Am I missing something here?

[lrsbranding]

I visited a shop yesterday that is using a 54"Vastex EconoRed 1. They were printing thick plastisol prints on the manual press and running them through the drier for 20 seconds. The final print, other than being thick looked good. There wasn't any blistering or bubbles and the print didn't crack from stretching. Nobody had a thermoprobe so I couldn't check temp. that way. They have a huge M&R drier that they don't even turn on anymore. They run the auto press through the Vastex also. Claim they don't have any problems. Question....Are they pushing their luck on a good thru cure or are the heating elements that Vastex uses that much better at curing from the inside out? There is a You Tube video showing Vastex curing discharge in 60 seconds. I found one thread where people were saying that worked because they used a discharge base but if they used colors it wouldn't work.  Everyone always talks about longer is better but does that stand true even today?

[Binkspot]

We ran a Vastex 54" ECII for a few years (it's up for sale now) and as far as I know we never had any curing issues. This was the primary dryer being fed by an auto, only time we could choke it out was really big print area, over 17" tall.  It could do discharge but slow around 150 +pph. It was actually nice, we could easily go from cotton to poly in a few min. The only reason we went to gas was the longer chamber to be able to do discharge and WB faster and to cut back on electric.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

<Snip> It could do discharge but slow around 150 +pph. <Snip>

Straight discharge or pigmented?? 

2.5 shirts a minute is how that works out. Two and a half......



Wow. I didn't believe that was possible.  Does it have MAJOR airflow or some kind of VooDoo?

[Binkspot]

Both straight and pigment, had a setting and used it for everything. It's a short chamber so the steam for lack of a better word dosent get trapped. It has what they call scrub air that circulates it but I found it does better with out it. Yes it's slow for that kind of stuff but it got us to where we are today. It did take a bit of expearmenting to get it set right.

[3Deep]

I do discharge on an old Econo Max at 1000 f running the belt slow anywhere from 60 to 70 seconds in the tunnel, never had a problem yet knock on wood.

[lrsbranding]

Thanks Binkspot, that's good to know. Did you ever cure plastisol prints with a 20 second cure ?

[Binkspot]

Honestly never timed it, did a stretch test, heat gun and random wash tests to make sure they were cured. I would guesstimate they were in for at least 30 seconds.

[inkman996]

We have run Vastex dryers for ever and have a EC RED 54" for 6 years now. Never ever had a curing issue. Being a wide belt we easily feed the auto to it, shirts are side by side. Just like any drier you have to figure out the settings to get proper cures, not every building is the same. For instance in our building opening up one door changes the air flow enough we have to adjust the belt speed.

The oven works for plastisol just fine its electric and really not designed for discharge but it can do it painfully slow.

If any one wonders why we would always go electric well its simple our town produces and sells its own electricity. Its extremely cheap compared to gas and electric ovens are smaller which is a plus for us space wise.

[ZooCity]

They are probably doing OK with cure so long as they have a unit with the digital PID temp controller.   

Plastisol cure is kind of spectral.  You definitely can "zap" it to fusion temp and call it good.  This is what the Vastex units do.  However, if you want a very soft, pliable and long lasting plastisol film a longer, slower journey to fusion temp is the ticket.  Airflow even helps plastisol inks believe or not.   I couldn't give you the science of why, maybe Colin will chime in but anyone who has gone from short electric to big gas dryer knows there is a difference in the plastisol cure between the two.

Vastex claims they have special IR panels but I don't know...maybe they do since they have such a long warranty on them. 

We used to have a little Vastex too and it did fine; well built, reliable, very easy on the electric bill and honestly I kinda wish we still had it to park by the manual which is setup too far from the dryer belt since it only gets used for short runs or tricky locations that are not auto friendly, maybe 1-2 times a week.   

[lrsbranding]

Interesting. I was unaware that a slower ramp speed on curing will have better results.