A Guide to Running Electrical Power for New Screen Printing Machines and Conveyor Tunnel Dryers

After you’ve made the exciting decision to purchase your first automatic screen printing machine or to upgrade your conveyor tunnel dryer, you need to think about running the proper electrical power for your new screen printing equipment. Here are some questions and guidelines to follow to help you get started.

Do You Have Single Phase or 3-Phase Power? The first step is to understand the incoming power to your building or print space. The two typical types of power are 1-phase (also called Single Phase) and 3-Phase (Three Phase) power. Three-phase power supplies a more consistent current of electricity than Single Phase. This means it can carry a larger electrical load and with approximately 40% less amperage. While 3-Phase has the advantage of carrying more power with less amps, the wire gauge (thickness of the wire) is bigger, making it more expensive to run compared to 1-Phase. Check what type of power you have and get a screen printing machine or t-shirt dryer that matches. Any quality screen print manufacturing company is able to build an automatic t-shirt press or conveyor tunnel dryer for either type of electricity requirements.

Check Your Amperage Your manufacturer will be able to tell you the maximum amperage for any of their screen printing equipment. Once you know the amperage requirements, consult an electrician to check that your building and the new equipment are compatible. They will check whether you need to add more amperage to your building and make sure the voltage isn’t higher than the manufacturer recommends for your particular machine.

Electrical Hook Up for Screen Printing Equipment Now that you’ve taken care of the amperage and voltage requirements, you just have to get the screen printing machine or conveyor dryer hooked up to its power source. For simple 120 volt, standard plug in machines, all you have to do is plug into an outlet and it’s ready to use. These pieces of equipment tend to be exposure units, pre-treat sprayers and other low power machines.

Things like automatic screen printing presses and tunnel dryers must be wired into your building’s circuitry. Hard wiring your screen printing machines is a simple job for any licensed electrician. Lawson’s simple and accessible design makes it even easier to wire in our equipment.

To assist in getting your machine properly wired into your building, create or pull up a blueprint or sketch of a bird’s-eye view of your shop space. You can visually plan where new and existing equipment will be situated, and you can reference where outlets are and where electrical drops are required.

Whether you’re a beginning hobbyist or a rapidly expanding high-volume shop, a basic understanding of the electrical requirements involved will be incredibly helpful in installing new screen printing equipment.