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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: ZooCity on March 13, 2018, 06:27:41 PM

Title: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: ZooCity on March 13, 2018, 06:27:41 PM
Who uses one?  Like it?

It seems best fit for our revised reclaim loop to have something like this:
https://www.ccidom.com/us/en/products/squeegee-cleaners/sq-1000-squeegee-cleaner/ (https://www.ccidom.com/us/en/products/squeegee-cleaners/sq-1000-squeegee-cleaner/)

Would load it with an appropriate, non-foaming ink cleaner. 

This would be for tooling primarily and maybe bucket washing.  We run WB/DC, Plastisol, HSA more or less in that order by job so mileage might vary from an all plastisol shop or an all WB shop considering the chem.

Are folks still using the smartwashers or other bioremediation cleaning stations and is it tested with DC inks?  I always figured that the activator would kill off the microbes and never received a definitive answer regarding that.
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: Colin on March 13, 2018, 08:49:54 PM
We use the plastic version of that from CCI.

We put Easyway 842 in it and clean away....  But we are primarily plastisol.  Clean it out once a year.  Your mileage will vary.

I got nothing bad to say about it.
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: farmboygraphics on March 14, 2018, 04:31:57 AM
Please excuse my ignorance, would a parts washer hold up and do the same job?
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: mk162 on March 14, 2018, 09:52:23 AM
It sure would.  We converted our smartwasher over to a straight pump, no heater parts washer.  We will also be adding an extra filter with an oil filter remote mount.  You can buy really big oil filters.

Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: DonR on March 14, 2018, 10:09:04 AM
Ludicrous - Why did you convert your Smartwasher? Did you have a problem using it with their Ozzy Juice?
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: mk162 on March 14, 2018, 10:29:19 AM
Ludicrous - Why did you convert your Smartwasher? Did you have a problem using it with their Ozzy Juice?

I found it wasn't fantastic at cleaning ink.  It was good.  It also left a film on everything that we had to rinse with water. 
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: ericheartsu on March 14, 2018, 12:23:17 PM
Ludicrous - Why did you convert your Smartwasher? Did you have a problem using it with their Ozzy Juice?

I found it wasn't fantastic at cleaning ink.  It was good.  It also left a film on everything that we had to rinse with water.

100% agree. we really don't like our smart washer because of this.
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: ZooCity on March 14, 2018, 01:47:18 PM
So no go on smartwasher for you two?  What chem are you using that's no-rinse?
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: ericheartsu on March 14, 2018, 02:20:26 PM
So no go on smartwasher for you two?  What chem are you using that's no-rinse?

We still use it for plastisol, but we honestly do like 5 plastisol jobs a month now. We've just resorted to using IR26, with sponges and it works really well. We clean all of our WB/HSA/DC tools right after the job, so they aren't really ever sitting around.
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: ZooCity on March 14, 2018, 03:36:19 PM
CCI recommended a mix of Prochem 450L and water(to assist with wb ink removal) for us.  We currently use the ultra affordable Envirosolv from them but it would foam up in a recirc I imagine.   

Shame the smartwasher product isn't a fit for the wb shops.  We keep a 5er of 701 on hand for the squeegee cleaner device and for any tough plastisol clean ups.
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: Colin on March 14, 2018, 04:38:13 PM
Chris - Why cant you put in water and/or a W.B. cleaner into the circulating tank for cleaning?  Maybe something like a windex variant that doesn't foam up? (amonia based cleaner)

I assume the point is to capture w.b. ink particles for disposal?

For what it's worth, if an employee has left out a waterbase squeegee or utensil and its dried up, we put a little easyway 701 on a scrub pad and it comes right off. 
Title: Re: Ink Recirculation Station for Cleaning Tooling
Post by: ZooCity on March 14, 2018, 05:03:27 PM
It's not intended to capture wb particles really, although that's nice too, just need a dedicated station for cleaning tooling.   We do still run a good grip of plastisol here so all ink types will be cleaned in it.