Screen Printing Engineering Capabilities
A RapidTag is rarely shipped as a catalog item. ASPE engineers the curing, the unloading, the pallets and the tooling around the product you actually print, which is how a press built for tagless labels ends up printing silicone swim caps, koozies or napkins.
Curing & Drying Systems.
Every substrate cures differently, so the heat is engineered around the part rather than bolted on afterwards. Presses are configured with flash cure stations between print heads, so a two color job can run two colors and two flash cures across five stations without the part ever leaving the carousel.
For silicone, ASPE builds a dedicated vertical drying tunnel. The Silicone Swim Cap Dryer carries printed caps up through the tunnel on open-frame hangers, cures the ink into a permanent marking, and exhausts fumes at the source to protect the operators working the line.
Heat is not always applied after printing. Polypropylene cannot take the 325°F that most plastisol inks need to cure, so ASPE runs heated pallets at around 150°F instead. The ink grabs the substrate on contact and the flash cure then only needs a split second.
Automatic Unloading.
Labor is usually the cost that decides whether a job is worth running. The ASPE unloading attachment takes the finished part off the pallet so the operator only has to load. With one operator, a press with the attachment comfortably produces 1,500 units per hour, and because the indexing and unloading systems will match any human speed, operators can run as high as 2,000 units per hour.
The same principle is engineered into application specific machines. The Silicone Swim Cap Dryer strips cured caps off the tunnel racks onto a discharge conveyor automatically, and the can cooler machine prints one side, flips the part 180 degrees to print the other, then removes it without an operator touching it.
Custom Pallets & Tooling.
Pallets are cut to the part. A foam can cooler runs on a pallet around 3.75 inches wide and a neoprene one around 3.5 inches, and that quarter inch matters enough that ASPE tools them separately. Custom pallets and configurations are available on every machine.
Tooling is not limited to pallets. Fleece moves and fluffs under a squeegee, so ASPE places an ironing station before print head number one to press the fabric flat before the first color lands. That station is built into the carousel, not parked beside it.
Part-Specific Pallets
Pallets are sized and shaped to the substrate, down to the quarter inch difference between a foam and a neoprene koozie.
In-Line Stations
Ironing, flash cure and indexing stations are built into the carousel, so the part is prepared and cured without leaving the machine.
Application-Specific Systems.
Some applications need more than a configured press. When silicone swim caps had to be printed and cured at production volume, ASPE built and installed a complete system: a dedicated screen printer, a vertical curing dryer, and an automatic cap take-off, engineered to run as one line rather than three machines standing near each other.
That is the pattern wherever the substrate, the ink and the cure do not fit standard equipment. If you can describe the part and the volume, ASPE can engineer the line around it.
Silicone Swim Cap System
Screen printer, vertical curing dryer and automatic cap take-off, built and installed as one production line. See the system.
Custom Printing Solutions
How ASPE turns a part, a substrate and a volume into a machine. See the process.
Tell us what you need to print.
Describe the part, the substrate and the volume, and ASPE will tell you what the machine needs to be.