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screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: tonypep on November 14, 2012, 09:46:16 AM

Title: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: tonypep on November 14, 2012, 09:46:16 AM
Just for giggles I timed myself (one of the screen guys is out) 2-person crew imaging, exposing, washout. Arms tired.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Colin on November 14, 2012, 10:11:24 AM
Nice turnaround!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 14, 2012, 11:14:13 AM
It's why DTS will probably never work for us. I have the need for speed. Film storage for literally tens of thousands of files is a bitch though. If I was doing a startup I would definitely consider it.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 14, 2012, 12:48:59 PM
Tony...with DTS you don't think you could have done 90 or 100 in 80 min?  I would think DTS is faster than looking up film....

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: JBLUE on November 14, 2012, 01:03:38 PM
Sam how long does it take to print a screen? Lets say a 11.5 by 11.5 image area with about 75% coverage of ink.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 14, 2012, 01:23:32 PM
I have only seen DTG at trade shows and they were way too slow for what I need. I'm shooting four auto screens at a time. I believe there are 2 screen versions but not heard about larger ones. Pricetag for that would be pretty steep as well.  Our retail clothing lines are all re-orders except sales sample season. My head dryer op files in  between jobs so thats not a bottleneck. Many of the one color Talkies are discharge so we wash and library those screeens. All other biz is 95% new. The other thing that concerns me is that our philosophy as well as others is that film output is a quality checkpoint. Had this discussion at JSR.
Still I'd love to have someone drop a demo in for a side by side real time study.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Screened Gear on November 14, 2012, 01:25:29 PM
Tony...with DTS you don't think you could have done 90 or 100 in 80 min?  I would think DTS is faster than looking up film....


Lets see a video of your DTS printing a screen.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 14, 2012, 02:08:49 PM
I was looking for videos of a DTS in action and there was not a single one in a shop, in a real world environment.  They were all sales type videos from the manufacturers.  I'd love to see videos of all of the DTS machines that are running in shops.  I've heard that they usually don't just plug in and work right out of the crate.  Seems like there are bugs with many of them, especially the cheaper models.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: mk162 on November 14, 2012, 02:17:47 PM
Alan, the same thing happened with DTG machines, the cheaper you go, the more problems you have.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 14, 2012, 04:02:46 PM
End of the day 11 racks of 20. About 3 hrs
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Donnie on November 14, 2012, 04:10:35 PM
pffft... I once did eighty push ups in eight days.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 14, 2012, 04:16:33 PM
It seems in Tony's circumstances CTS would only be viable if they changed their procedures so that all screens are printed at least one day before they need to be exposed.

We try to have all screens done and ready atleast one day in advance but even for a shop our size it never always works out that way.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Screened Gear on November 14, 2012, 05:14:25 PM
It seems in Tony's circumstances CTS would only be viable if they changed their procedures so that all screens are printed at least one day before they need to be exposed.

We try to have all screens done and ready atleast one day in advance but even for a shop our size it never always works out that way.

Most of my screens are hardly even dry from being washed out when they go on press.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: jsheridan on November 14, 2012, 05:22:36 PM
There is nothing 'fast' about DTS or Auto coating machines.

There is however gobs of quality and precision that spill over into easier production settings.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 14, 2012, 05:31:16 PM
The vast majority of their work is already done with all the film already printed out and ready to shoot, so switching to DTS now would be a step in the wrong direction for a fairly long period of time.  We do so many repeats that it has me wondering if we'll benefit as much as a newer shop without 5K jobs catalogued via film hanging on the wall.  It would take an average of 2 minutes to print that screen via DTS or 10 seconds to tape the film on the screen.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 14, 2012, 06:46:04 PM
That gives you 1 minute and 50 seconds to find each piece of film and get it to the screen room, so for a 4 colour job that means almost 7.5 minutes, and that doesn't take into consideration the time it takes to find, access, open and print rip the seps to the DTS on the computer.

I've often wondered the actual RTO numbers on DTS, I think somebody was going to post theirs a while back but i must have missed it. Maybe I'll do a search....

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 14, 2012, 07:01:57 PM
Does any one take into consideration the amount of money they have invested in films at the time they purchase a CTS? For a shop our size even we have thousands probably invested in stored films. I am sure a shop like Tony's the number would be mind boggling.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 14, 2012, 08:15:33 PM
I will be doing a review in a couple weeks for everyone that wants info on our new DTS machine from Lawson.......The unit is basically the same as the new M&R i image st using the same printhead and software technology.


My shop currently only runs around 20-50 screens a day so it was a difficult decision to make but after using the DTS I will say it has helped us tremendously. If your a shop that has very good press operators that can register jobs super fast then you probably won't see as noticeable of a difference then a shop without....For instance I had a 10 color job that I timed last week for lining up on the press....... I had all the screens taped and ready to go, clean squeegees and all the ink colors on a staging cart. From the time I loaded the very first screen on the press to the time I had the first shirt test printed in registration I was at 13 minutes...... This was on a press without pneumatic squeegee/floodbar clamps so I could have saved a couple minutes there. This was one of my main reasons to get a direct to screen machine as well as speed up other steps. Here's a couple basic facts -


- By eliminating film our exposer time decreased over 60%...... We are exposing the same mesh/emulsion in less then half the time then we used to.
- Our DTS can print the same image over double the speed then our epson 4800 could print
- We now have no pin holes to worry about
- Press registration is more then double the speed


Basically the first full day we were doing everything on DTS we saved nearly 2 hours in our work day. Between imaging the screens, saving time in the exposer, not having to tape pin holes, faster press setup, etc all added up to nearly 2 hours.... To me that was huge....


We have had some issues but lawson has been trying to work through those.... I know once we get this machine dialed in to it's full potential it will be the BEST investment I've ever made, period. Now that we have gone DTS we will never go back. I'll quit this business if I ever have to print another film again..... That's how strongly I feel about the technology.



Danny hates film Gruninger
(http://s15.postimage.org/u44knrzrf/dts.jpg)

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 15, 2012, 06:24:39 AM
Believe me I'm all about whatever works for you. It's all about making informed decisions. I hate film too Danny!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 15, 2012, 08:45:50 AM
Danny...

I have a ton written down, but the naysayers here have curbed what I am willing to share...

but to touch on what you said about set up and time savings is where the DTS really works...

are you still printing regi marks?  we stopped and now we save on average 5 min per job set up....4-6 set ups a day now you are talking real time by the end of the week - end of the month and end of the year...

sam

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 15, 2012, 10:06:35 AM
Sam, like you we don't print any registration marks anymore. Just one more part of the screen that would need tape and have the potential to leak ink on a long run. The only time we do print registration marks now is on 4 cp jobs..... Other then that no marks.



The DTS might not be an ideal fit to every shop but from my personal experience the benefits far outweigh the cons. When I was trying to decide if our shop was big enough we figured out that we spent nearly 30 minutes each day keeping our films organized and that alone was almost enough reason for me to switch. I can't imagine how some real large shops keep a handle on that. Again, just my opinion but I truly feel that every shop would benefit.


If anyone wants to send me a test file I can output using our DTS onto a film and compare to the process your currently using.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 15, 2012, 10:25:27 AM
I don't think there are naysayers around here.  Think about it Sam, we've all heard some of the great things about this technology, but not one of us has ever "Seen" it with our own eyes in a real shop environment.  I've also talked to numerous people who have had bad experiences so forgive me for not going out and buying one just because you say you are going to have an ROI of one year.  We do twice as many screens as you do and I've crunched the numbers every which way possible, even some pencil whipping in favor of the DTS and the ROI just isn't there yet.  Our shop is obviously different than yours, our processes take different times and the DTS is going to affect each shop differently because of that.  Maybe we are incredibly efficient like Tony is with using film, I don't know.  Maybe our shop would benefit by using film for all our repeat jobs and all new jobs go DTS, just thinking out loud here.  Our exposure times would increase 60-70%, our setup times wouldn't benefit all that much since our regi system works pretty much flawlessly.  We spend about 3-4K on film and ink a year, there are other benefits that would help us shave time off our day, but those are the biggest ones and those don't add up like I would want them to.  60-70% faster exposure would be fantastic if our exposures were several minutes long, but we have a 10K watt metal halide exposure unit that our longest exposure is about 90 seconds and those are few and far between.   

You, Dave and Danny and maybe one other member has one, speak highly of them, I've taken that into account.  I trust what you guys have said, but I also know there are also things not being said by a lot of people pushing this technology and that's why I am waiting.  I do believe they are the next great thing for our shop, but I'm not biting until the price is better and they can ship one to our shop, plug it in and it freaking works like it's supposed to.  One shop here in town wasted a whole year on trying to get theirs working correctly, in the words of the great Sugar Brown, "ain't nobody got time for that".

As I said, most of us have never seen one other than at a show, and the amount of posts on their behalf is very small, no videos, just written testimonial from a very small group of owners.  As I mentioned earlier, I've heard more nightmare stories about them than I have good stories so forgive a few of us for asking questions about it's greatness.  We will have one, it's just a matter of when.  I think they are good, but I ain't buying until they are great.  Right now, I think there are only 2 units I would buy and one of them is 65K and the other one would have the best service if something were to go wrong.  I like the Lawson unit, interested in the Acti one, Douthitt/Oyo units (old Kiwo I-jet), wax or waterbased ink, I've done a good bit of research.  But if I don't ask questions or bring up weaknesses in the technology then I'm not doing my job for this shop.  It's easy to get caught up in the greatness of a product and completely forget about it's shortcomings.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: JBLUE on November 15, 2012, 10:57:02 AM
The whole point of the post is 80 screens in 80 minutes. A DTS cant print that fast so it would not work in that environment.

For you guys that have them if they ran all day on typical jobs how many screens can you guys image in a day?

If you need to re-burn a screen for on press and it is in the middle of printing another job can you stop in the middle, reprint the needed screen, and start again where it left off?

I think the technology is great and I have seen it a few times. I like where it could go and for the right shops it is a no brainer.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 15, 2012, 11:02:22 AM
I also would bet that the 80 screens in 80 minutes did not include lining up or printing the film....Tony? 

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 15, 2012, 12:06:27 PM
Lining up film, exposing and washout. Films no. We have a four person Art department and again use the film as a quality checkpoint. Critical point in our process. Like every one else they just click and send to the printer and go back to designing so not an issue. I also use film to determine mesh count and sequence as well as spell check etc. A mistake is always less expensive the earlier it is detected in the chain of production.
I don't suscribe to the notion that "If it works for me it must work for everyone" school of thought. Again; informed decisions will in the end, hopefully will lead us to greater productivity. There are vastly different business models in our industry and therefore technology must reflect that. Rich can tell you all about failed technology that had extremely sound foundations (think of the Formulas).
I didn't mean to start anything here, just making an observation.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 15, 2012, 12:15:29 PM
http://youtu.be/n1zvjphtRYs (http://youtu.be/n1zvjphtRYs)

the good bad and ugly....again it works for us...not having to find, line up refile ect...



Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 15, 2012, 12:48:41 PM
I'm sure it does thats what it was designed for. I'm waiting till technology arrives at the "Hit the button and the shirts come out of the printer printed, folded, and boxed with the shipping label attached" unit.
And we can stay home and operate romotely while watching TV!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Screened Gear on November 15, 2012, 12:51:08 PM
Socalfmf,

Thanks for posting the video. I was really wondering how fast it was.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 15, 2012, 12:58:31 PM
Which perfeclty illustrates why this could be an issue with high volome shops. In that time the screen would have been exposed and washed out and we would be already on the next one. Awesome though.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 15, 2012, 01:01:44 PM
That machine prints as fast as our 1430 but the difference is I can preload a stack of film in the printer and walk away. In fact it is what i do at night, I usually have a dozen films to be printed and I just hit go, come in the AM check the films and line up on the carrier sheets.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 15, 2012, 01:08:45 PM
for us it is print the first one....start the exposure unit, then get the next one going then it is done exposing get water on it then expose and start a new one and do a round robin...

again works for us.

also Mike you hit the nail on the head...how much time do you spend lining up film? how much on finding film ect....that is where our savings are plus on press time...line up is even better than film with tri-loc and no pin holes no regi marks ect...

again  works for us....
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 15, 2012, 01:12:45 PM
Makes sense, more of an assembly line.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 15, 2012, 01:34:17 PM
I can't believe we finally have an in-shop video of one in action!!!!  I'm pumped about that, let's see some more.  I used to think this was going to be our next big purchase, but I'm leaning second auto right now, then DTS once we hit that 40-50 screen/day threshold.  That's where my math is telling me we will see great returns. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 15, 2012, 01:50:05 PM
for us it is print the first one....start the exposure unit, then get the next one going then it is done exposing get water on it then expose and start a new one and do a round robin...

again works for us.

also Mike you hit the nail on the head...how much time do you spend lining up film? how much on finding film ect....that is where our savings are plus on press time...line up is even better than film with tri-loc and no pin holes no regi marks ect...

again  works for us....

I agree Sam dealing with films pre-press is time, fortunately since we got the Tri-Loc we have gotten proficient with the system and 99% of our set ups are nuts on. Currently I am still the only one aligning the carrier sheets till i have someone i feel comfortable enough with to pass it on, since doing them all my self I got pretty fast at it.

As for film storage I guess it depends on each shops system, some may store films several rooms away, some may have horrible orginization skills. In our case our films are stored in the same room as the exposure, I maintain a database on the PC of all folders, and art work is all saved on the PC with easy to use information to help find films in the future. It works well and we never have to waste any significant amount of time searching films.

Me personaly I think CTS is awesome but like many its like any really expensive toy, you dream about owning but you need to justify the cost first.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: ZooCity on November 15, 2012, 02:22:48 PM
Sam, that was really good to see a video of one working.  I can see it's efficacy in the right shop. 

One of those machines would speed things up when taken as a whole system v. inkjet film but would actually slow us down in the screen room itself.  There's no way it could keep up, you must be shooting with a smaller expo unit in your shop and not using a plain water dip tank and a pressure washer to resolve.  I'd be standing around with my d!ck in my hand waiting on that thing.  We have a purposefully limited screen mesh selection and can shoot most exposures 2 screens up, then into the dip tank and onward.  There's tons of room for improvement in our process but it's still too fast for a device like this, all screens would have to be CTS imaged well in advance, maybe while someone coated screens so it wasn't dead time in the darkroom. 

Our flow is like Tony's and literally every single screen gets film placed on carrier sheets whether it's a single color run that will never be repeated or a job that will be ran every month.  I consider the pre-press aligning of films a major checkpoint as well, it's what the Pin-Lock system hinges on and it works. 

I understand you could replace this checkpoint digitally using Distiller to manually generate an on-screen or, I would hope, a CTS specific pre-RIP preview that's built into your unit's software.  I think that's the coolest thing about it honestly, that it forces perfect pre-press art, but anyone can get that serious about finalizing art before ripping without the machine to make you do it. 

Looks bad ass if you've got the right system for it to fit into though.  That black looks dark!  And I would be head over heels about eliminating milky films for the high lpi dot work.  I bet you've seen some major fine dot improvement?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 15, 2012, 03:57:20 PM
I think on press setup times, faster exposures and better 1:1 reproduction of art, specifically halftones, due to no milky film blocking light are great things, I'm not trying to argue against DTS at all, I love the technology.  But I also see how in some shops it will not give you the fast ROI times.  If your shop can develop 80 screens in 80 minutes, hell, 160 minutes, with film technology then you will not get the ROI compared to shops where they can only develop 15 screens an hour.  Me and my new guy just did 10 screens in 17 minutes, film taping, exposure, washout, compressed air.  The first 10 minutes was pretty slow and we had 2, 110 mesh with 50 micron EOM that takes 3 times longer than a 156-305 to develop, but the last 7 was better than one screen per minute.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 15, 2012, 04:26:24 PM
I think we can all sum up the fact if your a shop with a large pre print line where your not printing films all day long then a DTS probably isn't the hot ticket. Granted I would like to know how many hours a shop like Tony has in printing all the films he keeps on hand as I imagine there's a boat load of time originally in all that. I know for fact our DTS machine can image a screen faster then I can print the same film......


I would love to setup a competition comparison with a shop like Alan's or Pierre that has an efficient production already in place using films and a shop like ours with the DTS technology......This would be the exact same multi color design going from start to finish from the time the first screen/film is outputted until the first shirt comes off the press.....We did a similar test the very first day we "plugged" out dts into the wall and on a 5 color job I saved 25 minutes from start to finish. When we do 8 jobs like that a day, well you get the savings....


I will get a video of ours doing a screen tonight or tomorrow sometime for everyone to see. Our DTS only has 1 printhead so the speed of ours can be increased by almost 3 times. I never image more then 50 screens a day so having more print heads was not an issue for me. The 3 print head machines will image a full size design in under 45 seconds with lots of ink coverage which a standard epson printer out putting films would take 2-3 minutes. By looking at the video Sam posted I would say our Lawson is quite a bit faster then his. I can't speak for him but it looks like Sam's is not the current version that M&R offers which is basically identical to our lawson unit.

Just more food for the thought, but I will get a video shot by tomorrow sometime.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 15, 2012, 04:43:42 PM
Danny

you are correct we have the iImage...it is the older one not the iScreen....we also only have 1 head...we also run it with the msp3140....

i would love to see that data as well a shop with a dts vs film from start to finish..

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 16, 2012, 07:03:14 AM
Pierre's shop would be a perfect beta site.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 16, 2012, 10:15:12 AM
[url]http://youtu.be/n1zvjphtRYs[/url] ([url]http://youtu.be/n1zvjphtRYs[/url])

the good bad and ugly....again it works for us...not having to find, line up refile ect...


Can't wait for ours to come in man, thanks for the video!!!!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: RICK STEFANICK on November 16, 2012, 12:28:30 PM
Tony...with DTS you don't think you could have done 90 or 100 in 80 min?  I would think DTS is faster than looking up film....


Lets see a video of your DTS printing a screen.
thanks for posting it up
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 16, 2012, 01:34:28 PM
Here's a quick and disclaimer** real shitty video of our unit....I took the video on my phone and had to break it up in a couple sections so they probably overlap. Below are the links.

I've got the machine set real slow right now and it's printing UNI directional which makes it much slower as well. I was just doing a bunch of high end sim process screens so that's why it was set at uni direction. The bi direction we use for solid style prints which speeds it up quite a bit compared to this video.



dts 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0crw8JUHH98#)

dts3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHRWuIs93pM#)

dts2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-BTPdBZiFE#)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: CastleKing on November 16, 2012, 01:56:25 PM
We have the I-Screen currently and love it so much, I've ordered an I-image (due to be here any day now). The benefit for us has been the reduction in set-up times, not film. We use this in combination with the Tri-Loc. It is amazing how accurate the set-ups are. We are nailing set-ups in under 2 minutes per color, day in and day out. It makes no difference if we set up a 2 color or 12 color design, they are very accurate if not perfect on the first test print. We have had days where we have set up 15 3-6 color jobs and still ran 2600 pieces on 1 machine in 1 day. Look at the big picture and the value of the open press capacity. Our ROI on the I-screen was about 3 months when we factored in additional revenue generated by faster set-ups, yielding more production each day.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 16, 2012, 02:18:00 PM
That's where I would see the benefit......set up time. My presses are pre-tri-lock and are all different so wouldn't work for me but If I had newer ones I would probably reconsider. Still too slow though.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 16, 2012, 02:20:00 PM
How many DTS units are out there? 

Kiwo I-jet II, wax-based ink

M&R I-image & I-screen, waterbased ink

Lawson Express Jet, waterbased ink?

Douthitt CTS Digital Screen Imager (great product name), fantastic website as well...insert fart noise here, wax based ink

Exile Technologies (formerly OYO Instruments) Spyder, wax based ink, Diablo & Goblin, both thermal ribbon

Acti Camera Legend 2800, Screenjet 3100, Legend 6460, waterbased ink

Richmond Direct Jet Pro and Direct Jet Max, waterbased ink

Jackhammer Tech, CTS Jackhawk 9000

Did I miss any?  Got to be one or two more out there.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 16, 2012, 03:15:27 PM
Tony, what do you guys output your films on?

How long do you think it would take to output the 80 films that you imaged on screen regarding the topic of this post?

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 16, 2012, 03:44:54 PM
Wonder what happened to the gizmo they had over in Asia that actually applied an image directly to the mesh, no emulsion just an actual stencil. There was a video on it once some where on one of the many forums.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 16, 2012, 04:52:39 PM
Tony, what do you guys output your films on?

How long do you think it would take to output the 80 films that you imaged on screen regarding the topic of this post?

Roll film about a buck per foot if I remember right. Remember our business model. Most of those films were libraried. They already exist. New stuff is sent to the printers then the artists go back to designing. No one is standing by the printer waiting for films. Most of them are loaded up right before closing so no time really. They are ready in the morning.
Remember I'm feeding four autos and three manuals. What am I losing? Downtime on setups. But it seems like I would need at least two of these in order to keep up. Increased setup times would result in even more increased screen throughput.
I'm really enjoying this thread. I'm hoping Pierre will weigh in
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 16, 2012, 07:47:54 PM
Tony, what do you guys output your films on?

How long do you think it would take to output the 80 films that you imaged on screen regarding the topic of this post?

Roll film about a buck per foot if I remember right. Remember our business model. Most of those films were libraried. They already exist. New stuff is sent to the printers then the artists go back to designing. No one is standing by the printer waiting for films. Most of them are loaded up right before closing so no time really. They are ready in the morning.
Remember I'm feeding four autos and three manuals. What am I losing? Downtime on setups. But it seems like I would need at least two of these in order to keep up. Increased setup times would result in even more increased screen throughput.
I'm really enjoying this thread. I'm hoping Pierre will weigh in




Tony, how many screens do you guys image in a single day and what is the percentage of those that are new orders where you have to print film? I can do a quick time estimate for you based on our equipment. I know if we had a dts unit with 3 print heads we would be able to image around 400 screens a day. Are you guys doing more then 400 each day?

Since your business lends itself toward the traditional film method it's probably a mute point but if your under 400 screens a day 1 machine would keep up with that and the increase in setup times would increase the throughput by a large amount I'm sure.


Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 16, 2012, 08:24:28 PM
I'm just curious as to why the DTS is so much faster for on-press screen set-up? Is it just that manually positioning film with a good system is not accurate enough?

Great stuff on this thread, keep it coming guys!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 16, 2012, 09:25:03 PM
ink...it takes out 1 human interaction...you do not have it moving due to poor taping or moving on suck down ect...it keeps it in line with each other...thus being faster set up times...

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Ron Pierson on November 16, 2012, 09:33:42 PM
I'll weigh in here. We are looking over this system hard. I think it is more than a DTS machine or two. It's more about time studies, RIP viewing, and space savings. I went to the SGIA show and saw alot of them. They all pritty much do the same thing - toner on a screen. One thing I noticed - you will need good screens. 

Where I see the savings is in the time we get back. Waiting for a vacuum to suck down a screen - 30 seconds? We do about 2-300 screens a day in our buisy season. our blankets are just about 30 seconds for a drawdown. 30 seconds times 200 screens = 1.5 hours back to screen production a day. what can be done with that extra 1.5 hours in a screen room?

We have figured out how to not use tape for squeege side block out. We use screens with permanent block-out. (yes - it IS PERMANENT and yes - tension is consistantly 25 newtons in stretch and glue)Another time study here - 30 seconds to apply, 45 seconds to remove. I'm sure you can do the math again on this one. One more thing previously mentioned - no reggies - again, no tape. One more thing about tape, I won't have to buy as much (if at all). BIG savings here.

Another thing - space gained by not having to store files. I know what it is like to have 5000 files - I have that now - much more than that. What can be done with the extra space gained here? Is there a profit center that can be put in the library's place? Maybe another press?

Without the right RIP, you are running blind. I know that there is a checking process when an artist drags those films from the printer (or should be) and looks them over. We are all scared that this process will disappear - I was. The right RIP will show you a different way of viewing that is even more efficent than trying to "look thru a black toner to check for correct". I was amazed at what is out there. The checking process is now digital and in color - with a ZOOM - and an opaquing function so you can actually "see" the chokeback white under the top color. When you can see halftones at 200% IN COLOR - well.....

Some have said that they "just push print, lock the doors, go for a beer, and get films first thing in the morning" . This exists with the right RIP. You will do the same thing - RIP and go home. Now, you can come in late and your screen guys are half way thru the "RIP'd files left in the que" in the screen room for them to get started with. They can even do their own "checking for correct" in their viewer before they burn screens. Of course, as an artist, you have to do your own checking but you can RIP the files and view BEFORE you que up. Even if you don't DTS - this would be a major advantage for an art room to have files "right" before film is produced. How many times have you ran films only to have a "do over on the green film"?

One last thing - setups on press. I think the answer is obvious. Your set up time would go down by half or more. If this is true - again - what can you do with this extra time gained? Print more shirts?

We all are given 24 hours. It is just a question on how to use it wisely. Has technology come to the rescue of wasted time? Will your employees be more accountable for their actions (art room, screen room, press operators, reclaim) The jury is out but I think I know the verdict.

I'm not paid by anyone to make these statements nor have any interest in a particular company.

Ron Pierson


 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: BorisB on November 18, 2012, 02:58:31 PM
How many DTS units are out there? 

Kiwo I-jet II, wax-based ink

M&R I-image & I-screen, waterbased ink

Lawson Express Jet, waterbased ink?

Douthitt CTS Digital Screen Imager (great product name), fantastic website as well...insert fart noise here, wax based ink



Exile Technologies (formerly OYO Instruments) Spyder, wax based ink, Diablo & Goblin, both thermal ribbon

Acti Camera Legend 2800, Screenjet 3100, Legend 6460, waterbased ink

Richmond Direct Jet Pro and Direct Jet Max, waterbased ink

Jackhammer Tech, CTS Jackhawk 9000

Did I miss any?  Got to be one or two more out there.

Are all these actual producers? Didn't know there were so many. Alan you excluded all DLE producers due to price? I know some US transfer printers use Signtronic units which are over $ 200.000. The new eco DLE from Cst is around 120.000€. I haven't seen it working but I know a guy having it in his shop, and he loves it.

My opinion on speed: Our DTS is very slow, from what you all wrote. But it's speed is not important. I look at our whole process in a way taught by Goldratt's theory of Constraints. In the end it's always presses that are bottleneck for bigger throughtput, never screens. We wouldn't produce more shirts with fastest DTS in the world. But even our slow DTS makes our setups shorter and we print more shirts.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 18, 2012, 03:52:53 PM
I think it all goes back to what works in your shop might not work in others...but I think people are ONLY looking at the dts as a stand alone not as a whole and how it works in the shop....I know what works for us and I will keep doing it and keep making the $$$ because I want to buy a plane in 2013!

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 09:38:59 AM
How many DTS units are out there? 

Kiwo I-jet II, wax-based ink

M&R I-image & I-screen, waterbased ink

Lawson Express Jet, waterbased ink?

Douthitt CTS Digital Screen Imager (great product name), fantastic website as well...insert fart noise here, wax based ink



Exile Technologies (formerly OYO Instruments) Spyder, wax based ink, Diablo & Goblin, both thermal ribbon

Acti Camera Legend 2800, Screenjet 3100, Legend 6460, waterbased ink

Richmond Direct Jet Pro and Direct Jet Max, waterbased ink

Jackhammer Tech, CTS Jackhawk 9000

Did I miss any?  Got to be one or two more out there.

Are all these actual producers? Didn't know there were so many. Alan you excluded all DLE producers due to price? I know some US transfer printers use Signtronic units which are over $ 200.000. The new eco DLE from Cst is around 120.000€. I haven't seen it working but I know a guy having it in his shop, and he loves it.

My opinion on speed: Our DTS is very slow, from what you all wrote. But it's speed is not important. I look at our whole process in a way taught by Goldratt's theory of Constraints. In the end it's always presses that are bottleneck for bigger throughtput, never screens. We wouldn't produce more shirts with fastest DTS in the world. But even our slow DTS makes our setups shorter and we print more shirts.

Those are just the ones I know about.  Except for one.  Sucks when you lob a joke out there and nobody picks up on it...crickets...

I've been looking hard at this for a long time.  I've done the numbers six ways from Sunday, ROI based on our shop, how quickly we turn around screens and setups, etc., it's just nowhere near 1 year.  I keep second guessing my math but then I run them again, being even more and more conservative, then more and more in favor of the DTS and I'm reminded that we just aren't going to benefit yet.  I know our processes like the back of my hand, I know how long it takes us to do every possible task out there, we average 20 screens a day with at least 18 of those having more than one image on them.  If we were using the triloc properly then we'd be at 40 screens per day and DTS would be much closer to reality.  Our film is libraried along a wall and finding a repeat job takes literally 5 seconds when you know the design number and aligning the film on the screen is anywhere from 5 seconds to 30 if you are being extremely careful.  On new jobs, DTS would be as fast as film for us, printing out film and printing on a screen are very similar in time, so we save time on the film alignment and exposure, several minutes per screen, maybe up to 45 minutes a day if all we had were new jobs.  If we used the DTS on repeat jobs then we'd lose those 45 minutes plus another 30-45 minutes so we aren't at a net time savings yet.  I'm thinking our ROI would be there only if we had a DTS that could output images in less than a minute.  There is no way to ignore all the work and time that has been done and hanging on the wall in the form of libraried film, no way to get around it, a DTS would slow us down on all repeat jobs and we do a ton of repeats, probably 60-70% of our workload.  If our workload were 50% new and 50% repeat then we'd literally be within several minutes of labor at the end of a day with or without DTS, so $40-60K is hard to swallow with those numbers looming around. 

We also NEVER look at printed out film for mistakes or as a quality control checkpoint, it's printed out and it's right, 99.9% of the time.  I can't remember more than 5 times in 6 years where we've had to reprint a piece of film because something was output wrong.  Our artist must be good I guess.  As soon as the film comes off the printer it might be on a screen within minutes.

I can see scenarios where a shop could benefit from DTS with low screen usage, but obviously every shop is different.  I'll keep on checking the ROI for DTS, but right now it doesn't make sense on paper until we get around 30-40 screens per day.  I'm glad other shops are finding the benefits with DTS, it gives me hope that when it finally is in place here it will be a great new tool.  I think shops who do a lot of repeat jobs need to remember that when you use film, that process is only done one time and every other time the job is printed you remove that step of the process and can get a screen into production really quickly.  I do think our press setups will be faster with DTS, but we are fast in this department already and we won't see the huge labor savings that some shops will.

As you can see, this is a tough decision for some shops to make.  We are in no-man's land it seems but as we grow it will become more clear...I hope.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 19, 2012, 10:06:51 AM
Alan

I have to disagree...in my former life I was an X-ray Tech and we had our films cataloged 2 feet from the exposure unit with a light table in between...we were fast at getting film, we were fast at setting said film...but we are FASTER with the dts...there is no line up...there is no looking for the film ect...it is right there ready to go...by the time you go the film out I would be exposing the first screen...and then the set ups are faster so you can get more set ups per day, thus increasing your screen output...

again go with what you need to, but I can tell you once you get it in house you will see more and more time savings steps...heck just putting the film back is a great reason to get a dts..I really disliked doing the refiling...guess I did that too much in the military....

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 19, 2012, 10:12:46 AM
God there is so many facets to this to be looked at wow.

Sam I have to disagree with your disagreement with Alan.

We also have our films catalogued in the same room as our expo unit. The thing is your way of explaining it makes sense except you leave out a step on your end. For instance I have a job to run repeat, 4 color. All I do is tell the back room guy the job and the folder it is in, he goes pulls the four films takes 30 seconds. You have to access a computer, find the art file send to que and so on. Again thats time must be equal to finding the films. My guy found all four films at one time and while the first time, while the first screen is being developed and second is burning, I or him which ever is in the expo room is already refiling the films as they are used, it works perfectly for us and things stay organized and no one is sitting around waiting on a screen to burn etc.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 19, 2012, 10:20:05 AM
We are tired of film, tired of chasing it, cataloging it, the whole process, we ordered our I-Image last week, can't wait for that bad boy to come in. Lot's of 8 color, mostly 6 and 8 color jobs that we do. A lot of our customers require print proofs before we run as well. With a small staff, this makes sense for us, to be able to lock and load accurately, taking  out the whole grid alignment, triloc in the exposure unit, carrier sheet mess, we, when read to expose will now be able to lay 2 screens at a time in the unit, no glass or film, with the Richmond, probably looking at 20 second exposures, I won't be able to keep up with that. Our big thing is ROI in the set up and re-set department. If we had 10 people on deck to do all of these tasks that 2 of us do on press, it would be different, but I can totally see how this is going to benefit us in a huge way, and the best part, by going with an M&R unit, Rich's direct quote, Mike if you don't see that it will do what we say it will, we will take it back and refund your money. You can't beat that! I'll be giving a ton of feed back, but I'm freakin excited as all get out now!!!!! Not that you guys don't, but we have verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry picky customers and anything that I can do to stream line what we do and eliminate variables in pre-press will help us greatly!!!   Thanks for the vid and pics last week Sam!

Mike
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 19, 2012, 10:24:35 AM
Don't get me wrong I am just like Alan I drool over the thought of owning a DTS! Also just like Alan we cannot see the ROI in a reasonable time period.

My hope is as it becomes more popular the price will come down, when its in the low 20's then yea we could justify it. Also our printing load is rising exponentally this past couple of years thanks to pushing for more printing work and approaching brokers we shied away from when we only had the Javelin. My hope is in another year or two our printing and screens are doubled and again that will make the justification for a DTS even easier.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: blue moon on November 19, 2012, 10:32:15 AM
Tony, what do you guys output your films on?

How long do you think it would take to output the 80 films that you imaged on screen regarding the topic of this post?

Roll film about a buck per foot if I remember right. Remember our business model. Most of those films were libraried. They already exist. New stuff is sent to the printers then the artists go back to designing. No one is standing by the printer waiting for films. Most of them are loaded up right before closing so no time really. They are ready in the morning.
Remember I'm feeding four autos and three manuals. What am I losing? Downtime on setups. But it seems like I would need at least two of these in order to keep up. Increased setup times would result in even more increased screen throughput.
I'm really enjoying this thread. I'm hoping Pierre will weigh in

'been reading and paying attention.  It is hard for me to say anything from experience as we are still so inefficient that a DTS would not make any difference. I am also worried that we will lose some of the dot definition by going directly to the screen. Right now our dots look pretty good (nice and round with very little bumps) and the DTS stuff I've seen is pretty ragged looking.  We are holding a 3% dot at 60lpi and are pushing the limits of the mesh (this is calibrated 3% which is equivalent to what AccuRIP used to print as 6-7%) so unlike most others that improve the halftones with going digital, I think we would be at a loss. Smart thing would probably be to hold on to the film output device and use it for the high end jobs!
I can also see where Tony would have less advantage to switching with all the films already cataloged. It is quite possible that in the end he would benefit from it, but I am just talking out of my behind right now.

I think the best point was brought up by BaumanB. If it is not a bottleneck, chances are there are better ways of spending money. One would have to be able to calculate the time savings in man hours and have a good ROI based on that rather than production numbers. As many here will agree, the ROI numbers given by the manufacturers never really work out. I think if Ron with a large shop can move one person from the screen dpt to the production floor and on top of that decrease setup and save on tape it makes it easier to justify!

We were at 40 screens/day this summer, and while it would be tempting to think it would be a good investment, we had (and still have) improvements that are higher on the list. I also think that for that kind of money we can get another auto that will bring signifcantly more to the bottom line than a DTS. Please remember this is coming form a startup shop that spends all the money on the upgrades and growth (around $200k in last four years) so the money is not just sitting in the bank being unused. For some of the bigger shops that have cash sitting in the bank it is a no brainer.

So my thoughts are, "we will get one as soon as the finances allow it, but there are several pieces of equipment that are ahead of it."

pierre
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Screened Gear on November 19, 2012, 11:15:08 AM
" for that kind of money we can get another auto"

I have to agree on this.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 19, 2012, 11:23:28 AM
" for that kind of money we can get another auto"

I have to agree on this.

I thought that way too, another auto, more staff to run it, but your still in the same boat with imaging and alignment, set up, ect. I'll know more after we have it for a month but anyone I have talked to that has any brand of CTS says the same thing. Dude you are going to wish you did it sooner. Probably why we rarley see them on the used market unlike everything else. Plus, you can't buy an auto for the deal we got on this unit, you could but it would be small, air driven or very old. This, for us, makes sense, and with a money back guarantee, I can't see why not trying it out for myself.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Screened Gear on November 19, 2012, 11:30:08 AM
I thought they were like 50,000 dollars.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 19, 2012, 11:35:06 AM
So did I  :o
Title: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: BorisB on November 19, 2012, 12:51:39 PM
How many DTS units are out there? 

Kiwo I-jet II, wax-based ink

M&R I-image & I-screen, waterbased ink

Lawson Express Jet, waterbased ink?

Douthitt CTS Digital Screen Imager (great product name), fantastic website as well...insert fart noise here, wax based ink



Exile Technologies (formerly OYO Instruments) Spyder, wax based ink, Diablo & Goblin, both thermal ribbon

Acti Camera Legend 2800, Screenjet 3100, Legend 6460, waterbased ink

Richmond Direct Jet Pro and Direct Jet Max, waterbased ink

Jackhammer Tech, CTS Jackhawk 9000

Did I miss any?  Got to be one or two more out there.

Are all these actual producers? Didn't know there were so many. Alan you excluded all DLE producers due to price? I know some US transfer printers use Signtronic units which are over $ 200.000. The new eco DLE from Cst is around 120.000€. I haven't seen it working but I know a guy having it in his shop, and he loves it.

My opinion on speed: Our DTS is very slow, from what you all wrote. But it's speed is not important. I look at our whole process in a way taught by Goldratt's theory of Constraints. In the end it's always presses that are bottleneck for bigger throughtput, never screens. We wouldn't produce more shirts with fastest DTS in the world. But even our slow DTS makes our setups shorter and we print more shirts.

Those are just the ones I know about.  Except for one.  Sucks when you lob a joke out there and nobody picks up on it...crickets...

Alan, I bought Jackhammer joke, trying to Google it... :-D
But I don't know what Jackhammer is.

The unit by Lawson, is it OEM? Or they make it?
Is it only non Epson Inkjet based? How much is it? I guess I'm off thread with this questions.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 19, 2012, 01:01:04 PM
I think someone here that knows the MSRP of all the relevant machines should let us in on the mystery pricing. Its another thing I hate in this industry is all the hush hush about pricing etc. Its like we are all beholden to our manufacturer reps to keep their pricing quiet, if the pricing is standard then let the world know. I refuse to contact sellers to get a price on these machines knowing I will be bombarded with sales speech and useless info like "you will regret not doing is sooner" The beginning point is knowing the cost first, then after that I would get serious info but I prefer to know the general price of equipment with out the hassle.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 19, 2012, 01:08:22 PM
Mike...to sound like a totally assh*le...someone could say the same about you and Logo it up....you only have pricing for dtg...so why should someone have to call to get pricing? 

just sayin...
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: ScreenFoo on November 19, 2012, 01:20:56 PM
Hmmm...  how many millions of permutations of these systems are there?  I must be missing something on that analogy.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 19, 2012, 01:26:17 PM
Mike...to sound like a totally assh*le...someone could say the same about you and Logo it up....you only have pricing for dtg...so why should someone have to call to get pricing? 

just sayin...

Sam we sell to the end user and for your information we have published pricing.

I am speaking about our screen printing community and buying equipment, there is a world of difference between equipment pricing and end user pricing for t-shirts.

I can open up vendor catalogues and see MSRP for press's exposure units, frames, stretchers on and on yet CTS (DTS) seems to be cloaked in some mystery which I don't quite get. Is it because the seller wants a chance to convince someone first before they suffer sticker shock? Wouldn't doubt it.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 02:00:24 PM
I got a rough idea of pricing by talking to manufacturers and you can get a cheaper unit, the one's that may or may not actually work for 22-25K, the mid-sized units that use the Epson piezo printheads with waterbased ink are typically in the mid 30's and up.  The original Kiwo I-jet made now by Douthitt and Exile are around 55K and the Kiwo I-jet II is at least 60K and probably closer to 65K.

A shop here in town bought an OYO Goblin or Diablo, can't remember and it never worked so they pulled it from the shop.  My pet peeve in this industry goes back to the old T-jet DTG's and I cannot stand the fact that some of the DTS machines don't actually work right when set up and then there are lot's of bugs in them.  I would be absolutely livid if we bought a DTS and it took a week or even longer to get it running properly.  I just know that there will likely be issues with it down the road as well if it doesn't work out of the crate.

Sam, in your argument, you are right with new jobs but there is no way you could print a screen in the time that I can pull the film and get a screen on the exposure unit.  Only if you can print 2 images per screen in about 90 seconds and have it on the exposure unit could you be faster than already printed film.  I think it would be a close call in who would develop the entire stencil first since you would be gaining time in quicker exposure times but even if was a wash, we're talking about press setup as the only area that DTS would benefit us.  We have modified our Triloc to work without carrier sheets and can gang images on every screen, burn two screens at a time so we are fairly quick in developing the stencil.

This is a great discussion.  I truly understand the technology, I really do.  I just don't think all shops operate the same and we are just lucky that we do what we do as fast as we do it.  One of my screen techs came from a 3 auto shop and she's always talking about how much we get done with just one auto.  She thought she was going to be working in a slower shop and it would be easier for her, but she said we do the same amount of work as her old employers shop did when they had 2 autos.  She was there for 4 years so I believe her.  When I first started running the shop we struggled with the workload and spent many long hours up here working overtime.  Now we do double the amount of setups and teardowns with no additional payroll.  We were setup just like other shops originally.  The people that helped set it up were industry veterans and modeled it after other similar shops, but we do very little the same as we did back then.  I think DTS is the next best thing that's already here.  This discussion has not deterred me from getting one at all.  I just know that we won't get the ROI I want yet while other shops will.  Like Mike said, it's not as easy a decision as I thought this time a year ago.  A shop's ability to develop a stencil and their press setup times vary greatly, and those two factors play a huge role in whether or not DTS will make you money.  The money spent on film and ink for the inkjet is small compared to labor time.  I wonder how much a one auto shop that does 20 screens per day, ganged images on screens, would spend on ink for the DTS and upkeep per year?  It won't be what we spend on film, folders and ink but that DTS ink and maintenance isn't exactly free either. 

Funny you mention the x-ray tech thing Sam, I grew up in an x-ray department as my mom was one for 35 years and she was on-call for the first 10 years of my life and my father worked out of town.  I've spent many nights watching my mom take x-rays and develop film when she was called in and I had to go to the hospital with her. 

And Bauman, the jackhawk 9000 reference was to Talladega Nights.  I thought it would get more than crickets but sometimes you hit a homerun and sometimes you strike out.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 19, 2012, 02:50:16 PM


We're talking about press setup as the only area that DTS would benefit us.  We have modified our Triloc to work without carrier sheets and can gang images on every screen, burn two screens at a time so we are fairly quick in developing the stencil.



That's about where I'm at too. We'll be building our Film Positioning Unit this winter along with a Triloc style jig to fit on a platen. There is no reason why we can't get within .005 - .010" with that.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 19, 2012, 03:10:11 PM
I tell you what, I've been sitting here doing seps and printing films all day, now, I'll still have to go back and line all these up on the carrier sheets before I have the first one to a screen. Wish my I-Image was already here, this pile of film would be a pile of imaged screens awaiting the 20 second bumps of exposure, if not already exposed. I see it a smart move for us, but that's for us, might not be for someone else.  ;D
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: RICK STEFANICK on November 19, 2012, 03:23:19 PM
I think someone here that knows the MSRP of all the relevant machines should let us in on the mystery pricing. Its another thing I hate in this industry is all the hush hush about pricing etc. Its like we are all beholden to our manufacturer reps to keep their pricing quiet, if the pricing is standard then let the world know. I refuse to contact sellers to get a price on these machines knowing I will be bombarded with sales speech and useless info like "you will regret not doing is sooner" The beginning point is knowing the cost first, then after that I would get serious info but I prefer to know the general price of equipment with out the hassle.
mike, I think pricing is so hush hush is because different companys work different deals.. i know there is situations with people trading in other equipment etc. so they probably dont even know the actual price of the unit and may be using reduced numbers based on that. with leasing and the cost of money i believe the ROI is longer than some admit.. but hey, its just my opinion with nothing but a business background. I dont have a dts but have ran numbers based on the 40 screens a day we average and i just dont see the payback worth the investment with a shop my size..
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 04:03:27 PM
I think someone here that knows the MSRP of all the relevant machines should let us in on the mystery pricing. Its another thing I hate in this industry is all the hush hush about pricing etc. Its like we are all beholden to our manufacturer reps to keep their pricing quiet, if the pricing is standard then let the world know. I refuse to contact sellers to get a price on these machines knowing I will be bombarded with sales speech and useless info like "you will regret not doing is sooner" The beginning point is knowing the cost first, then after that I would get serious info but I prefer to know the general price of equipment with out the hassle.
mike, I think pricing is so hush hush is because different companys work different deals.. i know there is situations with people trading in other equipment etc. so they probably dont even know the actual price of the unit and may be using reduced numbers based on that. with leasing and the cost of money i believe the ROI is longer than some admit.. but hey, its just my opinion with nothing but a business background. I dont have a dts but have ran numbers based on the 40 screens a day we average and i just dont see the payback worth the investment with a shop my size..

Sounds like our numbers are very similar.  At 40 it makes more sense for us but it's still nowhere near a year ROI.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 19, 2012, 04:18:04 PM


We're talking about press setup as the only area that DTS would benefit us.  We have modified our Triloc to work without carrier sheets and can gang images on every screen, burn two screens at a time so we are fairly quick in developing the stencil.





That's about where I'm at too. We'll be building our Film Positioning Unit this winter along with a Triloc style jig to fit on a platen. There is no reason why we can't get within .005 - .010" with that.

Forgot to mention, there will be no carrier sheets with my FPU. As easy as taping film on a screen.

* Idea shamelessly stolen from pictures posted by some clever individuals on another site....
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 19, 2012, 04:26:35 PM
i still think you are wrong ALAN..but keep doing what you are doing!

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: mk162 on November 19, 2012, 05:01:45 PM
an roi calculator on M&R's website would be smart...or even one on any website for these things.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 19, 2012, 05:06:36 PM
Since we run the new lawson express jet direct to screen if anyone has questions on that I should be able to help. David just did a new video with the unit that has 3 print heads so you guys can see the speed of the machine. I'm not a salesmen for these guys or anything like that but I know when I was in the market to buy a DTS I would have loved to talk to more people actually using them so just offering that. Here's the video so you guys can see that with 3 print heads on the machine it images pretty damn fast. Just the time savings on not having to use vacuum + the decrease in exposure time I would guess this would be just about as fast as using films..... The savings between on press setup, taping pin holes, vacuum draw down time, and decrease in exposure I bet this would be faster...... We really need someone to do a good back to back test but my opinion is this quicker.


The Lawson Express-Jet/CTS Computer To Screen Imaging Device (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIj68BeuVNQ#ws)


Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Parker 1 on November 19, 2012, 05:29:13 PM
Forgive me for sounding like a complete dumb*ss, but is the ink dry when the screen is finished?  Will it smear when placed in the exposure unit. 

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 05:32:36 PM
i still think you are wrong ALAN..but keep doing what you are doing!

sam


Ok Sam, I sure will.  In the meantime, instead of telling me you think I'm wrong, tell me why I'm wrong.  Unless you can find your art in the DTS files, proof it, load the screen, wait for DTS machine to get the message sent to print, rip & print two images per screen on your DTS in that time period then I guess you are right and I'm wrong.  I'm just going by the numbers the DTS people have given me, by all means, if there is a DTS that can do all that in 90 seconds or less then the two are at least equal.   I haven't watched the video Danny put in yet but I'm assuming it's way faster than 2 minutes or even 90 seconds just by reading what he said.  It's got to be around 1 minute (remember 2 regular sized images or one large one that fills up most of the print area of the screen) to be faster than libraried film in our shop.

Wait, I've got a better idea, why don't you and your production crew gather up your jobs and try to print out/develop 80 screens in 80 minutes and let's see how well you do.  If you can do that with a DTS, then I'll conceed that I'm wrong and the mighty business guru Sam is right.  And I just did the math and about 75% of our jobs are repeats.  Guess we do something right.

Look, I'm really glad you have a DTS, and others who have them and are getting them too like Mike, but if you really think you know how this shop operates and that I'm doing simple math wrong then at very least, prove me wrong.  There is a formula for getting an ROI in a year with a DTS, but at our efficiency rate it's well into the 60-70 screens per day, maybe more.  If you can get your ROI in a year with whatever your screen usage is, it's a no brainer.  But there isn't anyone on earth that can convince me that we will get it within even 3 years with our current screen usage and efficiency.  I'm pretty sure the title of this thread would be enough for people to stop and think about this a little deeper.  Hey, if I'm wrong about all this then so is Tony, I can live with that.  I understand I don't have Tony's clout, but I do know what the hell I'm doing compared to most who do this for a living.

We don't have any bottlenecks within our production right now.  The only thing that slows us down is everything, all the processes that go into it.  We have not yet maxed out production with 3 people, an artist and one auto, there is not one area that slows us down more than another.  We aren't standing around waiting on film, waiting on screen development, waiting on the dryer, double stroking the auto, running a revolver program every day, we don't have a glaring bottleneck.  When the press is stopped and another job is being setup, we are getting things ready for the next job and the next job.  The press op is NEVER waiting on any pre-press item, and our screen department somehow keeps up with the ever growing number of screens we go through every day.  We aren't spending tons of money on supplies to print out film.  Hell, if we still had the 4800 running then I'd suggest that we could be as fast as DTS even if we printed film for every job.  There aren't many shops out there that have truly maxed out their possible production capability and those that have should look into DTS.  I know at exactly what point in sales and jobs/year that we need to add another employee or tool, and we aren't there yet.  Those shops who have the money and simply want the process to be a lot easier and a little quicker should look at DTS.  Shops that do a lot of repeat jobs that have film already printed might want to hold off on a DTS.  Shops that can do what Tony does and perhaps what we do to a certain extent will have a much harder decision to make.

But let us all know how fast you produce those 80 screens.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 05:36:06 PM
Well, I just watched the video, I like the Lawson unit, it's fast, but there wasn't much ink for that image.  Our little 1400 could do that in half the time of the normal stuff we have to output.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 19, 2012, 05:52:11 PM
Forgive me for sounding like a complete dumb*ss, but is the ink dry when the screen is finished?  Will it smear when placed in the exposure unit.



The ink is still somewhat wet which WILL smear if you touch it with your fingers. Most people that have dts units remove the glass all together in their exposure unit. Our exposure times are already too fast for our current workflow so we kept out glass in the exposure and we just put small plastic spacer plates between the glass and the screen so the screen is slightly above the glass.


Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 19, 2012, 05:57:41 PM
Well, I just watched the video, I like the Lawson unit, it's fast, but there wasn't much ink for that image.  Our little 1400 could do that in half the time of the normal stuff we have to output.


Alan, if that print was basically full coverage it would output at the same speed. The stroke length from side to side and overall height is what dictates the speed as you know. The speed of the machine is determined on how far of travel the head has to move, not how much ink actually goes down if that makes any sense.....

I won't speak for Lawson or M&R but our express jet is basically the exact same as the i image st..... Same software, same printhead, etc, using waterbased ink.



Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 06:16:11 PM
I guess our film output is different than DTS.  A solid block takes longer to print than something of the same size with broken up art like what was printed.  The rip may be different in that the density is achieved with one pass instead of the way our film is output.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 19, 2012, 06:22:12 PM
Alan

I have and noone listens...it is not only about the print time of the dts it is about your artist time, the set up time, the consumables ect....just like Gilligan laughing and saying why are you measuring tape used per year vs. not using tape...well if I save $40.00 bucks a year on scotch tape x 10 yrs...well tell that is some real money, then you take into account faster burn times, set up time ect...that is where you save money or should i say make more money...if you can set up 1 xtra job a day x 5 days to 52 weeks how much more would you make?  be honest what is the profit on your average job?  200 bucks?  if so you have 200x5 - 1000 x 52 that is 52k in a year...

plus the savings from your artist not having to print film, plus the savings of not paying someone to refile the films...plus the savings from the film cost, plus the list goes on and on....

so there you have it...only doing 1 xtra job a day you have more than paid for it in 1 yr...

BOOOOM!

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 19, 2012, 06:42:36 PM
I will be the first to say we are not an efficient shop YET, and we were even less efficient when we outputted films but the very first day we went DTS we were able to get 3 more jobs done then if we did not have this. I did not do an exact time on every process through the shop to find out where our time savings were but the very first day I figured we made $1,300 dollars that we would have not made without it. Now I do not have good stats on the throughput so it would be impossible for me to say we could do this everyday but I do know we are getting more done then we ever have and are working less. My opinion is you cannot really account for all the time savings until you have one of these in your shop. The first full week that we were using DTS I got really worried as it seemed like we had a lot less work then we had been having but when I looked at the numbers we actually did more volume that week. It just seemed like we were slow because we got so much more done. Like I said we were pretty in efficient and still am but I was absolutely blown away with the OVERALL amount of jobs we did compared to what we were normally doing. At first I was real scared on the ROI breakdown but once I saw how much more work we were able to complete in the same time I realized this was the best investment I ever made. My rough numbers are we can increase our throughput by almost 40% compared to what we were a year ago......The profit that we make doing 1-2-3 more jobs each day is far worth it for me, not to mention for the last month we have not spent a dime on film.....


It just all goes back to how efficient your shop is, how many repeat jobs you do, etc. The DTS has a place in every shop except Tony's and Alan's...... LOL!!!!

At least we have some good discussion on some technology that hasn't been talked about much which is nothing but good..... Is bimridder dave around by chance? I know he can add some valuable info to this discussion.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Mr Tees!! on November 19, 2012, 06:44:02 PM
...Sam, your math is a bit of a false economy, dont you think? Your numbers make sense if you are turning away one job a day because you are bottlenecked, Otherwise, you cannot apply that fantasy-income toward a ROI. Now when you start growing and selling more jobs and can handle it in the same time-frame, THEN it makes sense.

...were you turning away a job a day? Or did you magically start getting an additional job a day? If not, then the ROI is not as fast as you claim.

...not saying that DTS isnt the BOMB, I am sure we would all love to have one. And I would go so far as to admit that, if it could be comfortably afforded, that its smart to bring it in sooner than later. But the way you are crunching the numbers, aside from the perfect-world scenario described above, is just not realistic.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 19, 2012, 07:20:45 PM
...Sam, your math is a bit of a false economy, dont you think? Your numbers make sense if you are turning away one job a day because you are bottlenecked, Otherwise, you cannot apply that fantasy-income toward a ROI. Now when you start growing and selling more jobs and can handle it in the same time-frame, THEN it makes sense.

...were you turning away a job a day? Or did you magically start getting an additional job a day? If not, then the ROI is not as fast as you claim.

...not saying that DTS isnt the BOMB, I am sure we would all love to have one. And I would go so far as to admit that, if it could be comfortably afforded, that its smart to bring it in sooner than later. But the way you are crunching the numbers, aside from the perfect-world scenario described above, is just not realistic.

Finally someone pointed out the obvious! Well done Mr Tee

That point right there is the biggest factor to us, we are not running full speed 8 hours a day five days a week. If we were and also running over time then yes a CTS if it did speed a part of the bottle neck up would be practical.

For every time saver Sam can point out I can explain how it either is canceled out one way or the other in our process. Like storing films, as I said earlier that is always done by the person in the expo room waiting to swap screens in to the exposure unit, so no time actually lost there. Scotch tape may be a consumable for some, we reuse almost every piece, when peeled off we place on mthe edge of the table and use again. Rarely do I ever have to bring a new roll in. Faster expo time is fantastic but what is the point if you have to wait on the DTS to print the next screen? Ah no one thought of that one did they lol. Obviously there will be some time savings with less electricity but not a ton. Imagine Tony's operation, he can shoot four up so what does he do while waiting for four screens to be printed by the DTS, me I would get impatient and grab films.

Still this is not nay saying the benefits of CTS I love the tech and the consistency, what we are all talking about is actual ROI, no one person can sit down and think of all the variables so this discussion is great because it gives some one interested in this tech all the different pieces to the puzzle. It's better than just being told it works buy it.

Here is a question, how does it handle print head height? Screens certainly are not all created equal and even EOM can effect height, does it automatically detect the optimal height to print at or do you have to adjust manually? I noticed in SAMs video that he had a piece of tape strapping one corner of his roller screen, I am assuming he had to hold that corner down, not saying its possible the great Sam could have a warped Newman but he had a piece of tape there for a reason.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Mr Tees!! on November 19, 2012, 08:18:37 PM
I noticed in SAMs video that he had a piece of tape strapping one corner of his roller screen, I am assuming he had to hold that corner down, not saying its possible the great Sam could have a warped Newman but he had a piece of tape there for a reason.


...hmmmm, some unaccounted-for tape cost? Gee, I thought we already covered tape-cost once before.... ::)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: RICK STEFANICK on November 19, 2012, 09:01:50 PM
Forgive me for sounding like a complete dumb*ss, but is the ink dry when the screen is finished?  Will it smear when placed in the exposure unit.



The ink is still somewhat wet which WILL smear if you touch it with your fingers. Most people that have dts units remove the glass all together in their exposure unit. Our exposure times are already too fast for our current workflow so we kept out glass in the exposure and we just put small plastic spacer plates between the glass and the screen so the screen is slightly above the glass.
i HAVE A BUDDY WITH A COUPLE DTS MACHINES AND THEY HAVE A PIECE OF 1/2 INCH  WOOD STRIPS UNDER EACH SIDE OF THE FRAMES WHILE EXPOSING.. WORKS GREAT
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 19, 2012, 10:24:40 PM
Alan

I have and noone listens...it is not only about the print time of the dts it is about your artist time, the set up time, the consumables ect....just like Gilligan laughing and saying why are you measuring tape used per year vs. not using tape...well if I save $40.00 bucks a year on scotch tape x 10 yrs...well tell that is some real money, then you take into account faster burn times, set up time ect...that is where you save money or should i say make more money...if you can set up 1 xtra job a day x 5 days to 52 weeks how much more would you make?  be honest what is the profit on your average job?  200 bucks?  if so you have 200x5 - 1000 x 52 that is 52k in a year...

plus the savings from your artist not having to print film, plus the savings of not paying someone to refile the films...plus the savings from the film cost, plus the list goes on and on....

so there you have it...only doing 1 xtra job a day you have more than paid for it in 1 yr...

BOOOOM!



Talk about nobody listening, I've actually given numbers and asked you to prove me wrong, I'm listening but your math doesn't add up.  I'll just be honest here since we are getting nowhere.  A dts unit is not going to yield my shop an extra job per day like "some" because...well...I'll be polite and leave it at that.  If we can't get an ROI with our screen usage, I'm not saying you can't Sam, but I will say if we did less screens than we do there is no way we would get a one year ROI.  Dave at Bimmridder really benefits from dts since he goes through 150 screens per day, but at our usage, and certainly yours, it just doesn't add up unless some other areas are bottlenecks or inefficient.  You act like my artist is not going to be doing something besides printing out film, well, he presses a few buttons and the printer prints film while he does something else.  When we get a dts he's going to be the one using it, not my screen tech, not my printer, and me if I feel like playing with something.  His labor time is going to be close to the same whether or not  he's printing film or a screen. 

You claim to be a great business man, but apparently you don't listen to others very well either.  I'm not pulling numbers out of thin air.  What's next, are you going to tell me it's smarter and more business savvy to use $25 mesh panels instead of $5 bolt mesh?  I've taken what little you actually give and use my expertise which I believe is beyond average when it comes to production and say there is no way our shop will get an ROI within 3 years and you claim I don't know what I'm talking about.  Nobody is asking anyone to justify your purchase, but don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about when I know more about my shop than the guy telling me I'm wrong.  A one year ROI is something to be proud of but don't crap on my sandwich and tell me it's hamburger.  I know how a shop can get an One year ROI on a $35K DTS so I don't doubt it's true, but maybe what's not being said is what's really important and I'll leave it at the conclusion that I'm taking my numbers that I know to be true against very little known and results that have more to do with something that doesn't have anything to do with dts.

Still love the idea of having one, but us spending 35-65K on something that might be the equivalent of a velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin getting it on hanging above the press, would be irresponsible for me to do to the business. 

POP BANG FIZZ!

And I will concede I'm wrong when you can develop more screens in an average working day than we can or simply tell me how a dts machine in my shop could give an ROI of one year.  Trust me, I'd listen to that then place an order for one next week, eat crow, white ink and a crapburger, then kiss your pinky ring and tell everyone how great you are.  I don't give a shat about buyers pride or buyers remorse when it comes to an ROI of one year on serious equipment I'll gladly tell everyone who'll listen that I was wrong.  Man of my word.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 19, 2012, 11:36:23 PM
Maybe I'll buy one.  Quick someone tell me I can't afford one of those too.  Lmao. 

Sorry trying to lighten the air. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 19, 2012, 11:37:38 PM
Alan

I have and noone listens...

I'm not trying to be obtuse here, but I went looking and I couldn't find it, I found:

Since I have had it I have found about 25 cost savings....and right now my ROI is at about 11 months...I would go into it, but I am not going to share that info...

Sam




Quote
it is not only about the print time of the dts it is about your artist time, the set up time, the consumables ect....just like Gilligan laughing and saying why are you measuring tape used per year vs. not using tape...well if I save $40.00 bucks a year on scotch tape x 10 yrs...well tell that is some real money, then you take into account faster burn times, set up time ect...that is where you save money or should i say make more money...if you can set up 1 xtra job a day x 5 days to 52 weeks how much more would you make?  be honest what is the profit on your average job?  200 bucks?  if so you have 200x5 - 1000 x 52 that is 52k in a year...

plus the savings from your artist not having to print film, plus the savings of not paying someone to refile the films...plus the savings from the film cost, plus the list goes on and on....

so there you have it...only doing 1 xtra job a day you have more than paid for it in 1 yr...

BOOOOM!

I'm still having trouble making it work in my head the same way Alan is.

It saves the artist time? Printing to screen is faster than printing to film? Hit print, adjust settings if required in rip and you're off and running in both cases. maybe on a multi head DTS it might be a little faster but that's hand's off time on a film printer anyways, if anything printing direct to screens may be more hands on to load screens onto the machine where I can print 100' of film without touching the machine if need be.

Faster set-ups? A good carrier sheet free FPU and platen jig should easily be just as accurate. both are just jigs for the screen, same as the DTS, the DTS eliminates the need to eyeball the film to a grid, but when looking at .010" weight cross-hatch marks if you can't eyeball +/- .005" in 10 seconds you don't belong in this industry.

I'll buy into the faster exposure times, I'll buy into no pin holes, I'll buy into not having to re-file film, I'll buy into no regi marks, as my FPU requires 2.

I can't see the ROI being as fast as what's being touted unless there were significant problems with the pre-DTS systems in the shop to begin with.

A good non-DTS system should have:
Congruent film printing. ie: nobody has to stand there while film is being generated, so it's not a labour overhead.
A good film file system. If it's over 30 seconds to pull a job's film, it ain't a good system.
A good FPU/platen jig system. The whole idea is to almost eliminate the need for micros. If it's that much worse than DTS, then it ain't good.
A good exposure unit. ie: 80 screens in 80 minutes. If the exposure system is a bottle neck then you'd better be doing more than 400 screens a day if 80/80 is the benchmark.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkbrigade on November 20, 2012, 12:12:32 AM
Guess it's time to jump into this mess. We're on the fence about buying a DTS. Prob gonna pull the trigger on one in the next 6 months if the price is right.

My biggest thing is it's hopefully going to help make registration better so setups will be faster. My wife is a crazy stickler about registration.

I'd really like to see a video with no edits of 3-4 color job. Screens imaged with DTS.
Basically put the screens in the press, tri-loc it, print the first strike off and let's see how well it's registered.

If it's nuts on, i'm sold!

I could give a crap about film storage, imaging speed film costs etc. If i could put screens in the press, tri-loc them and have them ready to print with no micro, this would be all the return on investment i need.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 20, 2012, 01:44:10 AM
I can see the benefit of that, but DTS seems like a really expensive way to make a proper FPU.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 20, 2012, 09:27:32 AM
Inkworks hit the freaking nail on the head in one sentence.  He's got it.  I know this sounds like some of us are hammering on shops that bought DTS...couldn't be further from the fact.  We will have one and I'm no hypocrite, but here's the deal:  We will not see the ROI some shops have seen because of a lot of different things, I'll leave it at that.  I don't consider myself a business guru, I started my first business when I was 10 years old and have never stopped learning how and how not to do things, but I do consider myself an expert when it comes to production in a screen printing shop.  There is not a process out there that we don't try and do as efficiently as possible and because we are fortunate to have some really great equipment, things run as fast as the human doing the work will allow...in most cases.  I've tailored the shop to not have bottlenecks, to only be limited by the employee doing the work and then trying my best to find the best crew.  I've had better crews in the shop than we do now, and it goes to show you just how hard it is to find good help these days.  I've been through 4 screen techs in the last 6 months and I've hired every type of person and nothing has worked out great so it's a crapshoot.  It's weird, the worst interview we've ever had with a potential employee has turned out to be our greatest asset and those who come in and blow me away with their attitude turn out to be crap.  I'm getting off track here, but I hope those of you who will listen and read this will get something out of it.  DTS is a great tool to have in your shop, but do your homework.  Inkworks said more than a few things that sum it up great, nail on the head my friend.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 20, 2012, 09:47:12 AM
Mine is on it's way, it totally adds up for me. Anything that can make my life easier, personally, I don't have time to keep farting around with film. I'm not going to hire someone just to play around with all of that crap. We do a higher percentage of new orders than re-orders, and most jobs, for us, are at least 6 colors, if not 8. Yesterday, alone, for,"me", proves that we are making a wise choice. I'm not looking at what the unit costs me, I'm looking at how much time I'm saving on efficiency. We currently have 6 piles of freakin films constantly growing, probably 700 carrier sheets still holding films, and if we were to go and take the time to catalog all of that crap, it would be a couple of full days that someone isn't doing something else that is actually making us money. Now, my point, we do everything, sales, design, seps, ordering, embroidery, screen printing, customer service, accounting, ect, ect, with 3 full time people, 2 part timers. We do the jobs of 8 people on a small staff, and we get it done, and done nicely, so if we can help that along, by investing in a machine, backed with a money back guarantee, I don't see where I could be going wrong. Usually, if you see me posting on these boards, it's while my film printer, is spitting out films, that will then have to be aligned, taped to sheets, before they even touch a screen. If that printing was right on the screen, well, we know the rest of process, and like yesterday, 52 screens, would have gone a lot faster for me. Again, it may not be for every shop, but It definitely looks worth it for us, and like I said yesterday, Rich Hoffman told me straight up, Mike if it's not working out for you, or you don't like it, feel it's a waste ect, I'll take it back. How can I go wrong. Some times numbers are just numbers, my time, and amount of effort and aggravation can out weight a number most of the time. I'm really looking forward to a more, "lock and load" experience on 6 and 8 color jobs. Trust me, if the whole CTS thing is all  hype, I'll be the first one to call it all out, but after talking to several people who own them, I know I'm on the right path.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 09:58:04 AM
We don't do near as many screens as you guys, and its already on my radar.  TIME SAVINGS is all I need to hear.  I have no problem BUYING my time back, which is what we did with our Auto. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 20, 2012, 10:05:39 AM
You are totally right Brandt, kinda the same reason we stepped into an auto when we did. Everyone around me was telling me I was over stepping and could just pull the squeegee more, but in my mind, and what my lower back was telling me was dude, forget the fishing boat for now and buy me a proper tool to do the job easier, more consistent, and in the end faster. It is paid for in full and that investment scored us a huge customer that took us to the next level. Had I stayed with my manual for another year, I would have missed out on them. I just want to be able to do more with what we have right now. We actually thought, well, we could get more done with another auto, but it doesn't end there, and in the end, that's a lot more of an expense, plus now you need more peeps to be on staff to properly use it and we aren't in that position yet. Here again, I'm baby sitting film printing. hahahahah. I'm excited for it to come in and will give it a very fair grading once we have it up and running.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 10:23:49 AM
You are totally right Brandt, kinda the same reason we stepped into an auto when we did. Everyone around me was telling me I was over stepping and could just pull the squeegee more, but in my mind, and what my lower back was telling me was dude, forget the fishing boat for now and buy me a proper tool to do the job easier, more consistent, and in the end faster. It is paid for in full and that investment scored us a huge customer that took us to the next level. Had I stayed with my manual for another year, I would have missed out on them. I just want to be able to do more with what we have right now. We actually thought, well, we could get more done with another auto, but it doesn't end there, and in the end, that's a lot more of an expense, plus now you need more peeps to be on staff to properly use it and we aren't in that position yet. Here again, I'm baby sitting film printing. hahahahah. I'm excited for it to come in and will give it a very fair grading once we have it up and running.

You are exactly right.  We still don't have the business many would suggest you need for a auto.  I laugh at them.  I have already done in sales volume several times over what it costs and again we are designers that print, not printers that design.  If I can afford it a focused screen printer can too. 

I take the same approach on the DTS or other equipment.  It's not all about if the "math" says it pays for itself in a year or two, it's more about how was the quality of life at the shop and away from it, did it improve it?  I suspect it will improve it, it will certainly save some time!

I am up in the air on a DTS or a new full color printer/plotter.  One of those I suspect will be arriving first of the yearish though.  I am never scared to take a gamble.  This last 2 years has been full of big moves for our business.  I don't intend to stop.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 20, 2012, 01:48:06 PM
I've done many things around the shop to make things "easier".  DTS can do that no doubt, but we are talking about an investment.  I said earlier if you just want to make your life easier then go for the DTS.  It's a math decision for me, a business decision, not a quality of life decision because my quality of life and the employees is pretty damn good.  I agree with both decisions to buy an auto, why print manually 10 hours a day when you can print automatically for 1 hour a day?  I think we can all agree that buying an auto coming from a manual shop and buying a DTS to make things easier are completely different?  If you are treating them the same then I'll just say I'm sorry you're taking that approach and good luck to ya's.  The money you can make with an auto is astronomically larger than what you can make with a DTS. 

If you can afford one and it makes you happy, who am I to say not to buy one?  If it will yield you the ability to do a few more setups per day and you have the work to fill that extra production then go for it.  Smaller shops with DTS will be the exception and not the rule until the ROI makes sense, but to each their own.

I'm not saying that Mike is making a bad decision in buying one, I'm saying you're not going to get a one year ROI if you pay more than about 15-20K for one and do less than 25-30 screens per day.  So please don't take offense Mike and Brandt because I'm not buying one and I'm outspoken about it.  I like you guys and what you've done, the reason I'm passionate about this is not because of what you guys are saying or buying, has nothing to do with your decision to go DTS.  But you should understand that there are no games or pencil whipping of my numbers and my assessment that the ROI isn't there for our shop and probably not for other shops our size and smaller is not speculative. 

Big shops buy DTS for the ROI, small shops can buy them to make things a little easier and a little faster, no problems with any of that.  If you've got the money, need, want or all of them then buy whichever one you want.  We don't fit into either of those molds and that's the way it is.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: ebscreen on November 20, 2012, 02:04:25 PM
This industry also seems to have a lot of nut swaggering bravado unfortunately.
Not unlike the Ford F450's I see collecting pallets for cash nowadays, beware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization).
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 20, 2012, 02:17:12 PM
yep..I am convincing myself each time I make a trip to make a deposit or look at my bank account!  thanks!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Homer on November 20, 2012, 02:25:43 PM
Pierre had mentioned a loss of detail, are the rips for a DTS less accurate or in depth as Film maker / accurip? i would assume they would produce a better halftone due to the light scatter on milky film, undercutting of light and so on? . . .

have to agree with Brandt here, ROI? - who the hell cares. load a screen instead of a piece of film - my life just became easier. . .that's why we bought a more efficient auto. .I don't care how long it takes to get my money back. . .less headaches.

can you wash off the image once applied to a screen, lets say you eff'd up and needed to change the image for whatever reason. . .sam?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 20, 2012, 02:29:52 PM
Jay

once the image is on there it is on there...so no you cannot wipe off and redo...

again...if I had to do it over I would have bought it sooner...but then again well you know...

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 02:41:00 PM
I've done many things around the shop to make things "easier".  DTS can do that no doubt, but we are talking about an investment.  I said earlier if you just want to make your life easier then go for the DTS.  It's a math decision for me, a business decision, not a quality of life decision because my quality of life and the employees is pretty damn good.  I agree with both decisions to buy an auto, why print manually 10 hours a day when you can print automatically for 1 hour a day?  I think we can all agree that buying an auto coming from a manual shop and buying a DTS to make things easier are completely different?  If you are treating them the same then I'll just say I'm sorry you're taking that approach and good luck to ya's.  The money you can make with an auto is astronomically larger than what you can make with a DTS. 

If you can afford one and it makes you happy, who am I to say not to buy one?  If it will yield you the ability to do a few more setups per day and you have the work to fill that extra production then go for it.  Smaller shops with DTS will be the exception and not the rule until the ROI makes sense, but to each their own.

I'm not saying that Mike is making a bad decision in buying one, I'm saying you're not going to get a one year ROI if you pay more than about 15-20K for one and do less than 25-30 screens per day.  So please don't take offense Mike and Brandt because I'm not buying one and I'm outspoken about it.  I like you guys and what you've done, the reason I'm passionate about this is not because of what you guys are saying or buying, has nothing to do with your decision to go DTS.  But you should understand that there are no games or pencil whipping of my numbers and my assessment that the ROI isn't there for our shop and probably not for other shops our size and smaller is not speculative. 

Big shops buy DTS for the ROI, small shops can buy them to make things a little easier and a little faster, no problems with any of that.  If you've got the money, need, want or all of them then buy whichever one you want.  We don't fit into either of those molds and that's the way it is.

No offense taken at all.  I am certain in all of our shops one size doesn't fit all.  We all have different spaces, personalities, overhead, mix, and so on.  Not everything is black and white.  I was only explaining how I look at it for my business (Owner/operator).  It's very simple for me.  When job doesn't get done, largely Shelly and I are still the ones that will end up working late or weekends to get it done.  So if I can cut that BS out a few times a month, then turn that into more work either getting done on time or more work being done period, then it's almost instant gratification for me, my time off is priceless.  Remember I used to work 7 days a week, 12-16hrs a day and did that for years to get where I am.  The 30-50k these DTS machines cost, is just a drop in the bucket of growth to me. 

I am not sold that it will be my next move yet.  But I am sure it will happen someday either way.  I think we can split hairs on stuff like this until blue in the face and its rather pointless without context of each shop. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 20, 2012, 02:48:17 PM
Why is it so hard for someone to just admit the machine makes things easier and stop blowing smoke up peoples arse and saying its making them more money. Unless (Sam) you were turning work away before the CTS then the CTS is not making any more money for you than you made before. The only thing that makes money is sales, unless the machine comes with increased sales voodoo then its BS. Not sure how (Sam) can say he is making more money if anything he is making less because of a new equipment payment. Atleast some people like Homer can admit they would spend the coin for the ease of the process not caring about the cost, unfortunately Homer is mostly an exception. Oh yea and Brandt of course.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 20, 2012, 02:55:21 PM
Mike...doe you make more printing on a manual or an auto?  hmmm let me guess and auto...do you make more money by exposing screen 60% faster or by using rubylith?  hmmmm

Think what you want to but being able to get more done in a day translates to making more money...it does not matter if it is with a DTS, a new auto, a new whatever...the more you can do in a day the more you make that is simple economics 101...

again Mike..you are right...i guess that is why you guys have a single head embroidery machine and a 1 station manual press right?  didn't think so...you have multiple ones to make money faster

sam
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 20, 2012, 03:02:52 PM
Very odd answers there Sam, sounds like you are now reaching nightly. Comparing a machine of production to a machine that only performs a very small part of the whole is wrong. I wont explain why you should be able to get it for your self.


Again the machine is not a production machine, it does not make money, money comes from sales or cutting staff etc. A little tape and cost of films does not offset the machine cost. Unless you were turning jobs away before the DTS then yes its all BS.

Why dont you atleast explain your ROI to everyone? Are you basing off the machines MSRP or your actual cost? You traded in the Idot against the purchase correct?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Socalfmf on November 20, 2012, 03:07:23 PM
Mike

I have and you guys still do not accept it...the machine is a production machine....again if I can do something 60% faster than before you make more money faster.  again simple economics...

I have laid a majority of it out and you guys cannot see the trees through the forest...

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 20, 2012, 03:22:20 PM
Yes Sam it helps make money a tiny tiny bit faster, it does not make your auto print faster, your folder fold faster etc, but yes it helps make the current amount of money a tad bit faster. But more importantly does it make more money? Again unless you turned work away previously then he same amount of money is coming, albeit its made faster its not made more.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: ebscreen on November 20, 2012, 03:45:44 PM
Although making money faster could make you more money (IE spending more time on sales) it doesn't always
work out that way. I find that the more time I have to do other things the more time I spend fishing! Or at
least Not Working...

Also, I do not think that the increase in production speed would be anywhere even near say a second auto,
or even another employee, or a better mixing system, or more press carts/organization, etc.

That said, if I had a janky I-DOT that M&R would take on trade I'd do it in a heartbeat. Though I'd
see about a little Diamondback or Sportsman first if I had the space. But I'd be pretty sure
to not end up with a janky I-DOT in the first place.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: mk162 on November 20, 2012, 03:46:51 PM
You guys are missing something, the amount of money is one thing, the VELOCITY of money is another.  Sam has cut expenses, making him more money, but he has also increased the velocity of money.

and eb is right, I wouldn't have put the idot in my shop, the name is too close to idiot. ;)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 04:01:03 PM
This conversation is getting comical.  Having a second auto for example wouldn't do much good if you couldn't feed it screens.  So you'd need either twice the screen staff or some how do screens quicker.... DTS would make sense very quickly there. 

Some of you get to detailed in your break down of the process.  If the whole process from customer purchase to customer holding finished product is faster, then anything you do to make your process faster actually makes you money.  It may be the same money, but you made it faster.  Please tell me, how is making money faster bad?  If you can make money faster, your likely to find time to make more work come through the door.  You see where this is going.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 20, 2012, 04:35:34 PM
This conversation is getting comical.  Having a second auto for example wouldn't do much good if you couldn't feed it screens.  So you'd need either twice the screen staff or some how do screens quicker.... DTS would make sense very quickly there. 

Some of you get to detailed in your break down of the process.  If the whole process from customer purchase to customer holding finished product is faster, then anything you do to make your process faster actually makes you money.  It may be the same money, but you made it faster.  Please tell me, how is making money faster bad?  If you can make money faster, your likely to find time to make more work come through the door.  You see where this is going.

Brandt not sure what world you live on or Sam for that matter but we are talking about a machine that images a screen and cuts expo time down some, it is not making a lot of time at all in the whole scheme of themes. If you had to print a 10k order the DTS would only shave a minute off that really long run, thats what some of us see and others do not. Some of us see that the machine is awesome but its expensive and it does not make any real money, when your shop is at capacity then sure it will free up some valuable time, if your one auto it will be minute, if your ten autos then it could start realizing serious numbers. Us personaly being a production type place I would prefer another press and hook up with bigger brokers and bigger universities, its available,  a DTS would not get us that kind of work but a second auto sure would.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: ebscreen on November 20, 2012, 04:40:13 PM
DING DING DING DING!

You will make more money with a second press than you will with a DTS. No duh.
Film/screens has never been a bottleneck around here, yet.

I am not against the technology, I think they are awesome. I would not even look at
one without having several presses though.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 20, 2012, 04:41:43 PM
My I-Image will be here on the 29th, woooooop!!! I'll let ya'll know how it works out for us.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: CastleKing on November 20, 2012, 04:49:09 PM
Yes Sam it helps make money a tiny tiny bit faster, it does not make your auto print faster, your folder fold faster etc, but yes it helps make the current amount of money a tad bit faster. But more importantly does it make more money? Again unless you turned work away previously then he same amount of money is coming, albeit its made faster its not made more.

I have to side with Sam on this one. As you look at the printing process as a whole, wherever you improve efficiencies, the result will be cost savings. This can be in the form of ink, labor, film etc. The point I made earlier in the post is that we have radically improved our set-up times with the I-Screen. With all of the time saved on our set-ups, we are able to print more each day on each of our presses thus making more revenue each and every day.

I had an M&R rep out about 2 weeks ago, we did a 3 color (tight registration) set-up on darks in 4 minutes that was dead on the money with registration. We taped up reg marks and were printing in under 6 minutes. I'll get the video link and post it to illustrate the time savings.

As a contract print shop, downtime is a killer of profit. So maybe this machine doesn't actually produce the print but it certainly does support the process and increases efficiencies in the process as a whole.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 20, 2012, 04:59:03 PM
Ok Sam, why don't you buy a faster auto if you want to produce things 60% faster?  And no, you haven't laid out anything, you are about as vague as it gets when explaining these simple economics you speak of.  I remember you said you would lay it all out for us then you came up with some lame excuse like we don't deserve to see the numbers and you had the holy grail and weren't sharing it.  Do you really think you have something so secret and powerful that some of us don't know about?  I think Gilligan pissed you off and you told us you were taking your DTS football and going home and none of us were worthy of seeing those wizardly numbers.  That's fine, they are yours to do with whatever way you see fit, but yet you think we should all buy what little your saying just because you're saying it?  Nah, I'll stick to what I know for sure rather than numbers that really don't make much sense.

You say you have increased your production capabilities by 60% by adding a DTS?  Wow, I ain't gonna ask how thats possible because I know the only answer and it's not good.  That's the second stat I just have to shake my head at and wonder WTF.  If we could increase our production capacity by 60%, get an 11 month ROI on a $35K machine I'd probably call Rich tomorrow and get the ball rolling.

I'm making this an ROI argument because there is no argument from me that DTS is easier, it's simply slower on repeat jobs and our shop would gain minutes a day if all we did was new jobs and with DTS over film.  We might get one more 4/4 job done per 3 or 4 days for $40K investment...no thanks.  I'd upgrade my auto's indexer speed or figure out how to print faster for very little investment if I wanted to gain a few jobs per week in production capability.  You want to get more done?  Use better squeegee blades and make better choices on mesh before you add a DTS to get more done.  Don't double stroke, don't do revolver mode, I could go on and on without spending 40K. 

And what Mike is saying is spot on, production capacity is not the same as production need.  If you're working 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day then you need to do something about that.  It goes back to the old MHM argument that Sonny used to make.  Theoretically you can setup 10 more jobs per week on the MHM versus the competition and if you made $500 per job you'll be making 260K more per year...ok, that sounds great, where do I get those extra 10 jobs per week?  We're not turning work away, we are slammed but we find a way to get it done in 40 hours because of the way we operate.  We are flexible, very resilient and cross trained to do whatever needs to be done.  Turning a job around quickly is not just about DTS versus film, press speed and single stroke versus double, there is a lot that goes into it and job throughput doesn't equate to success, it's just one of many variables.  We are one of the fastest one auto shops around, but if our sales staff doesn't do their jobs, we're done. 

We've always increased production as we needed to, however we needed to do it, not increased production then cross our fingers that we will get the business to fullfill the gap.  I know shops that have increased their production capacity without truly needing it and it's a good way to hurt yourself.  Some shops have done it and the business has come, but it didn't happen that way without reason and work.  I hear people saying to "just buy the auto, the work will come", sounds simple but you have to work for it.  We have never got a job because a customer heard we got a new automatic that prints faster than the old one.

This conversation is getting comical.  Having a second auto for example wouldn't do much good if you couldn't feed it screens.  So you'd need either twice the screen staff or some how do screens quicker.... DTS would make sense very quickly there. 

What about feeding it jobs?  Can Sam output 80 screens in 80 minutes with his new tool?  Tony does, with film.  80 screens will fill two autos and hundreds of multi auto print shops feed the presses with film processed screens every day.  Can we at least agree that Tony's shop couldn't develop 80 screens in 80 minutes if he had a DTS?  He'd need at least 2, maybe 3 of them.  It does make sense very quickly once you get into many screens per day and you can't develop a screen as quickly as Tony's guys, but then again, this goes back to smaller shops and ROI for me.  Why would you buy a DTS to do screens quicker when you do a much poorer job in screen development than the average shop?  Just get better at screen development and be like Tony's guys.  If I can expose 2 screens to our competitions one screen, doesn't mean they need to go out and buy a DTS, that's all I'm saying.

What comes first, the chicken or the egg, the second auto or the DTS?  It's a good question and I really don't know what I'd buy first...probably leaning DTS but it's not easy.

Such a good thread here, love the DTS talk.

And Castle, those are very good setup times, how much longer were they before DTS?  That's what matters the most.  If a shop that uses film can set up a 3 color job and be printing in 6 minutes...that's what I'm screaming.  Those are very reasonable numbers for us.  You see, that's where my argument comes from.  If it took us 20 minutes to set up a 3 color job then hell yeah, DTS could save us 14 minutes PER SETUP, times 10-16 setups per day around here, no brainer then.  DTS all the way if those were our numbers.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 20, 2012, 05:00:37 PM
Yes Sam it helps make money a tiny tiny bit faster, it does not make your auto print faster, your folder fold faster etc, but yes it helps make the current amount of money a tad bit faster. But more importantly does it make more money? Again unless you turned work away previously then he same amount of money is coming, albeit its made faster its not made more.

I have to side with Sam on this one. As you look at the printing process as a whole, wherever you improve efficiencies, the result will be cost savings. This can be in the form of ink, labor, film etc. The point I made earlier in the post is that we have radically improved our set-up times with the I-Screen. With all of the time saved on our set-ups, we are able to print more each day on each of our presses thus making more revenue each and every day.

I had an M&R rep out about 2 weeks ago, we did a 3 color (tight registration) set-up on darks in 4 minutes that was dead on the money with registration. We taped up reg marks and were printing in under 6 minutes. I'll get the video link and post it to illustrate the time savings.

As a contract print shop, downtime is a killer of profit. So maybe this machine doesn't actually produce the print but it certainly does support the process and increases efficiencies in the process as a whole.

Castle you run a large very efficient full bore shop, it's comparing apples to oranges.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 05:05:56 PM
Yes Sam it helps make money a tiny tiny bit faster, it does not make your auto print faster, your folder fold faster etc, but yes it helps make the current amount of money a tad bit faster. But more importantly does it make more money? Again unless you turned work away previously then he same amount of money is coming, albeit its made faster its not made more.

I have to side with Sam on this one. As you look at the printing process as a whole, wherever you improve efficiencies, the result will be cost savings. This can be in the form of ink, labor, film etc. The point I made earlier in the post is that we have radically improved our set-up times with the I-Screen. With all of the time saved on our set-ups, we are able to print more each day on each of our presses thus making more revenue each and every day.

I had an M&R rep out about 2 weeks ago, we did a 3 color (tight registration) set-up on darks in 4 minutes that was dead on the money with registration. We taped up reg marks and were printing in under 6 minutes. I'll get the video link and post it to illustrate the time savings.

As a contract print shop, downtime is a killer of profit. So maybe this machine doesn't actually produce the print but it certainly does support the process and increases efficiencies in the process as a whole.


BOOM
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 05:13:58 PM
This conversation is getting comical.  Having a second auto for example wouldn't do much good if you couldn't feed it screens.  So you'd need either twice the screen staff or some how do screens quicker.... DTS would make sense very quickly there. 

Some of you get to detailed in your break down of the process.  If the whole process from customer purchase to customer holding finished product is faster, then anything you do to make your process faster actually makes you money.  It may be the same money, but you made it faster.  Please tell me, how is making money faster bad?  If you can make money faster, your likely to find time to make more work come through the door.  You see where this is going.

Brandt not sure what world you live on or Sam for that matter but we are talking about a machine that images a screen and cuts expo time down some, it is not making a lot of time at all in the whole scheme of themes. If you had to print a 10k order the DTS would only shave a minute off that really long run, thats what some of us see and others do not. Some of us see that the machine is awesome but its expensive and it does not make any real money, when your shop is at capacity then sure it will free up some valuable time, if your one auto it will be minute, if your ten autos then it could start realizing serious numbers. Us personaly being a production type place I would prefer another press and hook up with bigger brokers and bigger universities, its available,  a DTS would not get us that kind of work but a second auto sure would.

So wait, you don't spend time then lining up velum's, and you would also save no time at the press with assumed even tighter reg since no velum's to move around on you at the exposure unit, oh and you would save no time now cataloging and then relocating velum's later when you need to reprint the job?  Now expand that out a year, 5 years, 10 years.  Your talking huge numbers if the equipment works as advertised. 

My shop is very much at capacity on screens.  We are a small shop, we don't have MORE time for screens.  In fact screens is very much what hold us back in doing more screen printing.  Remember here at my tiny shop everyone wears a lot of hats.  We can spend for an employee to dedicate to screens, sure.  But I can buy a machine much cheaper than a employee.  Surely we dont need a calculator to discuss that one.  Remember in my shop, we are designers that print, not printers that design.  We need each print process to be as fast as possible within our budget. If I had 10 autos out there, it wouldn't change my shops output right now.  Id need dedicated screen person (currently Shelly), who also sets up all embroidery, does all seps, does all ordering, does all loading on the auto and so on. 

As I have already said, every shop is set up different, including ours. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 05:22:56 PM

This conversation is getting comical.  Having a second auto for example wouldn't do much good if you couldn't feed it screens.  So you'd need either twice the screen staff or some how do screens quicker.... DTS would make sense very quickly there. 

What about feeding it jobs?  Can Sam output 80 screens in 80 minutes with his new tool?  Tony does, with film.  80 screens will fill two autos and hundreds of multi auto print shops feed the presses with film processed screens every day.  Can we at least agree that Tony's shop couldn't develop 80 screens in 80 minutes if he had a DTS?  He'd need at least 2, maybe 3 of them.  It does make sense very quickly once you get into many screens per day and you can't develop a screen as quickly as Tony's guys, but then again, this goes back to smaller shops and ROI for me.  Why would you buy a DTS to do screens quicker when you do a much poorer job in screen development than the average shop?  Just get better at screen development and be like Tony's guys.  If I can expose 2 screens to our competitions one screen, doesn't mean they need to go out and buy a DTS, that's all I'm saying.

What comes first, the chicken or the egg, the second auto or the DTS?  It's a good question and I really don't know what I'd buy first...probably leaning DTS but it's not easy.



Tony has dedicated screen people.  We don't even have 1 dedicated screen person, hell we don't even have 1 dedicated screen print person at all, any part of the process soup to nuts.  Comparing his set up to ours is like night and day.  If I can skip hiring someone and output screens faster than I am now, how could that be bad for my shop? 

It's clear to me here that every shop is very different. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Screened Gear on November 20, 2012, 05:23:50 PM
Shelly), who also sets up all embroidery, does all seps, does all ordering, does all loading on the auto and so on. 


Sounds like you don't need a DTS you need another Shelly. I was wondering why Shelly doesn't post much anymore, poor overworked girl.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkbrigade on November 20, 2012, 05:32:47 PM
Right now we're at 10-12 business day for turn around time. Sometimes it's worse. I KNOW that we lose customers because of that. Also we have to turn away rush jobs.

So what's the hold up? It's not that the presses aren't fast enough. It's that most of our jobs are small jobs. The setup time to register jobs on press is what's killing us.

Forget everything else, film, exposure time etc. If i can cut down the time it takes to setup the press and get it printing shirts i can print a few more jobs per day. We will be able to take rush orders and lower our turn around time thus bring in money we normally would have lost out on.
This is where the DTS helps make us money.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 05:49:40 PM
Shelly), who also sets up all embroidery, does all seps, does all ordering, does all loading on the auto and so on. 


Sounds like you don't need a DTS you need another Shelly. I was wondering why Shelly doesn't post much anymore, poor overworked girl.

Got that right.  Shelly's costs a lot more than a DTS though!  LOL
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 20, 2012, 05:59:46 PM
Right now we're at 10-12 business day for turn around time. Sometimes it's worse. I KNOW that we lose customers because of that. Also we have to turn away rush jobs.

So what's the hold up? It's not that the presses aren't fast enough. It's that most of our jobs are small jobs. The setup time to register jobs on press is what's killing us.

Forget everything else, film, exposure time etc. If i can cut down the time it takes to setup the press and get it printing shirts i can print a few more jobs per day. We will be able to take rush orders and lower our turn around time thus bring in money we normally would have lost out on.
This is where the DTS helps make us money.

We don't have a DTS and we setup 3 colors in 5 minutes, the thing is you don't need a DTS to increase production capability, it is simply a tool that can help if used properly.

Tony has dedicated screen people.  We don't even have 1 dedicated screen person, hell we don't even have 1 dedicated screen print person at all, any part of the process soup to nuts.  Comparing his set up to ours is like night and day.  If I can skip hiring someone and output screens faster than I am now, how could that be bad for my shop? 

It's clear to me here that every shop is very different. 

It's probably going to increase your screen development if it's the only thing added, and if you want to operate your way and spend $40K on a machine that will give your shop a boost in production then that's what you got to do.  I will say that if a DTS machine won't yield a proper ROI at our shop, that's what I mean, at our shop.  The reason is because we don't need a DTS to produce enough screens to do the work we have.  Now that begs the question if we can do it, if Tony can do it, why can't others?  Well, every shop is different. 

That's why I asked if anyone thinks Tony's shop could do 80 screens in 80 minutes with a DTS, so that we wouldn't be comparing Tony's shop to someone like yours.  So nobody can even suck up their pride a little and admit that Tony's 4 auto shop would be slower with DTS?  So nobody can admit that our shop wouldn't benefit enough to make a $40K investment worth it?  I'll admit that DTS is going to make a lot of you very happy, especially the larger shops because they'll get a return on their investment.  Smaller shops will benefit in other ways besides ROI, but if they can justify it to themselves and stay in business then that's all that matters.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 20, 2012, 06:02:38 PM
That's what I'm banking on Jamie, speed up the process that we already have, and big big thing for me, to make my life easier with linning up the 6-8 color jobs that we do a few of daily. Again for me, doing multiple simulated process jobs a day, lining up by myself, outputting film, by myself, grid alingment and screen burning by myself, the CTS makes sense, and if it's not all that it's sold to be, M&R will take it back and refund, they stand by that. If any of you guys have done 8 color simulated process jobs, and do more than 1 a day and are 1 person doing the pre-press, you can't tell me you don't see where CTS would be very attractive. Not just sim process how about 8 color but reg jobs, especially when you do a lot of pre-run proofing for very picky high paying customers. To know that I "should" be able to lock and load for sample print, pull down and quickly set up an approved design, vs, buying another auto, to hold a design for hours, maybe a full day so that other production can go on, is a big factor for me. And, when we actually need that second auto, I feel this move would also keep that going smoothly and accurately. My wife and I don't mind making personal financial sacrifices to buy the proper tools to do the job better here, this is what we are planning to do till we retire, so long term is my plan. Just like saying someone couldn't push their dryer a few more years but wanted a new one for this or that reason. Unless I am in my own boat here, pre-press is one of the most important parts of what we all do besides the sale. Anyone can load and pull a shirt, but if you want to be better than the other shop, your set ups need to be impressive, this can only make that better. No worry about film slipping while printing, "that does happen in inkjet printers, and can through off a design, slightly but happens".  The time to print a film, is already on the screen, for me, big factor in speed. The image is exactly where it needs to be, I'm not jerkin around with a carrier sheet and tape, when I will go to expose, I won't worry if the blanket and vacuum moved anything that will tick me off on press later. I'll be able to take that big jalopy out of my exposure unit and burn 2 screens at a time, and with a 7,500 watt unit, might take 10-20 seconds for 2 screens. All that said and done, the big part, lining up 6-8 color jobs that need approval and then get yanked down to be re-loaded after approved. It totally makes sense to  us. Once something is approved and ready to go, the easy part takes place. I don't know about you guys, but actually running the press, although labor intensive, is the dummy part of the whole job. I'm not trying to argue with anyone here, this has been something we have looked into for the past 2 years, thought we would still be a few ways off, but found the right deal, and after speaking with several shops that do high detailed work, Greg Kitsen for one, even though they are bigger and have more coin to blow, we know it's not a B.S. marketing ploy like most direct to garment scenarios are. No offense to DTG guys, but for me, the market is slim and seems like a big problematic non profitable deal. 
  Now, if we had say 5 more bodies already doing a lot of these tasks, and I told so and so to break his back tightly aligning multi color jobs, I might not feel the same way, but then again, maybe I wouldn't need those 5 and their personal problems that come along with them, if I pony up the dough for a machine that doesn't complain and should be deadnuts on. Just my view, but everyone's shop is different. That is clearly obvious.

Mike
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 20, 2012, 06:08:05 PM
No one here that owns a DTS currently has answered my question about warped screens and print height.

Screens are not all exact and no one can guarantee perfect newmans. I am curious how not so perfect screens are dealt with?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 20, 2012, 06:30:28 PM
What about what Pierre brought up?  I know by looking at the specs they should do higher lpi and resolution versus film, but Pierre has seen one up close and says the halftones are not what he gets on film.  That's not as big of a deal for some of us, but it's just one more reason to think about it.

I think if I bought an automatic unloader for the auto it would give me a much faster ROI than a DTS machine, according to the numbers I've done so far.  I could cut one person's hours in half assuming it worked like it's supposed to and strickly comparing payroll to machine cost I would get 18 months ROI, that's pretty damn good compared to my ROI from a DTS.  I also think some of you should consider buying an automatic screen reclaimer if you really want to do more with less people.  It's really the same argument as DTS only makes more sense from an ROI perspective.  Those two machines would benefit a lot of shops more than a DTS. 

I wonder if our shop could do the work we do now and get rid of 1.5 employees, buy an auto reclaim, auto unloader and a DTS?  Does anyone know if you still have to do a lot of work on the screens when they come out of the reclaim machine?  Does anyone on this forum have one?  Might be as much justification in buying an unloader and reclaim machine as a DTS for some shops, just a thought. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 20, 2012, 06:46:06 PM
So for context tell us soup to nuts from order taking to art to screens to set up to print to tear down to reclaim who does what in your shop.  Use names of your employees or person 1 person 2, person 3.  Get detailed like person one will help do x when not doing y, y is the job they do 85% of the day.   

Maybe we all would do a little good to understand how each run from start to finish.  I suspect a lot more people are involved in a operation like several here and it may be really difficult to understand the ultra small shops like mine and others here.   
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Inkworks on November 20, 2012, 07:48:07 PM
All I keep hearing is how DTS are great FPU's.....

Alan I think it was your lightbox design that I'm going to be copying, how's it working for you? I figure it'll be $30-50 worth of parts, except I probably have the stuff lying around the shop already.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 20, 2012, 07:48:58 PM
No one here that owns a DTS currently has answered my question about warped screens and print height.

Screens are not all exact and no one can guarantee perfect newmans. I am curious how not so perfect screens are dealt with?



Inkman, I can only speak for our machine as I do not know how the others work...... The printhead itself has a gap between itself and the actual screen which is around 1/4" gap. The ink actually "jumps" this gap before it lays onto the emulsion. The clamping function on the dts unit works basically the same as the screen clamps that are on auto presses. If you have a warped screen as soon as the clamps are engaged it flattens it out as it does on the press......

My shop currently uses mostly mzx roller frames but we probably have 50-60 static's that we still use daily. Lots of those screens are pretty warped with shitty mesh on them but we haven't ran into any issues with them. Since the screen sits approx 1/4" below the printhead, which that sits below the top of the dts screen clamps there's no issues.


It's pretty impressive to think the ink actually jumps a gap there.....But as far as warped screens we have done some really bad ones with no issues at all....
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 20, 2012, 08:01:35 PM
What about what Pierre brought up?  I know by looking at the specs they should do higher lpi and resolution versus film, but Pierre has seen one up close and says the halftones are not what he gets on film.  That's not as big of a deal for some of us, but it's just one more reason to think about it.



From my experience we are getting a BETTER dot with our DTS than printing film. I did a comparison the very first day we got the dts hooked up comparing our Epson 4800 using Accurip to our lawson dts unit. We have since calibrated the dot to be better on our machine so I'm confident to say our dts can print a better dot.

I put my loupe up to the dot and took a photo with my iphone so the quality isn't great but you should be able to see the difference.

The first picture here is our epson 4800 using accurip.... Note the noise around each dot
(http://s11.postimage.org/co1b0146b/epson_dot.jpg)


This picture here is our lawson dts using the colorprint rip.
(http://s15.postimage.org/gr0k60mez/dts_dot.jpg)



Based on our experience and what I saw castleking post yesterday I would say this technology can print a better dot but I'm sure we can debate that as well hahahaha
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Gilligan on November 20, 2012, 10:53:19 PM
I'm just curious as to why I'm the a-hole when everyone else has brought up each argument that I brought up.

I didn't say anything different than all of these guys... I just did it all in basically one post.

I'll also say it again, $40/year x 10 years = $400 bucks... over 10 years?!  That's "big money"?  Hell, I'm tempted to send you a check for $400 bucks to cover your scotch tape needs for the next 10 years.  I've dropped more money standing in line at an Arby's before in Jackson, MS.  Literally, I didn't notice it till we were checking into our hotel in Killeen, TX (the pay for the week long gig).  The flip side that was also a good single night's pay at a bar in Baton Rouge, LA (only an hour away) and about the same celebrity status. LOL

For the record Brandt, Alan's representation of his shop is pretty much spot on.  I've seen it in action, he tells it like it is.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: JBLUE on November 20, 2012, 11:58:11 PM
What about what Pierre brought up?  I know by looking at the specs they should do higher lpi and resolution versus film, but Pierre has seen one up close and says the halftones are not what he gets on film.  That's not as big of a deal for some of us, but it's just one more reason to think about it.



From my experience we are getting a BETTER dot with our DTS than printing film. I did a comparison the very first day we got the dts hooked up comparing our Epson 4800 using Accurip to our lawson dts unit. We have since calibrated the dot to be better on our machine so I'm confident to say our dts can print a better dot.

I put my loupe up to the dot and took a photo with my iphone so the quality isn't great but you should be able to see the difference.

The first picture here is our epson 4800 using accurip.... Note the noise around each dot
([url]http://s11.postimage.org/co1b0146b/epson_dot.jpg[/url])


This picture here is our lawson dts using the colorprint rip.
([url]http://s15.postimage.org/gr0k60mez/dts_dot.jpg[/url])



Based on our experience and what I saw castleking post yesterday I would say this technology can print a better dot but I'm sure we can debate that as well hahahaha


Pierre and I just compared dots lat week. His are cleaner that both of those pics. He has his rip dialed in pretty well. At the end of the day if you want a great quality dot you still cannot beat an image setter.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 21, 2012, 12:40:42 AM
Jblue, I agree you can get really great results with an imagesetter. Like I said about that dot photo it was the first thing we printed after basically plugging the machine in the wall. We now have a much better dot, when I get time I'll do another photo. RIP software IMO has the biggest effect on dot quality. I'm still too new with the dts to give a fair opinion on this but after seeing the print castle posted knowing he uses dts I would say dot quality is on par with amazing quality and is a non issue.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: JBLUE on November 21, 2012, 01:31:52 AM
That would be cool to check out a pic. Thanks in advance for sharing. I am curious to see the dot difference. Are you running the same RIP as when you started?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: BorisB on November 21, 2012, 01:42:40 AM
Jblue, I agree you can get really great results with an imagesetter. Like I said about that dot photo it was the first thing we printed after basically plugging the machine in the wall. We now have a much better dot, when I get time I'll do another photo. RIP software IMO has the biggest effect on dot quality. I'm still too new with the dts to give a fair opinion on this but after seeing the print castle posted knowing he uses dts I would say dot quality is on par with amazing quality and is a non issue.

We went from imagesetter to DTS. We cannot get same quality, actually 85lpi is useless on our DTS unit. For most of jobs there is no difference but for critical jobs we have problems. Finetuning is far more difficult than with film. You need to go to final print on shirt to see what you got. Danny compared printouts on paper which doesn't tell much about quality of print on emulsion. Dot gain is different, is coated screen always having same & very low Rz? We all admired prints by CastleKing so it's possible. I just want to say, you have more variables to control for HQ with DTS than with film from Imagesetter.

I already wanted to ask CastleKing how step was their path to get great screens from DTS?

Tony, yours "just for giggles" created one greatest threads ever. Thank you! I would love to buy a beer, but will most likely never see you. Is there online service? Like for sending flowers? Sending sixpack to somebody?

Boris
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: JBLUE on November 21, 2012, 01:51:14 AM
I would love to see the results from someone that is using a Wasatch RIP with one of these.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 21, 2012, 08:11:04 AM
Jblue, I agree you can get really great results with an imagesetter. Like I said about that dot photo it was the first thing we printed after basically plugging the machine in the wall. We now have a much better dot, when I get time I'll do another photo. RIP software IMO has the biggest effect on dot quality. I'm still too new with the dts to give a fair opinion on this but after seeing the print castle posted knowing he uses dts I would say dot quality is on par with amazing quality and is a non issue.

We went from imagesetter to DTS. We cannot get same quality, actually 85lpi is useless on our DTS unit. For most of jobs there is no difference but for critical jobs we have problems. Finetuning is far more difficult than with film. You need to go to final print on shirt to see what you got. Danny compared printouts on paper which doesn't tell much about quality of print on emulsion. Dot gain is different, is coated screen always having same & very low Rz? We all admired prints by CastleKing so it's possible. I just want to say, you have more variables to control for HQ with DTS than with film from Imagesetter.

I already wanted to ask CastleKing how step was their path to get great screens from DTS?

Tony, yours "just for giggles" created one greatest threads ever. Thank you! I would love to buy a beer, but will most likely never see you. Is there online service? Like for sending flowers? Sending sixpack to somebody?

Boris

No need Boris but thanks. I was merely being pensive on the subject. Performing that task got me to musing that was all. It appears that some of us are quite polarized on this while others are more open minded. Nothing wrong with either. I often raise an eyebrow when hearing sales reps rattle on about how it's the way of the future. It surely is I'll wager. Ready for prime time? For some yes for others perhaps not quite yet. Most of us can site new technology that has fallen by the wayside while others that forged the future. Seems like not too long ago there weren't any computers in the Art department at all.
In the end it has to fit to your current capacities, exhibit realistic ROI in a timely fashion, and show real savings in time, labor, and raw materials; while at the same time improving quality. Thats a large challenge. To take your factories individual needs, financial positon, and future growth plans out of the equation can lead one down a slippery slope. Which is what has lead this to become a sometimes passionate discussion. It's what TSB is all about.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: mk162 on November 21, 2012, 08:39:26 AM
Gilligan, can I have $400?  I am still buying tape and if you could subsidize that for me, I would really appreciate it. ;)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 21, 2012, 09:07:05 AM
I can remember being told every shop in the world will own an imagesetter because that was the future and if you didnt get one you would fail. Thi was back when image setters cost a small fortune and the rolls cost another small fortune.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Gilligan on November 21, 2012, 09:18:21 AM
Gilligan, can I have $400?  I am still buying tape and if you could subsidize that for me, I would really appreciate it. ;)

You know the problem there right?  I just can't help you be more hypocritical than you already are. ;)


It has been said that it's because of my "newness" in this business that they don't feel like I should be opening my mouth.

Problem is, sometimes you just can smell BS no matter what.  Just like if Sam heard some 10 year vet pilot telling some bogus story as fact.  He'd probably speak up and say "that doesn't make sense".  Who would be the jerk there?  The guy trying to stretch the truth or the guy that simply steps up and says "your math isn't adding up."?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 21, 2012, 09:20:51 AM
So for context tell us soup to nuts from order taking to art to screens to set up to print to tear down to reclaim who does what in your shop.  Use names of your employees or person 1 person 2, person 3.  Get detailed like person one will help do x when not doing y, y is the job they do 85% of the day.   

Maybe we all would do a little good to understand how each run from start to finish.  I suspect a lot more people are involved in a operation like several here and it may be really difficult to understand the ultra small shops like mine and others here.   


Our artist, who is pretty badass as far as artists go :) outputs film days ahead of when the job is due (usually), we have an envelope that the film goes into with a design number and a proof printout attached to the front for the printer to use as a guide, while he also matches the printout of what the shirt is supposed to look like to the production spec sheet and if those two match, there is a 99.99% chance the job is correct to print.  I take the envelope out back and my screen tech is new here, but with plenty of experience but she still leans on me to give her the correct mesh counts to use.  I prefer it that way since my decision will keep us from having to double stroke anything or pfpf an underbase or whatever it may be that slows shops down.  She pulls the film out, doesn't QC it because it's always right, grabs the screen that's 10' away from the FPU and puts the screen in the FPU, takes about 15-20 seconds to tape the film perfectly with the grid, two images per screen usually, then it goes on the exposure unit.  We try to group like mesh counts and like stencil thicknesses on the exposure unit so we can burn two screens at a time.  30-90 seconds later she's developing stencils.  If I'm out there we can blow through screens quickly, almost as fast as Tony, but she's really good at multitasking and having screens under the light while she's spraying the stencil out of screens that just came off the exposure.  You can get into a groove and knock out 10 screens in 30 minutes by yourself, 15 minutes if my rover helps her.  Rover lays out shirts, double checks the shirts are right (style, color, etc.) and quantities are right, cleans squeegees and floodbars, helps put pallet tape on & off the auto, helps break down the auto after larger jobs, helps expose screens, he's starting to help detape and reclaim screens, and he's also getting pretty good at coating screens and helping the screen tech if she needs it, which isn't very often.  My rover also knows how to run an embroidery machine so he does spend several days in the embroidery department a week, so he's probably got 25 hours dedicated to me and 15 in embroidery.  We are doing anywhere from 5-8 jobs a day on average. I think right now we are averaging 18 screens per day, 2 images per screen but Sept and Oct we were around a 22 average per day screen usage.  Most jobs are 3-4 colors on darks, at least 3-4 6+ color jobs per week, and sometimes we have prints that are too large to gang images on screens so our screen usage varies quite a bit from day to day.  There are days we might go through 10 screens a day, some 30 a day. My screen tech spends time reclaiming those screens just off the press so we don't have screens laying around for days at a time, they are reclaimed quickly.  Taking care of 20 screens a day as a screen tech isn't a full time job, but there is very little downtime for her or the rover and it's my job to make sure they always have something to do.  We used to have downtime to clean the shop on Friday afternoons but those days are gone it looks like, maybe we'll have some chances this winter to do that, maybe not.

My printer pretty much has the screens brought to him, taped up by the screen tech or my rover, rarely any pinhole issues to worry with but we do check for them anyway.  My printer is setting up and tearing down jobs and complaining or bitching about something.  He's a handful and he does have downtime since setups go pretty quickly and goes at a decent pace.  He's not as fast at setups or teardowns as I was but he'll do just fine for what we're doing.  He's a good printer, not a great printer yet but he's catching on and learning and growing now.  He used to not want to change or do anything different but he gets it now, for the most part.  Our average run is around 144 pieces right now and very rarely do we have a one sided job.  We are doing 10-20 setups per day, it varies greatly from day to day.  Occasionally he's cleaning sq. and fb's but usually someone else does that.   

I still spend time out there, maybe a couple hours a day to sometimes 8 hours a day depending on screen inventory and if we have a rough day of tough jobs ahead.  I have a bunch of newmans without mesh so I mesh up a few screens per day (maybe, sometimes, ok, maybe a few a week), manage inventory on supplies and help Carlos set up tough jobs but for the most part I'm helping the sales department and anyone else that might need something done.  I'll clean the damn toilets if they are dirty, I'll order embroidery supplies or talk to sales reps, I basically do anything that needs to be done that others aren't able to do or don't want to do.  About 50% of my time is dedicated to running the screen printing shop and 40% of my time is for the shop overall and about 10% of my day is spent here and getting things ready for the monthly classes I teach.  I also spend a bit of time answering emails from former students or future students, people email me about what manual press they think they should by, I talk to some of you guys on the phone or text, I'll help anyone that comes to me for anything, which is usually a few times a week.  I'll also spend time with industry veterans and learning anything I can about anything they want to talk to me about.  That alone takes up an hour or two of my week.

I probably missed a few things or didn't explain it very good but that's pretty much what everyone in the building does.  I know we could cut my rover out completely but since we got him, it's pretty nice having him around, I think we'll keep him.  He's just a bonus and things are good so we can afford to make things easier on us than they have been in the past with just 2 full timers out back and me.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: mk162 on November 21, 2012, 09:30:16 AM
gilligan, I know, I was just looking for a few bucks for the holidays. ;)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Gilligan on November 21, 2012, 09:40:35 AM
That's pretty much how I saw things going, but he didn't have a screen tech at the time so he was pretty much doing that role.  He had me show up when he knew he would have a slow couple of days so he wasn't tied up too much and could spend time showing us what's up.

Brandt, one thing to remember is that they have a FULL embroidery department in the neighboring building... Alan's people deal with mostly with screen printing full time (other than the afore mentioned rover).

And the embroidery side was blowing and going every time we looked in on them, at least three 12 head machines were running at all times when I was there and they had a couple of other machines of similar size around as well.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: studog on November 21, 2012, 10:00:16 AM
pffft... I once did eighty push ups in eight days.

I did 8 push ups in 80 days.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 21, 2012, 10:24:49 AM
So for context tell us soup to nuts from order taking to art to screens to set up to print to tear down to reclaim who does what in your shop.  Use names of your employees or person 1 person 2, person 3.  Get detailed like person one will help do x when not doing y, y is the job they do 85% of the day.   

Maybe we all would do a little good to understand how each run from start to finish.  I suspect a lot more people are involved in a operation like several here and it may be really difficult to understand the ultra small shops like mine and others here.   


Our artist, who is pretty badass as far as artists go :) outputs film days ahead of when the job is due (usually), we have an envelope that the film goes into with a design number and a proof printout attached to the front for the printer to use as a guide, while he also matches the printout of what the shirt is supposed to look like to the production spec sheet and if those two match, there is a 99.99% chance the job is correct to print.  I take the envelope out back and my screen tech is new here, but with plenty of experience but she still leans on me to give her the correct mesh counts to use.  I prefer it that way since my decision will keep us from having to double stroke anything or pfpf an underbase or whatever it may be that slows shops down.  She pulls the film out, doesn't QC it because it's always right, grabs the screen that's 10' away from the FPU and puts the screen in the FPU, takes about 15-20 seconds to tape the film perfectly with the grid, two images per screen usually, then it goes on the exposure unit.  We try to group like mesh counts and like stencil thicknesses on the exposure unit so we can burn two screens at a time.  30-90 seconds later she's developing stencils.  If I'm out there we can blow through screens quickly, almost as fast as Tony, but she's really good at multitasking and having screens under the light while she's spraying the stencil out of screens that just came off the exposure.  You can get into a groove and knock out 10 screens in 30 minutes by yourself, 15 minutes if my rover helps her.  Rover lays out shirts, double checks the shirts are right (style, color, etc.) and quantities are right, cleans squeegees and floodbars, helps put pallet tape on & off the auto, helps break down the auto after larger jobs, helps expose screens, he's starting to help detape and reclaim screens, and he's also getting pretty good at coating screens and helping the screen tech if she needs it, which isn't very often.  My rover also knows how to run an embroidery machine so he does spend several days in the embroidery department a week, so he's probably got 25 hours dedicated to me and 15 in embroidery.  We are doing anywhere from 5-8 jobs a day on average. I think right now we are averaging 18 screens per day, 2 images per screen but Sept and Oct we were around a 22 average per day screen usage.  Most jobs are 3-4 colors on darks, at least 3-4 6+ color jobs per week, and sometimes we have prints that are too large to gang images on screens so our screen usage varies quite a bit from day to day.  There are days we might go through 10 screens a day, some 30 a day. My screen tech spends time reclaiming those screens just off the press so we don't have screens laying around for days at a time, they are reclaimed quickly.  Taking care of 20 screens a day as a screen tech isn't a full time job, but there is very little downtime for her or the rover and it's my job to make sure they always have something to do.  We used to have downtime to clean the shop on Friday afternoons but those days are gone it looks like, maybe we'll have some chances this winter to do that, maybe not.

My printer pretty much has the screens brought to him, taped up by the screen tech or my rover, rarely any pinhole issues to worry with but we do check for them anyway.  My printer is setting up and tearing down jobs and complaining or bitching about something.  He's a handful and he does have downtime since setups go pretty quickly and goes at a decent pace.  He's not as fast at setups or teardowns as I was but he'll do just fine for what we're doing.  He's a good printer, not a great printer yet but he's catching on and learning and growing now.  He used to not want to change or do anything different but he gets it now, for the most part.  Our average run is around 144 pieces right now and very rarely do we have a one sided job.  We are doing 10-20 setups per day, it varies greatly from day to day.  Occasionally he's cleaning sq. and fb's but usually someone else does that.   

I still spend time out there, maybe a couple hours a day to sometimes 8 hours a day depending on screen inventory and if we have a rough day of tough jobs ahead.  I have a bunch of newmans without mesh so I mesh up a few screens per day (maybe, sometimes, ok, maybe a few a week), manage inventory on supplies and help Carlos set up tough jobs but for the most part I'm helping the sales department and anyone else that might need something done.  I'll clean the damn toilets if they are dirty, I'll order embroidery supplies or talk to sales reps, I basically do anything that needs to be done that others aren't able to do or don't want to do.  About 50% of my time is dedicated to running the screen printing shop and 40% of my time is for the shop overall and about 10% of my day is spent here and getting things ready for the monthly classes I teach.  I also spend a bit of time answering emails from former students or future students, people email me about what manual press they think they should by, I talk to some of you guys on the phone or text, I'll help anyone that comes to me for anything, which is usually a few times a week.  I'll also spend time with industry veterans and learning anything I can about anything they want to talk to me about.  That alone takes up an hour or two of my week.

I probably missed a few things or didn't explain it very good but that's pretty much what everyone in the building does.  I know we could cut my rover out completely but since we got him, it's pretty nice having him around, I think we'll keep him.  He's just a bonus and things are good so we can afford to make things easier on us than they have been in the past with just 2 full timers out back and me.

So if I understand you have a dedicated sales (team/person), dedicated art (team/person), dedicated screen dept (team/person), dedicated printer (team/person).  You then have a rover, and yourself whom is basically a catch all for doing whatever needs done.  Let me know if I read it wrong.  I also assume within your company someone else handles all the day to day things of paying shop bills/payroll/purchasing/etc? 

We have nothing like that here, everyone has to float to do our work.  Here is how my shop run's. 

Sales/customer service/communication/scheduling/art/payroll/bills/Unload or pull from dryer/embroidery/setup and break down of press:  Brandt
Digitizing/embroidery/separations/film output/burn screens/wash out screens/all ordering (blanks/supplies)/loader on press: Shelly
Art/Unload or pull from dryer/Shipping/sorting incoming blanks/setup and break down of the press:  Erik
Embroidery/sorting/staging orders/pull from dryer/wash out screens: Stephanie
Reclaim Screens/Trash/General BS: Gary and Bobbie

Currently we operate about like this.

I do sales and email probably a good 80% of each day, this includes proofs, price quotes, taking payments, art changes, artwork start to finish, and so on.  I organize all paid jobs into the schedule how it fits best.  If I complete this work I then help on the press/embroidery/whatever.  No matter how busy I am I almost always break down/set up press.  I often do more than 100 emails in a day.  These are not emails like "ok cool" these are emails from as simple as that to as complicated as several paragraphs.  I also have to do payroll every 2 weeks, pay taxes seems like every 5 minutes, pay our bills, and so on.  I often do artwork every day, but less than I used to as Erik is taking over a lot of that.

Shelly, Mondays is generally her and Stephanie 100% together feeding all 11 heads all day long on embroidery.  Tuesday Stephanie will be 100% embroider as well and Shelly will assist her while she is doing separations, printing velum's, coating/burning screens.  Depending on what is on the embroidery machines Stephanie may wash out screens as well.  Wednesday/Thursday/Friday we generally screen print all day long.  Shelly loads/Erik Pulls/Stephanie or I will pull from the dryer.  Once pulled its either staged for the other side/print locations or boxed for shipping.  Erik does shipping by 3pm for 5:30 pick up.  Now on some weeks we have more embroidery and less screen print or vice versa, the week is arranged to accommodation that.  We do anywhere from 3-7 jobs a day on the screen print press.  A week here can be 30 screens can be 80, keep in mind its a 3 - 4 day print week, rarely ever do 5 days a week. 

Erik does artwork Monday/Tuesday solid, no interruptions except to ship USPS embroidery retail orders 1 time a day.  Erik does nothing with embroidery.  Erik will communicate with the customer who has bought artwork to complete their artwork.  This is of course after I sold it, so he is not selling, just doing the changes/proofing of art.  Erik organizes art for Shelly.  On slower print days Erik will also do artwork on Wed/Thurs/Friday. 

Stephanie in addition to above will have breaks in work and will generally do the sorting of incoming orders and stage them.  Often a week or more ahead of time.  We are working more with her to learn digitizing and at some point we hope to shift fully embroidery to her and she will run machines basically alone 4 days a week.  She is off on Fridays. 

Gary/Bobbie will come in on the weekends and clean our screens so we are good on Monday/Tuesday.

We remain at least 5-7 days out, as long as 7-12 at times (business days).
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 21, 2012, 10:34:32 AM

Brandt, one thing to remember is that they have a FULL embroidery department in the neighboring building... Alan's people deal with mostly with screen printing full time (other than the afore mentioned rover).


Fully aware of that, which is sort of my whole point.  He get's to take a focused screen print approach to running his screen print shop.  I have to take a different approach because I am running Screen Print Shop, Embroidery Shop, Design Shop, Sticker Shop, Banner Shop, Business Card Shop, Flyer Shop, and so on.  In other words he has people do his embroidery side of their business, that sound like generally don't mix with screen print side.  Everyone here basically has to mix with all sides of our business based on how busy one is.  We are segregating them more and more all the time, but its a progression for a ultra small shop like ours.

This is basically why I think you can look at something like a DTS completely different from 2 different shops perspectives.  If we had 100% dedicated screen print staff, I would probably look at it much differently.  But we don't and to do that id have to hire what, 2-3 more full timers to run this shop at full steam embroidery/separate from screen printing one not effecting the other.  That's certainly a goal, but that's is DRASTICALLY more expensive than say adding a DTS.  Again I am not even sold on a DTS yet. 

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 21, 2012, 11:03:52 AM
My point exactly.........we have 42 heads in a different department in the same building. Totally independent. Still we train people to mult-task as much as possible. And remember we are shooting 4 auto screens at a time.For where we are and the way we work DTS would pose a constraint from what I have deduced. Your results may vary.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 21, 2012, 11:19:07 AM
My point exactly.........we have 42 heads in a different department in the same building. Totally independent. Still we train people to mult-task as much as possible. And remember we are shooting 4 auto screens at a time.For where we are and the way we work DTS would pose a constraint from what I have deduced. Your results may vary.

Ya I wouldn't think DTS would improve your situation, at least not 1 of them. 

Our situation I feel like it would improve it.  Mainly because too few of us wear too many hats already.  So any savings in time for us is a bonus.  But again I am not fully sold on it.  I think it's just important for us all to understand not every shop runs the same and given that different configurations would work for or against shops differently. 

Some day I hope to have a independent staff on each side, I certainly think life would be easier then!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 21, 2012, 11:26:44 AM
My point exactly.........we have 42 heads in a different department in the same building. Totally independent. Still we train people to mult-task as much as possible. And remember we are shooting 4 auto screens at a time.For where we are and the way we work DTS would pose a constraint from what I have deduced. Your results may vary.

Ya I wouldn't think DTS would improve your situation, at least not 1 of them. 

Our situation I feel like it would improve it.  Mainly because too few of us wear too many hats already.  So any savings in time for us is a bonus.  But again I am not fully sold on it.  I think it's just important for us all to understand not every shop runs the same and given that different configurations would work for or against shops differently. 

Some day I hope to have a independent staff on each side, I certainly think life would be easier then!

Your going about it the right way.  Add as you need and you'll eventually have something similar to what we have.  It's not rocket science but you need to understand all the processes before you can control them, which wearing all the hats now will help immensily in the future when your less hands on.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: blue moon on November 21, 2012, 11:31:16 AM
What about what Pierre brought up?  I know by looking at the specs they should do higher lpi and resolution versus film, but Pierre has seen one up close and says the halftones are not what he gets on film.  That's not as big of a deal for some of us, but it's just one more reason to think about it.


From my experience we are getting a BETTER dot with our DTS than printing film. I did a comparison the very first day we got the dts hooked up comparing our Epson 4800 using Accurip to our lawson dts unit. We have since calibrated the dot to be better on our machine so I'm confident to say our dts can print a better dot.

I put my loupe up to the dot and took a photo with my iphone so the quality isn't great but you should be able to see the difference.

The first picture here is our epson 4800 using accurip.... Note the noise around each dot



This picture here is our lawson dts using the colorprint rip.




Based on our experience and what I saw castleking post yesterday I would say this technology can print a better dot but I'm sure we can debate that as well hahahaha

Pierre and I just compared dots lat week. His are cleaner that both of those pics. He has his rip dialed in pretty well. At the end of the day if you want a great quality dot you still cannot beat an image setter.

I don't think Wasatch will produce any better dot than the FM (if set up correctly). We are running in high speed 1440 mode so the dot can be even cleaner, but the films were taking significantly longer. For what we do, this is a god compromise.

Back to the topic . . . the 1/4" gap that the ink has to travel is bound to produce lower quality dot than the imagesetter. Actually, there are NO inkjet printheads (that I have ever heard of) that will deliver the dots a laser imagesetter does. I have looked at the dots under a significant magnification, and laser dots are perfect. Inkjets have a varying degree of smoothness, and as stated RIP does make a big difference, but in the end, they are bubbly in the best case scenario. Since most of us don't have imagesetters, the comparison is moot, but some of us have our inkjet heads dialed in pretty well. Printing on film that is only a 1/32nd of an inch away (and smooth) will always be smoother. 'not sure how well that translates into smooth edges on the mesh, but ours are pretty darn crisp. Several imagesetters I did check out, with ink on the screen and on the paper, were very jagged. Probably the worst dots I've seen so far. Images posted by Danny look significantly better than what I have seen, but are still quite a bit more jaggy than what we are using now (and for anybody doubting the benefit of better dots, go look at Andy Anderson's prints).

Under the best of circumstances, it might be possible to have the dot on the screen be almost identical to the dot on the film, but that would require a smooth stencil (low Rz), tight off contact, higher resolution (which would slow down the printing) and so on. As mentioned already, with better units, the dot quality would suffice for 90% of our work, but for the super high end (and how many of us really do have those customers?) using film (preferably imagesetter) sounds look a good viable solution.

pierre
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkman996 on November 21, 2012, 11:49:39 AM
1/4" gap between print head and substrate is quite a distance, the screen shots of your dots is amazing considering the ink traveled that far. I would assume printing in uni-directional is the best quality over bi-directional.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: screenprintguy on November 21, 2012, 01:06:45 PM
Ive seen plenty of Sim process prints from shops that use CTSmachines, some prints that were showcased award winning prints, that is the least of a worry from any of the units out there. I know I just can't wait for our unit, very excited over here for it  8)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Gilligan on November 21, 2012, 01:16:21 PM
We have nothing like that here, everyone has to float to do our work.  Here is how my shop run's. 
<snip>
Currently we operate about like this.
<snip>

We are obviously in a similar position, just a good bit smaller and a bit more spread out.  My wife does all the artwork, my employee does some basic digitizing and he does ALL the production work, embroidery and Screen Printing.  I herd cats all day. :)  We now have my wife (us to a lesser degree) a personal assistant to help the wife with her day to day lesser important activities.  We even hired another one of my daughter's friends to come in and help clean the shop up.  That helps more than I imagined it would.  She is also being somewhat cross trained in the screen printing and embroidery side of things.  She will help us to proceduralize everything on paper (I know I should already have this but we are learning as we go).

The second benefit to that is it's a sword of Damocles for my production guy... it will help him to tighten up knowing that someone can easily replace him if he doesn't stay on top of things.  Of course it's great security on our benefit that if things do go south with him I have someone that can fill in or take over if she is interested.  We of course don't threaten him with this though I did make a small joke when we were all having a good time and he wined about a task he didn't like that she was looking for more hours and she looked over at him and said "it's true".  It was quite comical... they are all good friends outside of the shop so it was taken in good humor... but I bet there is a part of it that stuck with him in that he can't slack on me.

Then of course there is the PC side of the world and I recently had a good talk with my employee there.  All too often I go back there and computers are waiting on him (after a scan or update).  I explained to him that I really want to give him a raise but I'm only seeing minimum wage work right now and I need to see him on top of things more.  I explained that he has plenty of a$$ time as it is with scans and updates and I'm not expecting him to stay busy for the sake of staying busy but I didn't want to see computers waiting on him.  He thanked me for the telling him and turned it around with a vengeance... I just hope it stays that way.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 21, 2012, 01:18:41 PM
Does anyone know the gap between the 4800's printhead nozzles and the substrate?  I'm not sure where I stand on that 1/4" distance.  I'm thinking that nobody's screens would be warped any further than 1/16" and stencil thickness for anything we might be printing on textiles wouldn't be over 200-300 microns which is about 4-6 human hairs stacked on top of each other.  The engineers who developed the DTS machines obviously know more about that distance and what is sufficient and safe that will give the quality we are looking for.  I would think they could shrink that down but I don't have the knowledge to debate it or actually give an answer as to how/why.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 21, 2012, 01:22:43 PM
BTW my friend has a true image setter so that puts him a bit outside the game. Coudray comes by on occaision to measure and recalibrate as necessary
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Gilligan on November 21, 2012, 01:52:09 PM

Brandt, one thing to remember is that they have a FULL embroidery department in the neighboring building... Alan's people deal with mostly with screen printing full time (other than the afore mentioned rover).


Fully aware of that, which is sort of my whole point.  He get's to take a focused screen print approach to running his screen print shop.  I have to take a different approach because I am running Screen Print Shop, Embroidery Shop, Design Shop, Sticker Shop, Banner Shop, Business Card Shop, Flyer Shop, and so on.  In other words he has people do his embroidery side of their business, that sound like generally don't mix with screen print side.  Everyone here basically has to mix with all sides of our business based on how busy one is.  We are segregating them more and more all the time, but its a progression for a ultra small shop like ours.

This is basically why I think you can look at something like a DTS completely different from 2 different shops perspectives.  If we had 100% dedicated screen print staff, I would probably look at it much differently.  But we don't and to do that id have to hire what, 2-3 more full timers to run this shop at full steam embroidery/separate from screen printing one not effecting the other.  That's certainly a goal, but that's is DRASTICALLY more expensive than say adding a DTS.  Again I am not even sold on a DTS yet.

The only thing I can see that does parallel Alan's shop with just about anyone's shop is that you can have the same systems that he has in place no matter what the roles are.

Like Alan, Mike and yourself... I'm a techno junky and I think a DTS is wicked cool.  But like Alan and Mike, I see where you can speed things up to almost the same pace in most shops.

Printing films should be easier and "faster" than printing screens on the DTS... you hit print and go... no need to load screens or anything, you have a stack of films and out they come.  You can even do them remotely if you wanted.

Positioning on the screen shouldn't take up that much time... 10-30 secs at most with a good setup like Alan runs.  I never saw him take more than about 20 seconds and that was while having a conversation with 4 of us while he lined up screens... not that it requires immense focus but that is kind of the point, it shouldn't take long especially if you can focus.  So for average it out to 20 seconds a screen X 40 screens and you have 13 mins (some of which you potentially saved else where if you already had the films or the time it would take to load it up on the DTS machine itself.  That thing isn't instant, there is still processing/loading time.  PLUS you can line up films on the next screen while your first one is exposing so that completely eliminates that time.  How many screens do you burn back to back?  If you are doing it by the job then you might only have 3 or 4.  That would mean that you really don't use up but MAYBE 30 seconds for lining up films for those vs 80 seconds.  That cuts your positioning time by at least half... so we are looking at 7 mins a day at worse.

I do agree your exposure will be faster and depending on your exposure unit you might can burn more screens at once.  I've even read about people just pulling screens and starting up the unit again for a few more light units if those meshes needed a longer exposure so you don't even have to have like exposure "times".  Not many will benefit from this and this also means you need a dedicated dark room for your screens as you are blasting UV all over the place by putting them against a wall vs in a machine.  I'll also concede that your films will be tighter than by manually positioning your films... but you shouldn't be off enough to make a noticeable difference... granted there is a little bit of quality of life in that you don't have to worry/stress over getting those films lined up on your FPU and I do like that.  You remove that human element and almost any monkey can now get a stencil on a screen with the right SOP in place.

If someone gave me one today I would be using it even at my RIDICULOUSLY low screen use compared to you guys.  I think it's awesome.  But to drop the coin on it for those few benefits... like Alan I have to see more screens a day than some are saying before I see it being the right move.

I would also think an auto coater would go hand in hand with a DTS... most of the point is remove the human element out of the equation well, you have to do the same for the surface you are printing on as well.  Auto coater is cheaper and would also allow a trained monkey to coat screens.

Then there is the discussion of the auto reclaimer... I've never seen one up close but the concept is neat.  No one likes that job and it could certainly save you some labor cost, way more than a DTS will.  IF it works as well as I'd want it to.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 21, 2012, 02:11:51 PM
Does anyone know the gap between the 4800's printhead nozzles and the substrate?  I'm not sure where I stand on that 1/4" distance.  I'm thinking that nobody's screens would be warped any further than 1/16" and stencil thickness for anything we might be printing on textiles wouldn't be over 200-300 microns which is about 4-6 human hairs stacked on top of each other.  The engineers who developed the DTS machines obviously know more about that distance and what is sufficient and safe that will give the quality we are looking for.  I would think they could shrink that down but I don't have the knowledge to debate it or actually give an answer as to how/why.




So I just went and looked at the "tool" that we use to set the print head height on our machine. I DO NOT have a pair of micrometers here so I cannot give an exact dimension but the distance is actually much much less then 1/4". That was just off the top of my head. Here's a picture of the plate tool that we use to set that and it's a bit hard to see but the distance is actually only about 1/16th of an inch. I was way off with the 1/4" but just to set the record straight it's only about 1/16th..... Since the screen cannot sit higher then the clamps in the dts unit the head has very little chance to ever touch anything.


Just wanted to clear this up


(http://s8.postimage.org/4m00z5fo5/DSCN0106.jpg)

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: alan802 on November 21, 2012, 03:08:55 PM
Nice Danny, thanks for clearing that up. 

This has been an epic thread...Sticky perhaps Frog, Pierre, Dan?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: tonypep on November 21, 2012, 03:51:38 PM
I know of one shop that had an auto-coater.  A digicote. Sat unused in a back room. Didn't work they said. Actually it was a simple fix and I got it running. Turns out that it wasn't quicker and the operator could not walk away and perform other tasks as inferred. Zero affect on print quality. Cool to watch but only applicable to less than half of one percent of textile printers. Terribble ROI. It's been up for sale for seven ys or so.
I've also run auto reclaimers. Sorry most of these can't handle the rigors of production and are rendered out of service within a year (think of a large Blade Runner). Also pre-op and post op work is required to get a perfectly reclaimed screen. So it is not "automated"The exception is the very large units from companies such as Zenter which were so large it had its own platform for the operator. Up to a couple of hundred grand for those. Also terrible ROI and questions arose about how much chemicals it took to run. These are real time reports folks. Some may chime in that these work for them and i wouldn't argue that but i would say that, based on my experience that would be an exception to the rule.

Maybe when I'm dead all the bugs will be worked out and an automated push button screen operation will be a viable operation. It certainly would be cool. Self contained and tidy as well. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but that future is not here.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 21, 2012, 04:05:17 PM
The only thing I can see that does parallel Alan's shop with just about anyone's shop is that you can have the same systems that he has in place no matter what the roles are.

You certainly can, but unfortunately it's just not that simple.  You should know its all about time.  We all are being pulled 100 way's, not only are we not employing a single person that is dedicated for a single task, but we can't even often do a single task without stopping to do something on another.  Putting a system in place is only as effective as you are able to use it.  So until we can do that, sometimes its worth considering how spending some money on X/Y/Z may improve your situation.  For sure not saying DTS is for me.  I am certainly still NOT sold on it. 

Like Alan, Mike and yourself... I'm a techno junky and I think a DTS is wicked cool.  But like Alan and Mike, I see where you can speed things up to almost the same pace in most shops.

They sound cool and if they tighten up registration, IMO you can save your MOST time there.  Even with a tri-loc now and again we get a job that fights us.  That costs a lot of time. 

Printing films should be easier and "faster" than printing screens on the DTS... you hit print and go... no need to load screens or anything, you have a stack of films and out they come.  You can even do them remotely if you wanted.

Yup, not really where I would assume much time savings at all.  In fact this may take longer with DTS

Positioning on the screen shouldn't take up that much time... 10-30 secs at most with a good setup like Alan runs.  I never saw him take more than about 20 seconds and that was while having a conversation with 4 of us while he lined up screens... not that it requires immense focus but that is kind of the point, it shouldn't take long especially if you can focus. 

Shelly is certainly pretty quick at it, but we are also doing a ton of 5-7 color sim process.  I feel its slightly more time consuming than your average 2 colors of ink on a shirt that a lot of you guys claim you do a lot of (just trying to keep some context here).

So for average it out to 20 seconds a screen X 40 screens and you have 13 mins (some of which you potentially saved else where if you already had the films or the time it would take to load it up on the DTS machine itself.  That thing isn't instant, there is still processing/loading time.  PLUS you can line up films on the next screen while your first one is exposing so that completely eliminates that time. 

No argument there, we line up while the first one is burning, so and so fourth. 

How many screens do you burn back to back?  If you are doing it by the job then you might only have 3 or 4.  That would mean that you really don't use up but MAYBE 30 seconds for lining up films for those vs 80 seconds.  That cuts your positioning time by at least half... so we are looking at 7 mins a day at worse.

Burn all of our screens back to back for a full week in 1 day which includes coating them.  It's tough to do for 1 person that is also doing the seps at the same time, and keeping another employee with files to run on embroidery machines, and doing all of the ordering and more.  It probably sounds simple on here, but she is worked very hard to get it done.  Even sometimes doesn't finish it in one day and we will have a job or two late in the week she needs to burn when we come in.  We have found we worked better when screens where all burnt in one day, rather than burning them day of for each job.  Easier to take a task and do it all day when possible we find.

I do agree your exposure will be faster and depending on your exposure unit you might can burn more screens at once. 

I think we could do 2 at once without the tri-loc rig on it.  So you would for sure burn faster over all in the case of a DTS.

I've even read about people just pulling screens and starting up the unit again for a few more light units if those meshes needed a longer exposure so you don't even have to have like exposure "times".  Not many will benefit from this and this also means you need a dedicated dark room for your screens as you are blasting UV all over the place by putting them against a wall vs in a machine.  I'll also concede that your films will be tighter than by manually positioning your films... but you shouldn't be off enough to make a noticeable difference... granted there is a little bit of quality of life in that you don't have to worry/stress over getting those films lined up on your FPU and I do like that.  You remove that human element and almost any monkey can now get a stencil on a screen with the right SOP in place. 

You just hit on the big one for me.  Human element.  I don't want ot work IN my business for the rest of my life.  So as we cycle people, get some good and some bad in and out of here I have to make sure the job is as easy to repeat as possible and that more or less anyone can run it.  Screens I think we would all agree is one of the most important parts of a shop and one of the easiest ways to create trouble at the press.  Take out the guess work, take out the human element, these are not negatives! 

If someone gave me one today I would be using it even at my RIDICULOUSLY low screen use compared to you guys.  I think it's awesome.  But to drop the coin on it for those few benefits... like Alan I have to see more screens a day than some are saying before I see it being the right move.

I agree that I would need to know more before making the commitment I would probably even go so far to say that I would travel to a shop with one and try to see it really in action.

I would also think an auto coater would go hand in hand with a DTS... most of the point is remove the human element out of the equation well, you have to do the same for the surface you are printing on as well.  Auto coater is cheaper and would also allow a trained monkey to coat screens.

Then there is the discussion of the auto reclaimer... I've never seen one up close but the concept is neat.  No one likes that job and it could certainly save you some labor cost, way more than a DTS will.  IF it works as well as I'd want it to.

Auto recliamer, I seen one at M&R, didn't see it running but got the concept and it sounds awesome in theory.  Not sure if they actually even sell it or what it would cost but I would agree with you that it could very well be worth the money more so than a DTS.  Of course this only works if it is mindless and you can save the labor totally.  I could imagine it next to the press and as you pull a job off you slide the screen in to the thing, this means it works while nobody is managing it.  All you have to do is load a screen now and then and pull one off now and then.  if it was in the general area of the press for us this would be very easy. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Frog on November 21, 2012, 04:28:22 PM
Seeing the newly edited and re-titled subject for this thread made me crack a big grin, remembering a huge con about a soon-to-come never-to-arrive  DTS machine a few years back, from a true pro at stretching the truth, promising the earth (and streaming video), and not delivering the goods!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ebscreen on November 21, 2012, 05:44:59 PM
I have frequently seen lightly used auto coaters and reclaimers for sale at a fraction of new price. That says enough for me about that. Some things you just can't replace a human with.

Also, regarding multiple jobs setup on one auto. Great idea in theory, but rarely works out in practice, usually due to underbase, flash, pallet sizes, etc. Having a press than can index both directions helps with this quite a bit, but the day we have nothing but 1 color on white jobs to run is a long time coming....
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 21, 2012, 05:57:12 PM
Company I worked at previously had an auto coater, occasionally the owner would force us to use it but we always ended up stuffing it In a corner unused. As tony said its simply to slow, and did not do anything great compared to human technique. On the flip side we also had a gizmo, sorry no name to go with it that allowed you to place the screen it it, coat and hit a foot pedal, the screen would turn. Great for people coating solo.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Flying Colors on November 21, 2012, 06:36:16 PM
When running the numbers for our ROI on the DTS, like many others, we ran the numbers plenty of times. Each time we calculated the ROI we changed the variables depending on the circumstances and we would sway each figure from an aggressive standpoint to a conservative standpoint; as well as trying to account for peaks and valleys for screen usage during busier and slow times for business.

We ended up between 19-27 months depending on how conservative/aggressive we were inputting the numbers. The amount of screens we do per day is around 75. For our shop I started considering DTS once we got over 50 screens because the ROI started to get attractive.

The first time we looked at DTS, roughly 18 months ago, it was a decision to buy another auto or DTS. At the time we had two autos and really needed more production. Since we could not afford both, we felt that getting the third auto would be the best way to achieve our goal of expanding capacity. The main reason was with two autos and a DTS we could push out an extra job or two per day per machine due to the increased set up times BUT we would be able to ship MORE than 2-4 jobs per day with another auto.

Now, 18 months later we faced the same decision. This time we could push out 3-6 extra jobs per day with a DTS due to increased set up times which is comparable to what we could do with another auto. As some have mentioned before if you do not have the work then what is the point. Well, even if you do not have the work and your staff works 32 hours a week instead of 40 hours than you have a significant savings there. However, we were fortunate enough to fill that void and keep people working. In the couple of months prior to buying a DTS we farmed out a little over 6k in printing so we had the backlog to do it.

One thing that I do not know was touched on in this thread but it extremely important to us is Cash Flow. About 85% of our customers get some sort of terms for payment other than COD. The payment terms range from 10 days to 30 days. Since we are contract, our biggest expense is obviously labor. We are paying employees every two weeks but not getting paid from customers until 30 days. This can and does create times of the year where we go through major cash shortages. I know it may not seem like it, but trust me our CPA convinced me one day in his office with his cash flow models, in our situation getting paid even 2-3 days quicker on average makes a HUGE difference in terms of cash on hand.

Now if setups were the only time/money savings available then we could have accomplished the above for much less than what we paid for the DTS. However, that is where other incremental savings come into play. But, once again those savings did not add up to a point of serious consideration until we reached the 50 screen per day threshold.

It is possible that our graphic art department was not as efficient as others but we saw a good chunk of savings from that department. It is my belief that the reason we saw savings from the art room is due to the vast majority of our jobs are new. I can definitely see how if most of your jobs were reruns you can just pull film and rock and roll to the exposure room. Now, our artists were not sitting around watching films print but just like when it came to production on the autos each artist has been able to proof more jobs than before. They are not proofing double the amount of jobs but when you have 4 artists and each one can do a little more per day then it adds up. The reason they can do a little more per day is due to the ease of use from the RIP.

The RIP that we got with the DTS, Xitron, is great. I was very concerned with not having films to look at before imaging, exposing, and setting up a sim process job. However, the preview function with Xitron is good. We can preview each color separately, zoom in, and make sure nothing was lost in translation while it ripped the file. The RIP is very detailed but easy to use at the same time. You just drag the file into the RIP program and drop it into the workflow you want. (The workflow determines the lpi and other settings you have that can effect how the file is outputted) I am not trying to sell anyone that using the RIP is twice as fast as printing film because it is not, but it is a little more efficient for our art guys.

I think that is it but if I missed anything or did not explain it well enough fire some questions my way and I would love to have a conversation about it.


Mark

Title: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkbrigade on November 21, 2012, 07:17:37 PM

I think that is it but if I missed anything or did not explain it well enough fire some questions my way and I would love to have a conversation about it.


Mark

What kind of cts did you end up getting and has it made setups faster?

What percentage of jobs need no micro compared to what you use to do?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 21, 2012, 07:42:46 PM
Mark thanks for a great review.

It is refreshing to hear from a shop that is at a higher capacity than many of us and gave a more realistic sounding ROI based even off his quantity of printing. Sorry Sam 11 month ROI for your production is suspect.

As mark said he is 50 plus screens in a day, but the most important he said by far is back logging work, that's a huge determiner for an expensive machine.

Mark you also touched on another important issue which I think separates a lot of us in this business and that is employee hours. Some shops like SAMs are run more rigid with more emphasis on the owners pocket and less on the employees, here at my company we are much like a family, the owners main focus is not only his financial well being but also ours. We work wether there is anything to do or not, if power is out we go home but still get paid, basically we are all salaried except new employees or part timers. So for us we would never look for equipment that will cut someone's hours. I know I am not the owner so I can't assume who here as owners operate the same way but I would suspect some do.

I got another question about the machines, for those that own one. How often if ever is their a mistake in the RIP? I am curious because our film rip very rarely makes a mistake so I would assume the DTS RIPS are pretty solid as well.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 21, 2012, 08:04:14 PM
When running the numbers for our ROI on the DTS, like many others, we ran the numbers plenty of times. Each time we calculated the ROI we changed the variables depending on the circumstances and we would sway each figure from an aggressive standpoint to a conservative standpoint; as well as trying to account for peaks and valleys for screen usage during busier and slow times for business.

We ended up between 19-27 months depending on how conservative/aggressive we were inputting the numbers. The amount of screens we do per day is around 75. For our shop I started considering DTS once we got over 50 screens because the ROI started to get attractive.

The first time we looked at DTS, roughly 18 months ago, it was a decision to buy another auto or DTS. At the time we had two autos and really needed more production. Since we could not afford both, we felt that getting the third auto would be the best way to achieve our goal of expanding capacity. The main reason was with two autos and a DTS we could push out an extra job or two per day per machine due to the increased set up times BUT we would be able to ship MORE than 2-4 jobs per day with another auto.

Now, 18 months later we faced the same decision. This time we could push out 3-6 extra jobs per day with a DTS due to increased set up times which is comparable to what we could do with another auto. As some have mentioned before if you do not have the work then what is the point. Well, even if you do not have the work and your staff works 32 hours a week instead of 40 hours than you have a significant savings there. However, we were fortunate enough to fill that void and keep people working. In the couple of months prior to buying a DTS we farmed out a little over 6k in printing so we had the backlog to do it.

One thing that I do not know was touched on in this thread but it extremely important to us is Cash Flow. About 85% of our customers get some sort of terms for payment other than COD. The payment terms range from 10 days to 30 days. Since we are contract, our biggest expense is obviously labor. We are paying employees every two weeks but not getting paid from customers until 30 days. This can and does create times of the year where we go through major cash shortages. I know it may not seem like it, but trust me our CPA convinced me one day in his office with his cash flow models, in our situation getting paid even 2-3 days quicker on average makes a HUGE difference in terms of cash on hand.

Now if setups were the only time/money savings available then we could have accomplished the above for much less than what we paid for the DTS. However, that is where other incremental savings come into play. But, once again those savings did not add up to a point of serious consideration until we reached the 50 screen per day threshold.

It is possible that our graphic art department was not as efficient as others but we saw a good chunk of savings from that department. It is my belief that the reason we saw savings from the art room is due to the vast majority of our jobs are new. I can definitely see how if most of your jobs were reruns you can just pull film and rock and roll to the exposure room. Now, our artists were not sitting around watching films print but just like when it came to production on the autos each artist has been able to proof more jobs than before. They are not proofing double the amount of jobs but when you have 4 artists and each one can do a little more per day then it adds up. The reason they can do a little more per day is due to the ease of use from the RIP.

The RIP that we got with the DTS, Xitron, is great. I was very concerned with not having films to look at before imaging, exposing, and setting up a sim process job. However, the preview function with Xitron is good. We can preview each color separately, zoom in, and make sure nothing was lost in translation while it ripped the file. The RIP is very detailed but easy to use at the same time. You just drag the file into the RIP program and drop it into the workflow you want. (The workflow determines the lpi and other settings you have that can effect how the file is outputted) I am not trying to sell anyone that using the RIP is twice as fast as printing film because it is not, but it is a little more efficient for our art guys.

I think that is it but if I missed anything or did not explain it well enough fire some questions my way and I would love to have a conversation about it.


Mark



Absolute kickass post Mark.  We must be using the same equations and numbers for figuring ROI, because the numbers you posted were so close to what I got that I'm wondering if you stole my notebook :).  I took conservative numbers, ridiculous numbers, and everything in between.  I kept getting around that 40-50 screen/day mark with our current averages and based on repeats or new jobs the ROI tilted from looking fantastic to 48-60 months and beyond.  The ROI calculator I use is extremely detailed and is meant to put in ALL the equipment and literally everything you could think of that costs the shop money and time.  I need to simplify it a little so it doesn't look like the chinese alphabet but it works like it is, it's just a mess to look at.

Mark, did you get the Acti ScreenMaker Pro Legend 2800?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Printficient on November 21, 2012, 09:33:15 PM
There is a shop in Iowa that does 800-1200 screens a day in a 20 hour day.  They have an auto coater and 2 Kiwo I jets.  They also have an automatic reclaim machine.  They shoot 6 screens at a time and are the most efficient shop I have ever seen as they do NOT have a scrap of paper anywhere in the shop.  Sam, you will be glad to know that they have 10,000 roller frames.
Title: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: inkbrigade on November 21, 2012, 09:45:03 PM
There is a shop in Iowa that does 800-1200 screens a day in a 20 hour day.  They have an auto coater and 2 Kiwo I jets.  They also have an automatic reclaim machine.  They shoot 6 screens at a time and are the most efficient shop I have ever seen as they do NOT have a scrap of paper anywhere in the shop.  Sam, you will be glad to know that they have 10,000 roller frames.
God how would you even manage a shop like that?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 21, 2012, 11:08:13 PM
Brandt, first step to speeding up your film to screen process is get that tri-lock off the exposure unit.

Build a FPU like Alan and others have.  Even doing it Alan's old way would be faster as it eliminates the carrier sheets.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Mr Tees!! on November 21, 2012, 11:15:26 PM
...OK,  I cant stand this anymore. I will have something cool to show you all concerning your TriLoc in about six weeks when the custom parts get here. Stay Tuned!... 8)!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 21, 2012, 11:25:22 PM
Brandt, first step to speeding up your film to screen process is get that tri-lock off the exposure unit.

Build a FPU like Alan and others have.  Even doing it Alan's old way would be faster as it eliminates the carrier sheets.

Haven't had time to even consider it.  Barely get day off around here. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 21, 2012, 11:41:13 PM
It's one of those work on your business not in your business things.

Basically sharpening your axe to be more efficient.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: BorisB on November 22, 2012, 12:48:04 AM
Does anyone know the gap between the 4800's printhead nozzles and the substrate?  I'm not sure where I stand on that 1/4" distance.  I'm thinking that nobody's screens would be warped any further than 1/16" and stencil thickness for anything we might be printing on textiles wouldn't be over 200-300 microns which is about 4-6 human hairs stacked on top of each other.  The engineers who developed the DTS machines obviously know more about that distance and what is sufficient and safe that will give the quality we are looking for.  I would think they could shrink that down but I don't have the knowledge to debate it or actually give an answer as to how/why.



So I just went and looked at the "tool" that we use to set the print head height on our machine. I DO NOT have a pair of micrometers here so I cannot give an exact dimension but the distance is actually much much less then 1/4". That was just off the top of my head. Here's a picture of the plate tool that we use to set that and it's a bit hard to see but the distance is actually only about 1/16th of an inch. I was way off with the 1/4" but just to set the record straight it's only about 1/16th..... Since the screen cannot sit higher then the clamps in the dts unit the head has very little chance to ever touch anything.


Just wanted to clear this up




Producer of our CTS/DTS unit instructed us to have printhead at distance from screen at 1.2 to 1.6mm.


Boris
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: BorisB on November 22, 2012, 01:01:52 AM


I got another question about the machines, for those that own one. How often if ever is their a mistake in the RIP? I am curious because our film rip very rarely makes a mistake so I would assume the DTS RIPS are pretty solid as well.

I can compare Harlequin RIP which we used with Imagesetter and ColorGate which we use with DTS. Harlequin failed more often with vector images containing 20.000 objects and more. And this is only situations we face that ColorGate RIP fails. But it shows you in preview if you are careful to check. We mostly do spot this.

Boris
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: BorisB on November 22, 2012, 01:03:49 AM
M&Rs I-Screen.

Does anybody know which printer/printhead is it using?


Boris
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Printficient on November 22, 2012, 08:31:31 AM
There is a shop in Iowa that does 800-1200 screens a day in a 20 hour day.  They have an auto coater and 2 Kiwo I jets.  They also have an automatic reclaim machine.  They shoot 6 screens at a time and are the most efficient shop I have ever seen as they do NOT have a scrap of paper anywhere in the shop.  Sam, you will be glad to know that they have 10,000 roller frames.
God how would you even manage a shop like that?
From a computer.  The manager can tell the exact status of any job from art to screens to production from his computer.  He can do this because there is NO paper anywhere in the system.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Ron Pierson on November 22, 2012, 10:34:28 AM
Printficient - do you know the name of that software at that big shop you mentioned??
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Printficient on November 22, 2012, 10:39:25 AM
Printficient - do you know the name of that software at that big shop you mentioned??
It has no name as it was custom built in house.  Everything is bar coded.  I mean everything.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: royster13 on November 22, 2012, 11:23:30 AM
One of my promotional products suppliers has a custom software program that relies on bar codes......At any moment a CSR can tell where a job is in the plant.....
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Frog on November 22, 2012, 11:36:05 AM
One of my promotional products suppliers has a custom software program that relies on bar codes......At any moment a CSR can tell where a job is in the plant.....

Combine that with employees like this, and you can really track progress and status.
(http://www.panelsonpages.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/l_3101fef2fc7befd6d06e3de8d0f7fa64.jpg)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Frog on November 22, 2012, 11:39:26 AM
While we're on the subject(s) of saving money with equipment investment, ROI, and going paperless, have any of you looked into or already made the switch to bidets? ???
Title: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkbrigade on November 22, 2012, 08:51:10 PM
While we're on the subject(s) of saving money with equipment investment, ROI, and going paperless, have any of you looked into or already made the switch to bidets? ???
I bought a bidet for my house last year. I kept thinking I felt so much fresher after shitting if I took a shower.

So I bought and installed it. It's amazing! I'm always bummed when I have to poop somewhere else now :)

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 22, 2012, 11:40:59 PM
Printficient - do you know the name of that software at that big shop you mentioned??
It has no name as it was custom built in house.  Everything is bar coded.  I mean everything.

We have the capability to do this as well.  We just haven't implemented it yet.  We aren't big enough to worry about doing something like barcoding the processes yet.  It's pretty easy to look around and see what job is in what part of production but when there are multiple autos and dozens of jobs on the floor in different parts of the production chain I can see how important it could be.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Inkworks on November 23, 2012, 07:00:49 PM
While we're on the subject(s) of saving money with equipment investment, ROI, and going paperless, have any of you looked into or already made the switch to bidets? ???

We bought a $40,000.00 Bidet, it make the underwear come out of the $20 washing machine much cleaner, yes a $600 washer would have done the same thing, but I'm still finding ways the bidet is saving us money. We've calculated R.O.I. at 4 months if our house of 4 stays "regular".

 ;) have a great weekend all!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Mr Tees!! on November 23, 2012, 07:27:09 PM
While we're on the subject(s) of saving money with equipment investment, ROI, and going paperless, have any of you looked into or already made the switch to bidets? ???

We bought a $40,000.00 Bidet, it make the underwear come out of the $20 washing machine much cleaner, yes a $600 washer would have done the same thing, but I'm still finding ways the bidet is saving us money. We've calculated R.O.I. at 4 months if our house of 4 stays "regular".

 ;) have a great weekend all!

...yes but what about tape costs?! TAPE COSTS, DAMMIT!!!!!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 23, 2012, 07:41:21 PM
While we're on the subject(s) of saving money with equipment investment, ROI, and going paperless, have any of you looked into or already made the switch to bidets? ???

We bought a $40,000.00 Bidet, it make the underwear come out of the $20 washing machine much cleaner, yes a $600 washer would have done the same thing, but I'm still finding ways the bidet is saving us money. We've calculated R.O.I. at 4 months if our house of 4 stays "regular".

 ;) have a great weekend all!

...yes but what about tape costs?! TAPE COSTS, DAMMIT!!!!!

In this case tape = toilet paper. With the bidet you can cut your TP use down at least one square for doing number 2 and no TP at all for number 1. HUUUGE savings!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 23, 2012, 08:53:57 PM
I just want to ask Sam one question at this point.

Do you hate everyone now?  Or still just me?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Frog on November 23, 2012, 09:39:57 PM
Everyone? Don't lump me in on this. I have learned some time ago to not be hard-nosed on any controversy on the boards. My interjection of humor was not aimed at your "debate" in the least bit. It was merely the natural fun progression of a discussion about equipment ROI and Sonny's reference to a paperless shop, not a mocking of the DTS in the least!

Now excuse me, I have an appointment with a nice refreshing, warm, cleansing spray, doing my part to save a tree or two.  ;D
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 23, 2012, 10:01:18 PM
Don't forget the dollars you are saving on TP!!!

You can't discount a single PENNY, they add up!
Title: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkbrigade on November 24, 2012, 03:00:52 AM
You guys need to stop picking on Sam. He runs his shop his way and you run your shop your way.
We're all sharing information, and that's what the forums are all about :)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 24, 2012, 08:25:18 AM
Come on inkbridge, that's the way things go.  The "PM's" start flying and the phones start ringing and the next witch hunt is on.   

We all know Sam is an ass, he knows it too, but he has passion for his business it seems.  Some of you could learn something from him about that.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 24, 2012, 09:31:53 AM
You guys need to stop picking on Sam. He runs his shop his way and you run your shop your way.
We're all sharing information, and that's what the forums are all about :)

EXACTLY... but that is where the problem is.

I came on here and was honestly interested in his ROI information that he had promised.  He claimed that he was still compiling information "for example I'm still realized I'm saving $40/year on scotch tape".

I simply pointed out that $40 bucks a year wasn't worth the trouble of not coming forward with all this ROI information that he was bragging about.  Then he got all upset like I pee'd in his cheerios because I said $40/year on a $40k investment was an extreme small savings.

Since then he's busted my balls and claimed that he wasn't going to SHARE his information because of people like me who fail to see how important saving $400 bucks over 10 years on a $40,000 investment is.  Hell, I even admitted that I enjoy finding small little savings like that but it was still extremely minor compared to all the other info he should have to achieve an ROI of 11 months.

Sharing information and doing things different IS what this forum is all about... some handle it "differently" than others I guess.

Speaking of generosity, gratefulness and this forum... I just meshed up one of those "drops" that you gave me to 28 newtons... scary stuff.  Some insane man suggested I take it to 35. :)  I'll be happy with 25 at the end of the day!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Frog on November 24, 2012, 10:19:10 AM
Let's just all try to remember to "play nice".
That's what keeps people coming here and contributing.
Arguing and bickering is the number one reason (are the two main reasons?) that many otherwise potentially helpful folks don't like to play on forums.

My attempt at levity was not laughing "at" anyone, but rather meant as a break from the direction that the debate had taken, and its less than cordial mood.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 24, 2012, 10:50:02 AM
You guys need to stop picking on Sam. He runs his shop his way and you run your shop your way.
We're all sharing information, and that's what the forums are all about :)

I simply pointed out that $40 bucks a year wasn't worth the trouble of not coming forward with all this ROI information that he was bragging about.  Then he got all upset like I pee'd in his cheerios because I said $40/year on a $40k investment was an extreme small savings.

Do I agree counting tape would be a bit extreme in the small businesses MOST of us here run, absolutely (more cost in time to count it than savings of said item).  But if you are doing a true ROI, you'd count everything.  I have seen some of these style reports from 50+mil a year companies (my father was a VP of one), and it was VERY amazing what was in a report like that.  Sam may be over doing it on what he was counting but if you truly cared what he had to say about his ROI maybe you should have put your keyboard down and let him either do it or not.  Instead I am sure you put your 2 cents in....  In other words maybe you are restricting how or if info is being shared.   Outside looking in, it's fair enough to believe you wanted him to post his findings so you could do what you did before he even posted it, attack some aspect of it.  Tape for example.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 24, 2012, 11:16:03 AM
You guys need to stop picking on Sam. He runs his shop his way and you run your shop your way.
We're all sharing information, and that's what the forums are all about :)

I simply pointed out that $40 bucks a year wasn't worth the trouble of not coming forward with all this ROI information that he was bragging about.  Then he got all upset like I pee'd in his cheerios because I said $40/year on a $40k investment was an extreme small savings.

Do I agree counting tape would be a bit extreme in the small businesses MOST of us here run, absolutely (more cost in time to count it than savings of said item).  But if you are doing a true ROI, you'd count everything.  I have seen some of these style reports from 50+mil a year companies (my father was a VP of one), and it was VERY amazing what was in a report like that.  Sam may be over doing it on what he was counting but if you truly cared what he had to say about his ROI maybe you should have put your keyboard down and let him either do it or not.  Instead I am sure you put your 2 cents in....  In other words maybe you are restricting how or if info is being shared.   Outside looking in, it's fair enough to believe you wanted him to post his findings so you could do what you did before he even posted it, attack some aspect of it.  Tape for example.

So, you are making assumptions about what happened AND what my intentions in doing said presumptuous act.

Truth of the matter is... ABSOLUTELY tape should be accounted, everything should for a true ROI, like you stated.

I have stated several times that I absolutely LOVE the idea of a DTS and was truly interested in seeing the information.  Things like $40 in tape are great to have but shouldn't be holding back gross initial findings.  I stated back then that all you would have to do is say "Man, I am still finding savings over here, like $40/year in scotch tape... but here are the numbers I've compiled so far and this has us at an ROI of X months.  I'm sure I'll be adding to this and finding more ways it's saving us as we go.  I'll keep this post updated as I do."

You participate in enough forums to know that this is how most people would have handled that sort of information.

Now you SUGGEST that my point was to lay in wait and pounce on his data like I did the tape situation.

Well, not only are you guilty of what you are accusing me of (and that goes way beyond just that statement and into the very act of posting itself actually), but you would be very mistaken.  Facts are facts and one can not dispute facts.  If he's saving $40/year in tape then that is what it is and that is a savings to account for, for anyone looking to do this.

The reason you or maybe even he feels like he will be attacked is because he suggest such a short ROI of 11 months and that shocked a lot of people and a LOT of people did not believe that initial suggestion and wanted to see the numbers behind it.  I'm way to green to be tearing apart his process and where the flaws in the numbers he could have posted up would be.  But clearly I wasn't the only one that he was concerned about (or at least should have).

I am sure I'm not alone in wondering if the FACTS/numbers aren't really there or he doesn't want to expose something else that others would, and have, pointed out.  These are things that I haven't and would not address, but others that are more in the know would.  So far only Sam is coming up with under a year in ROI on a DTS in a shop his size, everyone else has MUCH more reasonable analysis and estimates that jive with just about everyone else.  If Sam in fact can show that everyone else is missing something then he should just post up the numbers.

When I initially reminded him that he said he would have numbers for us "shortly", I like many here just was genuinely interested in the data.

If you honestly think I had some stranger motive to my post than you are completely fishing and looking to make me out to be a much more maniacal character than I think any sane person could be (though we do know of another that is that ridiculous... but not many of us would call him "sane" ;)  ).

In the end, there have been quite a few well respected individuals on this forum that have stated the same and way more than I have in regards to this abnormally short suggested ROI and have also found it a bit over the top to get all pissy about $40/tape being suggested as not worth holding back the gross findings over.  You are even in that column technically.

I just don't see why there are a very small few that think there is some sort of "anti-DTS" faction here on the forums.  I honestly have not seen a single person that flat out says "DTS, is dumb and a waste of money".  Yet one of those same people that has NOT said that has suggested the same about some of the other technology that I and others have suggested might be a better ROI (auto coaters and auto reclaimers).  You don't see anyone getting pissy about them and their opinions.  Quite the contrare, I have taken their words to heart and now don't regard such technology as so "dreamy" as I did just a couple of days ago.

Maybe it's all perspective, I bet I could find a lot of ROI on an AutoCoater... but then again, we really suck at coating screens right now.  Do we suck to a point of a 20k dollar investment?  Nope, not at all, but maybe the numbers would be there if a started looking at how many napkins it takes to clean up a spill, now much wasted emulsion is costing us, time blah blah blah.  So maybe it's all just perspective and where you are lacking in your systems.

In the end though... we all just wanted to see some data that was promised so we could see maybe something we were missing.  But Sam took his ball and went home with it because he didn't like the way someone said "hey, pass me the ball!"  *shrug*
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Mr Tees!! on November 24, 2012, 12:23:31 PM
...I dont think my "tape, dammit!" comment, nor the ridiculous bidet/ROI comment were meant as a way to mock or belittle the way Sam runs his business. If hes happy, well good for him!

... However, the way he presented the ROI with fantasy-income counted directly against the investment, and applied before the new work is available is just plain flawed. We have yet to hear a response to this, seemingly under the guise of "my ways and results are superior to anyone elses, and dont question it or I wont share"  Am I making an assuption in that? Yes absolutely..but at this point in the discussion, that is all we have to go on, isnt it?

...another contributor to this thread mentioned being able to bring $6K of outsourced work BACK in house as a result of moving to DTS. Now THAT is ultra-fast ROI writ large, my friends!!! And it is proof that DTS is absolutely viable is some conditions. I think its a wonderful advancement, but like any new technology, it will probably be 10x better and 10x less expensive in ten years. Then it will be more accessible, and probably the industry standard, in almost all sized shops.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: prozyan on November 24, 2012, 12:42:06 PM
....a bunch of stuff....

The horse is dead.  The beatings can stop.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 24, 2012, 01:38:59 PM
Something that needs to be said.

Sam bought a DTS then said he is working out the ROI, not sure where his logic is in buying a Capitol piece of equipment then figuring the ROI? He obviously must have had an ROI figured out before he bought the machine, if so then why does he need time to pass the information on to the rest of the forum. More Iortantly if his ROI is rock solid on his M&R machine why not support M&R and publish his ROI?

Most of us here are smart enough to know the machine does not make significant changes to your out put unless ofcourse you were previously turning work away or working to much over time. That's all common sense stuff. So people like mek and some others KNOW the true ROI is quite a bit longer for a shop SAMs size.

Just read Flying Colors statement on his ROI, it makes much more sense, he is much much larger than Sam and he was beyond capacity yet his ROI as predicted by Mark is at least twice Sams.

People here would rather hear the significant numbers that make up the ROI and savings not the trivial things like tape. I am smart enough to know that a bit of tape saved is probably off set by some other aspect of DTS.

I personally as well as someone else I won't mention but who is well respected for his knowledge and ability to run a tight ship also feels its a bit ignorant to tout such an extreme ROI for such an expensive piece of equipment knowing that very small shops might take that advice and blindly waste it on something they have no business buying yet. Yes some here will dump big bucks on the tech just for the case of ease of use, but not everyone will have that luxury, some are struggling to grow their business and buying tech like DTS will not help grow their business.


Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 24, 2012, 01:44:03 PM
BTW Andy I as well just trying to bring some levity with the bidet metaphors, not meant to insult anyone directly.

As for what I just wrote I can understand if you think it's a bit to much badgering against one person but I feel it is important to have two sides of views to such expensive and serious equipment, that way interested parties can see both sides of the coin and hopefully make the correct decision for their business. I guess maybe if you feel take SAMs name out and replace with Mr. XX or something lol.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Frog on November 24, 2012, 03:26:11 PM
I'm not pointing any fingers at specific people or posts. It's more a matter of "vibes".  8)
It's apparent to most folks when discussions get contentious, and I'm just hoping that we can all try to keep discussions friendly.

I hereby declare that at the very least, in the spirit of the season, between Thanksgiving and New Years, The Shirt Board will be a no bad vibe zone! (wishful thinking as it may be)

Happy Festivus! Save your gripes for the traditional Airing of the Grievances.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GraphicDisorder on November 24, 2012, 11:19:28 PM
....a bunch of stuff....

The horse is dead.  The beatings can stop.

 ;D
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: tonypep on November 25, 2012, 11:36:52 AM
Well well well. Certainly did not mean to make this thread to be inflamitory but perhaps this is what the site is all about.
Stay tuned as I am composing a topic about color theory.........all I can say is that influence from the outside is invaluable.
Cheers tp
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 25, 2012, 11:59:24 AM
I never wanted anything to turn into a witch hunt, but we all know when we feel strongly about something we usually speak up about it and challenge, it's human nature.  This topic has certainly got people thinking and talking which was what I was interested in doing as well as post my position on the ROI of a new piece of technology.  I got passionate because I happen to be very serious about this technology and have done way more research and crunched way more numbers than the average shop would do and I didn't come close to getting to Sam's numbers and I thought it was my responsibility to say something, as well as others.  Like Mike said, Sam gets a lot of respect from others and when he says something, people usually listen.  I found the ROI he was getting to be nowhere near what I was figuring and then got to thinking how one could achieve that.  Well, after thinking about it and even talking to others who have thought about it I came to the conclusion that there are some things not being said that are very important to the argument and that fueled it for me even more.  For this forum to work properly, it does nobody any good to keep important information out of the ROI equation that others are going to use because they trust what people are saying.  So you come to the conclusion that even if 10% of what is written on a forum is BS, and 20% is imbellishment, then you shouldn't believe anything you read.  But we all know there is good information to be shared here as well and we would be stupid not to at least try and share that info with others so they can achieve success, right?

I was one of those people that months ago when Sam said he would post up his ROI findings with his DTS, I was really looking forward to that because if his shop can benefit from the use of DTS, then ours could too.  I've always found that the more screens you do per day the more the decision to buy one makes sense, so if Palomar is seeing a great ROI then we would too.  Then when Sam said he wasn't going to share the info he said he was, it was end of the discussion as far as I was concerned and I was ready to find the info from someone else.  Then this thread happened, things were said that quite frankly, I'll be honest and open, I didn't believe based on the numbers available and now here we are.  I do know there is a way to get an 11 month ROI at a smaller one auto shop so it's not that I don't buy that, it's just that with the numbers you have to "assume", it didn't add up.  We have to assume the price of the machine, we have to assume the number of screens per day, we have to assume a reasonable production efficiency existed in the shop, all those numbers plus a few more are why some of us are questioning things.

I do believe Sam when he says there are lots of hidden savings that he's found, I would love to hear what they are specifically but I've got a brain and have used it to figure out what most of them are.  If you can find 10 little things like the scotch tape example then were talking serious yearly savings.  $40 per year in savings shouldn't be completely ignored in the big picture, but like others have said, I wouldn't put too much stock in something that small on such a large purchase unless there were dozens of little things to add to it.  I'm a nut when it comes to getting really technical about this process and I count beans as closely as anyone, I've even calculated how much ink is on an average shirt we print, how much it $ in emulsion we have on each mesh count, really trivial stuff if you look at each one individually, but the sum of all the parts adds up. 

I have changed my mind a little on whether or not a one auto shop should consider a DTS.  I still think there are probably more than a few things most shops could do differently to see a big advancement in efficiency but if your really close to maxing all those processes then DTS is the next logical step.  I think if we continue to do as many repeat jobs then we will have to wait a bit longer on a DTS machine than other shops our size that don't do the repeat jobs.  But those shops like Sam, Mike at Evolutionary, shops that operate like them can see success with a DTS even though the ROI will be longer than the shop that's cranking out 60 screens per day.  Spending $40K (on average for a DTS) on a machine that will yield at least one more job per day in your production capacity makes sense.  If that piece of equipment only gets you 2 more jobs per week (most likely what SRI would see) then it almost becomes a coin flip in whether or not to spend the money.  With a scenario like Tony's, a DTS would likely decrease their output and is a no brainer, unless the cost for film and ink is astronomically higher than what it would cost to have a DTS do the same work that it would offset the production output decrease.  But now we are doing a completely different calculation and it's a very unlikely situation so let's not waste time on that scenario.

I'm rambling now so let me get back on point, if a small shop can afford a DTS, if it will make their lives easier, if it will keep them from having to hire one more employee, even if their ROI is 5 years then I would say you could take a chance.  It would have to be a trouble free unit that will be very reliable but I think we might have gotten over that hill by now.  I think 2 years ago the technology wasn't reliable enough for a shop that was expecting a short ROI and now we might actually be close to a plug-and-play, no headaches DTS machine from more than a few manufacturers.  I've laid out the reasons why DTS doesn't benefit our shop as much as other similar shops and with Tony's shop being the exception to the rule for larger shops, DTS is an easy decision for the shop doing over 50 screens per day and not a ton of repeat jobs.

I do apologize for the contentiousness of some of my posts.  My argument was about ROI, not whether or not DTS was good technology.  I tried to tell people how it may or may not benefit every shop.  I think everyone should be able to see how it doesn't benefit Tony and even our shop.  When someone says they think I'm wrong, then I will fire back with facts that back up my findings/opinions. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Prosperi-Tees on November 25, 2012, 12:33:25 PM
Alan, I did not read all thru this thread and if you posted your numbers I apologize but would you be willing to share your calculations as it pertains to the ROI in your shop?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 26, 2012, 10:19:05 AM
Alan, I did not read all thru this thread and if you posted your numbers I apologize but would you be willing to share your calculations as it pertains to the ROI in your shop?

I've posted a lot of numbers but they are all spread out and not neat and organized.  I'll see if I can get something nice and tidy.  I have an ROI spreadsheet but I need to simplify it to use for individual equipment instead of listing everything in the entire shop.  I don't know if the original owner of my ROI spreadsheet would want it posted so making a new, more simplified versus seems like the way to go.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: trebor on November 26, 2012, 03:20:49 PM
Here is as simple as it gets......

52 weeks in a year x 5 days per week= 260  days per year. 10 days of no work due to holidays and such = 250 work days per year x 8 hours per day = 2000 hours per year x 3 years = 6000 hours

$40,000/ 6000= $6.67 per hour + any type of interest or cost of money = $7+ per hour every hour you are open for the next 3 years or $50-$60 per day.

Is it worth $50 per day for you?

If you shorten that ROI to 12 months, triple the daily cost to $150 per day.

What you can save or increase in your profits in addition to those numbers is ROI. The rest is just break even. Or worse.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 26, 2012, 04:09:42 PM
Here is as simple as it gets......

52 weeks in a year x 5 days per week= 260  days per year. 10 days of no work due to holidays and such = 250 work days per year x 8 hours per day = 2000 hours per year x 3 years = 6000 hours

$40,000/ 6000= $6.67 per hour + any type of interest or cost of money = $7+ per hour every hour you are open for the next 3 years or $50-$60 per day.

Is it worth $50 per day for you?

If you shorten that ROI to 12 months, triple the daily cost to $150 per day.

What you can save or increase in your profits in addition to those numbers is ROI. The rest is just break even. Or worse.



In a nutshell, yep.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: tonypep on November 26, 2012, 04:14:56 PM
I get that but what if presses are down waiting for screens? That was the point of the original post.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: JBLUE on November 26, 2012, 04:37:18 PM
I get that but what if presses are down waiting for screens? That was the point of the original post.

And that point has been missed. Also for these guys that have had to pull the glass out of their exposure unit or modified them beyond easily burning filmed screens? What do you do then?

My other question was what if you had to reburn while on press and the machine was in the middle of printing out a job? Can you quit the job/ pause it then restart?

One day or even one hour of down time in a large shop wipes out a huge chunk of that ROI.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Printficient on November 26, 2012, 04:42:30 PM
I get that but what if presses are down waiting for screens? That was the point of the original post.

And that point has been missed. Also for these guys that have had to pull the glass out of their exposure unit or modified them beyond easily burning filmed screens? What do you do then?

My other question was what if you had to reburn while on press and the machine was in the middle of printing out a job? Can you quit the job/ pause it then restart?

One day or even one hour of down time in a large shop wipes out a huge chunk of that ROI.
One solution to this is to do duplicates.  At the low consumables cost of most DTS machines this can be done for fractions of film cost alone not to mention employee cost.  Of course this presupposes a sufficient number of screens available in inventory at the proper mesh counts and it helps to have some sort of registration system on press.  In fact if you do not have a registration system on your press then getting DTS would be putting the cart before the horse.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 26, 2012, 05:35:33 PM
I get that but what if presses are down waiting for screens? That was the point of the original post.

And that point has been missed. Also for these guys that have had to pull the glass out of their exposure unit or modified them beyond easily burning filmed screens? What do you do then?

My other question was what if you had to reburn while on press and the machine was in the middle of printing out a job? Can you quit the job/ pause it then restart?

One day or even one hour of down time in a large shop wipes out a huge chunk of that ROI.
One solution to this is to do duplicates.  At the low consumables cost of most DTS machines this can be done for fractions of film cost alone not to mention employee cost.  Of course this presupposes a sufficient number of screens available in inventory at the proper mesh counts and it helps to have some sort of registration system on press.  In fact if you do not have a registration system on your press then getting DTS would be putting the cart before the horse.

Duplicate what?

I think it was mark at flying colors I was talking to and he mentioned something about dabbing a tray inside his expo unit right under the existing glass. Sounds like a good idea for that just in case scenario not to mention you can still use your old films.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes
Post by: Flying Colors on November 26, 2012, 05:38:19 PM


What kind of cts did you end up getting and has it made setups faster?

What percentage of jobs need no micro compared to what you use to do?
[/quote]

We ended up with the Douthitt CTS. I am not sure of the exact model number but we bought the one that can image larger frames. Our largest frame size is 29 x 42. It can accommodate that size of frame.

The two main reasons we bought this unit was location to us geographically and the wax.

First off Douthitt is a 20 minute drive from us; I agree wholeheartedly with Alan however that their website needs some work, and that is being polite. Just like everyone else you hear how buggy these things are and when you talk to a sales rep from the any company regarding a unit they all say the same thing -

"You are looking at the brand XYZ DTS? We just put two units at a place down in XYZ where brand XYZ had 3 units. Our two outperformed those two hands down, the others were down constantly down".

I am not exaggerating that I heard that exact phrase from 3 different companies. Consequently, with Douthhitt being so close to us it really made a difference knowing they could be here so quickly.

The other reason I mentioned above was wax. After speaking with a couple industry people and performing our own research we felt like wax was the way to go. Once we compared pricing and products we felt that Douthitt was the one for us. Now, that begs the question - what if Douthitt only sold a waterbased system? Well, I really cannot tell you without thinking more about it if we would still have went with the wax from somewhere else or stuck with the local company...

In regards to set up it was as advertised. If everyone does there job properly then it will be dead on. But, that doesn't mean it is idiot proof, you will still have to take care of a couple things. First off it matters how you put the frame in the unit. You have to make sure you are consistent where you put your hands when loading the screen. It is very easy to do, but I want to convey that you have to make sure you shift the frame over to the stops with your hands on the same position of the screen each time. Also, if you have all your screens at 25-30 newtons and one is at 15-20 you might have small adjustment. If you are finishing a discharge underbase job and then you have a plastisol job next and do not adjust your pressures then same thing, you may have a small adjustment. All of these things I am sure you have with any registration system but if you take the proper precautions then you should be on.

As to what percentage of jobs we micro compared to before I cannot say, due to machine types our prior reg system was not the same across the board and it would not be a fair comparison.

Mark
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Flying Colors on November 26, 2012, 05:47:50 PM



Absolute kickass post Mark.  We must be using the same equations and numbers for figuring ROI, because the numbers you posted were so close to what I got that I'm wondering if you stole my notebook :).  I took conservative numbers, ridiculous numbers, and everything in between.  I kept getting around that 40-50 screen/day mark with our current averages and based on repeats or new jobs the ROI tilted from looking fantastic to 48-60 months and beyond.  The ROI calculator I use is extremely detailed and is meant to put in ALL the equipment and literally everything you could think of that costs the shop money and time.  I need to simplify it a little so it doesn't look like the chinese alphabet but it works like it is, it's just a mess to look at.

Mark, did you get the Acti ScreenMaker Pro Legend 2800?
[/quote]

I try to be as detailed as possible to make sure the proper decision is made. Especially when you are in a family business like us you are responsible for parents, sisters, nieces, nephews, and not too mention your own kids. I would hate to think I wasted a ton of money on a decision because I was too lazy to do some research.

I think that when you are talking about such a drastic change to your normal day to day business operations it almost impossible to figure out exactly how it will go. Greg Kitson talks about how after you get a DTS that you will find other bottlenecks that you never knew existed. Thus, if you never address those new bottlenecks then your anticipated ROI goes down the drain due the lack of attention to your new problem areas.

That is why I believe taking a very conservative view and an aggressive view (aggressive view being what the sales rep tells you is going to happen) is the way to go and make sure you are ok with both outcomes before pulling the trigger on a capital purchase.

It is also good to know that are numbers are close, that either means were both good or both bad - at least we have company.

Mark
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ebscreen on November 26, 2012, 06:11:52 PM

Duplicate what?


Screens.

Seems ridiculous to me for anything other than hot jobs or super long run or something.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: inkman996 on November 26, 2012, 06:35:24 PM

Duplicate what?


Screens.

Seems ridiculous to me for anything other than hot jobs or super long run or something.

That's what. I thought he was meaning but shooting duplicate screens would completely negate the whole purpose of the DTS so why bother. Double the screens, double time on the expo double screen reclaims etc no frigging way!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: JBLUE on November 26, 2012, 06:45:51 PM
Great post guys! Good info on the ROI numbers. Thanks for sharing.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 26, 2012, 11:17:18 PM
In 6+ years we've only had one screen bust while on press.  Is this something that others have experienced at a much higher rate?  A squeegee C-clamp fell off an empty print head onto a pallet on our old auto and then a screen came down on it and popped.  I've heard others mention screens busting on press but never thought it was something that happens but once in a blue moon (ha).  Only when we are doing a process job with 55-65 lpi and need to hold 4-5% dots do we need to occasionally burn more than one screen to get it right so I dpn't think DTS in this area would hurt us on re-shoots.  If anything it would help cut down on re-shoots.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on November 27, 2012, 08:38:34 AM
Boy am I glad I didn't get in on this one.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Orion on November 27, 2012, 08:46:30 AM
Same here Bimm, although I have enjoyed watching. ;D
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on November 27, 2012, 09:41:20 AM
I get that but what if presses are down waiting for screens? That was the point of the original post.

Yep... take your labor cost for that press and any other processes that are put on hold and that quickly adds up and sets you back a couple of days on your ROI.

Backups seem important for shops that can't be down.  Hell, I even have a WF1100 sitting in a box that I picked up on sale for $100 bucks as a backup in case my printer goes down/out.

If DTS goes down then, as mentioned, those that have converted to open air shooting of screens have a bit of change over just to get back operational.  With spare printer ($100 bucks), I pull the old one and slap in the new one and I'm printing in 10-15 mins.

This is of course speaking worse case scenario and strictly about ROI during those situations... everything needs to be thought about.

Hell, the same can be said for the entire press as it is a "single point of failure" that can shut down your shop and it's not so easy to have a "backup".  But you never want to increase your "single points of failure" without some redundancy.

I do like the idea of two DTS's!  Increased production rate and redundancy (though at half speed)... but that is taking this ROI conversation to the HNL (hole, nuther, level).
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: tonypep on November 27, 2012, 10:03:05 AM
I think Mark and Flying colors have it about right. But two DTS machines would take a while to pay off. I know my financial guys/gals would argue that "a 7K Gauntlet would pay for itself in 2 weeks why would we want a digital whatchamcallit which has a much longer pay back and doesn't generate revenue?"
It's not necessarily how I feel but thats how the discussion would go. Yes we have the space and the Biz for it.
And Sonny the idea of having backups is ridiculous for so many reasons. And the point I'm making is that in our shop a single DTS will not be able to keep up with four autos and three manuals. Printing backups would put it even further behind. I'm beginning to understand what Brad was talking about. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on November 27, 2012, 10:56:48 AM
This may be straying a little off subject, but the possibility of a CTS going down and shutting you down can be worked around. Regardless of if we are CTS or film, we have a buffer system. We always have minimum 1.5 days worth of screens made and staged for press. If our imaging system fails. I know I have plenty to keep us going while repairs are made or other means of making screens  are secured. (Here in town, I know at least a half dozen shops that can and would make screens for me in a jam) Either way. part of your imagine system could fail, be it film or CTS. You need a back up. I also have a new in the box Epson printer for this very reason. Just my thoughts without jumping into the hold CTS vs. film debate
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on November 27, 2012, 12:09:44 PM
I'm stoked Dave, our I-Image ships out from M&R today woooooooooooooooop!!!! Got a new room built for it over the weekend. This was also a good excuse for me to get my private office for design. I hate being out in the open as I've been trying to focus on design and seps. Especially when working on Sim process seps, the emb machine chattering in my ears and customers wanting to yap. Now I get my quite time, well except for the print head on the DTS  :P
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Flying Colors on November 27, 2012, 12:23:17 PM
Looks like I cannot figure out the whole quote thing so I will not embarrass myself further - In response to Inkman's comment about keeping our glass in we were able to configure that.

On our MSP 3140 we moved the light as far down as it would go.  We used angle iron and threaded rod to create shelves that hold the screen between the glass and the light. If we need to use the glass for whatever reason we can just move the angle iron out of the way and expose that way if needed. Buy doing this we cut our exposure times way down. With two people working it goes at a good clip. Not 80 screens in 80 minutes fast but it moves along.

One person images and throws it on the shelves to start exposing while the other person takes it off the shelf and rinses out. If all of the screens and art are ready we can get through our daily workload, 60-80 screens in 3-4 hours depending if we have 1 or 2 dedicated to the process and also dependent how many screens we gang designs. If we are ahead we will pull the helper to do other things.

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: 3Deep on November 27, 2012, 12:55:41 PM
This has been a long winded topic just to much to read, but some really good points on all sides.

Darryl
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on November 27, 2012, 01:46:16 PM
Alan, I did not read all thru this thread and if you posted your numbers I apologize but would you be willing to share your calculations as it pertains to the ROI in your shop?

Basically, on all "new orders" we would save about 270 seconds (4.5 minutes) by using a DTS versus film on a 3 color front, 3 color back, spot color job on darks.  I ran our numbers based on our Epson 4800 since we are having it refurbed versus a $40K DTS that is one of the faster models.  Shops with imagesetters would see different ROI's since they are much faster than inkjet and have different costs in keeping them running. You can run the numbers with any combination of job you might have and get completely different numbers.  We would see 150 seconds (2.5 minutes) of labor savings on a one color job on lights, or a white design on dark garment with a low piece count with DTS.

Now on repeat orders where the film is printed only the one time, we would lose about 150 seconds (2.5 minutes) per job, again, a 3/3 on darks.  The savings we would see on press setup would be negated by waiting on the DTS to print the screens.  On an average week we are doing about 65% repeats.

Now we have to figure in consumables to get our ROI but the savings would have to be huge to get the ROI I'm looking for.  We only spent about $1800 on film and $700 on ink, $250/year is what we've spent to keep the 4800 going.  Let's just round that number up to an even $3000/year to use the film.  Based on the numbers I've compiled, the ink/wax for the DTS is anywhere from $.08 per screen up to $.40 (Kiwo's calculation).  One shop says they are around $.11/screen average and another shop is around $.08/screen for wax.  A screen with film on average at our shop has about $.60/screen.  I'd feel comfortable saying the DTS will have $.15/screen for a savings of about $.45/screen.  We would see about $8/day, $40/week, $2000/year savings by using DTS over film based on only doing 20 screens per day.  100 screens per day would give you $11,250/year savings just on consumables. 

So when you start trying to compare consumable savings with labor savings you start to get a clearer picture of whether or not DTS will benefit your shop.  If we did mostly new jobs, then we would save about 2 hours a week in labor which would allow us to do a couple more jobs per week.  If we only did repeat jobs then we would lose about an hour of labor per week.  If you have a busy shop, if your regi system doesn't allow for quick setups and you're doing 50+ screens per day you could see several hours of time savings EVERY DAY and then you would be saving maybe $6-7K on consumables so your ROI would come quickly.  So if we are getting 3 more jobs done per week and our sales staff fills that gap, we now need to figure how much we profit per job, on average.  Each shop is different, we shoot for the 30% margin on jobs with our pricing calculator.  So if we had $225 profit for those extra 3 jobs per week, then we could possibly see a one year ROI.  It's much more complicated than that however, we all know we get down on price to stay competitive, we've all ended up losing money on jobs, we've made a killing on other jobs, you get the picture.  Our shop does so many repeat jobs that our ROI could possibly never happen at all.  So I've ran the numbers every different way possible and on average, we are around 30-36 months on some calculations and I've got to 18 months on some scenarios.  I just don't like having to assume some of the most important numbers to the equation, like profit per job (that doesn't technically exist yet) and jobs (that don't exist yet) to fill that new hour or two that is available.  It's certainly possible that business could suffer for some reason and you would really be in trouble.  There are a lot of unknowns and assumptions that you need to consider.  This really is a fantastic subject to discuss. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: RICK STEFANICK on November 27, 2012, 02:00:30 PM

Duplicate what?


Screens.

Seems ridiculous to me for anything other than hot jobs or super long run or something.
THATS CRAZYLAND.. SHOOT DOUBLE SCREENS!!sonny, no you didnt  lol
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: tonypep on November 27, 2012, 02:12:39 PM
Alan looks like you did a thorough job and that seems a fair analysis although others will show different numbers for sure. Me I don't care for either scenario plus to boot it won't keep up with production. You accurately point out that what works in shop A may totally monkey wrench shop B. This is very true about so many methods and applications and equipment. Which was the genesis of the discussion. To be clear I think this technology for many shops; just not all.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Spreading Ink on February 03, 2013, 01:06:21 PM
Interesting thread.  I know now why I don't generally spend as much time on boards these days as I was addicted enough to read it all last night and was up way past my bed time!   Good thing it was a Saturday!

The technology for DTS/CTS looks really good, but I don't see how we could make it work in our shop - we have four Anatols.  1 has side clamps, three with front and back clamps like M&R.  Two of the presses have a capability to print all over prints and were designed from the ground up to have this capability - our 8 color trident is huge - about 26 foot in diameter.  The 16 color Pegasus will do them as well with a direct double index and becomes a 7 color press when in this mode.

We employ a large variety of screens sizes as well 23x31, 25x36, 25x42 and 60 x48 - even if we could consider this technology we likely would not be able to get away from film.  We do a lot of re-orders as well and have a large film library to support them which we pare down about 1 to 2 times yearly.

We burn 23x31- 4 up, 25 x 36, and 25 x 42 - two up and all over screens - one up.

If anyone knows someone making one of these units that would support the large variety of screen sizes and we employ I'd be interested in looking, but I just don't see how one of these would work well in our environment and with the reorder work and the time it would take to image some of the large prints we do I can't see how it would benefit us enough have an ROI worth pursuing. 

I can see the benefit for some shops - just have never been able to see how we could make one work in ours.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ZooCity on February 03, 2013, 06:54:47 PM
? on DTS screen exposure:  why do you not have a blanket behind the screen (on the squeegee side) to prevent scatter?

Seems to me that you would have all kinds of light scatter behind the screen doing it like this.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on February 03, 2013, 10:17:13 PM
? on DTS screen exposure:  why do you not have a blanket behind the screen (on the squeegee side) to prevent scatter?

Seems to me that you would have all kinds of light scatter behind the screen doing it like this.

I've thought the same thing.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: BorisB on February 04, 2013, 10:46:03 AM
? on DTS screen exposure:  why do you not have a blanket behind the screen (on the squeegee side) to prevent scatter?

Seems to me that you would have all kinds of light scatter behind the screen doing it like this.

I've thought the same thing.

You mean something dark to reduce reflection of light back to screen?

Boris
Title: Re: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ZooCity on February 04, 2013, 10:54:53 AM
? on DTS screen exposure:  why do you not have a blanket behind the screen (on the squeegee side) to prevent scatter?

Seems to me that you would have all kinds of light scatter behind the screen doing it like this.

I've thought the same thing.

You mean something dark to reduce reflection of light back to screen?

Boris

Yes

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: mk162 on March 12, 2013, 09:01:00 AM
So after seeing what I saw in AC, here is my take...

if you are doing a decent amount of screens...say 25-50 a week, DTS should work for you depending on your other systems and procedures.

I saw the new M&R, I like it.  They dropped the epson print heads and switched to industrial Ricoh heads.  VERY SMART MOVE.

The Douthitt unit was nice too.  They use a wax based head, again, non-epson and built for industrial applications.

If I had to chose, it would probably come down to price between the 2.  There was another one there, but it used Epson 7800 heads and I'm sorry, I am just not a huge fan of epson heads.  I feel they are too finicky.  Also, Epson is REALLY clamping down on head distribution.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: alan802 on March 12, 2013, 09:20:08 AM
How many different DTS units were on display at the AC show?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: mk162 on March 12, 2013, 09:25:41 AM
I saw at least 3.  I am sure there were more. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GKitson on May 09, 2013, 09:58:16 AM
Here is another video of how we use CTS in our work flow,

Mind's Eye Graphics CTS Screen Exposure & Washout Workflow- May 2013 60 + per hour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZP7kjjTcjU#ws)

60 plus screens per hour, this video starts in the middle of the workflow process after full multi-tasking efficiency is reached.  Notice the lack of rush by the operator, it is a slow steady sustainable pace.

This demonstration is using an I-Jet to CTS image screens in advance & stage,  KIWO One Coat emulsion at 70 light units, Olite 5K with AL131 integrator photocell located in center of light field, 48" from photocell to glass on front of exposure unit.

3 gal per min 900PSI Pressure washer, 37 Gal water only pre-soak tank with heater, spray head spraying a constant rinse on the back side of the screens in washout sink except when moving, and drying in hardware store wire racks with box fans blowing down across wet image.  With complete exposure, no problem with p/w washout or scumming during dry time.  Shot to a 6 on a 21 step scale, hard rinse.


Comments and questions appreciated.

~Kitson
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on May 09, 2013, 10:18:53 AM
Looks like you do a variety of mesh counts and mesh color at the same exposure units. Might that be another benefit of CTS not talked about much? I know I do a lot of that myself. I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GKitson on May 09, 2013, 10:39:04 AM
Looks like you do a variety of mesh counts and mesh color at the same exposure units. Might that be another benefit of CTS not talked about much? I know I do a lot of that myself. I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth.

All the screens in this sample were either 110 or 140.   The guys do 110, 140 and 180 with SBQ at the same exposure.  We 'overcook' a bit to insure durability, wash ability, and long run press life.  The only white mesh we have is over 10 years old and 110. 

230, 255 & 305 with dual cure at a much longer different exposure, but same washout out parameters.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ScreenFoo on May 09, 2013, 01:54:21 PM
You'll forgive my ignorance on this, but you say you put the photocell in the center of the light field--are you talking about centered on the other side of the screen, or centered on an edge of the whatever-you-call-it-instead-of-a-vacuum-frame?

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on May 09, 2013, 02:09:20 PM
Cool video Greg!!! I can honestly say this, I wish I would have done the deal on our I-Image CTS 2 years ago instead of waiting. It has made life so much better for us here. Our quality of printing because of the accuracy of the CTS coupled with a "zero trapping" sep now has seriously increased, along with speed and efficiency. I love the thing. We cured one bottle neck this month, we were going to go your route with a free standing lamp, maybe still in the future, but we came across an INSANE sick deal on a Tri-Light that was already altered for CTS, so now shooting 2 screens at a time in half the exposure time we had before and the I-IMage knocking out screen imaging, the rest of the work is me trying to keep up with it, which I can't. Next step is to install a new rinse booth specifically for the exposed screens instead of hauling them 200 feet to the reclaim area. If we can narrow that to 2-5 foot steps like you have, I think we will be set for a while in our imaging. The CTS is by far the way to go, even for a small shop like us!

Mike
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GKitson on May 09, 2013, 03:26:40 PM
You'll forgive my ignorance on this, but you say you put the photocell in the center of the light field--are you talking about centered on the other side of the screen, or centered on an edge of the whatever-you-call-it-instead-of-a-vacuum-frame?

Picture below is of our hi-tech "whatever-you-call-it-instead-of-a-vacuum-frame" exposure apparatus, a sheet of plywood painted flat black with chunks of scrap 2x4 bolted to the board to hang screens on.  Photocell is "almost" in the center.  We could expose faster if we were closer but this distance allows the loading of 2 top before removing 2 bottom etc. works best in our work flow.

~Kitson

Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on May 09, 2013, 04:45:22 PM
Frightening similar to us. I did find that after doing however many thousand screens, the not so gentle placing of screens on the wall vibrated enough that the "windows" on the photo cell had moved. After a new bulb and recalibration last time, I put a piece of tape on each screw to prevent this. I guess that just for those of us with this system. Some day I'll do some video and we can compare notes.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ZooCity on May 09, 2013, 05:12:20 PM
Nice.  Two big questions:


We do the same thing here, down to the same expo unit and washout tank + press wash resolving, but not CTS- pin lock and big vac frame -and light safe area.  What your doing looks incredibly efficient for throughput, I like it.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on May 09, 2013, 05:44:26 PM
I think it all comes down to the fact that the image is directly on the emulsion, there is no where for the light to go, to get around, same thing as us using an exposure unit no glass, light can't get around the image being that the image is right on, and in our case soaks it'self in the surface of the emulsion. Even an over exposure still produces a perfect edge, it's pretty amazing stuff
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on May 09, 2013, 07:33:31 PM
The wall is black for that reason.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Gilligan on May 09, 2013, 10:49:47 PM
Here is another video of how we use CTS in our work flow,

Mind's Eye Graphics CTS Screen Exposure & Washout Workflow- May 2013 60 + per hour ([url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZP7kjjTcjU#ws[/url])

60 plus screens per hour, this video starts in the middle of the workflow process after full multi-tasking efficiency is reached.  Notice the lack of rush by the operator, it is a slow steady sustainable pace.

This demonstration is using an I-Jet to CTS image screens in advance & stage,  KIWO One Coat emulsion at 70 light units, Olite 5K with AL131 integrator photocell located in center of light field, 48" from photocell to glass on front of exposure unit.

3 gal per min 900PSI Pressure washer, 37 Gal water only pre-soak tank with heater, spray head spraying a constant rinse on the back side of the screens in washout sink except when moving, and drying in hardware store wire racks with box fans blowing down across wet image.  With complete exposure, no problem with p/w washout or scumming during dry time.  Shot to a 6 on a 21 step scale, hard rinse.


Comments and questions appreciated.

~Kitson


I certainly won't argue with success and you guys seem to be killing it!  But man that seems like a lot of exposure going on randomly standing with unexposed screens waiting for the light to turn off... all the light that slips in on those unexposed screens in the "dark room".  That just seems "wrong" by all "text book" standards, but like I said, I won't argue with success!

I do really like that soak tank and the sprayers behind the screens (care to share any details on those guys?)  Also the rack with fans seem pretty efficient as well!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Inkworks on May 10, 2013, 12:05:15 AM
Funny my first thought was all that unshielded UV your screen guy was getting exposed to. UV burns on the eyes feel like sand in your eyes. One shop I consulted at had a UV graphic dryer with improper shielding and was a real retina roaster, the kicker is you don't feel it until about 12 hours after exposure. I know an exposure light isn't near the UV output of a UV oven, but I'd have to think that's gotta be hard on the eyes after a while.

Other than that, great job on a well oiled machine of screen shooting and washing out! Very little wasted movement and everything looks well thought out and most important -> simple!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Admiral on May 10, 2013, 12:37:57 AM

I certainly won't argue with success and you guys seem to be killing it!  But man that seems like a lot of exposure going on randomly standing with unexposed screens waiting for the light to turn off... all the light that slips in on those unexposed screens in the "dark room".  That just seems "wrong" by all "text book" standards, but like I said, I won't argue with success!

I do really like that soak tank and the sprayers behind the screens (care to share any details on those guys?) Also the rack with fans seem pretty efficient as well!

It's almost exactly what I designed and we have been using for over a year, wooden rack custom made, ours just holds 8 screens and has 2 fans on it.  Most screens we do in a day is about 60 so 8 works fine for us.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Screened Gear on May 10, 2013, 02:42:42 AM
If your worried about light bouncing back on the screen you should angle the backing on the screens. That way the light that hits the backing is not coming back at the screen but up or down at the floor. You would have to add more space from the screen and the backing to do that but then you would have next to no chance of light bounce effecting the screens. If you want to make it real good use black cloth or a soft fluffy material. Light reflects off hard surfaces alot easier then a surface like cloth. (Light is much like sound in that way)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GKitson on May 10, 2013, 06:40:31 AM

I knew I would get "busted" on the random light issue.  At one time we had a flexible hinge cover on the door the prevent the light infiltration into the screen room when the door was opened, but it fell off/apart and we have not gotten around to replacing it.  Probably is an issue but our sim process is looking good!

Thanks for keeping me honest and on top of my game.

~Kitson
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GKitson on May 10, 2013, 11:13:17 AM
Couple of you e-mailed or PM'ed me on this so I thought I would share for all.


Kind of a hard question to answer how many screens per hour from the CTS due to our work flow, one of my guys will 'load/select' the RIP'ed files from our hot folder and then 2-3 of my staff members who are primarily responsible for doing other things will load screens as they walk by the screen room, when the I-Jet stops making noise somebody changes the screen.  Just started training the office manager to swap when she walks by and does not hear it making noise.

Kind of  brainless really, we almost never have somebody "just standing there".   Left chest and small center chest designs take about 30 seconds so it is not worth walking away , however 14x16 high coverage stuff may take 3-4 minutes and nobody is standing there watching/waiting for those.

Last time we did 'time trials' we averaged about 25 per hour which is less than half of exposure washout productivity, so we build piles until it is worth turning on the light.

Usually 2-3 days out on screenmaking and about an hour or two behind the art department.  About 500 screens in the rotation, but you know how it is, never enough of the right mesh when you need it..
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on May 10, 2013, 11:33:20 AM
Greg, let your guy in that video know he's a rock star  ;D. He is in a ton of your Impressions mag pics when you do write ups about your shop's system. Seen  him in pics doing everything from de-ink screens, DTS, imagining screens, looks to be a great employee to count on.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on May 10, 2013, 11:43:02 AM
We have a similar set up to what Greg has. We do things a bit differently though. I have one guy in my screen room during "normal" season. He coats screens using a Kiwo Simplex. As he is coating, he is also imaging on the CTS, building up a supply of screens to expose, develop, and tape up. He does all these tasks. Normal season will be 100-120 screen per 8 hour shift. After he's finished coating, he will begin the process of exposing, developing , and taping up screens. We get a nice little loop going in this area. We are also making the screens we need tomorrow today. When we get busier we do 150-200 screens in a 8-10 hour shift.  When this happens we bring in another person to help on the pre press and reclaim side. This person bounces back and forth from helping each are as needed. Working a day ahead allows more flexibility on staging jobs for press, and NEVER having to wait for a job to go on press. A lot more to it, but that's the abbreviated version.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: volker on September 22, 2013, 03:29:59 PM
in some other threads i discussed cts with some people. i got the impression that it is a theme that is very interesting for all of us. so i looked for a thread that covers this theme.
i just found this thread and i wonder why you are not talking about real cts. would you call a system that put ink on an offset plate a ctp? a ctp imagesetter puts light on the printing plate, washes it, drys it and spits it out ready to use.
so if you have a cts system that has a magazine with 10 or 20 screens that can do the same job like a ctp imagesetter is the right choice for me as long as you have a daily capacity of 60 screens minimum. there is no discussion about roi when you just need to put the screens in, start the printing spooler and come back after 40 or 80 minutes to put new screens in.
no time wasted for archive films, wash out screens, putting screens in drying cabinet and stick films on the screens. no time waisted waiting for the vacuum beeing ready and no time wasted for exposing.
we have a system like this and i can tell you it is better than we ever have dreamed of.
if you look at the accuracy it is so much better than all ink spraying systems you can buy. no need to discuss about ink, opacity and edge sharpness. a shop which has a certain amount of screens really should use a system like that, which never has trouble with his wive at home, never comes too late to work and does not need holidays. a system like this does not need to get trained when the old worker decided to do something other. every printer in the shop can learn in a very short time to start the printing jobs and will find some minutes every hour to start the next jobs after he reloaded the magazines.

so if you talk about spraying ink on films or directly on sreens there is no real difference i see. here its hard to calculate a return on investment. may be someone has a system spraying ink on the screens, transport them automatically to exposure, transport to a washing booth and finally to a module that blows them dry. that would be a thing to discuss. as long noone has it the system i talk about is the only choice. i attach a snapshot from our system and a youtube clip showing a system doing the job. it starts beeing interesting from minute eight after they showed some sreen stretching. with best regards.

Digital Screen Making ~ STM-TEX ~ perfect screen process (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9prR8itm6k#ws)
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ScreenFoo on September 23, 2013, 01:56:13 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: blue moon on September 23, 2013, 02:07:40 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: BorisB on September 23, 2013, 02:18:34 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre
At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: 244 on September 23, 2013, 02:41:46 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.
You might want to see what we are having in our booth at the SGAI. screen imaged and exposed in 40 seconds for a fraction of that!

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: BorisB on September 23, 2013, 02:57:43 PM
Confession of Equipment Junkie

Most of Equipment in our Prepress is similar to what you can see in volker's video. Grunig G-112 for reclaiming & developing screens, Grunig G-104 for removing ink from screen, Autocoater  from Grunig as well.  Biggest differences in our setup are two:
-we have manual moving of screens from phase to phase
-we don't use CTS according to Volker's definition. We use inkjet based printer for printing opaque black ink onto the screen, then expose it.

Now to confession: our not real but fake CTS (to stick to above definition) is valid purchase with rather short and quantifiable ROI. But the other part.... All those fancy  machines like in video..... They will never ever beat Greg's or Dave's setup.... reclaim tanks are best value for money.... ROI for G-112 and G-104? Like never?
And one more small detail. We spend more on screen chemicals than before buying automatic machines for reclaim and screen wash..  Maybe we are too stupid too setup proper programs on machines.. However we tweak them for four years now... Still no significant reduction of cost and still higher cost per screen than before.

Boris
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: volker on September 23, 2013, 03:11:46 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre
At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.

@baumanb: the dle-eco did not work properly in my tests, what was a pitty because the company making them is just half an hour driving far from our shop. on the photo you have signtronic on the left and the much cheaper dle-eco on the right side.
by the way: did you sell me your t-shirt folding machine about two years ago???

@244 it is the question what you expect from a cts. so if you try to compare an ink system to an imagesetter or a dle sytem i have to say that the quality can not compare. in ink sprayer is far away from the quality you get from a dle. a ink system needs at least minimum one worker being busy all the time.
a dot sprayed by an ink system has 30% of the outer dot not beeing opaque, so a dot easily can gain or loose around 30& or much more. if you want to prints seps in a perfect quality this is a knock out! even between an "old" imagesetter i had big differences between agfa and heidelberg when compared the dots with a table microscope.
so if you have a smaller shop or need screen with a accuracy that is less important an ink sprayer is a nice choice.

@blue moon. in my shop i have an roi after less that three years.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: volker on September 23, 2013, 03:33:35 PM
Confession of Equipment Junkie

Most of Equipment in our Prepress is similar to what you can see in volker's video. Grunig G-112 for reclaiming & developing screens, Grunig G-104 for removing ink from screen, Autocoater  from Grunig as well.  Biggest differences in our setup are two:
-we have manual moving of screens from phase to phase
-we don't use CTS according to Volker's definition. We use inkjet based printer for printing opaque black ink onto the screen, then expose it.

Now to confession: our not real but fake CTS (to stick to above definition) is valid purchase with rather short and quantifiable ROI. But the other part.... All those fancy  machines like in video..... They will never ever beat Greg's or Dave's setup.... reclaim tanks are best value for money.... ROI for G-112 and G-104? Like never?
And one more small detail. We spend more on screen chemicals than before buying automatic machines for reclaim and screen wash..  Maybe we are too stupid too setup proper programs on machines.. However we tweak them for four years now... Still no significant reduction of cost and still higher cost per screen than before.

Boris



calculating the roi also depends very much on the money you pay your workers. as far as i know my workers earn three or four times more than workers in your country. so needing less workers is a big issue for me.
we save a lot of chemicals now.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: 244 on September 23, 2013, 06:15:14 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre
At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.

@baumanb: the dle-eco did not work properly in my tests, what was a pitty because the company making them is just half an hour driving far from our shop. on the photo you have signtronic on the left and the much cheaper dle-eco on the right side.
by the way: did you sell me your t-shirt folding machine about two years ago???

@244 it is the question what you expect from a cts. so if you try to compare an ink system to an imagesetter or a dle sytem i have to say that the quality can not compare. in ink sprayer is far away from the quality you get from a dle. a ink system needs at least minimum one worker being busy all the time.
a dot sprayed by an ink system has 30% of the outer dot not beeing opaque, so a dot easily can gain or loose around 30& or much more. if you want to prints seps in a perfect quality this is a knock out! even between an "old" imagesetter i had big differences between agfa and heidelberg when compared the dots with a table microscope.
so if you have a smaller shop or need screen with a accuracy that is less important an ink sprayer is a nice choice.

@blue moon. in my shop i have an roi after less that three years.
I would strongly suggest you have someone stop in our booth with a high powered microscope and check out our dots while we are doing a complete screen every 45 seconds including exposure. Things have the tendency to change in technology and maybe what you looked at before was older technology. Just a FYI.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Ron Pierson on September 23, 2013, 06:48:30 PM
244 - which booth at which show please?? I would LOVE to see this.....VERY interested!!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: blue moon on September 23, 2013, 08:07:07 PM
244 - which booth at which show please?? I would LOVE to see this.....VERY interested!!

Ron,

SGIA in Orland. I think it's next month or early November.

Are you going?

pierre
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: volker on September 23, 2013, 09:44:52 PM
IIRC, BaumanB mentioned a couple of DLE units pretty near the beginning, along with ballpark prices which seemingly ended that tangent.  ;)

The units I've heard of in the past sounded rather complex--does that use a laser and mirror system for exposure?

Very cool video, thanks for posting it.

there was one at SGIA couple of years back. If I remember correctly, it was $380K.

so, yes, out of price range for most if not all of us . . .

pierre
At last FESPA in London there was DLE-Eco unit available at $130k. The one in video was roughly  $250k+ the last time I checked.

@baumanb: the dle-eco did not work properly in my tests, what was a pitty because the company making them is just half an hour driving far from our shop. on the photo you have signtronic on the left and the much cheaper dle-eco on the right side.
by the way: did you sell me your t-shirt folding machine about two years ago???

@244 it is the question what you expect from a cts. so if you try to compare an ink system to an imagesetter or a dle sytem i have to say that the quality can not compare. in ink sprayer is far away from the quality you get from a dle. a ink system needs at least minimum one worker being busy all the time.
a dot sprayed by an ink system has 30% of the outer dot not beeing opaque, so a dot easily can gain or loose around 30& or much more. if you want to prints seps in a perfect quality this is a knock out! even between an "old" imagesetter i had big differences between agfa and heidelberg when compared the dots with a table microscope.
so if you have a smaller shop or need screen with a accuracy that is less important an ink sprayer is a nice choice.

@blue moon. in my shop i have an roi after less that three years.
I would strongly suggest you have someone stop in our booth with a high powered microscope and check out our dots while we are doing a complete screen every 45 seconds including exposure. Things have the tendency to change in technology and maybe what you looked at before was older technology. Just a FYI.

well i would love to visit your booth (if you tell me what booth we are talking about) and see what you have to show. but 11 hours in a plane is a hard thing to do :)
what about if you make a printout on film and scan it for us? i will be able to make a scan from my imagesetter as well, so we can compare. in case your inkspray is as good as you promise, you can change the whole offset printers world. noone would buy a ctp anymore. i have some doubts in this case to be honest ;)
so why do you think your system (whatever it might be) is competitive? i would appreciate if you give some useful information here, we will be able to discuss or that can convince the people. its hard to discuss something that is just a promise. :o
may be you have a dealer in germany who has a showroom with this thing?
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Inkworks on September 23, 2013, 09:51:47 PM
That would be the M&R booth you'd be looking for.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Ron Pierson on September 23, 2013, 10:12:31 PM
Love to go - however Florida is too far away - will wait for Long Beach
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: travis.hoyme on June 27, 2014, 11:16:14 PM
@Danny How much does the Lawson DTS cost?


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Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: DannyGruninger on June 27, 2014, 11:40:55 PM
@Danny How much does the Lawson DTS cost?


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More then it's worth, you don't want the lawson. I now have an m&r i image ste and it blows the lawson away. For the minimal difference in price between the two brands the m&r is far superior. The i image will do everything better and make you more money then the lawson dts.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GKitson on September 26, 2014, 07:18:29 AM
Here is a little update on our exposure and washout production loop, we re-located both the pre-soak tank and the light source and increased pre-press thru-put for another 10-15 screens per hour in this loop.

http://tinyurl.com/ltkszhl (http://tinyurl.com/ltkszhl)

Check it out and share your thoughts and questions.

~Kitson
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: mimosatexas on September 26, 2014, 08:44:25 AM
Man I wish I had a brighter light!  I am pretty ok with the rest of my setup, but not having to wait on exposure would RULE.

Nice setup and great video.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: Orion on September 26, 2014, 08:50:26 AM
Going with the two screen exposure and cutting exposure time by 75% was a great move.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ericheartsu on September 26, 2014, 08:52:11 AM
I really love seeing videos like this. That screen rack set up, although similar to ours, is much better, and such a good shop hack!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on September 26, 2014, 09:03:55 AM
Looks great Greg, You're one of those guys that thinks good enough isn't good enough.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GraphicDisorder on September 26, 2014, 09:15:04 AM
I really love seeing videos like this. That screen rack set up, although similar to ours, is much better, and such a good shop hack!

I agree, might be cool for each of us to walk through a video of our shops?  We did one here a few years ago but a lot has changed. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: mimosatexas on September 26, 2014, 09:20:00 AM
If we had a section for specific threads with videos of each shops part of that process linked in some kind of moderated first post with discussion below that would be amazing.  I would post a video of a lot of the way I do things, as much to show a smaller sized shop for newer printers as to get feedback from the real pros on how things could be improved.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: GraphicDisorder on September 26, 2014, 09:33:37 AM
If we had a section for specific threads with videos of each shops part of that process linked in some kind of moderated first post with discussion below that would be amazing.  I would post a video of a lot of the way I do things, as much to show a smaller sized shop for newer printers as to get feedback from the real pros on how things could be improved.

I think just seeing each shops layout would help others see a better idea or way to do something.  Everyone is doing at least something better than everyone else I would suggest and we can always learn something seeing that stuff. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ericheartsu on September 26, 2014, 09:48:21 AM
the only reason I wouldn't post videos is because I'm still learning alot, and most likely have nothing to add. That's why I like being a creep on this board. I'd watch the heck out of some videos though.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: TH Apparel on November 30, 2016, 12:43:52 PM
bringing back an old thread...our shop is considering purchasing a DTS.
Any advantage or disadvantage of inkjet vs wax other than the smaller footprint for wax? 
Visiting a shop nearby that has an M&R i-image tomorrow to see how it works in an actual shop environment and ask some questions.
For those that have a DTS...which machine did you get?  Any thing you know now, that you wish you knew before buying?
 
Not going to pull any triggers until after atlantic city ISS show.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on November 30, 2016, 01:54:09 PM
I Image ST, had the original Epson based I-Image first then upgraded, you WILL NOT REGRET IT!!!!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ZooCity on November 30, 2016, 02:42:45 PM
I couldn't find any resolution information on the I image units but, presuming you were comparing 600dpi to 600dpi, wax to screen my understanding is that you'll find the wax dots a little smoother.   Wax units do not use multiple heads which is going to make the inherently more accurate than a multi-head printer but, barring a bi-d mode, makes wax slower than say a 3 head inkjet unit.   Imaging speed may or may not be important in your shop.

This difference may be inconsequential or important depending on your needs.   

My recommendation is seek out a unit that has the best RIP workflow and the highest resolution option.   I feel that 600 is too low for screen masking and 900 should be the min res for this application with 1200 or higher preferable for some work. 

For us it came down to workflow, imaging size, footprint and resolution more than ink v. wax. 
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: TCT on November 30, 2016, 02:48:02 PM


I couldn't find any resolution information on the I image units

I'm still quite new to our upgrade I-IMAGE but we print at 900*1200 if that helps!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: cbjamel on November 30, 2016, 02:50:35 PM
Email bimmrider he has had wax just went to inkjet says big difference.

Shane
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: DannyGruninger on November 30, 2016, 05:39:04 PM
We had inkjet(Lawson and M&r i image) and just switched to wax. Stay tuned next week I will be posting about our switch.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on November 30, 2016, 05:47:33 PM
One thing that can't be disputed about inkjet CTS I-Image ST and up from M&R is that Danny won a crap ton of awards with screens all produced on the InkJet soooooooo, like mentioned above, go for what fits you best, but those awards speak volumes on the quality of screens being produced from the I-Image units. ;D
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: dirkdiggler on November 30, 2016, 06:23:17 PM
One thing that can't be disputed about inkjet CTS I-Image ST and up from M&R is that Danny won a crap ton of awards with screens all produced on the InkJet soooooooo, like mentioned above, go for what fits you best, but those awards speak volumes on the quality of screens being produced from the I-Image units. ;D


DOAH!
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ZooCity on November 30, 2016, 08:25:39 PM
One thing that can't be disputed about inkjet CTS I-Image ST and up from M&R is that Danny won a crap ton of awards with screens all produced on the InkJet soooooooo, like mentioned above, go for what fits you best, but those awards speak volumes on the quality of screens being produced from the I-Image units. ;D

You could say the same about film honestly.  The masking medium/mechanism needs to be at an acceptable level of resolution and d max but it doesn't make a print work, that all happens up and down the line imo. 

There are side by side's out there that would show you the opposite regarding wax v. ink but you can make any one thing look a little better than another if you want.  True side by side comparisons are hard to come by. 

Thx Alex, that sounds like a sweet spot resolution and could be a part of why some rave about ink CTS perhaps?  Aside from Kiwo's latest offering none of the wax units run higher than 600dpi and wax can outperform ink I think at that lower res, it kind of softens up the dot shape, but all units will perform best at 900dpi and up.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on December 01, 2016, 09:28:16 AM
Let's see if I can do this. Trying to attach a picture of some half tones on a wax machine. (I have both, so I'm not saying one is better than the other) This is a 65 LPI dot on a 355-31 mesh. Can't tell you the percentage dot, but you can guess as well as I can. There is a line through the halftone, which is why I took the picture. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pww7suw04yahtae/Jpg_20160107172404.jpg?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/pww7suw04yahtae/Jpg_20160107172404.jpg?dl=0)

Again, both types of machines have their strengths and weaknesses. You have to decide which is better for you. Almost ANY CTS is better than film, in my opinion.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on December 01, 2016, 11:01:26 AM
One thing that can't be disputed about inkjet CTS I-Image ST and up from M&R is that Danny won a crap ton of awards with screens all produced on the InkJet soooooooo, like mentioned above, go for what fits you best, but those awards speak volumes on the quality of screens being produced from the I-Image units. ;D

You could say the same about film honestly.  The masking medium/mechanism needs to be at an acceptable level of resolution and d max but it doesn't make a print work, that all happens up and down the line imo. 

There are side by side's out there that would show you the opposite regarding wax v. ink but you can make any one thing look a little better than another if you want.  True side by side comparisons are hard to come by. 

I totally get your point! My point was, for the guy asking, and anyone looking into CTS, the fact that Inkjet CTS machines produce award winning shirts should put anyone at ease about the wonder or worry if the inkjet is "good". We can get super technical under a microscope about anything, but honestly, when was the last time anyone's customers said, hey, I want to see the dots on your stencil before you print my shirts, and I want to see them under the microscope? And ifffff, someone has a customer like that, they may want to run for the hills because that's the customer that is insane. I understand that even microscopic differences eventually translate to larger final result differences, but in this case, even judges at shows aren't seeing any difference in final prints, if they did, the shirts wouldn't win. I mean at the end of the day, that is what we are right, t-shirt printers. There are plennnnnty of shops out there with the best of the best of the best pumping out crap, so it's really up to the individuals to make that final difference. I'm not saying one is better than the other, like Dave said, their are points on both sides, what I'm saying is, like anything in our industry, performance, reliability and support are KEY when investing in a tool that you need to rely on day to day. M&R saw that when starting out with Epson based units and re-wrote what they were doing by going with a "ground up" design for that performance and reliability reason. I can't say that about other machines simply based off of other people's experiences having to wait weeks on end for parts or someone to show up to fix ect. Maybe some companies have improved that, but it's a huge consideration on what becomes such a HUGE part of a shop's day to day operation. No screens, no shirts, that's the bottom line. So, making sure you have that support, like I said is key. I personally feel a lot more secure having a machine that is supported by the company who I bought it from, who makes it themselves rather than something labeled over and over by a brand that relabels for a company that was built in another country by another company. If local support and parts are always on hand for other brands, then that's awesome, but how do you find that out really? At any rate, like TH said in his resurrection of this thread, he wanted individual opinions and experiences so I don't want any of my comments to seem arguementiive, I'm just pointing out my view and experience being with CTS for over 4 years now.  :)

Thx Alex, that sounds like a sweet spot resolution and could be a part of why some rave about ink CTS perhaps?  Aside from Kiwo's latest offering none of the wax units run higher than 600dpi and wax can outperform ink I think at that lower res, it kind of softens up the dot shape, but all units will perform best at 900dpi and up.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: ZooCity on December 01, 2016, 02:45:49 PM
I'm with ya screenprintguy, any unit will perform well in almost any environment, no need to shy away from either technology I'd say.   Pick which unit/brand you like and enjoy, any of them beat an epson and film. 

However, I would have to disagree that M&R built the i image "ground up", it's clearly based upon the lawson, right down to the rip, and that core unit is clearly made by another group apart from both those companies.  Same goes for the Olec, Douthitt, Kiwo I-jet I Exile Spyder I and II- basic chassis and setup is made by one company in all cases.  It's what each company downstream does to improve, develop and support their model that makes the difference between them.   So with that said I do agree that that's where the M&R shines- service.   But it's not like they invented it, none of the offerings were ground up built that I'm aware of but were heavily re-built and improved in some cases.  If they were truly built from scratch they'd likely cost even more than they do now. 

Your available offerings in the 60k cts range right now boil down to:

Lawson/M&R Ricoh printhead ink units, 1200dpi (is that the max?), 1-3 printheads

Douthitt/Exile Fuji printhead wax units, 600dpi (current functional max res), 1 printhead, bi-d option on Exile units.

Kiwo XTS Xerox printhead wax units  1200dpi max, 1 printhead, not sure about bi-d but with 880 nozzles might not be necessary.  Another major brand will be offering a version of it as well, not sure if either are out of beta yet or not.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: blue moon on December 01, 2016, 03:14:12 PM
I'm with ya screenprintguy, any unit will perform well in almost any environment, no need to shy away from either technology I'd say.   Pick which unit/brand you like and enjoy, any of them beat an epson and film. 

However, I would have to disagree that M&R built the i image "ground up", it's clearly based upon the lawson, right down to the rip, and that core unit is clearly made by another group apart from both those companies.  Same goes for the Olec, Douthitt, Kiwo I-jet I Exile Spyder I and II- basic chassis and setup is made by one company in all cases.  It's what each company downstream does to improve, develop and support their model that makes the difference between them.   So with that said I do agree that that's where the M&R shines- service.   But it's not like they invented it, none of the offerings were ground up built that I'm aware of but were heavily re-built and improved in some cases.  If they were truly built from scratch they'd likely cost even more than they do now. 

Your available offerings in the 60k cts range right now boil down to:

Lawson/M&R Ricoh printhead ink units, 1200dpi (is that the max?), 1-3 printheads

Douthitt/Exile Fuji printhead wax units, 600dpi (current functional max res), 1 printhead, bi-d option on Exile units.

Kiwo XTS Xerox printhead wax units  1200dpi max, 1 printhead, not sure about bi-d but with 880 nozzles might not be necessary.  Another major brand will be offering a version of it as well, not sure if either are out of beta yet or not.

I started printing films with a Xerox wax printer and the problem I was running into was that the ink deposit was domed and made the edges thin enough to let the light through. Obviously, this was with regular wax rather than UV blocking stuff designed to burn screens, but it is something I would look into before buying.
On the other hand, any (most? all?) inkjet printers use ink that dries in the heads and requires higher humidity to avoid clogging. This automatically takes it out of the dark room as they need to be operated at lower relative humidity. If your CTS needs to go into the the dark room, this could be a problem.

pierre
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: bimmridder on December 01, 2016, 04:30:58 PM
Maybe I'm just lucky, but all three CTS machines I've had have been in my screen room/darkroom. Right now, and for the last eight years I have been running a wax machine (and three years previously in another location), and for the last three (?) I have been running an ink machine as well, all in my screen room. I do try to control the temperature and humidity throughout the year. I can say though, that I have never experienced  clogs worth mentioning. Maybe a few purges and auto cleans, but beyond that, no problems. Again, maybe it's just a dumb guy's luck. It is a balancing act trying to keep humidity stable, and temps where I want them during cold dry winter months and hot humid summer months. I have an in wall PTAC unit for A/C and heat, a dehumidifier, and yes, even a humidifier. So it can all be done in the same room....in my shop.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: TCT on December 01, 2016, 09:10:31 PM


On the other hand, any (most? all?) inkjet printers use ink that dries in the heads and requires higher humidity to avoid clogging. This automatically takes it out of the dark room as they need to be operated at lower relative humidity. If your CTS needs to go into the the dark room, this could be a problem.

pierre

I had thought the same thing Pierre. I had asked in a thread a while back because we were putting our CTS 4' from the whole room dehumidifier. Both Dan and I I believe Mr. Hoffman chimed in and said there was nothing to worry about.
Title: Re: eighty screens in eighty minutes (DTS cons and pros)
Post by: screenprintguy on December 02, 2016, 10:10:08 AM
my CTS stays in a low humidity room running a/c and dehumidifier, as long as you cap the head after use, you shouldn't have problems. I can't say this for the EPSON units as they do it differently but with the ST Richo head units, cap it and you are good.