerve racking.

It takes the same amount of time to cure your ink, you just don't have the ability to automate and let the speed of the belt control the exact time you want the shirt to be heated while you are doing something else. You have to nurse the curing of each shirt. Get some sort of count down timer that you can set to 30 seconds or 34 seconds or 68 seconds. Your time will vary. You have to test with our own thermometer.

Remember, your IR thermometer reads different colors differently. When you put a shirt in your home oven, use a white shirt and a black shirt and measure them both when you whip open the oven door. You know they are the same temperature, but I bet they will read differently.

The ink doesn't know if the heat is coming from an IR panel in a $30K oven or a $10 hand iron. If you have two panels, you can print and flash your underbase as the flash unit is supposed to, and cure your shirt at a lower temperature with a cookie sheet under the shirt - for a longer time, with your second unit.

If you bake cookies, how is it that you can burn the bottoms and the tops are not cooked - the cookie sheet, heats up and cooks the bottom while the burner cooks the top.

April 18th, 2007	- #4 (permalink)
RichardGreaves T-Shirt Lover T-Shirt Ninja You can call me: Greaves Member Since: Nov 2006 Location: Brooklyn, NY Posts: 848 Thanks: 4 Thanked 54 Times in 45 Posts	Re: Two Flash Units not Two dryers! Low and slow is best. Low temperature for longer - so the heat can penetrate the ink film and heat up the shirt under the ink where the ink bonds to the shirt. It does no good to cure the surface of the ink, but be in a hurry to move on and the contact point where the ink touches the shirt is not heated enough. Imagine cooking hamburgers or pancakes only on one side. Another lesson is to pre-heat your home oven to 320°F and put a shirt in it for 10 minutes. No damage. The shirt can handle it. But if you take the shirt to 360 - 370 you saw the damage to the shirt when you scorched it. The danger with flash panel units is that they are actually between 900 and 1200°F like any infra-red panel. Too long under the panel and the shirt goes to 400+°F and you start to see smoke. Mark Twain wrote, "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." If all you have is an IR panel, you can do excellent work, it's just more time consuming and and more nerve racking. It takes the same amount of time to cure your ink, you just don't have the ability to automate and let the speed of the belt control the exact time you want the shirt to be heated while you are doing something else. You have to nurse the curing of each shirt. Get some sort of count down timer that you can set to 30 seconds or 34 seconds or 68 seconds. Your time will vary. You have to test with our own thermometer. Remember, your IR thermometer reads different colors differently. When you put a shirt in your home oven, use a white shirt and a black shirt and measure them both when you whip open the oven door. You know they are the same temperature, but I bet they will read differently. The ink doesn't know if the heat is coming from an IR panel in a $30K oven or a $10 hand iron. If you have two panels, you can print and flash your underbase as the flash unit is supposed to, and cure your shirt at a lower temperature with a cookie sheet under the shirt - for a longer time, with your second unit. If you bake cookies, how is it that you can burn the bottoms and the tops are not cooked - the cookie sheet, heats up and cooks the bottom while the burner cooks the top. __________________ How are you measuring? Ulano Technical Product Manager - NYC Last edited by RichardGreaves; April 18th, 2007 at 05:08 AM.
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