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screen printing => Screen Making => Topic started by: T Shirt Farmer on January 26, 2017, 04:56:10 PM
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Had this guy for a week and man what a game changer coupled with our MHM pined press. Got off to a bit of a rocky start with Exile but everything is on track now, they are on point in every aspect of getting me dialed in. Really only had 3 solid full production days with it but reaping huge rewards already, exited to see how much pre press and on press set up time it will save.
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curious to see if you can get to 100% no micros needed during setup. We've tried something similar, but never to the level of the Exile setup.
pierre
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I agree 100%........ I always thought our stuff looked good until we went wax and it's taken us to an entire new level of quality. Here's a tiny print that was done today w/ HSA ink on a 225/40 mesh that we made on our wax dts. I'm sure people will challenge this but we could never get this detail with our ink jet dts machines. I can't ever see us going back to ink ever.
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Looking to compare one day.
I can see wax may have the surface tension to be sharper.
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Congrats!
Danny, what dpi are you running at?
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We love our Spyder, it's a workhorse and Exile has been of great support, even updating software based upon my input.
We've had ours for around two years.
It prints 600 dpi, I think the Roq unit is 1200 dpi but not available unless you are the Ryonet Poster Child.
That's some serious detail Danny! Interested if you are having to flash all your colors or can step on them like plastisol now that you have switched to majority of HSA prints?
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We love our Spyder, it's a workhorse and Exile has been of great support, even updating software based upon my input.
We've had ours for around two years.
It prints 600 dpi, I think the Roq unit is 1200 dpi but not available unless you are the Ryonet Poster Child.
That's some serious detail Danny! Interested if you are having to flash all your colors or can step on them like plastisol now that you have switched to majority of HSA prints?
would like to know this as well.
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With water base we have been HSA for about two or so years now. Granted we mostly run discharge every day but HSA every other day. Therefore we do not have Danny's volume but our experience with HSA inks is flashing is needed every two or three colors max. Permaset goes about three colors tops others two. Of course the design and 20 other variables fall into play but that is just us.
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I'm sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread. Awesome! The new equipment will be awesome for your shop. No more film to catalog alone is worth it
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Congrats!
Danny, what dpi are you running at?
1200
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Congrats!
Danny, what dpi are you running at?
1200
Sounds about right. Anything under 900 and a struggle is going to ensue trying to linearize your 1-10% range, not enough pixel to work with at 600 to get that kind of control necessary for a higher end print, imo.
Great work as always.
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I agree 100%........ I always thought our stuff looked good until we went wax and it's taken us to an entire new level of quality. Here's a tiny print that was done today w/ HSA ink on a 225/40 mesh that we made on our wax dts. I'm sure people will challenge this but we could never get this detail with our ink jet dts machines. I can't ever see us going back to ink ever.
A good machine is a good machine. Wax, It's got it's benefits and there is nothing wrong about a machine that works for you.
NOTE, If you can form a single 5% dot in an 85 lpi, using ink jet and wax, then why not be able to produce that 1 color at 1/4th of that size using ink jet...as long as you use the emulsion thickness and the mesh needed. Part of my normal testing was getting 5 point type in Times Bold (with those little serifs). - this was changed to 8 pt for the post here. You have to remember, many people see though this, because they do it themselves using their inkjet dts printers.[/font]
This detail size in your image, is not a matter of wax nor ink jet, but screen mesh selection and coating.
Now, I know nothing about the exile and have heard nothing but good things overall. Wax has it's pro's and it's cons, just as wet ink does. Nothing wrong at all with buying either.
For the resolution, Don't confuse the printers DPI with the INK settings DPI. There is a "printer DPI resolution" and there is an INK (also called resolution). The ink res, is often seen as 600x900, 900x900, 1200x900 in different variations (but your printer can be a 600dpi printer) for example.
INK RES is nothing more than coverage during the passes, The higher the #, the heavier the coverage, yet printed slower... while printer resolution is about the image quality, An extreme example would be, 72ppi (jaggie stair stepped circles) versus 300ppi, smooth and clean circles.
I don't know of a true 1200 dpi (DTS printer) either in wax nor ink jet exist on the market. Sure, there are higher dpi printers....but DTS inks and wax makes it more challenging to use higher dpi, than printing to films does. There are 300, 600 and 900 that I know of.
WET INK, is actually (more accurate) than WAX is in terms of forming a small shape. The liquid is able to land where it needs to, pretty accurately. Under a loop, leaving a little bit of what looks like rough or fuzzy or edges. (and you see that because you can actually see the picoliiters of sprays forming the shape).
The wax, doesn't do this. When it gets put down, it gathers around the shape of what it is intending to create. Therefore, leaving more of a blob or meteorite looking irregular shape. In addition, the wax has 2-3 times more (dimension) or height than wet ink jet films. Ink jet will have dimension as well, (depending on your ink resolution), but wax is far greater. I cannot say if this has anything against cast shadows, but good enough is good enough. They are working for many people.
The deposit consistency is just thicker in wax. This can be a good thing for printers making screens. INK, needs to build up. For Wax printers, you don't want it to build up too heavy. It's already pretty opaque as it is.
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Exile has a new vacuum system extremely close to release, this new component along with few other things will allow them to bring there 1200 dpi head to market vey soon, I am receiving both upgrades next month. The challenge @1200 dpi is controlling the molten wax so it is the right viscosity to print yet have the ability to deliver enough material for large 100% coverage areas.
Exile has been in the making dot's business for years and have a lot of talent on the team, the parent company is http://www.geospace.com/our-companies/ (http://www.geospace.com/our-companies/) giving Exile access to a lot of engineering and design talent when needed.
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Print flash print, zero micro, I-image STE Ink Jet CTS, Synergy white, single strokes, printed on a 12 year old M&R Challenger 2, rubber topped pallets. Not too shabby for tineey tiny spot color print on what I think was 5.6 oz gildan cotton.
Oh I forgot, 2 screens.
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Competition is a great thing in this industry. Gives us consumers more options and more technology!
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DTD, the unit I am using is printing a true 1200 dpi. The print head technology is completely different then a normal wax dts. Print head and software algorithm allows for halftone interlace stitching which cannot be done on any other machine which allows for better dot control. I found that with ink jet vs wax theres many more variables that can effect the quality of output far beyond mesh selection and emulsion eom. A common problem with ink jet is dealing with the surface tension of the emulsion and how that effects ink coverage. See photo below which shows a weak coverage of ink jet with surface tension problems. Note the light behind the image where you can see right through it and the follow up photo(this was tested on multiple emulsions so one pic is pink emulsion and one is green) where you can see the emulsion still hanging in the mesh. This to me and from the users I talk to is a frequent problem with ink jet dts. Wax does not matter what the surface tension is, rz value, etc....It is dense and lays down much better then ink. The last photos are a 40% output of ink jet and wax - note all the satellites around the dots on ink jet but not wax. Again common issue with ink jet dts that is not common with wax. I'm on our 4th dts machine here and I will honestly say our ink jet dts were game changing and some of the best machines we have ever had but it does not hold a candle to the quality of wax. Love these discussions, I will get more shots after we finish all the testing on the unit we have here now.
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those are pretty rough dots Danny. Is there no way to make them cleaner? We recently bumped the resolution and ink deposit on our old school M&R CTS and are seeing much better results. The dots are cleaner and the deposit is much thicker (to the point of pooling so we had to back up).
Dan as an ex tech you would know, can the resolution be increased on the units with RICOH heads?
pierre
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Are these issues with ink jet cts related to printing directly on the emulsion vs film? That second image Danny posted is garbage and I've never seen anything even close to that with film. My halftone also look like his photo of wax and nothing like his photo of ink jet, again on film though. Honestly those look worse than my old 1400 when I hadn't even aligned the head properly and was just printing straight up stock settings with bitmap halftones. I can't imagine people have been making the switch from film to cts and accepting such a massive downgrade in quality...
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Are these issues with ink jet cts related to printing directly on the emulsion vs film? That second image Danny posted is garbage and I've never seen anything even close to that with film. My halftone also look like his photo of wax and nothing like his photo of ink jet, again on film though. Honestly those look worse than my old 1400 when I hadn't even aligned the head properly and was just printing straight up stock settings with bitmap halftones. I can't imagine people have been making the switch from film to cts and accepting such a massive downgrade in quality...
Danny didn't give away lpi for both of 40% images. So you don't know how big are dots. And you cannot compare them to anything else, but only those two images. If they are 85lpi or 55lpi makes big difference in dot size at 40%
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All too many people confuse the need for a crisp clean perfectly round dot. It's not needed. What is needed is an accurate representation of the percent on the T-shirt hey.size that accurately represents the tone for that given area. The shape is of no concern unless it was to interfere with the screen mesh.
As everybody is aware, you can print CMYK or simulated process or even a one color graydation with a square dot a round, oval, squiggly or even in the shape of TSB as a halftone representation. Now comes the question of, is the edge of your sharp and clean. By that I mean is it the best it can be based on the resolution of the printer?
Because a wet ink jet printer sprays The 8 to 16 picoliter sized drops, it has more of a frayed edge similar to spatter painting with an airbrush on a canvas or a piece of paper.
This is far more accurate than wax and I'll say currently. The reason I say this, is becasue with the liquid of inkjet printing, it is possible to see the stair stepped jagged edges of the curve on a circle or the letter T...at 150-300 res raster art file. This is an example of it's accuracy. And I'm speaking in terms of mechanically during the output (and on the screen). It's image resolution....is BETTER than wax. Therefore, some people concerned about getting perfectly ROUND and SMOOTH edged shapes and halftones will see this jagged edge and see this as a negative. It's a matter of your own perceived value.
WAX, cannot yet produce this level of detail. When it produced the letter T, it does not show the jagged edged of the raster based on the resolution (squares needed to produce the shape). The wax consistency is too thick. As a result, to us, it looks smoother. I will provide my understanding of the machines as it pertains to the 1200 dpi printers (now coming out) below, but those looking to sell the 1200dpi printers (and those who have one now, won't like my view of it.
The downfall of wax and it's inability to output the finest detail of the 600, 700 or 1200 dpi, is a benefit to Screenprinter's. The reason the wax output downfall is a benefit to Screenprinter's is because it's inability to hold the detail actually smooths out the edges of the shape that it is creating because it cannot produce the detail that small. I'm referring to the edges of the dot. It can spit out a spec of wax, but it's kind of an ambiguous shape after a certain point. Case in point, is the fact that you can print at 65 lpi and print the 1% dot onto a piece pf photo paper. Look at it under a loop and you will see a clearly defined cross (and maybe a couple surrounding spatters of picoliter sizes specs. This cross is because the files resolution (600dpi print) at 65lpi print can't produce a completely round dot shape using the 600dpi grid. There might be 2-3 well defined squares paced side by side forming (what would be) the 1% area. So you see a cross hair as a result. For wax, IT CAN"T produce even that. What you will see is a little effort of an undefined blob. It's not a round, it's not cross hair shaped, its not consistent. It's a blob. and that's not a bad thing. I'm just defining the differences. Ink Jet mechanically, it better....but wax, due to it's blobbing affect, works better for you. LOL. It looks more like a round dot than does the X shape or cross hair.
Due to the consistency of the wax, and the liquid state, it's just thicker and tends to clump together faster. The result for you is a smoother edge on the outside of a shape and you think (Oh, look at that, the detail is fantastic). In contrast the wet ink jet printer sprays so tiny that you start to see the edge of the stair step..as well as any "surrounding picoliter spray known as satellite dots" as an unclean dot with no defined hard edge. These satellite dots have little to no impact once exposed, but we techs tend to try and get rid of them anyways because people freak out if they see them (as if they are going to hold them) when in reality, they were not holding 5% in the past. You will not resolve a picoliter spec. You may now, however, resolve the grouped specs forming your 2% in the 55lpi as apposed to film positives.
You see it as little speckles built up to form a dot and the edges can contain satellite dots. I like to think that none of my machines have ever produced the quality that you see in the inkjet comparison with Danny's. But in truth it may not be the case there may be two or three out there out of my many I've worked on. Much of that might be due to the fact that the printer does nothing but big bold athletic looking solid prints. And will never see the benefits of that.
For film printer, I want 600 800 or 1200 dpi out of it (because I'm printing on a smoother surface). Set aside the ink resolution you could use, that has little to do with image quality and everything to do with Ink coverage or solidity. The higher the ink resolution on a film Printer, the more passes it does with ink dropping over a given space...can improve the visual appearance, simply because it's starting to build up or fill in any of the small areas of negative space due to coverage.
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Good point on dot size boris.
That second image with the text though is still unlike anything I've ever seen with film and I can't imagine anyone is accepting that kind of result with cts...
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All too many people confuse the need for a crisp clean perfectly round dot. It's not needed. What is needed is an accurate representation of the percent on the T-shirt hey.size that accurately represents the tone for that given area. The shape is of no concern unless it was to interfere with the screen mesh.
As everybody is aware, you can print CMYK or simulator process or even a one color greydation with a square dot a round, oval, squiggly or even in the shape of TSB as a halftone representation. Now comes the question of is the edge of your.sharp and clean. By that I mean is it the best it can be based on the resolution of the printer?
Because a wet ink jet printer sprint sprays The 8 to 15 pick a leader sized drops, it has more of a frayed edge similar to spatter painting with an airbrush on a canvas or a piece of paper.
This is far more accurate than wax and I'll say currently. And I'm speaking in terms of mechanically during the output. It's better than wax. But the downfall of wax and it's ability to output the finest detail of the 600 or 1200 or 800 dpi, is a benefit to Screenprinter's. The reason the wax output downfall is a benefit to Screenprinter's is because it's inability to hold the detail actually smooth out the edges of the shape that is creating because it cannot produce the detail that small. I'm referring to the edges of the dot.
Due to the consistency of the wax, and the liquid state, it's just thicker and tends to clump together faster. The result for you is a smoother edge on the outside of a.shape. In contrast the wet ink jet printer sprays so tiny that you start to see the edge as not a clean sharp defined hard edge. You see it as little speckles built up to form a dot and the edges can contain satellite dots. I like to think that none of my machines have ever produced the quality that you see in the inkjet comparison with Danny's. But in truth it may not be the case there may be two or three out there out of my two were 300 but I've worked on.
Much of that might be due to the fact that the printer does nothing but big bold athletic looking solid prints. And will never see the benefits of that.
For film printer, I want 600 800 or 1200 dpi out of it (because I'm printing on a glass surface. Set aside the ink resolution you could us, that has little to do with image quality and everything to do with Inc coverage or solidity. The higher the ink resolution on a film Printer, can improve the visual appearance of a.simply because it's starting to kick up or fill in any of the minute small areas of negative space due to coverage.i've got more to say on this pertaining to the 1200 dpi for Direct and Screen but will have to cover that later. I'm working at my Printshop on a Saturday.
Dan this was borderline unreadable. Please check your spelling as the autocorrect and the typos are turning large parts of your argument unfollowable!
Pierre
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I want to point out the screen pic above where the emulsion hanging in the mesh is not a problem with any particular dts but an issue with ink on emulsion. I've had lots of ink jet dts users send me similar issues but almost always can be worked out by switching emulsions or changing their environment the machine is in. My point is the wax units I have used have an advantage because the emulsion has never effected how the wax lays on it. With ink jet dts you have many more factors to make great screens. I agree that dot shape is not that critical for sim process but with the inks we are now using it does have more effect. I don't want this discussion to go further into the weeds or go the wrong way. The ink jet dts machines were amazing for me but I have seen an increase in our quality with wax. Our wax dots are better now after calibration the pics above were the first halftones we printed before calibration. The ink jet dots are prior to fine tuning but representative of splatter on certain emulsions. Ink jet can be high quality but my point is wax is much easier to control as emulsions and screens aren't as critical with it. I felt that we produced cleaner images on film vs ink jet dts but now wax has made our detailed images better then both. All shops are different so what works for me might be opposite. We all know guys out there producing amazing work on stretch and glue hand cut films with ruby, lots of great companies making great machines but in my experience I just won't leave wax. :)
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Dan this was borderline unreadable. Please check your spelling as the autocorrect and the typos are turning large parts of your argument unfollowable!
Pierre
Gee willikers Mr J, Now's not it. you will suffer till i get the time. That was coming from audible texting. I do a lot of that now...and will often come back and correct my spelling so....get used to it. ;)
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I'd like to see t shirts printed with the same graphics one wax, one inkjet CTS
and one film, would be interesting to see if there is a noticeable difference.
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Yea, that type in those pics are not a common thing with wet ink jets. Your dts machine calibration, your emulsion, your environment, or your coating technique could have been outta wack at the time for dts. I didn't see much of that at all. Most shops (even the worst cases) didn't really have issues with this. In fact, when I did see it, it was due to extreme environment conditions and I was called in to evaluate why. People will often will assume "it's the machine" but most often, it's not. It's extreme situations mostly due to fluctuating environments or fluctuating screen room conditions.
A way to calibrate your machine or even see if it's the environment or even emulsion, it to print your halftone test (on a freshly brought in sheet of paper, preferably photo paper). If it looks great on paper...but not on your screen, It's your screen or it's your environment that your screen is sitting in.
Danny's first photo, is a tell tail sign of screen or coating issues. To have the "less than desirable" coverage (in the center) of that screen is a giveaway. He notes that this was when he was new,or before machine calibration or maybe (when he first got it?), but getting WAX onto the screen, giving better results....does not correct the screen or coating issue. It just hides it more. Add to that, he's obviously improved his coating or screen/environment issues by the time of getting wax in...so you can't compare apples to apples there. My assumption there tho, is that yes, I would expect that WAX, due to it's thicker consistency...would benefit people with irregularities. It may not puddle, spread or satellite as easily. It dries very close to first contact with the colder surface and solidifies. Therefore, being able to withstand or hide many other "screen room" flaws.
Still tho, I do agree that there are (some things) that are better about wax, than wet ink...and there are (some things) that are better about wet ink than wax. It's a give and take and I assume it's (as with anything). Take the discussion with Zoo, about the MH versus LED. He feels MH is "superior in all areas except power consumption", while others would not give MH a 2nd consideration over LED. Physically, he may correct that overall, the results you can get with MH and Diazo for burning some emulsion brands that require a long time to fully cure... and the high blast of light power...exceed Zoo's expectations and needs. THAT alone, can be irrelevent to other people using diazo emulsion, making MH, not that superior. It all depends on what your needs are, what you are looking for, your pre conceived expectations etc.
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I'd like to see t shirts printed with the same graphics one wax, one inkjet CTS
and one film, would be interesting to see if there is a noticeable difference.
Good point.
Still tho, you and your device will only be (as good as you are with it). Similar to separations and printers.
To have a fair evaluation, it would have to come from A, a non biased printer. B, One non biased printer who has all thee. C, One who is exceptional at all three.
Then, they would have to print the same separations, using the same screens, printing with the same press setup for each (without compensating for one or the other machine).
I say that, because there are many people who have them...that don't know how to use them well or maintain them well. So, results can be far different. Some have not even gone inside the programs to calibrate for dot gain. Two shops can have the same machine and one can have poo poo results, while another can have impeccable results.
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Fwiw, we had much cleaner dots on film. Film is made to receive ink and build dmax. Our films looked like imagesetter film, just higher dmin. CTS makes up for blobby dots by eliminating the light scatter from glass and film and comes out ahead in most applications for textiles.
Control is more important than the exact shape in most cases but a quality dot shape is still desirable wherever you can get it. If you only print on G5000 shirts you might not agree but if you print on paper you'll know what I'm talking about. All of the CTS units are "good enough" for what we do. You can dial any system to work well, all a matter of convenience and preference.
Ink does have the surface/substrate disadvantage as your emulsion is not made to receive ink so you need to dial that more carefully. Wax doesn't really care, it's a phase change masking process and is probably "sticky" enough at the moment it hits the surface to print on anything without much fuss. Someday maybe an emulsion mfg will match an emulsion up with the ink dts/led workflow. That would change this situation. Alternately, an additional emulsion could be face coated onto screens bound for ink CTS imaging. A small step like that might make a world of difference in what is possible with ink.
Ink has an advantage in that you have multiple droplet sizes available, such as ricoh's 7-14-20pico liter capability. Not sure that any of the wax heads have that. This could be why Danny's beta unit and Kiwo's XTS are the only units I am aware of that can actually print 1200dpi. Those machines use a Xerox head whereas the rest have Fuji heads and the options with Fuji on most units are 80pl and 30pl. Only 80pl works in the field and this is with multiple mfg's trying to get the 30pl going. Without variable droplet I think it's a struggle to mask a solid fill area and then mask a controlled 3% 55lpi dot in the same pass. If you think about it, that's a serious engineering challenge right there.
In my travels on the subject, yes wax is superior. But I don't frankly care what the masking substrate is and who makes the machine so long as it bangs out screens everyday. Besides, we'll all be discussing the finer points of DLP in a few years anyways right?
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Voice texting so will probably be all garbled.
You're going to get better looking dots on film then you get from any type of DTS be it wax or wet inkjet, because the head is just two times closer if not three. For the DTS, you have a screen frame that can be irregular or not square or pitched to one side higher, and then you have the frame lock down that the head must pass over, and the you need to clear and possible obstructions from tape or old, hard emulsion etc. So there must be a higher distance ...then compared to film. Closer distance (film printers) produce the tightest output. It is, what it is.
The improvement over film using DTS comes from no film thickness and no glass typically. But again I say the crappy jaggie edged dot is of no concern the meteorite shaped wax dot is of no concern. The concern should be does that size of that dot translate onto your shirt at the accurate size? To obtain the accurate tone representation, you can always adjust and achieved by compensation.
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Many don't know because it was a long time of go and I don't mention it because at the time it was of no concern. Nobody else was doing DTS other than a select few. But I started sending separations to a wax device back in 1996 And at another shop in 1997 being Russell athletics. At the time that was the Gerber DTS machine that used wax. The technology obviously has come far. At that time you could only use 35 line screen and even that would fill-in in the shadow tones. The wax at that time was known to glop together and still be in a liquid form when it hit the screen it would take 2 to 5 seconds for it to solidify. During that time the inks would blob together filling in all shadow detail beyond 60% and a 35 Lpi.
I was able to get it to work well enough by spacing my dots farther apart. I used stochastic halftoning and different resolutions to wear my negative space (shadow tones) were farther apart or enough to not touch and fill in.
Wax today has far better control. It solidifies as soon as it touches the screen. Much thinner than it was.
Zoo my past post above, is based on just reading your first sentence. I was not able to read the entire post. But you said the same thing basically that I was saying.
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I love my CTS and wouldn't go back to film, but.....I have a shop shirt that we did on film years ago, and I can not reproduce the quality with my CTS. Its close, but not as good.
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I have a shop shirt that we did on film years ago, and I can not reproduce the quality with my CTS. Its close, but not as good.
We have this same issue, and since some of our reps are a bit dense when something doesn't look the exact same years later, they like to blame CTS.
But realistically since the RIP is different than the films, and CTS holds so much more detail, we are taking the original separations, curving them back (lightening), and then getting very similar results.
Also since going to CTS, our emulsion has changed, coating methods, inks, even the same shirt can be different years later, so it isn't really comparing apples to apples and sometimes I find we get more details, but we have to dumb it down to match the previous prints from film.
If your shop shirt was just spot colors, then everything I said above doesn't apply.
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I love my CTS and wouldn't go back to film, but.....I have a shop shirt that we did on film years ago, and I can not reproduce the quality with my CTS. Its close, but not as good.
ZaneGun reminded me of this event.
They will be different. Very hard to get one to match back up to something that was done before using a different device.
Funny to me now, but Dirk might remember when I installed his.
I was telling you about the curves and dot gain compensation. You said, "Heck yea, lets try it out on a separation we've already got", I thought great, they can see the huge difference when comparing past to present devices.
So we printed it, and it took out a ton of the dot gain that was in it based on printing films and previous screens with glass etc... but I didn't know you were running that for an order. LOL You said, "I CAN"T SEND THAT TO THE CUSTOMER!!" it's way different than the original we ran. Yes, it was vastly different. Had I known up front, you were using the test print, (for an actual order) to run that day, I would have not used the curves or would have suggested using the old films. The new one showed all of the minute shadow detail that was in the seps yet hidden in the approved print, because it didn't come out in the film seps or the screens the first time around.
Dot gain compensation (or any changes in any device) should not be applied to a job that was ran previous on an older device. . As Zanegun stated, at least not for sim process or 4 color process. Solid spot color work is a no brainer.
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We actually get very similar results with cts vs what we were getting with film. I like to think we had our film dialed in very well and before ever printing a single job with cts we did a densitometer reading with the cts printed to film and adjusted it to match our film output. There is some slight difference though just in the overall dot shape in the very light tones.
Now I must say I have never been overwhelmingly excited about the quality of the ink jet printing onto the screen. I have never used wax but if day in and day out the print quality is consistent I could see why wax may be preferable.
Top is cts, bottom is film
(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z222/n8ivkjun/Mobile%20Uploads/image_1.jpeg) (http://s193.photobucket.com/user/n8ivkjun/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_1.jpeg.html)
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My thoughts on 1200 versus 600 dpi DTS machines.
I know nothing about the possibilities of the image detail but I can't imagine that you would see any visual improvements (in print) on the shirt considering all of the other variables such as garment thread, ink layers, pressure, stroke speed etc. We can't even see this with the old wet film imagesetters at 4800 dpi. Higher dpi just don't improve that.
I do know about the mechanical limitations of DTS, be it wax or wet inkjet. The only way you would get to see a (very small) improvement.... would be only after you first calibrate your DTS...and run the printer at a very high print pass such as 24 pass. This would run the machine S L O W E R. Far slower than people want to run their DTS machines. Due to the fact that you have a print head moving back and forth across the screen at a high rate of speed, lets say at 6 pass or slower, but good coverage, at 12 pass, you get "fill in" at the shadow tones. This is with wax of ink. The printer is releasing the ink (as the head travels), so there is some angled flow. The slower the machine prints, the more accurate the print is. 6 pass for example is fast pace production. Very fast. For that, most people print solids and maybe 45-55 lpi but don't expect to hold the best shadows tones as the ink will fill in a bit more. Here, in this case, you would adjust your curves more and opne those shadow tones up to compensate for fast production. That's from a 600dpi DTS.
With 1200 dpi, having the image detail improved x 2 for wax, (does nothing for any of the halftones past eh 4-5% threshold. So shadows tones will still be the same problem). At best, it will only benefit you to make a more defined "close to" a circle in that highlight of 1-5%. So than the 600dpi 1% dot wax will still be a blob and the wet ink will be a cross shape at 600dpi and the 1200 dpi will be a slightly formed circle. More like a smaller blob.
A wet ink DTS would benefit more at 1200dpi than would a wax printer (for the wax and it's characteristics that I am aware of). They say there are some improvements the wax guys are making in the chemistry of the wax. It will be interesting to see, but overall, I am not expecting there to be much reason to go 1200 than there would be to go 600. At 600, the wax guys can already produce a 1-2% blob representing a 1-2% in a 55lpi. From what I imagine, it would still be a blob at 1200dpi. Then again, most people aren't concerned with (are they holding the 2% wax blob at 600 or 1200....or are they holding the 2% inkjet cross X shape at 600. Especially, considering how many people are following the trend of the Murakami mesh...where they print 55lpi on a much lower mesh holding more finer halftones, but still not really holding the 5-7% range, let alone the 2%.
My guess is, they are creating the 1200 dpi (not designed for, nor benefiting) the textile industry, but more for the flat stock industry screen printers at a higher lpi like 85lpi - 100 lpi. Many will buy it anyways i textiles because they think it will improve something. Just my thoughts.
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Toby,
That's pretty close. The differences are subtle. That's the only way you can really come close. Most don't have or want to get the desitometers but that's what you need to do to get what you had on film. ans some don't want to go back to what they got on films. lol.
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those are pretty rough dots Danny. Is there no way to make them cleaner? We recently bumped the resolution and ink deposit on our old school M&R CTS and are seeing much better results. The dots are cleaner and the deposit is much thicker (to the point of pooling so we had to back up).
Dan as an ex tech you would know, can the resolution be increased on the units with RICOH heads?
pierre
No. It is a 600dpi printer. It does give you the option to choose a lower dpi... (to produce faster) with less quality. You would ONLY do this for solid large art like athletic designs but it does not go any higher than 600dpi at this time. Apparently IF there were any benefits to using 1200 at all, I'm sure the other DTS makers will follow, but I don't see the need for textile printers as of yet for wax nor inkjet. It may benefit the flat stock printers more.
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Congrats!
Danny, what dpi are you running at?
1200
Sounds about right. Anything under 900 and a struggle is going to ensue trying to linearize your 1-10% range, not enough pixel to work with at 600 to get that kind of control necessary for a higher end print, imo.
Great work as always.
If a 600dpi printer is linearized using a densitomoter, you will not capture the 1-10% range accurately like you said. You would be in the negative and can't be done. So, if you linearize the rest, all you are really holding is the 10-90 (if that in the shadow tones. This is why I go above that in the shadow tones. I put in what is not there for dots. I make them larger, so that once printed and close up more with gain, you will see something. I don't mind if it's 99 or a 95% dot tone. As long as there is a tone. The highlight, I always keep pretty steady and slope up slowly. Lets say my 1 is really a 2 and my 3 is really a 4. MOST will still not capture that 2% but I can often get that 3% easily.
at 1200, you will still have the same issue and still need to compensate, but more like once linearized, it will be less. Like you won't get the 1-7% but you will get the 8 and above where as with 600, you won't get the 9 and 10 perhaps.
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We actually get very similar results with cts vs what we were getting with film. I like to think we had our film dialed in very well and before ever printing a single job with cts we did a densitometer reading with the cts printed to film and adjusted it to match our film output. There is some slight difference though just in the overall dot shape in the very light tones.
Now I must say I have never been overwhelmingly excited about the quality of the ink jet printing onto the screen. I have never used wax but if day in and day out the print quality is consistent I could see why wax may be preferable.
Top is cts, bottom is film
([url]http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z222/n8ivkjun/Mobile%20Uploads/image_1.jpeg[/url]) ([url]http://s193.photobucket.com/user/n8ivkjun/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_1.jpeg.html[/url])
I think the shadow detail is better with the CTS print, IMHO
Steve
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Two different color garments and that makes some difference in Toby's pic, but I'm liking the bottom pic better, looks like more detail to me from what Steve is seeing in the top pic. I know we all want to improve every print we make which is not a bad thing, but me thinks some of us go a little overboard, I say that when we start looking at our print details through a loupe, I want to see it how the customer is going to look at it with the naked eye in a a well lit room, but still like I said nothing wrong with upping our skills until the next best thing comes along.
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thanx Toby for a great print, great art and great points made in the post.
Thanx Darryl for keeping us all back on track so we don't forget the bigger picture!
To recap, we seem to be in agreement, that the 1-10% (probably more like 7-8%) is a little bit of a struggle for the current generation Ink Jets. Doable, but could be better.
pierre
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Will there be a noticeable difference between a shirt printed from 10-90% or from 5-95%?
Is there a visible difference?
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the difference from 5% to 10% is huge in some instances as is 90%-95% really depends on the art and the printers threshold for quality. The neat thing about wax is the consistency of getting a 5% to hold on numerous thread count and emulsion variances. JMO
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I take advantage of the 3% dots as much as I can, especially with a good printer. I don't give most all customers that area in the art (or if I do, I don't expect them to be able to hold it). If, by chance, they do, it's a bonus. Many of the DTS users are holding in this range well. Whether it's an accurate 3% is not important to me. I'm concerned with are they holding this . or are they holding this .
When I'm looking to hold color tone in a very light or subtle area of color, I gang up several colors to create a lighter area so that this area is not totally white. For example, creating a very light beige/tan color can be made up of 2-5% of Base white, Yellow, Red and Blue + top white. So in some art, it's very important.
Pierre for example, hits the 3%'s for me all the time. They know, that's needed.
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Update: Exile came and replaced the vacuum system with there new updated design and since I have had zero problems with wax feed. As many have said before you just cant imagine the value of DTS until you get one. I am still amazed on how many screens we can process in such a small amount of time. I used to stress every time we had a sim process job as I knew I would have to reburn several screens to get the half tones to come out right using ink jet film. Now it is just plug and play, every dot resolves every time. I have much respect for Exile there service has been exceptional.
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Update: Exile came and replaced the vacuum system with there new updated design and since I have had zero problems with wax feed. As many have said before you just cant imagine the value of DTS until you get one. I am still amazed on how many screens we can process in such a small amount of time. I used to stress every time we had a sim process job as I knew I would have to reburn several screens to get the half tones to come out right using ink jet film. Now it is just plug and play, every dot resolves every time. I have much respect for Exile there service has been exceptional.
ditto. The digital vac control has made the difference for us, very happy here.
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Update: Exile came and replaced the vacuum system with there new updated design and since I have had zero problems with wax feed. As many have said before you just cant imagine the value of DTS until you get one. I am still amazed on how many screens we can process in such a small amount of time. I used to stress every time we had a sim process job as I knew I would have to reburn several screens to get the half tones to come out right using ink jet film. Now it is just plug and play, every dot resolves every time. I have much respect for Exile there service has been exceptional.
ditto. The digital vac control has made the difference for us, very happy here.
Zoo
did not know you had a spyder in your house
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We had one of the first two HR models, printing at 900ppi.
Vac pressure was the issue with the unit this whole time and I was keeping quiet on it because they were working so hard to correct it and, sure enough, they did. Or so it appears thus far, we've been running perfectly since the update.
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Where does the vacuum come into play? What part of the machine? It's a DTS right, so I don't see where a vacuum comes in.
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I think I see now. Has to do with the draw or feed of the wax?
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Where does the vacuum come into play? What part of the machine? It's a DTS right, so I don't see where a vacuum comes in.
There is a light vacuum to the print head was reservoir to hold the molten wax from dripping out. The machine was challenged to hold a constant vacuum, occasionally you would get a smudge of ink where it did not belong. I have not had this issue once since they upgraded the system.
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Yep, well said.
Dan, there is actually both a high and low vac on the unit and both are a critical component that needs to be dead nuts on. It's a necessary evil as the wax would weep out of the print head without the vacuum balance but if it spikes too high it wants to suck wax back into the system's lines. This was the actual issue with the prior analog controlled system, not print head clogs per se, it just needed that digital control to keep the molten wax where it should be. Bonus is that tech support can log in remote and adjust it should that be required.