Differences between manual and automatic screen printing

There are differences between manual and automatic screen printing techniques. And both the methods have some benefits and limitations as well. Let’s discuss about manual and automatic screen printing. Both are useful but it all depends on business situation and needs.

Manual Screen printing technique

If your business requirement is looking to produce a short run of Custom Tshirt prints, or you have nothing but to produce your long-run of customTshirt prints manually, then going with manual screen printing might make sense. In some circumstances companies running automatic printer will have a minimum quantity that customers do not want. That’s why smaller custom printing projects prefer manual screen printing.

The manual screen printing process is done manually, hence needs designer to make adjustments as the Tshirt is printed, change the color on the go, and print a color twice. A manual screen printing printer has a rotary screen and capabilities may range from 4 colors to 10, depending on the model of printer.

A manual screen printing requires more manual effort when it comes to rotating the carousel and lifting and lowering the print heads. Alignment and adjustments of these small jobs require experience and expertise when doing manually. On a manual press, it's easy to adjust your print stroke. You can also make adjustments and changes for more challenging print work, like printing over seams.

Automatic Screen printing technique

If your requirement is longer run of prints then automatic screen printing is going to be your choice. For example, if you are organizing a charity event and need to supply custom printed Tshirts to all participants, volunteers and spectators then it’s important that you should maintain continuity between printedTshirts. There is no excuse for awkward placements or errors – things need to look seamless. Sometimes you never know about last minute changes on custom Tshirt design such as adding sponsor logos on apparel while organizing any big event. In this situation, Automatic screen printing comes into play to ease your workload.

While an automatic printer creates 2,000 – 4,000 Tshirts per day, a manual printer may be limited to producing only 400 at most. Larger screens (for automatic screen printers) help you in creating bigger designs to be screen printed on the custom Tshirts.

Summing up

Listed below are the differences between automated screen printers and manual printers:

a. An Automatic printing machine takes shorter production and turnaround time while manual screen printer takes time as adjustments and alignments of machine are done manually.

b. Due to automatic process, there is a difference in labour costing between manual and automatic screen printing.

c. Automatic screen printing needs less physical labour during the process than manual screen printing.

d. When you have shorter deadline and your business needs large run Tshirt prints with exactly same design, then definitely automatic screen printing is preferred over manual screen printers.

Every printing technique has some pros and cons. You need to pick the technique as per your business requirement. You should be knowing when and how to use these techniques quickly and efficiently.