Does Di press need to be isolated ?

Occasionally I run into problems with temperature dealing with the ink and electronics. I was wondering if the press needs to have a "room" by itself to control the temp and humidity? What are your thaughts and how are your presses under variable conditions?

 

Best is conditioned room day and night.

 

Although we have been fortunate, our press usually runs well with no extra care, however the hot days above 80' F inside we usually have a litle trouble.
Thanks for your input Marc. I am leaning towards making a seperate room of some kind to control temp.

 

Bill,

The specifications we handed out in the pre-installation meeting when we sold a new machine specified the maximum room temperature was 74 degrees. Once the room crosses this threshold the machine starts to tone.

Another issue we found in rooms that were not kept within these temperature constraints, operators would start to turn down the cooling unit below the factory set 23 Celsius. Not only are the rollers cooled by this system but the electronics are also. As a result the electronic components in the control cabinet and in the laser carriages themselves would start to build condensation. I do not need to remind anyone what happens when you mix water and electronics. (I guess I just did.)

In one instance I was in a shop that was 84 degrees and the cooling unit was turned to 19 Celsius. When I opened the cover of a laser carriage to replace a bad laser diode, water came pouring out. I am not kidding, it was pouring out. It turned out the diode was not bad at all but the lens tube was filled with water. The laser could not image through the water.

Air conditioning the room is much less expensive then replacing the electronics and not being able to print.

 

Thanks for the input Paul ! I will keep a watch on that until we get the room made.

 

Probably a bit on the late side to answer but during our install I was asked if I wanted to remote locate the cooling unit for the press, the installer recommended a remote install as it takes a heat source away from the press. We were lucky enoughto be able to install it in the Furnace Room, Horizontally about 40 feet away using replacement hoses and 12 gauge electical cable for the 240 volt extension, this furnace room includes air vents to outside and is outside our airconditioned space with an additional benefit of being near the water and a drain. As a result we did not need to add additional air conditioning to our building. Our building has 2 of 5 ton (60,000 btu) units for 4000 square feet (in Canada). I think the cooling unit on the press is about 2 or 3 tons and then we also have a infrared drier. If its inside your current space and your system can't keep up you need to consider adding that extra capacity to your building, probably closer to 4 tons or 48,000 BTU including infrared drier. 12000 BTU = 1 ton. It is times like this when one is happy if they are buying their building.

 

Thanks for the info K_graham !