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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: Maxie on September 28, 2016, 11:48:29 PM
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I see that M&R have a smaller CTS I Image S.
Does anyone know what they cost?
Will it work with MHM pins?
Can someone who has one comment on the speed, quality, rip etc.
Looks like a great machine for smaller shops.
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Just placed an order for one today.
Pricing is very competitive with their show special going on until the end of the month.
Quality/rip is the same as the big boy model I believe, just slower and a few other small odds and ends I can't remember.
It can be made to work with the pin system as well if it's like the ST/STE models.
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What do they cost?
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Oh boy, I would love to get one of those.
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What do they cost?
$29,995 plus install
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when our rocket launcher dies we'll be getting one of these for sure.
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Would love any info possible on the I Image S.
Photos? Specs? E-mailed Alex and was lurking on the M&R site
for anything. Where can one access specifics?
Thanks. - John
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Price is good, if leased over 5 years about $500 a month plus Int. I think I spend more than that on film at he moment.
Question will it last five years, in the photographs it looks like it as as well made as the bigger models, just smaller.
How much does it cost to maintain and what are the ink costs per screen?
If I had one I think I'd hang my Saati LED above it and have it explose as it finishes.
Hopefully it has some signal when the printing is finished that one could connect the lamp timer too.
Looks like a great option for smaller shops.
Rich does $29,995 rally sound better than $30,000?
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it's 'less than 30k' LOL
as far as a signal goes, it's gantry based, so you could likely just put a prox switch somewhere so when the gantry returns to the
home position it trips the timer for the led light.
biggest issue would be setting the different exposure lengths for different mesh counts, etc.
personally, I'd rather do like we do where we start imaging the next screen while the previous one is exposing.
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Has anyone got one of these running?
What's the difference between the S and the ST? Is it just speed? On these kind of machines, how likely is it for the printhead to clog if you don't do a certain number of prints per day?
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We have an ST .
Difference is amount of print heads. ST can have up to three.
Also the obvious gantry system.
Best move I ever made was cutting my two head down to one head. M&R helped with the transition.
Reason is, you are only risking one head. If an employee strikes it, its about 1100$ . Not 2200$
Clogging, heads wearing out etc are part of ownership. get prepared to spend on new heads. We've got 2 years from heads before.
Plus, calibration Everything seems to slip a bit in our industry over time. it doesn't make it broken, it just needs calibration.
A one head machine is really zero calibration. there is nothing to line up. The image quality we saw from a one head machine is far more crisp than our two head setup ever was. Dots are perfect and there is less downtime.
If you are running 500 plus screens a day, sure you need the speed. But with a creative workflow, the single head didnt slow us down very much at all. Vs film it is still far far superior for quality, pinholes and time.
If I need to replace, the single head in the S wouldn't be a detrimental factor.
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Thanks. I've been out of the board for a while now - and actually out of the "big ticket item" purchasing game for a bit too - so it came as a surprise to me that M&R came up with the S which is in our price range. We don't do 50/100 screens a day, so 1 head is enough for us and it might be worth the change.
I see the obvious advantage with savings in film positives and inkjet ink (about $2500/year for us) and also see quite a few advantages in less steps for the overall production of screens.
Another thing I'm curious is how will the art department work. Even for spot color images, image separation is still a thing, right? You cannot get you customer file in there, tell it how many colors the file has and hit "print", right? I'll still need to have that one person in the art department separating colors and getting everything ready for the operator to print directly on the screen.
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Thanks. I've been out of the board for a while now - and actually out of the "big ticket item" purchasing game for a bit too - so it came as a surprise to me that M&R came up with the S which is in our price range. We don't do 50/100 screens a day, so 1 head is enough for us and it might be worth the change.
I see the obvious advantage with savings in film positives and inkjet ink (about $2500/year for us) and also see quite a few advantages in less steps for the overall production of screens.
Another thing I'm curious is how will the art department work. Even for spot color images, image separation is still a thing, right? You cannot get you customer file in there, tell it how many colors the file has and hit "print", right? I'll still need to have that one person in the art department separating colors and getting everything ready for the operator to print directly on the screen.
Yes you will.
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We have an ST .
Difference is amount of print heads. ST can have up to three.
Also the obvious gantry system.
Best move I ever made was cutting my two head down to one head. M&R helped with the transition.
Reason is, you are only risking one head. If an employee strikes it, its about 1100$ . Not 2200$
Clogging, heads wearing out etc are part of ownership. get prepared to spend on new heads. We've got 2 years from heads before.
Plus, calibration Everything seems to slip a bit in our industry over time. it doesn't make it broken, it just needs calibration.
A one head machine is really zero calibration. there is nothing to line up. The image quality we saw from a one head machine is far more crisp than our two head setup ever was. Dots are perfect and there is less downtime.
If you are running 500 plus screens a day, sure you need the speed. But with a creative workflow, the single head didnt slow us down very much at all. Vs film it is still far far superior for quality, pinholes and time.
If I need to replace, the single head in the S wouldn't be a detrimental factor.
This above. We do daily cleanings and we are only about 60 screens or so a day but be prepared for a yearly head replacement. Plus the service tech / hotel / airplane tixs unless you do it yourself. But that will be across all machines since they are machines. And when we do start to average over 100 screens a day we plan on two machines instead of a single faster one. Same reasons as above and if one goes down (which it will sooner or later) you still have the other. We still keep our film output running once a week and if I had a dollar for every time that machine has saved us I would be on vacation now.
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our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day.
we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
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our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day.
we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?
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We have an ST .
Difference is amount of print heads. ST can have up to three.
Also the obvious gantry system.
Best move I ever made was cutting my two head down to one head. M&R helped with the transition.
Reason is, you are only risking one head. If an employee strikes it, its about 1100$ . Not 2200$
Clogging, heads wearing out etc are part of ownership. get prepared to spend on new heads. We've got 2 years from heads before.
Plus, calibration Everything seems to slip a bit in our industry over time. it doesn't make it broken, it just needs calibration.
A one head machine is really zero calibration. there is nothing to line up. The image quality we saw from a one head machine is far more crisp than our two head setup ever was. Dots are perfect and there is less downtime.
If you are running 500 plus screens a day, sure you need the speed. But with a creative workflow, the single head didnt slow us down very much at all. Vs film it is still far far superior for quality, pinholes and time.
If I need to replace, the single head in the S wouldn't be a detrimental factor.
This above. We do daily cleanings and we are only about 60 screens or so a day but be prepared for a yearly head replacement. Plus the service tech / hotel / airplane tixs unless you do it yourself. But that will be across all machines since they are machines. And when we do start to average over 100 screens a day we plan on two machines instead of a single faster one. Same reasons as above and if one goes down (which it will sooner or later) you still have the other. We still keep our film output running once a week and if I had a dollar for every time that machine has saved us I would be on vacation now.
That is exactly my thinking and why we are ordering the single head tomorrow along with a starlight. We figured when pricing it out 2 singles will be better along with more capacity than the multiple head machine.
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our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day.
we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?
i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K.
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our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day.
we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?
T6 is just an updated type K, they are made by the same manufacture and M&R will likely switch you to it once they "go through the list".
The S was one of the last two projects released while I was still with M&R, it is a great machine for the money as you are getting 90% of a 1 head ST WITH a smaller format! This is a huge advantage for most shops looking at CTS.
i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K.
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our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day.
we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?
i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K.
That's great. The D2 that came with ours just ate the head alive. The T6 is way better but still has issues. Maybe on our next head replacement we go back to K ha!
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our 2 head i-Image ST has been running on the original heads since 2014. we print about 60 screens a day.
we have humidifiers running in the winter to keep the humidity around 40%.
That's awesome. Our humidity is the same and room temp is 80 degrees required for the T6 ink. Our previous D2 ink just killed our head every day. Which ink are you running and after 4 years how many ink types? That is impressive if those heads have survived multiple ink types. Maybe different more robust heads?
i never changed from the original Type K ink. the type K always worked fine - never had any problems. my purchase records show ive bought about 50 liters of the type K.
That's great. The D2 that came with ours just ate the head alive. The T6 is way better but still has issues. Maybe on our next head replacement we go back to K ha!
i guess im glad we never switched!
what are the issues you experience with the T6 ink?
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the t6 since switching from D2a has been immaculate. NO issues whatsoever
D2a we went through 4 heads in 6 months...
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What ink comes standard in the I-IMAGE? K UV Blocking ink?
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What ink comes standard in the I-IMAGE? K UV Blocking ink?
M&R can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the T6 now.
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What ink comes standard in the I-IMAGE? K UV Blocking ink?
M&R can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the T6 now.
Thank you.
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another question on the ST how easy is it to gang orders up on opposite ends of a screen, I know the one end may not be trilocable but would be something I would need. We gang screens up very often which creates extra revenue.
Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.
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another question on the ST how easy is it to gang orders up on opposite ends of a screen, I know the one end may not be trilocable but would be something I would need. We gang screens up very often which creates extra revenue.
Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.
Just print a set of screens, then flip and print other job on other side. This way both jobs triloc.
Obviously this works better with same colors, but is not necessary.
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got it
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What ink comes standard in the I-IMAGE? K UV Blocking ink?
M&R can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the T6 now.
Alex: You are as always, right on the money!
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For those that are really trying to save a step, It’s possible to build a template for printing two pocket or left Chest jobs at one time.
This needs to be set up in the art Dept. using a template and some planning.
The top gets set up as normal, while the 2nd gets placed down at bottom (not flipped) or rotated to be upside down (for pockets).
The bottom will not equal the distance of outer edge to print area, so you compensate here in the template so that it lands where you can still load a shirt With lover without having to move the pallets for that side.
The bottom centering should be off by .25” so you compensate there Aldo’s
neck labels would be 3 sizes at top and 3 at bottom. This art sets centered between top and bottom of frame within the screen. Then as you need another size label, you move the frame left or right and square up.
I’ll note that for me, this would be tedious since you have two different jobs or more in one file. You might save some screens but in the end, would be a production bottleneck since all of those are on one screen. That means nobody else can be running one of those while you are printing in another area.
could be done more for a press that is reserved for left chest and pocket prints.
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That also won't trilock for multi color jobs. Unless your frames are perfectly true with no flaws at all.
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That also won't trilock for multi color jobs. Unless your frames are perfectly true with no flaws at all.
This, that’s why I highly recommend doing it the way I suggested.
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I don’t “highly recommend the procedure I stated either, specifically for the multi files setup. This tho, is an option for some shops like ours. For example, we always do our neck labels this way. Very efficient. I didn’t mention multi color. Im basing the comment on what our experience is. 90% of our pocket and left chest prints will be 1 color. Can do all day long.
(Edit). I thought about it and a while 90% of our jobs have pocket prints, probably half of those are really 1 color. We wouldn't normally do 4-6 different jobs on one screen (to save screens), due to the lbottlenecking I mentioned. It may cut down on a lot of screens but would take added art prep time to gather the 1 Colors into one file. Some shops would. Shops have different needs. Maybe you have several manual presses in your arsenal but few or not enough screens for example.
Think about it this way.
The flipping once you print the top is the standard way. Everybody does that. People love that these machines have cut down their time on screens so much. No taping and aligning films, no pin hole blocking, prints a pocket in like 8 seconds?, (+ could expose on the machine depending), and then x that by saving 3-6 more screens and another 8 seconds each. You can have 6-1 color prints on one screen in 16-20 seconds. That’s pretty good.
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Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.
I think the 13X19 cost 120.00 for 100 sheets from Ryonet.
That’s $300.00 in film cost gone. $3,600.00 a year in film alone. Doesn’t matter what brand DTS wet or wax. It’s far better in a valuable and measurable list of ways.
Also, add to that, the price you are paying for ink to film. I’ll bet it’s much higher than a DTS ink or wax.
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So, we are hoping to get a i-Image S and a auto coater in the very near future. We have 2 ROQ press with their pin system. So far we have been getting conflicting information on weather or not this can be set up for a pin system, and exactly how the warranty will be effected. We sent a frame to M&R last week and they should be getting it today, if not yesterday. While we wait for their response, has anyone made this thing work with a pin system (of any kind)?
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So, we are hoping to get a i-Image S and a auto coater in the very near future. We have 2 ROQ press with their pin system. So far we have been getting conflicting information on weather or not this can be set up for a pin system, and exactly how the warranty will be effected. We sent a frame to M&R last week and they should be getting it today, if not yesterday. While we wait for their response, has anyone made this thing work with a pin system (of any kind)?
When I was there we set up multiple machine for MHM and others with pins. If it is the standard 42cm pin placement it should be easily done. If it is pins on newmans it might be a little more difficult.
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Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.
I think the 13X19 cost 120.00 for 100 sheets from Ryonet.
That’s $300.00 in film cost gone. $3,600.00 a year in film alone. Doesn’t matter what brand DTS wet or wax. It’s far better in a valuable and measurable list of ways.
Also, add to that, the price you are paying for ink to film. I’ll bet it’s much higher than a DTS ink or wax.
Only paying $80 for Ulano inkjet film and usually 2 Qts of bulk ink a year.,
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Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.
I think the 13X19 cost 120.00 for 100 sheets from Ryonet.
That’s $300.00 in film cost gone. $3,600.00 a year in film alone. Doesn’t matter what brand DTS wet or wax. It’s far better in a valuable and measurable list of ways.
Also, add to that, the price you are paying for ink to film. I’ll bet it’s much higher than a DTS ink or wax.
Only paying $80 for Ulano inkjet film and usually 2 Qts of bulk ink a year.,
Let's not forget the recommended yearly head replacement of the CTS along with the tech and fly in and hotel which is about 4K +. The yearly recommendation was from the manufacturer. People need to be aware of this as it seems to be put on the sidelines when these machines are sold.
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We've replaced the head in our Epson based machine twice now(4 years). It has totaled about $3k. Add in the other maintenance/repairs and it's closer to $5k.
Still cheaper than film.
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I think it depends on the shop. There is one on here that went back to film because they are the rare shop that has things dialed in. For us we use CTS and still use film for certain reasons. My point is that if a single head machine is say around 35K and then factor in 12K for 3 heads over three years I might have a look at going Lazer and bypass ink or wax. Since Lazer is around 90K that might be the way to go. Would rather have paid twice as much and then you can turn the machine off and walk away for days without worrying about messed up heads since there are none. Very important in New Orleans where power goes out all the time and we have these things called hurricanes.
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I apologise I am derailing the thread.
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Only paying $80 for Ulano inkjet film
. Ok. You save $200 a month on film.
and usually 2 Qts of bulk ink a year.,
. The I-Image ink is about $90.00 I think for a liter (been a while) I'm a little fuzzy on the cost ion the ink. I may have gone up. Not sure. How much you get out of that one liter is different for different shops.
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Also what would be your threshold to convert to the ST , based on 13x19 sheets of film , were currently using 250 sheets approx a month.
I think the 13X19 cost 120.00 for 100 sheets from Ryonet.
That’s $300.00 in film cost gone. $3,600.00 a year in film alone. Doesn’t matter what brand DTS wet or wax. It’s far better in a valuable and measurable list of ways.
Also, add to that, the price you are paying for ink to film. I’ll bet it’s much higher than a DTS ink or wax.
Only paying $80 for Ulano inkjet film and usually 2 Qts of bulk ink a year.,
Let's not forget the recommended yearly head replacement of the CTS along with the tech and fly in and hotel which is about 4K +. The yearly recommendation was from the manufacturer. People need to be aware of this as it seems to be put on the sidelines when these machines are sold.
In my opinion, I think this new statement of "a head lasting one year" only came out over the last year. When I started, the longevity of print heads was not covered well in discussion. I believe largely due to variances in shop usage nobody was 100% certain. It was common for heads to last 3-5 years. The (Lasting only one year) is/was a statement to cover previous expectations and the I feel stems from issues they were having with the D2. I'm expecting this new T6 to be much better and allow a head to last for much, much longer. With that tho, it's still a safe thing for M&R to exceed your expectations when you see it last for 2-5 years but you've been told only one year. And lets not forget, the average life of a wax print head has long been known to be 1 year with the makers recently promoting new advances that enable a wax head to last longer. How long that is for sure, time will tell, similar to the new T6 and heads. I do hear tho, that there has been some with wax machines that have lasted very long, like 4-6 years.
The good you hear and the negative you hear form either Wax or wet ink, comes from two types of sources.
1, those who abuse the machines and expect to have no issues but do,
2, Those who really take care of their machines and still have a major hiccup of some sort.
#2 is far less prevalent.
This falls in line with your shop differences, and how you treat the environment it's in and how the people treat the equipment and maintenace. I've seen plenty that abuse the machines and they don't go bad. They run them to what looks like death, but they still run with no issues... while other abuse them and they do have multiple problems. Those who always stay up on maintenance and treat them well, run them for a very long time with no issues ever. Multiple years without a hiccup.
There's no litmus yes to say (if you don't do this or if you do this), this will happen. History will prove whats the best option and then all of you will chime in with answers to peoples questions. I can only tell you what I know or have experienced, good or bad. We currently run one at our shop and they were/are a major game changer.
Having said all of that, going back to the film cost per year and perhaps in many cases, the film cost is still higher than having to replace a single head each year. So a I-Image S is advantageous in either direction, Add to that, all of the known benefits a DTS brings in versus film. No matter how you slice it, DT wax or Ink is a great choice!
Thats my thoughts on it.
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#2 is far less prevalent but I can confirm it happens.
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#2 definitely happens. I see what looks like a lot of that regardless of masking media or brand of machine.
The issue I see with all masking type CTS units is the sheer weight placed upon them to perform reliably in a shop v. the current state of reliability of these systems. Again, regardless of masking media, brand or even one company's approach v. another's to a nearly identical overall machine.
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We shipped a screen to Chicago to see if they would set it up for ROQ pins. A flat "No" for anyone wondering. Their lack of flexibility is one of the many things that turn us off from M&R products.
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Please drop me an email at Peter.Walsh@mrprint.com with you contact information and I will see what can be worked out regarding compatibility with the M&R I-Image S and the ROQ screen frame pin set-up. You should not have received a flat no response on this issue.
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I know when I was there I had built machines with the 42cm pins for both ROQ and MHM.
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We shipped a screen to Chicago to see if they would set it up for ROQ pins. A flat "No" for anyone wondering. Their lack of flexibility is one of the many things that turn us off from M&R products.
Can you confirm what the maximum and standard size screen frame you are running on your ROQ press. The I-Image S accommodates a maximum 26" x 36" format frame with the standard M&R Tri-Sync set-up. I'm estimating that that we would lose about 1" to 1.5" from the max frame length to accommodate the ROQ pin adapters at both ends of the frame. If this is a problem, we could look at the larger format I-Image ST or STE units that accommodate a maximum 26" x 43" frame size.
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We shipped a screen to Chicago to see if they would set it up for ROQ pins. A flat "No" for anyone wondering. Their lack of flexibility is one of the many things that turn us off from M&R products.
Can you confirm what the maximum and standard size screen frame you are running on your ROQ press. The I-Image S accommodates a maximum 26" x 36" format frame with the standard M&R Tri-Sync set-up. I'm estimating that that we would lose about 1" to 1.5" from the max frame length to accommodate the ROQ pin adapters at both ends of the frame. If this is a problem, we could look at the larger format I-Image ST or STE units that accommodate a maximum 26" x 43" frame size.
Exactly! PW knows all!
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We shipped a screen to Chicago to see if they would set it up for ROQ pins. A flat "No" for anyone wondering. Their lack of flexibility is one of the many things that turn us off from M&R products.
Can you confirm what the maximum and standard size screen frame you are running on your ROQ press. The I-Image S accommodates a maximum 26" x 36" format frame with the standard M&R Tri-Sync set-up. I'm estimating that that we would lose about 1" to 1.5" from the max frame length to accommodate the ROQ pin adapters at both ends of the frame. If this is a problem, we could look at the larger format I-Image ST or STE units that accommodate a maximum 26" x 43" frame size.
Email just sent. 23x31 statics. The digital department has one of our frames in hand.
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A quick follow up on our situation. Peter took the time to look into this and contacted our owner today. They will set this up for ROQ pins using 23x31 frames. Larger frames could be an issue though, at least as far as the S is concerned.
Thank you for taking the time on this. Proving solutions is part of what manufactures need to do and we truly appreciate your effort. Looks like we will be a shop with a brand new M&R i-Image S and Uni-Kote in the near future.
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Douthitt has the wax jet available for the roq pins or pru AND for 23 x 31 or 25 x 36 or both. We offer the speed but the wax quality.
Please contact me for more information directly at 313 515 8635
Mark Diehl
Douthitt Corporation
313 515 8635
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A quick follow up on our situation. Peter took the time to look into this and contacted our owner today. They will set this up for ROQ pins using 23x31 frames. Larger frames could be an issue though, at least as far as the S is concerned.
Thank you for taking the time on this. Proving solutions is part of what manufactures need to do and we truly appreciate your effort. Looks like we will be a shop with a brand new M&R i-Image S and Uni-Kote in the near future.
Peter is a class act! We all know that! Thank you Peter for looking out.
pierre
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A quick follow up on our situation. Peter took the time to look into this and contacted our owner today. They will set this up for ROQ pins using 23x31 frames. Larger frames could be an issue though, at least as far as the S is concerned.
Thank you for taking the time on this. Proving solutions is part of what manufactures need to do and we truly appreciate your effort. Looks like we will be a shop with a brand new M&R i-Image S and Uni-Kote in the near future.
How about Gauntlet 3's also??