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Printing Labels
Hi Everybody, firstly I would like to say what an excellent site you have here… and since this is my first post, please be gentle with me.
I am looking for some advice, in my line of work I print bowl marker labels (for anyone not familiar this is the game played on Lawns) we use a Newfoil Hot stamping machine and on an average day we print about 15-20,000.These are usually one colour foil printed with magnesium/zinc plates onto coloured vinyl then laminated and cut to shape.
Now we are being asked for full colour labels in same style and was wondering if anyone has some advice as to which route to take.
We wont be printing as many full colour as we do one colour, but would still like to be prepared for it.
Just not sure if the likes of the Roland and graphtec machines are up to it, they’re not my field so I would be grateful if anyone could give some advice….. Thanks for reading Andy -
36 Replies
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wow! didnt realise bowls were so popular…
do you mean the “t” things they use? we do them in vinyl for a local club,
About a hundred a year.
coudnt compete with your 6 mllion a year! though.
Welcome aboard
Peter -
hi mate and welcome to the site. 😛
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Can’t help I’m afraid Andy but someone here maybe able to point you in the right direction
As this is your first post may I take the opportunity of welcoming you to the boards 😀
Little John
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Many Thanks for warm welcome Guys.
Peter thanks for reply, just to explain about the bowls marker labels, I hope this link works to take to our catalogue where you can scroll down down to see labels.
Many Thanks
Andyadmin-edit
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For spot colours, durability, and speed, you may find a gerber thermal printer ideal for your needs
peter -
Cheers Peter, any advice as to which gerber to look at ??
Does anyone else have experience with the gerbers and producing labels.
Thanks -
i think accuracy etc the edge would be good but i dont think ide fancy that sorta volume on an edge. wouldnt screening be better or are they always different?
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I have used an Edge2 for making labels for doming. Quality isn’t fantastic ( I think the best achievable was 600 x 300dpi ) and there are registration issues, but on the whole it was good for the purpose. One problem we had on long runs was the registration wandering from one colour to the next. Something to keep in mind if you are producing large quantities. Compared to inkjet printing thermal is quite expensive, not only for the foils but also the need to buy sprocketed vinyl.
As a guide I was regularly producing 10,000 labels in a day.
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The foils have come down in price a lot recently especially non gerber stuff, printone etc.
Also the edge can do things like print white and metalics, and onto a wide range of substrata, dpi is NOT an issue with spot colours, solid is solid
Peter -
DPI is an issue with spot colours. The definition of a printed shape is directly linked to the resolution it is being printed at. No? To be fair, even at the low resolution of the Edge, small text is still sharper than higher resolution inkjets, I reckon. Probably due to the depth of colour achievable with thermal ribbons giving a clearer image.
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Thanks for the info Guys I’ll definitely do my homework on the Gerber Edge, Robert could you expand on your experience with the screening are you talking about inkjet ? we use 2 x Epson 4000’s in our place so is it possible to print then get a cutter ?
Big G and Peter thanks for the advice, we are wanting to print full colour such as photos so dpi would be an issue but then again being able to print white and metallic is a big advantage.
Again thanks for your patience.
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Just what I meant G
thanks for claryfiyng
Peter -
If you have Epson 4000’s why not get one converted to handle dyes and go the dye-sub route.
Full colour and you can print onto sticker material (sublimates). May not be the way to go for your volume though. -
Hiya Guys , this is something we do big time , very small die cut very high definition labels.
I can tell you this , if you want small crisp detail the edge is not the machine for this . (I must qualify that , as we were looking at the original edge, we didnt look at the edge II as it was far too pricey)
We have pc 60’s and prior to getting our Soljet , we investigated continuing the Thermal route (getting annoyed with head replacements on our machines)
To cut a long story short , even the Edge agents told us to either continue with the Roland or go another route if we wanted any sort of production with any semblance of cost effectiveness with the quality and crispness we demanded.
This is ideal for a machine like a versacam .
The definition that can be obtained via an inkjet convincingly beat both edges (they did tests for us on both machines , despite that we werent interested in the II) and the PC60 and the only thing we couldnt do with it was print metallics (and white) .
The speed of production was a huge issue , all the thermals were slugs compared to the inkjet and production costs of the thermals were ludicrously high compared to the inkjet too.
We DID however keep our thermals due to legacy issues – some of our customers wanted exactly what they had before and that mainly extended to metallic prints on dark as didnt like the change of look they got when we printed dark onto metallics (you can do that which almost scotches the metallic print advantage thermals have).
We run off 1000’s of decals a day , at low cost , wonderful quality , hassle free etc.
I do badges and keytags and so forth with the Inkjet and my customers are VERY finicky re colours , readability and quality and the inkjet gives us and them that in spades.
I would print that label on top quality polymeric cast at 720 dpi x 720 dpi or 720 x 1440 dpi , overlam with a premium cast cold laminate and then cut it or just print, cut and then dome it (adding a flexible urethane dome to a label like this will elevate it way beyond a simple print and cut )
Im not sure of the size , but assuming its a 3cm diameter , the cost to print and cut and lam using the BEST materials is less than 1.5 pence per label using an inkjet , you can print and cut (on our machine , a soljet Pro II) at least 2-3 sq meters of these an hour (approx 1500 + per hr)
In terms of the original poster , Is it actually WORTH getting a machine? I couldnt see your website so dont know what you do or what the rest of the product line is , but if you were only getting one to do this job , it might be far more worthwhile to sub this kind of thing out. If you can apply the process to other products and expand your product line and onsell new items to existing customers , its well worth the investment.
You seem to already be into some sort of digital printing so I would imagine a small inkjet that can print onto vinyls etc would be worth it.
Im sure you can do a very high percentage of your foiling work with it with better results .
There are other advantages to getting an inkjet and that is that it can print onto a far greater range of materials than a thermal printer can , like banner , meshes , papers , boards , fabrics , rigid abs and styrene , backlits and t-shirt trnasfer then some.
Should you wish to go Dye sub , you can convert it to a dye sub printer without any hassle whatsoever (albeit I really dont think dye sub is the route to go with what you want to do)
Regards -
yes done these bowls things with a soljet ex print laminate and cut – didn’t realize the market was that big – as Rodney says for real versatility on small stuff i still cant dump my pc 60 .
chris
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Hi Mr Sticker & Rodney, many thanks for your replies, I’ll try to explain about the labels we print, these are for a worldwide market, each competitive game of bowls ( a set of bowls consists of 4) requires a coloured sticker to identify who is playing who but after each round the sticker could be removed as an eg a (blue vs red) blue wins game and so the next (blue vs red) blue wins this game so one exchanges to red this is why we do the volume that we do (hope I explained it right) so 1000 stickers is actually only 250 players.
The market is changing, people want more choice and detail, some wanting picture of their clubs,presidents, club badges etc I know my hotfoil machine inside out but this is why I came to you guys for some advice I will keep the hotfoil machine but need some other route for the colour labels just not sure which route to go.
We wont be printing thousands of coloured stickers straight away but I’m trying to get something which if needed could cope with quantity’s at later date.
If I go the Epson 4000 route with sub dye is it easier to the just get a cutter, if so what would you recommend?
Mr Sticker I will do my homework on The Soljet Pro II (thank goodness for the web) and thanks again for all you replies. -
just thinking about a silk-screen route to save the cost of buying a machine. metalic material would require white base print but you could change the colours in production with reasonable ease. Die cutting wouldn’t really be too much on an issue.
Sounds more like a job for digital print on white vinyl as the others said. Gives you greater flexability and we use a Mimaki JV3 and the quality is right down to 720dpi and it looks sharp and doesn’t fade.
I would suspect you need a good thin vinyl (non-gloss) for the bowls or you could alter the spin aspect. I guess?!
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Hi Everyone , yes I’m back again looking for more advice!!
Having spent the last 3 weeks living and breathing this wonderful forum I would be grateful for some more help.
I have tracked down some white matt vinyl adhesive for my Epson 4000 (ultra-chrome inks) printed up some samples and they are looking really sharp and vivid.
Now I was wanting to laminate, then cut them accurately (it has to be a kiss cut )… is this possible ?
If so could you please recommend a laminator and a cutter, my epson 4000 only takes rolls of 17″ budget of about £5k.If this is not possible or cost effective then I’ll take plunge and decide on either Versacamm or Edge II.
Many Thanks
Andy -
You would get a laminator for that but you would also need a cutter with optical registration sensors on it starting at about 2k
If I were you i would buy a cadet 30″ and it does print take out laminate then return and cut
Use solvent inks there are secondhand ones around but buy from a dealer one of the lads had a bad experience buying one privateGoop
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Hi Gordon thanks for reply.
Could you recommend a cutter capable of sensor registration?
Also if I was to buy the cadet(new) at est £10k could you or anyone else give me some idea of running costs, price of ink etc
Thanks for your time
Andy
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I have been told Cadet costs for printing 4 colour 1 square meter to you £6 + vinyl + time +laminate if laminating so still under £12 a square meter laminated I guess others may correct me on this I have not factored in other costs but this is still generous and worst case
I don’t know what others pay but inks for the cadet come in a good bit less than £65 + vat I’mnot going to stae exact prices here.The Summa D60 (newer generation) comes with OPUS this is a 24″ cutter I have one wich I bought before OPUS was available on this machine and does its job brilliantly in fact you have to slow the speed it cuts at a bit to prevent mishaps.
Graphtecs come with the a similar system though never seen or used one, there are others as well do a search on the internet and they will pop up.
What I don’t know is the types of registration marks that they detect, as far as I am aware they have to be generated in the program that does the printing then the same file is sent to the cutter and it can detect them that way. This you should be aware of.If you want more detailed info I can PM you as I might upset some people with what I have to say and it is from experience I might add.
Best to buy outright even though you have a ready market for digital work I feel you shouldn’t get tied up to the cheaper machine tied ink supply regime.
Infact if you send me a pm I will print a few samples on different materials for you so you can judge for yourself as long as it isn’t meters of a sample you want and you can even try them. I just believe that these are fantastic machines compared to thermal I know because I have a PC600 as well and as mentioned a D60 which are basically redundant since I bought the Cadet.
Hope this helps any quieries don’t be afraid to ask.
Goop
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Hi Goop
Many Thanks for reply, cant seem to pm not sure if its me, any chance you could pm me , offer for the samples fantastic..
Many Thanks
Andy -
I can give you an estimate of running costs
At the worst , you will use 20ml of ink per sq meter and on average it work out to about 14ml – OEM ink goes for about 300 quid per litre (totally outrageous price) so about 4.50 per sq meter ink costs.
Media is dependant on what you print on , but premium vinyl costs me around 4.50 per sq meter. Essentially 9 quid per sq m or 90 pence per sq ft.
Factor into this about an extra 33% wasteage and you get around 12 quid a sq meter “true” running cost.
Amortise your machine over 2 years and add in about 25% for maintenance or new heads etc – and you have a further “running” cost of 500 quid a month or about 25 quid a day. If you dont print a lot , lets say 3 sq meters a day , then your cost per sq meter jumps to about 20 quid overall
Your bowls label looks like it could be about 1.5″ round , so you would get about 65 per sq ft , Ie about 1.5 pence per label at the worst.
If this is a short term thing , dont bother about lamination.
In fact for this application I would use a fairly cheap but thick vinyl (easer to apply) and you would most likely find your cost per label in the less than a pence per item bracket.Forbie – heh – who cares who you upset – Cmon – spill the beans!!! 🙂
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Hi Rodney
Many Thanks for reply, excellent information, size of labels has a diameter of 55mm I’ll work it out no problems.
Regarding lamination, labels will be on bowls from (1 day to maybe at longest 1 year) if I was to get a laminator what would you advise?Am I wasting my time regarding printing on the Epson, laminating and cutting if so I’ll nip it in the bud.
Also another point I come from the digital side of things, one of my hobbies is photography I have to have my monitor calibrated(using optix pro) does everyone here do the same.
Thanks for everybody for reading my posts and giving advice, this is the best to do my homework and you cant beat the end user for advice!
Andy
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One of my hobbies is photography too , I love my soljet as I can do fantastic things with what I take.
Heres 2 of my galleries
http://www.rodney2.fotopic.net
http://www.rodneycanon.fotopic.net
Laminators are actually more complex than printers – but I would advise a small cold pressure one , the size of the graphics if you buy a 30″ printer wont be humungous enough to require a 10 000 quid do it all eletronic digital thingamybob with all the bells and whistles.
Initially , It might be worthwhile to try hand laminating. If you use good vinyl , and a solvent based machine , you might not need to lam at all. Even with my light solvent machine , unless those labels are getting a lot of handling or rubbing , I wouldnt bother lamming. I did the monitor calibration thing , but more for the colour matching in printing than for my pics. Calibration is another issue , a decent monitor like a mitsubishi diamond CRT is big money and the room has to have controlled lighting. I just said bugg-er it and bought myself a nice 19″ and 21″ LCd monitor which I find MUCH better than the CRT , everything looks cleare on it and I used adobe gamma to get it as close as possible -
Hi Rodney good to hear from you again.
Great to see your photos, a good insight in to your life!!
Sorry to disagree with you regarding monitors I use a Lacie 21″ CRT and yes my room is a neutral grey colour… a bit boring infact.
Any chance of giving me some direction of the laminator (a make or model)???If anybody else is reading I’m still trying to decide about the Epson Any suggestions.
Many Thanks
Andy -
There are a range of films for sublimation printing on the horizon. They are said to be abrasive resistant with 3-5 year outdoor UV life, different finishes such as white/gold /clear. Self adhesive, some with adhesive on front. Can be cut on plotter/cutter after printing.
Cheers
Jim -
Cheers Jim
Could you tell where you got your info m8 ???
Andy
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I have a GMP Excellmaster laminator , but its totally overkill for your applications as its more a finishing station than a plain lamintor as is does mounting , single or double sided cold lams , same with hot etc and comes in at something like 13k quid. They are well represented here , but I dont know about your part of the world. They make very good cheaper cold pressure only models.
I use my laminator internally and do contract lamination for others as well , so its more of profit centre for me than something bought out of neccesity , I dont have much experience with smaller units , there are quite a few threads here on lams and other sites have info like signweb and signcraft com. I have an office at work that has such variable lighting conditions and limited desk space – so I retired my Veiwsonic and cornerstone for 2 flat screens:) -
The films are manufactured in Japan, due over here in next few weeks. Comes in roll form 12in. 24in. 48in. width and I think 30 metres length.
There seems to be a wide range incuding backlit.
There are also 12in. square vinyl tiles.
Will let you know when I hear more.Cheers
Jim -
At the moment we print onto A4 size sheets on our dye-sub Epson 3000. You can get transparent, white gloss/matt, Gold,Silver and Platinumy.
We buy in A4 sheets only because that’s what is available.
As soon as there is a roll available – I’m there.
To my mind it would be ideal for what you want. Don’t even have to laminate or at least we never have 🙂 -
Hi Scozzie
Thanks for reply, could you tell what cutter you use ?
Did you covert to Dye-Sub yourselves?
And also where you get your paper from ?Many Thanks
Andy -
Hi Andy,
We get our paper/vinyl from a company called Power Digital over here in Brisbane. I think they import it from the USA. Do a search for them, they’ll pop up I’m sure.
We bought the 3000, two of them in fact, from them so they converted them in secrecy otherwise I’d tell you how. :lol1: All I know is it’s a 40 minute job that they charge a day for 👿
The cutter we use when we cut vinyl is a PC60. As yet I havn’t bothered to work out how to get it to die-cut the A4 sheets. Not enough demand here in the sticks. I just trim them by hand with the guillotene or a pair of scissors. (Yes I know I should get a life)
You’d get, what, 15 to a sheet?
Hope that helps.
Scoz
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Hi Andy, welcome to the site.
Just came across this thread.
I print and cut these on my Roland 540 with solvent inks for a local bowls club too.
We just use an Oracal 3 year material, with semi permanent adhesive and leave it unlaminated.
Works well, but stickers that are fully coloured, you have to leave to dry for a day before die cutting. The white based stickers can be cut immediately tho.
The gerber would not have this problem.
Cheers
Shane.
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Cheers Shane, many thanks for taking time to reply.
I had been looking at the Gerber Edge II but was put off by the posts I was reading, some people said you can’t get the resolution for small text.
The idea of having metallic and white prints would suit me fine, but I was put off the edge and was leaning towards the cadet or the versacamm.
Very difficult decision!!!
Cheers Andy
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No worries mate.
I print darker colour text to lighter coloured tape too, which gets around the drying times, but if they need white text, I have to print the background.
I have heard the concerns about the small text on the edge too, although I have never seen an example.
You can’t go wrong wuth the roland tho, never had an ounce of diffuculty in doing these jobs, but I’d urge you to go full solvent, and not ecosol for stickers in this environment.
Cheers
Shane
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