Photopolymer Plates in Exposure Unit While garment tag printing, most users prefer making their own plates. Typically the most inexpensive way to etch your own plates is by using photopolymer plates with an exposure unit. Etching an image into photopolymer plates requires more attention than laser etching the plates, exposure times will vary depending upon the image size, even if the same plate material is used for both large and small images. Inkcups Now has done extensive testing with our water wash orange plate material, our most popular for garment tag printing. Larger images need more time to develop during the washout process to provide the depth necessary for garment tag printing.
	B100 (small image)	150 (Large image)
Film Exposure	1:00	0:55
200 Line Screen Exposure	0:20	0:10
Washout	1:00	1:30
Bake Time @ 170°F	20:00	20:00
Post Cure	20:00	20:00
New to photopolymer plate-making? Click here to check out a complete photopolymer plate-making training video. Plates used in this project: Type: Photopolymer Plates Brand: ICN Model: Water Wash Orange Standard applications: Promotional products, Garment Tag Printing Photopolymer plate alternative: Laser Plate Making.

Here is a new video of the ICN-2200-PSx high speed pad printer with a heavy duty pad slide. In this video we show off this pad printers 2 color printing capability. As you can see, the pad slide simplifies positioning of your garment. The slide allows your part to remain stationary therefore assuring a flawless second color print. The ICN-2200-PSx is the fastest 2 color garment tag printer on the market! The increased speed is attributed to an independent cup drive system and a shorter plate length. It can print up to 1800 impressions per hour for 2 colors and 2600 impressions per hour for 1 color. The speed can be completely controlled and adjusted to the speed of your liking. This machine saves time and money by increasing production speed and lowering operating costs.

Contact Inkcups Now for more information about the ICN-2200-PSx Pad Printer. Printer used in this project: Type: Semi-Automatic Pad Printer Brand: ICN 2200-PSx Model: 2 Color High Speed Pad Slide Standard applications: garment tag printing, pens, stress balls, other metal and plastic parts… Unconventional applications: cookies, contact lenses More info: ICN 2200-PSx Pad Printer page

Here at Inkcups Now we have many customers that make their own photopolymer plates for apparel tag printing. While there are many variations of exposure and baking times, we have tested many methods of photopolymer plate making with our water wash orange plates in order to determine the best method.

PLEASE NOTE: We are using our BPL1220 exposure unit. Exposure times may vary depending upon the power of your exposure unit.

Step 1 – 1 minute exposure with film positive (customer image)
Step 2 – 20 second exposure with 200 line screen
Step 3 – Washout with water for 1 minute
Step 4 – Blot dry with lint free towel
Step 5 – Bake plate in the oven at 170F for 10 minutes
Step 6 – Post cure in BPL 1220 for 20 minutes

This combination produced a deep plate that works well for apparel tag printing. The plate was hard, doctored well, and the cup rode smoothly across with no bowing. Water wash orange plates are the best photopolymer plates to use for apparel tag printing because the plate is harder than other photopolymer plates when fully cured. This reduces the risk of problems that may arise due to soft plates.

Contact Inkcups Now for additional information!

Plates used in this project:
Type: Water Wash Orange Photopolymer
Brand: Inkcups Now
More info: Photopolymer Plates page

Technorati tags: Photopolymer Plate Making, Pad Printing, Pad and screen printing ink, Apparel Tag Label

Tag label printing is not just for t-shirts anymore! Here at Inkcups Now, we printed on intimate apparel, bras and panties to be exact. The labels came out great on the intimate apparel!

Tag label printing offers numerous benefits to the intimate apparel industry. Intimate apparel is often tight and form fitting. A tight space is not the best place to put a tag, the person wearing the garment will constantly feel the tag. Printed tag labels are pad printed on to the garment, the ink is absorbed into the material, thus no raised surface of the tag and no feeling of the tag whatsoever. Also, intimate apparel is typically made of a light material. A tag tucked away under the material would show through and become visible. Tag printed labels will not show through the material.

If you have not tried tag printed labels on your garments, your missing out!

Want more information? Click here to send us a message.

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What’s your opinion of Tag Printed Labels?

Post your answers below!

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Printer used in this project:
Type: Semi-Automatic Pad Printer
Brand: ICN-B100
Model: One Color Benchtop
Standard applications: apparel tag printing, pens, stress balls, other metal and plastic parts…
Unconventional applications: cookies, contact lenses
More info: ICN-B100 Benchtop Pad Printer page

Technorati tags: Apparel Tag Printing, Pad Printing, Intimate Apparel

Inkcups Now is proud to introduce the ICN-B150 benchtop pad printer for large images. Inkcups Now is always striving to improve our products, continuous innovation is our goal. We took the popular ICN-150 pad printer and turned it into a benchtop model, maintaining the same features of the ICN-150 in a new smaller size.

Key benefits of the ICN-B150 include:

• Benchtop design: Consumes a smaller area, can easily be incorporated into work cells and small work spaces.
• Incorporates 150mm ink cups: Can print large images up to 140mm (5.5″) in size.
• Powerful compression capability of 779lbs: Allows for easy handling of large, hard print pads.
• Programmable rear and forward stroke delay: gives the operator complete control over the printing cycle and print opacity.

A popular use of the ICN-B150 is for apparel tag printing. Printing care labels directly onto clothing that may be too large of an image for a standard ink cup and pad to support. Apparel tag printing is now the industry standard on all forms of apparel.

Contact Inkcups Now for more information.

Printer used in this project:
Type: Semi-Automatic Pad Printer
Brand: ICN-B150
Model: One Color Benchtop
Standard applications: apparel tag printing, pens, stress balls, other metal and plastic parts…
Unconventional applications: cookies, contact lenses
More info: ICN-B150 Benchtop Pad Printer page

Technorati tags: Apparel Tag Printing, Pad Printing, Benchtop Pad Printer

Printing on dark garments with a white ink can be difficult. Sometimes the tagless label is simply not bright enough and the darkness of the garment shows through. Here at Inkcups Now, we understand your frustration and have provided some great tips for you to get that white bright!

To get a brighter white:

try reducing your thinner mixture by 5%.
The mixture commonly use is:

50 grams White
7.5 grams SBM thinner (15%)
2.5 grams 1000HNX hardener (5%)

Add a 1 second delay before pickup and 1 second before print. Adjust front and back delay to see if you get improved results.

Make sure you increase the pad compression on the garment so the pad “over-compresses” or nearly stalls during the printing cycle

Make sure your pads are not worn

Make sure you used enough ink in the cup – it is a common problem to put too little ink into the cup with white because its pigments are so heavy. 50 gram of white ink is a minimum mixture

If you have artwork flexibility, go to all capital letters for size and country of origin

It is common to have to add thinner more frequently to white ink because it has more pigment than all the other colors. The thinner helps keep the pigment in solution.

Try using inks other than standard white ink – Inkcups Now has developed a new product called SuperWhite Ink with pigments especially designed for garment printing.

If you have any questions or are interested in tagless printing or SuperWhite ink, please click here.

Ink used in this project:
Type: SuperWhite Ink
Brand: SB Series Ink
More info: SB Series SuperWhite Ink page

Technorati tags: Tagless Printing, Bright Ink, Pad and screen printing ink” target=”_blank”>Pad Shuttle, Apparel Labels

Inkcups Now strives to provide consumers all over with the highest quality inks available. We take pride in our lineup of pad and screen printing inks. Maintaining that standard, Inkcups Now introduces our new line of silicone inks.

Silicone is typically a difficult material for conventional inks to adhere to. The only way to print on silicone is with a silicone based ink. The SI Series silicone ink ensures excellent adhesion to all silicone products. Whether it is a remote control or a wristband, the silicone ink will adhere. The SI Series ink can be applied by either screen printing or pad printing.

The addition of the silicone ink is just another example of Inkcups Now’s ability to meet and exceed customer needs.

Inkcups Now’s Si Series silicone ink comes in a wide variety of colors and can be color matched to any pantone color.

Contact Inkcups Now for additional information!

Ink used in this project:
Type: SI Series
Brand: Sapphire Pad & Screen Printing Ink
More info: SI Series Silicone Ink page

Technorati tags: Silicone Inks, Print on Silicone, Pad and screen printing ink” target=”_blank”>Pad Shuttle, Apparel Labels

We proudly introduce the ICN-2200PS 2 color pad printer with pad shuttle. The pad shuttle is so extraordinary because it significantly increases the number of pad impressions (by almost double!) in a shorter time span. In other words, get a lot more done in less time! Now that’s called efficiency! Here at Inkcups Now we like to think of ourselves as innovators. We are always pushing the bar and bringing you the latest and greatest in printing technology. Our newest innovation, the ICN-2200PS, will yet again change the face of the promotional and tagless printing industry. Watch the video to see the pad shuttle in action!

Printer used in this project: Type: Two color Pad Printer w/Pad Shuttle Brand: ICN-2200PS More info: ICN-2200PS Pad Printer page Technorati tags: Pad Printing Machines, Tagless Printing, T-Shirt Labels, Pad Shuttle, Apparel Labels

The ICN Sapphire brand ink has been called many things in the past. “Screen printing ink“, “pad printing ink”, even “gunk”. Just don’t call it PAINT!

Pad printing ink is not suitable for coating walls, chairs or landscapes. Which is exactly why pad printing ink is not called “paint.” Ink contains coloring molecules that are dissolved in a liquid. Paints will have pigments, that is coloring molecules that are in suspension in a liquid (but not dissolved.) You must work harder in order to keep paint mixed together.

Pad printing ink is formulated to transfer images from an etched plate to 3-dimensional, irregularly shaped or flat objects. Among the various applications of pad printing inks are the following: printing on promotional products (pens, travel mugs, golf balls), medical devices, car components and tagless t-shirts.

Sapphire series screen and pad printing inks are triple milled to micron level pigment sizes yielding one of the industry’s most opaque and brilliant color palettes. You can literally see the difference as soon as you open a can of ink.

To the many experienced people in the printing industry and the many more just starting out: You know the difference, you see the difference. So please do not call ink, paint!

Are you not getting the results you want from your ink? Click here and find out how to make the best prints possible.

Here is a great new tagless printing video from Inkcups Now! This video showcases the ICN-B100 pad printing machines. Many times people have seen pictures of pad printers, even diagrams that show how to pad print. We figured that while those were somewhat informative, we would show you how these machines are used to make apparel labels in an actual factory setting. In this manufacturing facility, these employees are printing tagless t-shirt labels. As you can see the speed in which the worker places and removes the t shirt is remarkable and really shows off the capability of the ICN-B100. The speed of the machine can be adjusted to suit the worker’s needs. The shirts are not fully sewn together for easier access to the neck labels. The tagless t shirt label dries instantaneously to the touch. Notice the worker simply removing the printed t shirt and stacking it on top of the other printed shirts. At this rate the employee can print about 20 shirts per minute!

This particular company just removed all of their heat transfer machines to make way for the ICN-B100 pad printer. Please note that there was nothing wrong with their heat transfer machines, this company just did the math and realized that tagless labels are the more cost effective method. What do you think? Have you tried both pad printing and heat transfer? Which one do you prefer?

Printer used in this project:
Type: One color Pad Printer
Brand: ICN-B100
More info: ICN-B100 Pad Printer page

Technorati tags: Pad Printing Machines, Tagless Printing, T-Shirt Labels, Apparel Labels