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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: Sbrem on May 22, 2017, 06:55:41 PM
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Our old dryers are starting to get really old, so we're starting to look around. Interchange's name came up, who knows what about this company? Thanks in advance...
Steve
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We have an AirJet 60" w/ 12' of heat that's probably about 15 years old at this point and is still a beast. The flame rod goes out about once every year or two, but other than that with some weekly/monthly maintenance it should continue to truck on. We recently got a Roqtunnel as it was a really good deal or else we would've went with another Airjet. Sprint 3000 look pretty great also, but it about 20% more in cost than an Interchange.
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how is your roq tunnel?
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I'm not to familiar with the dryers themselves, but Interchange is located close to my shop and they're good people. One of their techs can pretty much fix any piece of equipment so it's good to have him local to our area.
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how is your roq tunnel?
We are so far very happy with it! One shock to the system coming from the Airjet was that the RoqTunnel takes about 45 mins to 1 hour to reach 330 vs about 15 minutes with the Airjet... Albeit they do have a timer program which is pretty neat, so we just set the timer to kick on 45 mins before we come into the shop and we are good to go. Also we have 20' of heat with 1 burner and I believe they do offer 2 burner options if you need it to get up and going faster. That's the cost of cutting your BTU's roughly in half though :)
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We have a huge Interchange AirJet also. Up to temp in 10 minutes and the flame rod
has only gone out once in 15 years we've had it (we got it used).
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I run an MD-8. Love it. It does dump a bit of heat out the ends and I wish there was more insulation in the base. Other than that it's been a fantastic dryer. I would buy another one again in a heartbeat.
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Love our Sprint 3000.
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I don't have an Interchange, but I can tell you those guys bent over backwards to help me get my vortex going. I am not even a customer of theirs, never bought a thing from them. Stand up guys, same as the guys at CGS. If you are looking for a used unit, might be worth a look:
http://screenprintsource.com/equipment-categories/textile-dryers/ (http://screenprintsource.com/equipment-categories/textile-dryers/)
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thanks guys, they do seem to be really well received. The local M&R rep was in last week with our Garston rep, and I think we were looking 48K. Since we're always had used dryers, we aren't above buying used at all.
Steve
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I did a lot of research on dryers 4 years ago so the ROQ wasn't on my radar. Essentially it was Interchange v M&R. We went with the Sprint International. I got to see an Interchange getting installed a few weeks after our Sprint was installed and much prefer the M&R design and features versus what Interchange does. But I don't know that the overall performance is lacking on the Interchange, it probably had more to do with all the knowledge that was given to me about the M&R dryers that I didn't get from anyone at Interchange that created most of that gap. I do think M&R makes the best dryer on the market, and spend some time speaking with Interchange's most knowledgeable guy then spend 10 minutes speaking with Rich Hoffman and then make a decision.
And I bet the ROQ tunnel is a fine dryer, but I wouldn't like waiting up to an hour for my dryer to be ready. I don't care that you could program it to come on at a certain time, but if others don't mind that then more power to them.
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I couldn't wait that long either. I had cooled the shop down when a customer came in looking for an order that fell through the cracks. We had the whole thing printed front and back in less than 45.
The gas savings would be pretty nice though. But the Interchange is very efficient as well, so I don't know if the trade-off is worth it.
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You always hear about the dryer's efficiency but I don't recall ever seeing any real figures or comparisons between them. I always hear "our dryers are the most efficient available", yada yada. I'm sure it exists since it's always a bullet point to go over when selling a dryer, but it's escaped my eyes all this time. A cool feature on our dryer that I don't use is it tracks our gas consumption and I could conceivably cost a job down to how much it took to cure 1 shirt.
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I am guessing M&R could even do a slower start up if desired, using less gas. But me ive never said to myself....oh man it costs too much to run this dryer.
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That's eye opening on the ROQ, why would it take an hour to warm up? Our 20 - 25 year old Advance Tex-Air dryers take 15 - 20 minutes tops... We are well aware of the M&R quality and reputation for service, so they are not off the table, but we have a lot going lately as we are being forced to move from our home of 25 years, so any savings are important. Thanks all.
Steve
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I am not entirely versed on the inner-workings, but from my understanding it would be due to the intake/burner. The Roqtunnel max BTU is 250,000 where as the Airjet is 500,000. Once it is up it insulates the heat inside the chamber very well though, there isn't as much heat pouring out as with the Airjet. Also the actual height of the chamber is much shorter so you have less space to fill with heat. If we would have went with the dual burner since there is 20' heat and 71"W than I am sure we would be closer to the Airjet, but with the deal we got it was already built with a single burner.
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is a lower height in the chamber a big plus?, especially with water - based, have often heard that air circulation and internal air replacement- will remove moisture quicker/cure more apparel
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I'm intrigued buy the roq dryers but can't wrap my head around how they can match capacity at half the btu consumption. I agree that I would want to see some real numbers on this. As far as water based ink curing these units were made for the euro market so I imagine they have the air exchange needed but again, would need to know the air exchange rate, etc. to really compare.
We're happy with our sprint HO at 400k btu. It could be much more efficient with some basic design improvements yes but I like the firepower regarding heat and air exchange for the amount of DC ink we run. I wonder if some of the design components haven't been resolved on the sprint 3000, which is probably the dryer I would look at along with the roq one if we were replacing with new.
For used I think it's awfully hard to beat a later model sprint 2000. I hear the AirJets are good too, a little less so with the MD-8.
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There are two trains of thought, how long the dryer takes to heat up, and how efficiently it operates. The 20' tunnel
is Incredibly efficient at only 120k btu with one burner. The dryer comes with an optional second burner for another 120 k btus. That option is $5k more for second burner. With two burners the dryer will get to temp in about 15 mins. Same as the 10' and 15' tunnels which get up to temp fast. The 20' tunnels are designed to maximum efficiency and for factories running 24 hours a day or very long two shifts. So in getting a 20' tunnel you would want to decide if first do they need 20' of heat and if the do is getting to temp fast more important than efficiency.
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I'm intrigued buy the roq dryers but can't wrap my head around how they can match capacity at half the btu consumption. I agree that I would want to see some real numbers on this. As far as water based ink curing these units were made for the euro market so I imagine they have the air exchange needed but again, would need to know the air exchange rate, etc. to really compare.
We're happy with our sprint HO at 400k btu. It could be much more efficient with some basic design improvements yes but I like the firepower regarding heat and air exchange for the amount of DC ink we run. I wonder if some of the design components haven't been resolved on the sprint 3000, which is probably the dryer I would look at along with the roq one if we were replacing with new.
For used I think it's awfully hard to beat a later model sprint 2000. I hear the AirJets are good too, a little less so with the MD-8.
The sprint 3000 uses a 340,000 but burner but we only use 160,000 btu in usage. 20' of heat is at temp in 15 minutes with one burner. Roughly 320.00 per month operating cost. Just a FYI.
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We've had an Interchange MD-8 with 12' of heat and a split belt for four years now and have been overall very happy. Went with the split belt so we can run WB on one side of the room at the same time as plastisol on the other.. (we came from an infrared dryer with elements, so we thought longer time in the chamber would definitely scorch the shirts, but never had a problem with that after switching over to gas. )
The split belt works well and the dryer gets up to temp in no time. Only real issue has been a cylinder going bad on the belt tracking (we have two belt tracking systems because of the split belt). Replaced the cylinder and that solved the problem. At one time we had issues with flame rod going out (thus automatically turning off the gas) but once we came up with a sound maintenance schedule we've been good. (you've got to clean out your filters and blower regularly).
I've been super happy with their team and tech support, and would get another one (but maybe not with a split belt now that we see how much latitude you have with gas and how long shirts can be inside without issue).
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We've had older sprints and the newer roqs so it's hard to compare those two. I know our sprints ran like champs with an occasional flame rod clean up and bearing overhaul so no complaints and always thought it was a solid unit. Since switching to the roq dryer I've noticed a couple things I really liked. The exhaust system seems to be top notch as we can be crushing discharge on four autos and nobody in the building would know. The exhaust also has a catch tray system that collects the tar like residue that can build up all over the inside of the tunnel as well as the entry/exit exhaust hoods. I've had problems in the past with that residue dripping on the garment when exiting the tunnel. With our roqs we have not had any issues as the catch tray has collected a fair amount of this gunk. I'm attaching a picture of the air knife tray which slides out for easy cleaning which has been a great feature. Within just a few minutes I can have the shell of the dryer off to service, clean, etc which along with the sliding tray makes all that super simple. I've got 15 ft tunnels 72" wide belts so they only take around 15-20 min to fully heat up. I know roq offers some options for added and upgraded burners/exchangers for the big tunnels to heat up in that same amount of time. It's all a trade off but if your feeding two autos a single burner 15ft chamber like I have is perfect. Our dryer is never our bottleneck lol but all the major brands build what seems to be a good dryer, so far I'm impressed by our roq dryer as it's meet every expectation I've had for it.
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Have you considered the ANATOL Vulcan Gas Dryers?
We offer a variety of different sizes, both standard and modular, and can accommodate most printers needs. I've included a link to our website where you can see all of the specs and different options. I'm one of the factory reps here, so please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Thanks
Vulcan Link - https://anatol.com/conveyor-dryers
Michael Merritt
Anatol Equipment Mfg.
847-582-1719
michaelm@anatol.com
anatol.com
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Hey guys,
It's been a long time. We're in the process of updating a few machines and we're starting with a GAS ROQTUNNEL. They seem really good and at great value. Was interesting to read it takes them too long to fire up (1 hour is A LONG TIME) but they'll save us almost 50% on our electric bill (which still sounds odd as they told us again and again to expect a 20% save).
Anyone knows how much electricity it still consumes? The usage numbers don't add up and all I can think of is it might still use a lot of electric power to keep it on (even though I can't fully understand why it would).
Thanks in advance.
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We installed our ROQ tunnel March 1st. 35” wide belt with 9.5’ of heat.
1 burner with 175,000 BTU. Takes about 15 mins. to heat up.
Last year May gas bill was $34 without a gas dryer and this year May bill was $71 with the gas dryer running about 20 or so hours a week.
We ran a 1-color water base job today with no issues. The lower height in the chamber is a plus for efficiency,but you better make sure you flatten the hoods on hooded sweatshirt or they will rub.
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Hey guys,
It's been a long time. We're in the process of updating a few machines and we're starting with a GAS ROQTUNNEL. They seem really good and at great value. Was interesting to read it takes them too long to fire up (1 hour is A LONG TIME) but they'll save us almost 50% on our electric bill (which still sounds odd as they told us again and again to expect a 20% save).
Anyone knows how much electricity it still consumes? The usage numbers don't add up and all I can think of is it might still use a lot of electric power to keep it on (even though I can't fully understand why it would).
Thanks in advance.
Depends on the size of the dryer. 3018’s and up can take quite some time as all dryers use the same 150k burner. So as you can imagine the bigger it is the longer it takes. My suggestion would be when you get up to 6018’s and bigger just automatically get the dual burner option. All of them come with a program that will have the dryer automatically start up at a predetermined time for each day of the week. It’s a good dryer, I’d say the 3000 has some bells on it I like better and is a little better insulated. But you can’t go terribly wrong with either.