Discuss the different types of equipment needed for screen printing. Topics include manual screen printing presses, automatic presses, dryers, folding machines, starter kits and high end machines.
Hi all. I'm about to place my order on several units of Quartz flash cures. Should I get the printhead mounted or those with independent stands? May I know what are the pros and cons? The price is the same for both. Thanks.
Thanks for the replies. This is for my TAS Hawk Compact 14/12. I placed an order for 4 units of Adelco Quartz Flash with stand, but I still have time to change the configuration. I read somewhere in this forum that the stand has to be completely level and parallel to the pallet. This is easily done but what if we need to swith flashcure position, say from 1 position to another? Then we need to level the flash unit everytime we do this?
Hi 13Graphics, I'm still waiting for the delivery of my auto so I'm also not familiar with how it works, but from what I understood, a flashcure with stand doesn't free up any print arms, as the flash cure gets in the way of the screen and squeegee/floodbar. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
We have in-head flash units now and had stand units on our old press. I like the in-head flash better. Ours is much lighter and easier to move from one head to the other, by one person. I don't know how heavy the tas flashes are, but if you can move them around with just one person I would go with them. If not, go with the flash on the stand.
Thanks Alan. We may not be using all four units at the same time all the time. Isn't it cumbersome, and the units prone to damage when they're constantly installed and taken out frequently? That's my concern about mounted (in-head?) flashes. Is my concern valid? Can you please share where to best store the extra in-head flashes when you want to free up a few arms? Sorry if the question sounds silly, I just don't know how fragile the bulbs are.
I guess if your not careful you could damage them. The quartz bulbs are fairly covered and protected. Our flash units don't weight but about 30-40 pounds so they are easy to take in and out, with easy grip handles on the top of them. If your getting four flash units you'll probably have 2 of them out of the press at all times. I don't know if they are "hard wired" like ours are or if they disconnect completely. I pull ours out and lay them on the ground out of the way. We have plenty of extra slack in our electrical wiring to allow me to put them out of our way, and we have plenty of room in our shop. I would go with 3 flashes on a 12 color press and wouldn't consider 4 until I got to 16 colors. I guess if you insist on flashing after every color then you could possibly use all 4 but you'll be limited to maybe 5 colors if you allow for a cool down station between each flash and print wet on wet for 2 screens. We have a 10 color and 2 flashes is plenty for us and we print 4-7 colors all the time. I've printed 9 colors on light and 7 on dark garments with our configuration.
I guess it all depends on how easy the flashes are to move in and out. If they are remotely close to what we have in size and weight, then I would go with in-head flashes. I can't find any info on the flash units on their website so I can't get an idea of how cumbersome or heavy they might be.
Alan, I appreciate all your inputs. We do a lot of flash curing on our manual. How can we print wet on wet without using retensionables? Our frame can only hold 25-26 newtons of screen, beyond that, the screens pop very easily. With the auto, we're planning to max the use of the 4 flashcures. and in case we need more colors, we plan to reduce the use of flashcure units and go roto. I'd really appreciate it if you can provide me tips on how to print 10 colors using 2 flash units. Thanks much.
Oh, I decided to go ahead and order my flashes with stand, as our space isn't all that big. Thanks again.
I've found that with the static aluminums you can achieve a great print, wet on wet with anything above 20 newtons. Obviously, 30-35 is better, but over the years here at our shop, we have been able get great prints with statics under 20, but it is so much harder to accomplish. I would say that if your screens are in the 20's, newton wise, you should be fine with most wet on wet printing.
Now, that leads us to the next issue that will arise when trying to do WOW, your ink. Not all inks are suitable for the auto, and wow printing. As a matter of fact, most don't have the proper characteristics to keep them from building up on the backsides of subsequent screens. I'll give you some examples of the inks we have had issues with wow, union maxopaque, qcm xolb, printers choice to name a few. The more "opaque"/thicker your ink, the harder it is to keep them from building up. The key is to find the right ink that will allow you to have great opacity, but not pick up or smear on your next screen. And, sometimes the key to a good top color's opacity is the proper underbase. That's a whole other can of worms. I like the wilflex genesis series, qcm WOW series of inks, and the union autoline was nice, but I don't think they make that anymore, and the union ultrasoft is OK, but tends to smear easily if you don't have the proper screen tension and off-contact, it's almost too soft.
One think alot of ink salesmen don't tell you is whether the ink is made for manual printing or auto. I guess they really don't care and figure it's up to you to figure that out. I found out the hard way on the qcm xolb line of ink, I bought some a few months ago and printed golden yellow (ICC), brite red (QCM), then black, on a white shirt, WOW on printheads 8, 9, and 10. After about 36 shirts, I noticed the print was out of registration so I went to look at the screens and sure enough, the black screen had so much red buildup, about 1/16", that it had affected the final print, only after 36 shirts. QCM inks are about as good as they get, but I didn't have luck with that series of ink on our auto. I can't tell you if anyone else has had that problem, I haven't read that anywhere, but it happened at our shop, so we can't use it on the auto without flashing directly after it. I haven't really discussed this with Colin at QCM yet, which I probably should have before typing this.
On a typical 4-5 color job on darks on our 10 color, I'll put the underbase in 1, flash on 2, one-two open printheads, 2nd color on 5, 3rd color on 6, flash on 7, at least one more open printhead, then final two colors on 9 and/or 10. I try not to print more than 3 colors wow, without a flash. For our shop, not too many 6-8 color jobs show up, so we are more than able to get by. We get tons of 3 & 4 color jobs and the occassional monster job that I might have to print with more than one revolution of the press, but very rarely. If your exclusively going to print over 5 colors, then the 12 color auto with 3 flashes will be perfect, anything more than 3 flashes and you won't be able to print above that anyway.
I hope some of that can help you. Just doing the few "little things" will help you a lot. It could be something as simple as the wrong type of ink that is going to throw you off, or lower tensioned screens, typically under 20 newtons. Some folks will have you believe you can't print anything with a screen under 30N, but if I can do it, anyone can. We have done it for 3 years now, and just within the last year have we started using newmans and the shurloc ez frames that can consistently hold above 30N, and they do make it easier, but to some, it's not financially feasable to outfit your shop with newmans or shurlocs, but you can still achieve good quality prints, you just have to work a little harder.
Thanks Alan, your tips are most helpful. I'm saving your post in my printing guide folder. I'd certainly need more guidance from experienced people like you once we start operating on auto. Thanks for unselfishly sharing.
Flash cure: mounted or stand? 
