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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: Donnie on August 04, 2014, 10:10:11 PM
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Thinking I might give them a go. I know a tank is a tank but looking for a good reasonably priced tank and what chemicals are the best?
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We've found the diptank to be about what we thought we'd get after reading all the opinions out there.
Does it save time? Probably, a little.
Does it remove ink and emulsion in one step? Mostly, sort-of.
First let me say we card off all the ink reasonably possible with putty knives, no big blobs or the like are left when it goes into the diptank.
Cons we've found that I never saw mentioned:
-Wet on wet screens don't reclaim well. If there is a skim of ink on both sides the chemical doesn't really get to the emulsion as the ink acts as a barrier. The chemical really needs to be in direct contact with the emulsion on one side or the other.
-Ink comes off with the emulsion because the emulsion is dissolved, but the ink is still mostly the same old wet plastisol that smears everywhere. It makes a mess of the washout tank as it's not water soluble like it is when an ink degradent is used. Consequently the backlit washout tank needs a rinse with ink degradent after reclaiming screens to get rid of all the splotches of wet plastisol.
-Because of the above the frames are more prone to little ink smears which I've found to be showing up on the exposure units. Our screen guy has taken to wiping the frames with a rag after reclaiming and drying, before coating.
I guess I'll look into other chemicals, but unless the new chemical actually degrades the ink on it's own as well as disolving emulsion, I can't see it as being much better. Also it's not cheap to fill a diptank with new chemical to see if it's going to work any better.
If it doesn't dissolve the ink, then, in my opinion, it's just a faster way to apply emulsion remover and probably not worth the cost for us. It makes very little sense if you have to de-ink before using the tank.
I always kept in the back of my head that if we didn't like it as a reclaiming tank that it could become a developing tank. the next few months will see if that's destined to be.
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I LOVE mine and would not go back to reclaiming by hand. The two major benefits to me are making it easier and faster to reclaim hardened SP1400 screens used for discharge, which took substantial effort when just scrubbing on by hand, since they can just sit inthe chemical until soft, which ties into the second benefit: LESS SCRUBBING. I pull it out of the tank and pressure wash off everything, then apply 701, rinse, and i'm done. One scrub instead of two or three, and I can reclaim faster. I use Easiway Supra in my tank, and use Easiway 701 for haze and degrease and have had no issues with screen breakdown or haze since I started using this combo. Evo suggested it and he has posted some awesome info about dip tanks in the past on this forum.
Developing tank is also awesome and I would not go back to spraying and waiting.
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I LOVE mine and would not go back to reclaiming by hand. The two major benefits to me are making it easier and faster to reclaim hardened SP1400 screens used for discharge, which took substantial effort when just scrubbing on by hand, since they can just sit inthe chemical until soft, which ties into the second benefit: LESS SCRUBBING. I pull it out of the tank and pressure wash off everything, then apply 701, rinse, and i'm done. One scrub instead of two or three, and I can reclaim faster. I use Easiway Supra in my tank, and use Easiway 701 for haze and degrease and have had no issues with screen breakdown or haze since I started using this combo. Evo suggested it and he has posted some awesome info about dip tanks in the past on this forum.
Developing tank is also awesome and I would not go back to spraying and waiting.
I agree 100% and will add that I use the same procedure except:
- I use Xenon Plastiwash in the parts washer, with a gong brush, and do a quick rinse BEFORE putting it in the tank. This gets 99% of the plastisol off and doesn't let it go down the drain or congeal in the bottom of the tank.
- Same Easiway Supra in the tank
- I use the same 701 as a Haze remover
- I use Xenon degreaser after... (even tho they claim 701 works as a degreaser -- we've had much better screens if we degrease after the 701)
(Developing Tank rocks too... would never not have one)
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I got my dip tank from Ryonet. If I had to do it over I would not get the 2 in 1 chemical it came with and go with something more like the Supra. The 2 in 1 it came with does nothing for water based ink, but I use mostly plastisol anyway. That being said it is still great and is 10x as productive for me. I would not give it up. I can get 8 20x24 screens in the tank at once. I cut some pvc pipe to fit in the grooves to hold the screens down since they want to float up.
I card as much ink out and take off my tape and just put it in. When I pull it out and spray it out I still get some ink left in the image area. I spray some Franmar color change on both sides and give it a quick scrub and pressure wash again. Then degrease and dry. If I used the Easiway stuff I could probably be even more efficient but I'm still happy.
I'm going to add another tank shortly for developing.
Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?
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We use this CCI diptank: http://www.ccidom.com/products.php?product=________EnviroLine%C2%AE___________--------DST%252d1-Dip%27N-Strip%C2%AE--Tank (http://www.ccidom.com/products.php?product=________EnviroLine%C2%AE___________--------DST%252d1-Dip%27N-Strip%C2%AE--Tank)
We also have an easiway diptank but prefer the CCI. We use Supra, 701, and a dehazer and also will not go back to pre-diptank reclaim.
Once our Supra loses its punch I am going to try CCI's version due to price and I am told it is more concentrated but this is just hearsay.
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For development:
I use an aquarium pump to agitate the water.. (not air tho, just the submersible pump).
I think it helps with the water getting funky.
depending on the emulsion, I leave them in for 2-5 minutes... sometimes longer if there's half tones and I'm using dual-cure emulsion... just makes it easier.
For reclaim with Supra:
3 minutes or so (or about the length of time it takes me to fully clean a screen from the tank) -- again, this depends on the emulsion you're using. sp1400 needs to soak longer to make it really easy to reclaim, PP - Nova with no diazo -- 30 secs MAX in the tank or it's falling right off.
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I'm going to add another tank shortly for developing.
Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?
http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12479.0.html (http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12479.0.html)
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We love our tank, would not even try to have a shop without one.
We have used the Easiway stuff that came with the tank, Saati ER-4 and CCI Microwash II. IMO the CCI stuff works best for the one step ink/emulsion remover. Screens are carded, dipped, power washed then scrubbed with Saati IR-18, rinsed and racked. First set of screens set in the tank for about 15 min then we pull one out, lift the next to drain and add two more. Then we start rolling the draining one goes into the booth, next one is pulled to drain and one is added and keep going until we are finished. I agree with Inkworks about the ink splatter in the washout booth but as we spray the IR18 some gets on the back of the booth and when power washing the next screen clean the booth at the same time. I also add 6-8oz of straight emulsion remover to the tank every week to keep the tank hot.
I would not agitate the tank, if the emulsion starts coming off in the tank it will start killing the solution, shorter life span. We had someone leave screens in the tank over night and it killed the tank.
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I'm going to add another tank shortly for developing.
Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?
[url]http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12479.0.html[/url] ([url]http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,12479.0.html[/url])
Hey Frog, I get this message when I try that link:
The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.
I get that now and then when I try to look at something. Am I too new here? :-)
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We love our tank, would not even try to have a shop without one.
We have used the Easiway stuff that came with the tank, Saati ER-4 and CCI Microwash II. IMO the CCI stuff works best for the one step ink/emulsion remover. Screens are carded, dipped, power washed then scrubbed with Saati IR-18, rinsed and racked. First set of screens set in the tank for about 15 min then we pull one out, lift the next to drain and add two more. Then we start rolling the draining one goes into the booth, next one is pulled to drain and one is added and keep going until we are finished. I agree with Inkworks about the ink splatter in the washout booth but as we spray the IR18 some gets on the back of the booth and when power washing the next screen clean the booth at the same time. I also add 6-8oz of straight emulsion remover to the tank every week to keep the tank hot.
I would not agitate the tank, if the emulsion starts coming off in the tank it will start killing the solution, shorter life span. We had someone leave screens in the tank over night and it killed the tank.
Oh yeah...I wouldn't agitate the reclaim tank. If I load 8 screens at once by the time I get to about #5 the emulsion is practically gone as it is.
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If there is a shop that isn't getting significant time savings from a dip tank versus the old school way then there is a few things to look at. Maybe you're far beyond most shops at efficient reclaiming by hand which is possible but I'd venture to guess that the dip tank steps could be done differently and you'd see much faster reclaims. We've used just about every chemical out there for our dip tank and the 2 in 1 stuff doesn't do what most expect it would, and we've gone to using just an emulsion remover in the tank and remove the ink prior to dipping. A great ink degradent is important. It should take 30 seconds or less to spray and scrub the ink deg. and then spray it out and then dip the screen. The more ink you're able to get off the screen the faster the screens will reclaim once you take them out of the tank. I am always going back and looking at our processes and we have ER and ink deg in spray bottles and I can do it the old school way and get about 10 screens finished in an hour, more if it's high mesh. With a good ER in the tank and good ink degradent you should be able to reclaim 20-25 screens an hour via dip tank. I've heard and seen close to 30 screens/hr with a dip tank but a good number to shoot for would be 25 and if you reach 20/hr, then you're doing good. I think someone could get close to 20/hr by hand but I think that would be a small minority that could get that far without a dip tank.
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We switched a few weeks back from One Step Clear to CCI Gem-Zyme and have been really happy with it so far. It mixes 20 to 1, which is great for us as we have a 80 gallon dip tank and it doesn't even take a 5g of chemical to fill it up. With what we had leftover after filling it up, we just mix 1 quart at a time of chemical into a 5g bucket of water and use that for topping off the tank. I can't speak yet for its longevity, but I've heard others reports that its done quite well in that category as well.
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bulldog: I believe you'll need 10 posts to view that subforum, so you're almost there :D
Using the dip tank took me from: 701 (scrubbing then soft rinse), ER (scrubbing then pressure washing), dehaze (if necessary, scrubbing and pressure washing/soft rinsing), degreaser (soft rinse). 4 steps and 3 scrubbing sessions AND a lot more water usage. My arms hurt after 20 screens and it took forever, especially on those super thick 2/2 coated screens or hardened and post exposed screens for discharge. I maybe could have skipped one of those steps or a rinse here or there, but quality of the final screen always suffered if I tried to increase efficiency.
I have seen no difference in screen quality with degreasing after the 701, but I am also VERY thorough when I soft rinse after pressure washing off the 701. I have thought about adding something like the liquid renuit on some of my waterbased screens or on some plastisol colors, or when a screen has sat all week before reclaiming. The 701 doesnt hit quite as hard as I'd like for some of those tougher hazes, but even with them I have been doing 55lpi halftones on slightly hazed screens with zero issues as of late.
I will also probably try the CCI microwash once my Supra dies just to compare, but supra has been kicking ass for 6 months now without issue. I am weary of the one part solutions like gemzyme because the supra does absolutely fine on getting the emulsion off and loosening the plastisol enough that it clears with the pressure washer, even if I didn't clear it well on press before deinking and dipping. I understand and am fine with it not eating the ink the way a classic ink degradent does.
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we had great luck with genzyme, until recently. We switched back to easistrip, and have had no issues since switching!
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I really liked the Gem-zyme as well. We are using a concentrate with the number 500 and I can't recall if it's from CCI, ICC, or easiway because the last gallon we got came in an unmarked container since the original container had a leak. Kevin, if you're watching this, what are we using right now in our dip tank?
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we had great luck with genzyme, until recently. We switched back to easistrip, and have had no issues since switching!
What issues did you run into with Gem-zyme?
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A link to a 2004 article discusses the pros and cons of "dipping":
http://www.screenweb.com/content/the-great-dip-tank-debate (http://www.screenweb.com/content/the-great-dip-tank-debate)
We use a dip tank for ER, ink removal is done in a Screen Systems automatic re-circ unit.
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That article made me think about something else. Has anyone ever gotten the dip tank solution in their frames?
I'm moving more and more to Newmans and I know a lot of people here use them. I've yet to dip any so I'm curious if they're more problematic?
I've had some of my statics fill up...must be a pinhole in the weld or something. I throw it in my cabinet with the dehumidifier until I don't hear water sloshing around anymore.
Any other tips or ideas?
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Funny, we're using easiway Supra and 701 too, but like Alan says it just doesn't really do anything to the plastisol, it's just the emulsion coming off with the pressure washer that removes the plastisol.
If we need to remove the plastisol with an inkwash first, then the diptank just becomes a really expensive emulsion remover application tool, and it's debatable if it's really worth the cost for us as we aren't running screens every day. Chemical costs per screen are definitely higher than spray and brush.
Right now the extra clean-up of the wash tank and frames probably negate any time savings we get. It's definitely not getting the screens any cleaner than what we were doing before.
Once this chemical gets weak, we'll probably switch it over to a developing pre-soak tank and go back to doing the screens the old way.
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I have about 5 screens with cracked welds or even a cut in the side (random used frames have all kinds of weird crap like that) that fill up in my tanks. I just mark the offending corner (always seems to be in a corner) and have them drain angled with that corner down. Never been an issue.
I have actually debated drilling a hole in each corner of each frame so I don't need a hold down and just draining all of them the same way, but haven't done it yet. Not really sure if there would be a downside.
I can't believe you arent seeing a significant time savings Inkworks, especially on thick stencils or hardened screens (if you use them). It takes me about 30 seconds to pressure wash down the ink goop off the walls of my booth at the end of a long reclaiming session, but honestly I don't even do that every time. I clear the screen and card off everything I can get quickly prior to de-taping and dipping though, so really there isn't much ink getting blasted off.
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We used to reclaim in a stack of 10-16, put the first frame down flat squeegee side up, spray ink degradent, quick brush, flip it over and repeat. next frame goes squeegee side down to start, spray, brush, flip repeat. At the end you have a stack of screens all clamshelled so the wet sides are together and help keep everything from drying and lets the chemical work.
Off to the spraybooth 1 at a time, just a hose with a garden nozzle for the ink degradent, maybe 20-30 seconds each.
then the same with emulsion remover, once you have a stack 10-16 high the ER has had time to work, we mix it strong anyways, so it falls out easily with a quickpressure wash.
then dehaze or the like, pressure rinse with extra care to get it really clean. In all honesty maybe the 701 is the best thing to come out of the diptank experiment as it could be done right after emuslion removal and save us 1 screen handle per reclaim.
maybe it's because we are doing 1 operation at a time to a whole stack of screens that we are pretty much as fast as using a diptank. If we aren't switching operations between each step on each screen, it goes pretty fast. maybe I'll get my guy to do 10 each way and get a time for both. Even if the old way is 10% slower I'd call it better as it uses quite a bit less chemical, and leaves the screen and wash-out booth pretty much spotless.
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I really liked the Gem-zyme as well. We are using a concentrate with the number 500 and I can't recall if it's from CCI, ICC, or easiway because the last gallon we got came in an unmarked container since the original container had a leak. Kevin, if you're watching this, what are we using right now in our dip tank?
You are using the Easiway 500 concentrate. This is just a really strong concentrated liquid emulsion remover. It can be diluted 30:1 water:ER. We have a bunch of shops that dump a couple of these in 55 gallon drums and fill them up with water and use with a spray application and brushing. If you are doing the dip tank method like you are; you may not want to dilute it as much so you can turn your screens faster.
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Is a dip tank more efficient than the guy in the youtube clip?
Also another concern is the amount of chemical he is using, will it cost more than a dip tank?
ICC Stacking Method (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP58rfOUuTA#)
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I have actually debated drilling a hole in each corner of each frame so I don't need a hold down and just draining all of them the same way, but haven't done it yet. Not really sure if there would be a downside.
We have done this for years on our statics, no issues. Drill the holes on opposing diagonal corners. Only real draw back is waiting for the screens to drain. We let one drain while cleaning one. That way it is reddy to go when you are done cleaning the one in the sink.
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I may be wrong but that looks like An old video of Greg' (Mindseye) shop.
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Is a dip tank more efficient than the guy in the youtube clip?
Also another concern is the amount of chemical he is using, will it cost more than a dip tank?
In my opinion a dip tank uses much more chemical.
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I can absolutely reclaim faster than the guy in that video using my dip tank. Each screen takes the same amount of time roughly as JUST the step where he puts it in the booth, pressure washes, degreases, rinses, and racks. The whole first part is not needed and the equivalent step is the 2 seconds it takes to put it in the dip tank and the 2 seconds it takes to pull it out, and a lot less scrubbing on my part.
I also feel like he is doing a whole lot of moving the screens around, which only invites a screen to hit a corner of another and pop eventually. He is really dumping on the chems too. I dunno, not that impressed I guess.
I think I have seen a savings in both 701 used and ER used. My tank cost $180 to fill up I believe, while a gallon of ER is around 50. I was going through a gallon of ER a month or so, while my tank has lasted me 6 months. I would have to look through my receipts to give exact numbers.
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I know of a few large volume shops doing several hundred screens a day using the stacking method. It's something I've wanted to try for a while but I don't have the space to properly setup for that method. For us its dip tank for emulsion removal only. Until I can get my volume up enough for an automated system dip tank is the way to go though imo.
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We've always used Safety-Kleen parts washer to degrade the ink, cleans the screens fast.
Besides the COST, bad part of that is - the solution isn't good for mesh longevity, get some bad image burn in.
The GOOD part of safety kleen is NO PLASTISOL DOWN A DRAIN.
Breaking it down and pouring into your local septic system, that can't be good can it??? I'm no saint - I have no compunction about putting the emulsion/emulsion remover/dehazer/degreaser/etc down the drain, but these things can't be good for a septic system either?
We don't use a dip tank to remove emulsion (yet) - but the general consensus seems to be cci/easiway 2 in 1 solutions seem to work good enough for most users. I would think alan's system of de-inking as an extra step before dipping would possibly have improved results, but at a time cost. I think Inkworks has a point that the non-dip tank way isn't that much slower (we don't really "scrub" the ER in - just up the concentration a bit and effectively be a human dip tank, just get it wet and wait 3 minutes - good to go).
This is all very helpful discussion for someone looking to switch to a better system than what we have.
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Our stack method is quite a bit faster than the video posted. He handles the screens too often. We use these:
(http://www.aok.org/images/spr-pscrub_pad_holder.jpg)
or a gong brush to apply the chemical by just dipping an end of the brush into a bucket of chemical (not dipping the whole brush in, just an end so you can control how much chemical you are applying), apply & scrub in one. Once you have a stack built grab and rinse.
I think by the time you've done the careful carding of ink before reclaiming, spent the extra time cleaning up the mess of the sticky plastisol being sprayed all over the booth and frames, and factored in the extra cost of the tank and increased amount of chemical used, that the stack method is probably pretty much just as fast and maybe a little cheaper.
It honestly never occurred to me that people might have been reclaiming 1 screen at a time through all the steps. I was shown the stack method on day one of my screen shop career.
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I have seen a few shops that have air pumped in at the bottom. Apparently it's beneficial enough for them, but I don't know if the Co the bought it from provides that option or if they did it themselves.
Here's a question for some of you using a dip tank for developing. Have any of you added air to agitate the water? Or do you find it isn't needed? How long do you let it sit in the tank?
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I bought a dip tank and after 6 months of using it I sold it. They are nice but for me they slowed me down.
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i find it funny how dip tanks are either a take it or leave it thing.
I like ours, it might not be faster, but it's less actual labor, and that I like.
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I like the stack method and if those screens are spotless like we try to get ours then I think that's a faster method than what we currently do with a dip tank. I'll say one thing though, the stencil thickness plays the largest role in how fast/easy a screen is to reclaim. A 110 with 150 microns of emulsion does not spray out near as fast as a 305 with a 45 micron stencil. We could probably reclaim 40 screens per hour if they were all 305's but closer to 15-20 per hour if they were 110 or equivalent since we don't really use many 110's here. My goal for my guys is 20 screens an hour but I've had guys who could do 30/hr and some that struggled to get 15. De-taping and de-inking takes time and a good tape that comes off without much effort is worth a lot of time. I wish I had a stainless table like that tapped into the washout booth so I could try that method. Those that use a stack, do you have a similar setup as what's in the video or is it something different?
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We just use a nearby table with a melamine top. Coroplast tops are also a good alternative as it resists almost all chemicals, is cheap, soft, and double-sided. Done right the stack method doesn't get much chemical on the table, and none dripped on the floor like the dip-tank is prone to.
Next week we'll do a time comparison of 10 screens both ways, similar meshes in each batch of 10.