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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: ZooCity on December 16, 2011, 03:27:40 PM
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Interested to hear what everyone is doing. We currently use a four stage sieve sort of system with a plastic bucket, little pvc pipe 'frames' and screen mesh from coarse to fine, stacked up in said bucket. Going to get a little fancier with the impending move to wb inks as those need to be truly filtered for environmental reasons as city sewer will not pick up all of that stuff.
Using a pool sand filter has been ruled out- thanks screenedgear!
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I bought a sheet of that blue washable furnace filter material that's about an inch thick, and cut out round bits to fit into the two drains of my washout sink. You'd be surprised at how fast they plug up, and except for an occasional solid piece of emulsion that didn't dissolve, like a drip, all that goes down there is ink degradent to get the last bit of ink film off, dissolved emulsion,emulsion remover, and water. I'm sure that filter media such as those round ones for whole house water systems would get more out, but I've never had a problem with a clog . . . just a blue stain on the pvc waste pipe.
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I'm going to upgrade to a blackline unit when I move out of my basement. But for the time being I use 2 old 230 mesh screens with filter media laying over each screens mesh. Kind of ghetto rigged, but it works. I clean all the ink off my screens with screen wash before I reclaim.
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I used a milking funnel (it's about 16" in diameter and 8" deep) with commercial milking filters (about 8" in diameter). Depending upon emulsion thickness, the filter would last between 1 and 3 screens (I was a 1-man shop and screen printing was only about 1-2% of our business). It then drained into a 5 gal. bucket with a sump pump in it equipped with an automatic float, which pumped it into a standard laundry drain I installed.
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not a very clear picture and I must admit I have not mucked this out in some time but for what it is worth we use a settling tank (30 gallon seed bin from farm supply) and some simple PVC piping.
Inflow is delivered to the bottom of the tank (bucket) via the dip tube solids settle out and drain water is skimmed off of the top to city drain.
here is a pic
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x296/copdaddy/DSCF6655withnotes.jpg (http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x296/copdaddy/DSCF6655withnotes.jpg)
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x296/copdaddy/DSCF6670withnotes.jpg (http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x296/copdaddy/DSCF6670withnotes.jpg)
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x296/copdaddy/DSCF6672withnotes.jpg (http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x296/copdaddy/DSCF6672withnotes.jpg)
mooseman
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Is it really necessary to filter anything? I have been into a couple long time shops where everything just goes straight down the drain from reclaiming screens.
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Is it really necessary to filter anything? I have been into a couple long time shops where everything just goes straight down the drain from reclaiming screens.
My kid works in a local shop that's pretty busy and he says the drain has gotten plugged up with the crap before.
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That ain't a half bad setup moose. Might want an aav on that vent pipe directly over the drain.
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Is it really necessary to filter anything? I have been into a couple long time shops where everything just goes straight down the drain from reclaiming screens.
My kid works in a local shop that's pretty busy and he says the drain has gotten plugged up with the crap before.
I understand a filter or strainer/screen to capture large solids but is there really anything that should not go down the drain? Everything I use is labeled "drain safe".
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Unless someone is dumping ink down the drain, which of course you shouldn't, I'd guess that dissolved emulsion is the one thing that would be most problematic. Trouble is, there's not much else you can do. My emulsion melts off so fast that I couldn't even scrape off the bulk, or try to wipe it out with an old shirt.
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I use Easiway Supra and it seems to liquify the emulsion pretty good unless I leave the screen in the tank to long and then it gets kinda stringy.
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I've tried researching this a few times and it's honestly pretty hard to figure out in scientific terms but....
On most city sewer: successfully reclaimed emulsion solids are probably fine, light ink residue (ultimately solids once parted from the ink degradent) from clean formulated plastisol also probably fine (too much would be an issue I would guess and I'm not sure if the nasty plasticizers can effect this one way or the other), the soy or citrus chem's are probably no worse than most other detergents that gush out of American households on a daily basis.
Problem substances are most likely dehazers, the unexposed emulsion you wash out of the image area and water-bourne inks. (I wish I'd bookmarked the article I read on this, it wasn't a study but made some good, yet speculative points that water-bourne inks are a no-no to go down the drain, even the friendlier new ones. Substances in them will presumably make it back to the tap water. )
And that's pretty much what goes down the drain right? Am I missing anything here?
I doubt that most shops, using modern chem's and inks, are major point source emitters of anything but all of our shops combined could represent a larger issue. My goal, aside from not clogging the plumbing, is to filter out anything that city water treatment cannot manage easily and dispose of it properly. Don't want to take a leak in the pool.
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Having toured a water plant while doing some A/V work, I can tell you they are wicked awesome.
They have giant filters that pull solids out and then they are carted off to an incinerator. I would imagine that chunks of anything we would dispose of would end up there.
As for the dissolved stuff, that goes through several stages(I didn't get to see them all) before ending up in a giant tank that gets the piss bleached out of it(literally).
I should have paid more attention.
Emulsion is the main culprit when it comes to clogging drains. The best stuff to fix that is Zep's heat crystals or something like that. That crap burns through anything.
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I like the idea of taking a tour of the facilities. I smell a company field trip!
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
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The coolest part was the new rain water runoff holding tank. It seriously felt like a movie. Almost like the inside of the matrix. It was a cylindrical room that was about 30-40 feet across and at least 150-200 feet deep. But it had levels in it, we walked out on the top level and could look over the edge and down. It was really cool.
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I doubt ours is as cool. We do have a relationship between the city and a compost operation next door involving a poo conveyor from the plant and the use of humanure next door to make really good garden dirt. But I think thats pretty standard these days for most places.
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In high school we went on a field trip to our local natural sewage treatment facility. All UV, biological digesters, etc.
Apparently tomato seeds survive the human digestive tract. I'll leave it at that.
Roll filter media here as well.
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How did you know? Did they sell bags of "roasted" tomato seeds in the snack bar?
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How did you know? Did they sell bags of "roasted" tomato seeds in the snack bar?
Alongside the "corn" chips . . . :P
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Largest healthiest most beautiful tomato plants growing out of the solid product field so to speak.
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Thats interesting. What do they do with the tamaters?
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fun fact: did you know there is a man that lives in you appendix and his sole job is to reassemble corn. Once you have your appendix removed, you will no longer pass whole kernels.
Sounds true to me.
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fun fact: did you know there is a man that lives in you appendix and his sole job is to reassemble corn. Once you have your appendix removed, you will no longer pass whole kernels.
Sounds true to me.
Thats kinda.....corny! :o
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Wonder how many people that filter are owners or renters... I think I'd care more about filtering if I owned.
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Renter, we filter. I'd hate to foot the bill to have the cement slab torn up. We use a pump as well so it's a bit
easier to do in our setup.
Would you eat a tomato grown out of (what used to be) human waste? Treated, composted, %100 safe?
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Well what kinda crap do they use to grow our vegetables in the fields?
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Good point. Humans eat some weird stuff though.
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I would eat it in a heartbeat. Composted matter is broken down so far from it's original.
The only thing I would worry about is medication still being present.
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I have heard that medications that have been flushed because they're "old" or "no longer needed" present a REAL problem for groundwater contamination.
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I've heard the same, which leads me to believe that expiration dates on most of them is hogwash.
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None of the workers at the facility would eat the tomatoes. Not sure what that says.
Expiration date can refer to a lot of things. Expired antibiotics for example turn into useless junk, if not worse.
The major problems I have heard about have been psychological medications, Prozac and the like, causing
reproductive problems for oysters.
I haven't taken so much as a Tylenol for years. My father eats 4-5 Advil a day.
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I've heard the same, which leads me to believe that expiration dates on most of them is hogwash.
Took some expired cough med once... thought I was gonna die.
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None of the workers at the facility would eat the tomatoes. Not sure what that says.
Expiration date can refer to a lot of things. Expired antibiotics for example turn into useless junk, if not worse.
The major problems I have heard about have been psychological medications, Prozac and the like, causing
reproductive problems for oysters.
I haven't taken so much as a Tylenol for years. My father eats 4-5 Advil a day.
4-5 advil a day will lead to stomache bleeding and ulcers... not fun!