Ink dispenser systems?

[lfelton]

It's always a running battle to keep presses and surrounding areas (including minders) clean and free of ink, so I am wondering about the ink dispenser systems that you see at shows. We're pretty small scale, i.e. using about a metric tonne (I think that's about the same in US/imperial?) of ink per year, so obviously would want to look at the low end cartridge systems.

Does anyone have any experience they can share? Do they save mess / time / ink? What manufacturers should I look at? We only tend to buy in about 100KG of ink at a time, would this cause us problems with ink suppliers?

TIA for any info.

 

[arfamoe]

We have ink dispensers on all our presses but we have 4 presses and use a lot of ink over a year. They do save on mess and also prevent the ink from skinning and drying out. The ink company has to fill the dispensers and it costs then extra mainly in time. We use the Technotrans system but i hear that the sentinel system works well also. They can be a bit labour intensive sometimes.

 

[Internal_R&D_Analyst]

We have the Sentinel's from Pamarco Global Graphics on a few presses and have not had any problems with them. They also have systems to pump ink from larger pails, drums, or totes for large volume users.

 

[jbeniston]

I've seen lots of the technotrans systems, they seem to work very well, they can save a lot of money as they only fill the fountains a bit at a time and keep the losses becuase of thrown away ink, at wash up, by a lot. The latest one I 've seen opens the lid by itself when it's empty and you just have to push a button to close and lock it. The empty cartridges are all reused.
A company I know saved the cost of the units in a year just from this feature alone.

 

[PSchw]

Ink pumping system is the way to go. Cheaper ink in 55 gallon drums and less waste. Independent Graphic Services, Inc. – Products: TEKON Ink Distribution Systems

 

[joso]

We switched out our cartridge system for 5 gal. pumps and ink levelers. Ink is much cheaper, the system overall is less expensive then cartridge and instead of the cartridges holding only 7.5 lbs. of ink the pail holds 60 so much less hands on. Another advantage is that each pump can handle 2 levelers which brings the price per unit even lower. Our system is designed so that when we have a color change all levelers can be moved over one unit with no disconnections for the air, elec. or ink. It takes us less than 5 minutes.