[chewbacca]

hi. so, ive been printing for a little while now and thought i was doing ok, but know i see some of my older shirts are washing out a little, so i started poking around my conveyor oven, which i thought was set right. i'm using a "black flash" model # I Bo2-2000, which has a 2000 watt heating element. its not a very long dryer, maybe 6 - 7 feet long. i keep reading how plastisol has to reach 320 for 30 seconds or so, but my dryer doesn't get that hot. right now i have it set to the slowest belt speed i can without schorching. the doors are about 1/2 way up or so, just enough to get a shirt in easily. (the heat unit only has on / off, no temp setting). at this setting, i timed the cloth from the time it broke 200 degrees till it came out, where it reaches about 290 or so. this averages around 30 seconds. is running it through twice sufficent? i don't know what else to do.

 

[Skidream37]

I assume you are printing on 100% cotton? If the shirts are scorching then the temperatures are definitely getting hot enough to cure the ink? Ink will cure before the shirt will burn if the ink isn’t too thick. I flash at 260 deg. for 12-14 seconds on transfer paper then finish on the garment at 330 deg. for an additional 12-14 seconds. Even this non-direct print has no problem. So the low exposure time isn't the trick as much as the temperature. Not all inks are equal. There are some quick flash inks. I have had some thinner inks look like they started to separate and glob up when they sat for a while. They needed to be mixed up. This also can hinder the flash.

 

[chewbacca]

ok, update: i guess it makes a difference which end you shoot into. this time shooting it from the exit end, timing from the time it reaches 320 until it drops below it again (in that time it goes up to 350 or so for at least 10-15 seconds) for a total time averaging around 28 seconds. that should be sufficent, correct? i was running it just a little faster before, but now i'm as slow as i can be without schorching it.

 

[chewbacca]

i am printing on 100% as much as possible. to test it, i have a bunch of brand new white 100% cotton washrags i'm running through. those were scorching when i slowed it way down and worked my way back up.