TSB
screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: DannyGruninger on May 07, 2014, 03:38:25 PM
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So I've had a few private messages with people asking if we are really setting up jobs as fast as I "claim"....... I decided to shoot a quick video today of us tearing down a job, and setting the next one up. First of all sorry for the crap cell phone video but this will be able to show the "time". I know it's pretty boring but this shows real time of us working setting up the job...... The job that was being printed on the press was a 7 color job that needed to revolve so we started the video about a minute before we were finished with that job. Attached are a couple pics of the actual shirt that was printed on this test. The shirt is in 100% perfect registration with no adjustments needed at all, shirt looks much better in person and also once we dialed in the pressure/speeds. But at least this will show how awesome the i image ste has been for us..... Total time of tearing down and setting up on this was under 8 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_FDQFkZBwk&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_FDQFkZBwk&feature=youtu.be)
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I think a lot of people when comparing set ups and tear downs are thinking one person only. Thats basically how i judge the speed of a process on our shop. My guy never has help unless I have time to get back there or our screen cleaner has time. It looks like you have two well coordinated employees with screens/inks/sq/fb's all set to go. The thing I do not get is how the STE is helping with your set up times discounting a little micro here and there that can happen when using film. For us when ever we have a mis-registration its a super fast micro and done. I am of course only talking about the time after screens are exposed.
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That is seriously impressive... (as I head out to the shop to set up a 5 color job on my javi which will probably take me the better part of 30 minutes to set up and register)
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I think a lot of people when comparing set ups and tear downs are thinking one person only. Thats basically how i judge the speed of a process on our shop. My guy never has help unless I have time to get back there or our screen cleaner has time. It looks like you have two well coordinated employees with screens/inks/sq/fb's all set to go. The thing I do not get is how the STE is helping with your set up times discounting a little micro here and there that can happen when using film. For us when ever we have a mis-registration its a super fast micro and done. I am of course only talking about the time after screens are exposed.
The small guy in video is me, and the other guy is my press op..... 95% of the jobs in here I setup as I float to help my press ops....... So yes we are tearing down and setting up with two guys which really helps compared to just having 1 operator....... The reason why I Image ste is helping us so much is that it's much more accurate then having a person tape a film on the screen/carrier sheet. For the last few days I swear we have not had to really even micro a screen, if we do it's such a small adjustment that the time it takes is a mute point. With vacuum draw down, films not being printed perfect, etc with regular tri lock we almost always had to do adjustments so that is where my shop is finding savings. You guys might be better at lining up films on screens, etc which makes your setups fast like this but we never saw it until dts was making our screens, lol..... We are seeing major savings in all areas of the shop because the i image and our quality is better then it ever has been compared to our previous dts.
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I think a lot of people when comparing set ups and tear downs are thinking one person only. Thats basically how i judge the speed of a process on our shop. My guy never has help unless I have time to get back there or our screen cleaner has time. It looks like you have two well coordinated employees with screens/inks/sq/fb's all set to go. The thing I do not get is how the STE is helping with your set up times discounting a little micro here and there that can happen when using film. For us when ever we have a mis-registration its a super fast micro and done. I am of course only talking about the time after screens are exposed.
The small guy in video is me, and the other guy is my press op..... 95% of the jobs in here I setup as I float to help my press ops....... So yes we are tearing down and setting up with two guys which really helps compared to just having 1 operator....... The reason why I Image ste is helping us so much is that it's much more accurate then having a person tape a film on the screen/carrier sheet. For the last few days I swear we have not had to really even micro a screen, if we do it's such a small adjustment that the time it takes is a mute point. With vacuum draw down, films not being printed perfect, etc with regular tri lock we almost always had to do adjustments so that is where my shop is finding savings. You guys might be better at lining up films on screens, etc which makes your setups fast like this but we never saw it until dts was making our screens, lol..... We are seeing major savings in all areas of the shop because the i image and our quality is better then it ever has been compared to our previous dts.
From what i have heard over the years some shops just cannot master the Tri-loc system and others have it down to a science. I feel our shop has it to a science because never do we have a mis-registration so bad that a quick micro cannot help. Many jobs are nailed the first try.
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Man that is bada!@ looking smoke. Nice video and print. I'm definitely going dts
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Like me, others were probably thinking a little different with regards to what a teardown/setup is. Every shop is different and although we are fast at our method, we aren't that fast because we do it differently than Danny. We can have 2 guys on the press but the majority of the time it's just one person. It takes me 90 seconds on average to tear down a screen which includes: take the floodbar out, wipe off the ink, take the squeegee out and do the same thing, then the screen is removed and ink is scraped out and the screen is placed out of the way. So on a 7 color job there would only be one guy doing those steps and so 11 minutes would be the average teardown of a 7 color. The setup would involve the triloc registration which is the fastest part and then putting squeegees, floodbars and ink in the screens at approximately 2 minutes per screen to lock it down and then get it ready to print. So just the setup part of our 7 color jobs would be under 15 minutes (hopefully) with one guy who knows what he's doing. We have to do micro adjustments less than half of the setups so we have ours dialed in really good and we've gone entire days and 15 setups without unlocking a micro.
I'm thinking a regular DTS wouldn't help us near as much as the STE would because of the way we currently do things. Our shop is different. With so many repeat jobs and our current setup efficiency the STE would probably give us a better ROI (even at a higher price) than the standard DTS machine.
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I dont get it...having a system in place and using tools to do you job did what? make you set up an 8 color job in like 5 min...I know plenty of guy who could do that by eye with wood screen...big deal...
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Sam, you need to trade mark Smart A$$ hahahahhahahahahahahahh.
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Nice video.....Way to keep the process moving.
Murphy37
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All shops do things differently. We treat change overs like a pit stop. Everyone available jumps in and does something. If I have two sets of hands available, that's who we use. If there are five people that can help, that's how it's done. When a press stops for changeover, it's all hands on deck.
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Create stuff that's a bit faster than us but pretty similar as we throw 2-4 at change overs. Wish I had set though.
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All shops do things differently. We treat change overs like a pit stop. Everyone available jumps in and does something. If I have two sets of hands available, that's who we use. If there are five people that can help, that's how it's done. When a press stops for changeover, it's all hands on deck.
Ninja press changes are our goal. People and hands magically appears as screens seem to almost change themselves.
It is really about having a prep person having all the inks in the screens, squeegee/flood bars ready, and garments sitting on a table ready to roll into the load station. Pre-loading inks is one of the biggest timesavers we have seen on set-up, other than the CTS/pre-register that is ;D.
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All shops do things differently. We treat change overs like a pit stop. Everyone available jumps in and does something. If I have two sets of hands available, that's who we use. If there are five people that can help, that's how it's done. When a press stops for changeover, it's all hands on deck.
Exactly Dave. For us its always 3 people per press. Clean up stations take care of the nasty business while the next job is being set up. It amazes me to watch some ops in different shops hover over the screen scraping off squeegees/fldbrs.
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Multi auto shops can easily have a gang jump on a teardown and do things that way, it's obviously the right move if you have the personnel. We will gang up the teardowns if we need to but for the most part reclaim, coating, developing, staging, etc. is done while jobs are being torn down and set up. Those things aren't being done while shirts are coming down the belt but as we get busier we'll need to add someone to allow us faster changeovers while keeping the screens flowing. When we get really busy we acclimate to that need and we're able to 15 jobs in a day if we have to. Our changeovers are fast enough that when we're busy we don't get screens cleaned and they start piling up and if they're not getting cleaned they aren't getting coated, and so on.
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It would be difficult in our space constraints having two people always working on pre-prep stuff, people would be tripping over each other and there simply is not enough table space to do it. As it is we have one guy that works on screen cleaning and, my set up guy does all the setting up him self unless I can help but once a job is set up we have no less than three on press unless its a really small run.
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In my shop it is all hands on deck for every take down and set up. Of course...that means just me but still 100% of the crew involved! ;)
It amazes me to watch some ops in different shops hover over the screen scraping off squeegees/fldbrs
That is me...every flood bar and squeegee cleaned and on the shelf as the screen comes down. (unless i need it again that day)
Ink scraped from screen and tape pulled.
Makes no difference if i tie up the press as I am the only one waiting to get a job set back up.
With that said, when things are busy and time is tight...the cleaning of the flood bars and squeegees will wait, but not often.
Watching the STE videos makes me realize just how time consuming it is to get a file to film, screen and press. Hell, it takes me longer to print 7 or 8 films than Dannys entire process of file to print on a shirt.
Very interesting to see how others have streamlined their shops. Good on ya man!
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Not that I'm not impressed with the regular CTS machines, I am, but the STE is the one that looks like it will really give our production a kick in the pants. Putting the screens on the press with the triloc pallet cannot get any faster for us whether we are CTS or not, our registration could possibly get better but not by much since we can go through quite a few setups without touching the micros, so that leaves "pre" pre-press with the most opportunity for a boost. A regular CTS will allow us to not have to have the vacuum drawdown which will save 12 seconds and we'll go from an average 40 second exposure to 20, give or take a few seconds, so that's no slouch when you're doing 25-30 screens per day. But looking at the STE with 3 heads you can print and expose a screen in a minute and it's straight to the post exposure dip tank. I guess we could get a 3 head regular CTS and still have super fast print times but I think I need to break down the STE versus standard CTS performance to see if it will be worth the extra expense. In my head and only minutes thinking about it, it sure seems like the STE would be a much better buy for US. Now will the extra expense of a 2 or 3 head versus a single head be worth it? So many things to consider and this CTS thing is awesome to talk about but with so many options available which one will give us all that I'm asking of it? That is the question.
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I agree, something like the STE is a different animal in a sense, consolidates so much that is currently standalone and apparently is just as fast/faster. Seems like this is the closest our industry has come so far to actually advancing in equipment, catching up to all our other print cousins like offset and eliminating the multiple steps to make a screen as well as registration.
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I have to chime in here. We have one guy that can coat screen, image, and expose all at the same time. Auto coater and STE. BAM.
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Alan as I wait to purchase our STE this is one of the questions I have as well. If Dave has a 2 head, then I obviously don't need anymore than 1 head, but 2 sure would be nice. 3 heads just don't seem to be necessary unless you have a huge shop
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Alan as I wait to purchase our STE this is one of the questions I have as well. If Dave has a 2 head, then I obviously don't need anymore than 1 head, but 2 sure would be nice. 3 heads just don't seem to be necessary unless you have a huge shop
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from our research the 2 head was like $4500 more, and doubled the speed.
Also our rep from GSG told me they already improved the STE with an added bulb i think
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Yes sir, that's why I'm leaning toward the 2 head. Dealing with Monty?
Alan as I wait to purchase our STE this is one of the questions I have as well. If Dave has a 2 head, then I obviously don't need anymore than 1 head, but 2 sure would be nice. 3 heads just don't seem to be necessary unless you have a huge shop
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
from our research the 2 head was like $4500 more, and doubled the speed.
Also our rep from GSG told me they already improved the STE with an added bulb i think
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Yes sir, that's why I'm leaning toward the 2 head. Dealing with Monty?
Alan as I wait to purchase our STE this is one of the questions I have as well. If Dave has a 2 head, then I obviously don't need anymore than 1 head, but 2 sure would be nice. 3 heads just don't seem to be necessary unless you have a huge shop
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
from our research the 2 head was like $4500 more, and doubled the speed.
Also our rep from GSG told me they already improved the STE with an added bulb i think
Monty is our M&R rep, Super nice guy. we've been dealing with Dustin and Harry at GSG alot too
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Alan as I wait to purchase our STE this is one of the questions I have as well. If Dave has a 2 head, then I obviously don't need anymore than 1 head, but 2 sure would be nice. 3 heads just don't seem to be necessary unless you have a huge shop
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
from our research the 2 head was like $4500 more, and doubled the speed.
Also our rep from GSG told me they already improved the STE with an added bulb i think
There is already a STE II ;)