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Building a room for our new flatbed printer, any tips or suggestions?

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markdarian

New Member
Hey guys, we just decided to go ahead and purchase a high-vacuum flatbed from Vanguard. We have about 8 weeks until it gets here so we're going to build an "indoor" room within our warehouse to house it.

Does anyone have any experience in "flatbed-proofing" a room for a flatbed printer? We're thinking of a regular room with 3 sides of drywall, and one side with plastic curtains to get the substrates/products in and out. Maybe sound deafening panels since it's a loud high-vacuum model.

Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Since you don't have anything in your profile as to what you have or what you do, I would presume..... nothing.

That being said, what makes you think you need to build a room within inside a building ??
 
M

markdarian

New Member
Gino said:
Since you don't have anything in your profile as to what you have or what you do, I would presume..... nothing.

That being said, what makes you think you need to build a room within inside a building ??
Click to expand...

Well we have an open warehouse, with forklifts moving in and out, lots of dust coming in during the day when the gates are open, and the temps inside the warehouse can reach up to 115-120 degrees F during the hotter parts of summer. We want to create a 20' x 30' (roughly) room to fit the flatbed printer, and have it hooked up to the AC to keep it dry and cool.

We were hoping to get some advice from others who've created makeshift rooms for flatbeds and/or other delicate equipment.
 
balstestrat

balstestrat

Problem Solver
Some shelving for all the color, accessories, parts and such of course. Good design for floor plan to make material moving easy peezy. It would be good to have some shelves for material as well to stabilize the material if there is a lot of temperature change. And also to keep it clean of dust. Air filtration unit can also be installed to clean the air in the room. If the vacuum unit is separate, build that on the other side of the wall so you don't need to listen to that.
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
Is it a true flatbed or a hybrid ?? You do realize that not only are you gonna wanna keep your toy clean and well-maintained, but also all your stock that you're gonna run through it. We have large shelves in back of ours so we can just shovel certain substrates onto it. Where are your other printers located or your plotters ?? Do you wanna put them in there right away ?? 20' x 30' seems way too small. Our room is more like 40' x 80'. Other things can take place in there, but not much. Computers and whatnot are in yet another set of rooms further away.
 
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yannb

New Member
Try to keep temperature and humidity within tolerances of your machine’s technical requirements.
 
FireSprint.com

FireSprint.com

Trade Only Screen & Digital Sign Printing
Is your shop climate controlled? That's important as others have mentioned. Insulate the walls.
 
WYLDGFI

WYLDGFI

Merchant Member
Think of Exhaust as well. Some flatbeds dont have much odor, but most do and even the low odor ones you should vent out some if you are enclosing in a room. Nothing like running a job all day and going home smelling like the ink.
 
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marunr

New Member
We have a Vanguard SVR5D in a 24 x 24 room. I use all of the space for layout tables and rolling carts, and more space would be great. When a 4 x 8 pallet is placed inside there isn't a lot of space to move around.
I would suggest an exhaust vent or air filtration. Some people are sensitive to the vapors from the curing process.
 
Z

zspace

Premium Subscriber
I agree with Gino, 20x30 seems small. It won’t leave much space for materials - both feed stock and finished goods. The curtain works well for us, but it faces our bay doors so a lot of dust still comes in under the curtain. Taller than 8’ will help with material handling and diffusing fumes. Vent the vacuum exhaust outside to control heat and make sure there are baffles on the vacuum to reduce noise.
 
jfiscus

jfiscus

Rap Master
VENTILATION out of the room. They stink.
Pumping AC in is good, but got to get the fumes out.

Material storage, think vertical.
You're going to need around 5' x 20' of that area easily just for materials storage.
And then you'll need clear area in front of that to get it on to the printer.

119822848_325448675453154_447075063092857828_n.jpg (sorry its a mess, but the photo might help ya)
https://signs101.com/threads/free-stuff-for-yall.118411/page-4#post-1492201

Where do prints go when they come off the output bed?
Onto another large table? Or how are they cut down there?

Do you have a nice "cutting table"? There goes another 5' x 10' of your space at least.
I really really like our Foster KeenCut Evolution E2 cutter.
https://go-foster.com/products/cutterstrimmers/precisioncutterbars/evolutione2series/
 
Last edited:
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
If you are adding ac/heat inside of a warehouse building and using exhaust, are you oversizing your systems to account for the loss? With paint booths inside heated buildings, you usually have to install make up air systems or it will suck the heat out of the shop faster than it can be replaced.
 
jeffdpia

jeffdpia

Digital Print Orchestrator
All good points from above especially noted are the need for humidification in your HVAC system, venting of the vacuum hot air exhaust and enough air turn over to mitigate UV ink misting in the air. You can also try using padded A-frames on wheels to store ready to print or finished products.
 
M

markdarian

New Member
jfiscus said:
VENTILATION out of the room. They stink.
Pumping AC in is good, but got to get the fumes out.

Material storage, think vertical.
You're going to need around 5' x 20' of that area easily just for materials storage.
And then you'll need clear area in front of that to get it on to the printer.

View attachment 149120 (sorry its a mess, but the photo might help ya)
https://signs101.com/threads/free-stuff-for-yall.118411/page-4#post-1492201

Where do prints go when they come off the output bed?
Onto another large table? Or how are they cut down there?

Do you have a nice "cutting table"? There goes another 5' x 10' of your space at least.
I really really like our Foster KeenCut Evolution E2 cutter.
https://go-foster.com/products/cutterstrimmers/precisioncutterbars/evolutione2series/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the picture jfiscus, that's really helpful. We've been an offset printing company for the last 20 years and we're just moving into the digital printing world. So we're still trying to figure out the best workflow layout.

We're going to pair our flatbed printer with a Summa cutter. We're still not sure if that cutter will be "outside" or inside this new climate controlled room. From what I've heard, the cutter doesn't need a spotless/perfect environment.

As of now, it looks like we will be cutting blanks first, and then putting those cut pieces onto a cardbord(maybe plywood) templates on the flatbed printer.
 
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