One tower cures your whole print floor.
Fifteen feet of cure path folded into a 7-foot chamber. One hundred and eight caps curing at once, 1,850 to 3,200 caps an hour, on nine kilowatts. Loading, curing and automatic take-off in under thirty square feet of floor.
Fifteen feet of cure path. Seven feet of chamber.
Silicone ink needs time at temperature. A conveyor oven buys that time in floor length: two to six minutes of dwell means eight to twenty feet of heated tunnel, plus clearance at both ends, plus the aisle to walk around it. In a leased building, that is rent.
The ASPE dryer buys the same time in height. Racks climb one side of a heated column, cross at the top, and descend the other, so 89½ inches (2,273 mm) of chamber delivers 15 feet (4.6 m) of cure path. The chemistry is identical. The floor plan is not.
Loading bed, tower and discharge together measure 112½ by 37¾ inches (2,858 × 959 mm), which is 29½ square feet (2.74 m²) for a complete print-to-box cure line. The tower itself stands on 7.3 of those square feet (0.68 m²).
The same geometry explains the nine-kilowatt load. Nine 1 kW elements mount up the centre of the column with rack runs on both sides, so one heat load serves two passes. The enclosed chamber holds its temperature instead of venting it out two open tunnel ends all shift.
Print, load, cure, take off.
Caps are screen printed on a dedicated ASPE machine using silicone ink through a 200 to 325 mesh screen. Manual or automatic presses install around the loading area.
Load
The operator drapes printed caps over open-frame hangers at waist height, six to a rack, along a 54-inch (1,372 mm) loading bed. Loading is the only manual step in the cycle.
Cure
Racks index up through the heated column and back down, 18 racks in the chamber at any moment. Dwell is set from the touchscreen between two and three and a half minutes.
Take off
Powered jaws grip each cured cap, index to the drop point and release it. No hand-unloading, and the take-off keeps pace with the print line at every speed.
Clips are silent. Footage from an ASPE-built installation.
Where the cure quality comes from.
Open-frame hangers
Each hanger is a cut frame, not a solid plate. The cap drapes over a narrow rim and the centre stays open, so heated air reaches both the printed face and the inside of the cap. Nothing presses against wet ink, and no face of the cap runs cooler than another. On a flat belt, one side of every cap is blanketed against solid material, and that is where uneven cure begins.
Centre-mounted heaters
Nine 1 kW elements run up the middle of the column with rack runs on both sides, three elements per phase, perfectly balanced. Every cap has a direct radiant path to the elements, and the enclosed column brings the whole chamber to temperature as a body of hot air. Radiant and convective heat together, from a 9 kW load.
Ten-inch rack pitch
Racks index 10 inches apart, leaving roughly seven inches of clear air between levels. Denser spacing would fit more caps and start shading them from each other. The pitch protects uniformity, because undercured silicone does not fail on the bench. It fails in a chlorinated pool weeks after the customer takes delivery.
Fume capture at source
Silicone screen ink is thinned with mineral spirits, and that solvent flashes off during cure. The enclosed column makes it practical to capture and exhaust the vapour at source through an 8 inch duct rather than releasing it into the shop. An open-ended tunnel vents into the room by default. The vent is adjustable at the machine.
Powered jaw take-off
Cured caps are gripped, carried and released, not scraped loose. A controlled hand-off is what makes automatic unloading survive cap number 40,000, and it lets one operator at the loading station keep both press and dryer running.
Fully electric, no compressor
The dryer needs no compressed air at all. There is no FRL to drain, no air line to run to the machine and no compressor duty added to the shop, which also removes a common source of downtime on an automated line.
Welded steel structure
The machine weighs 6,238 pounds (2,829 kg). That mass is welded frame, not sheet metal, and it is why an eighteen-position chain path stays in alignment through years of thermal cycling. Slow-speed double roller chain on standard sprockets, indexing at four to seven and a half feet per minute (1.3 to 2.3 m/min), quiet, and years from a wear item.
The dryer is never your bottleneck.
Eighteen racks of six hangers put 108 caps in the chamber at all times. Output follows directly.
| Cure time | Index interval | Chain speed | Caps per hour | Per 8-hour shift* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.0 min | 6.7 sec | 7.5 ft/min · 2.3 m/min | 3,240 | ~19,400 |
| 2.75 min | 9.2 sec | 5.5 ft/min · 1.7 m/min | 2,356 | ~14,100 |
| 3.5 min | 11.7 sec | 4.3 ft/min · 1.3 m/min | 1,851 | ~11,100 |
*At 75% utilisation, allowing for breaks, changeovers and startup.
One tower has capacity for three to six presses, which is why the loading bed is built to have presses installed around it. You add printing capacity as volume grows without ever adding another oven. That is not true of a conveyor, where throughput is fixed by belt width and a second shift of demand means a second machine.
Under a tenth of a cent per cap.
Nine kilowatts, three phase, 208 to 240 V. At full duty that is 72 kWh across an eight-hour shift, roughly $11 at $0.15 per kilowatt-hour, and lower in practice once the chamber is at temperature and the elements begin cycling.
| Cure time | Energy per cap | Per 1,000 caps | Cost per cap at $0.15/kWh |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.0 min | 2.8 Wh | 2.8 kWh | $0.0004 |
| 2.75 min | 3.8 Wh | 3.8 kWh | $0.0006 |
| 3.5 min | 4.9 Wh | 4.9 kWh | $0.0007 |
Nine kilowatts is a small load for 15 feet of cure path. It works because the heaters serve two rack runs at once and the column holds its heat.
Before you quote, check the ceiling.
| Overall height | 127 in (10 ft 7 in) · 3,226 mm |
| Overall width | 112½ in · 2,858 mm — 30¾ in discharge, 28 in tower, 54 in loading bed |
| Depth | 37¾ in · 959 mm |
| Footprint | 29½ sq ft (2.74 m²) complete; 7.3 sq ft (0.68 m²) for the tower |
| Weight | 6,238 lb · 2,829 kg |
| Supply | 208–240 V, 3 phase, 40–45 A service |
| Compressed air | Not required. The machine is fully electric, so no shop air or compressor. |
| Exhaust | 8 in (203 mm) duct |
| Operator adjustment | Cure temperature and exhaust vent, set at the machine |
| Cap sizes | Alternate-size hangers made to order on request |
| Warranty | 2 years, parts |
Height is the first thing to confirm. At 127 inches the machine needs a clear ceiling with working room above it, so a standard 10-foot shop ceiling will not take it. Delivery needs a forklift and rigging for a three-ton machine.
Silicone ink, in practice.
A 200 to 325 mesh screen is recommended. Finer mesh lays down a thinner deposit, so match the mesh to the detail in your artwork.
Silicone screen inks are concentrated and are thinned with a mineral spirit solvent, roughly 30 percent solvent to 70 percent ink by volume. Thinners can be supplied with the ink or purchased locally.
After thinning, the ink air dries in three to five minutes and cures at 300 to 400°F (150 to 205°C) in two to six minutes, creating a permanent marking.
Do not worry about the part taking the heat. Most silicone parts tolerate 500 to 550°F (260 to 288°C) continuously. If your part melts, it is not silicone and you are using the wrong ink.
Built for production, not for a brochure.
This system was designed, built and installed for a leading North American silicone swim cap decorator, and the specifications on this page are the machine as built. ASPE has manufactured screen printing equipment for more than forty years and services machines in over 75 countries.
Silicone swim cap printing questions.
What mesh screen should I use for silicone swim caps?
A 200 to 325 mesh screen. The finer the mesh, the thinner the ink deposit, so match the mesh to the detail in your artwork.
How is the silicone ink mixed?
Silicone screen inks are concentrated and are thinned with mineral spirit solvent, roughly 30 percent solvent to 70 percent ink by volume. Thinners can be supplied with the ink or purchased locally.
What temperature and time cures the ink?
After thinning the ink air dries in three to five minutes, then cures at 300 to 400°F (150 to 205°C) in two to six minutes. That cure creates a permanent marking on the cap.
Will the cap melt at those temperatures?
No. Most silicone parts tolerate 500 to 550°F (260 to 288°C) continuously, well above the cure window. If your part melts, it is not silicone and you are using the wrong ink for the substrate.
How many caps per hour does the dryer run?
Between 1,851 and 3,240, depending on the cure time you set. The chamber holds 108 caps at all times, so output is chamber capacity divided by dwell.
Can one dryer serve more than one press?
Yes, and it is designed to. Even at its slowest setting the dryer outruns any single cap press, so a shop typically runs three to six presses into one tower. Presses install around the 54-inch loading bed.
Why a vertical tower instead of a conveyor oven?
The serpentine path delivers 15 feet of cure travel inside an 89½ inch chamber. The complete line, loading, curing and automatic discharge, occupies 29½ square feet, where a tunnel needs 15 to 20 linear feet of floor for the same dwell before you add infeed and outfeed. The enclosed column also holds heat rather than venting it at two open ends, which is why the connected load is 9 kW.
How much space and headroom does it need?
112½ by 37¾ inches (2,858 × 959 mm) of floor, and 127 inches (3,226 mm) of height. Confirm your clear ceiling height before ordering.
How heavy is it?
6,238 lb (2,829 kg). Delivery and placement need a forklift and rigging.
Does someone have to unload the caps by hand?
No. Powered jaws grip each cured cap and release it automatically, so one operator at the loading station keeps both the press and the dryer running.
Engineered. Built. Tested. 100% ASPE.
Spec your silicone swim cap system.
Tell us your volume, cap sizes and colour count, and ASPE will configure a printing and curing system for your shop.