Eco Solvent Vrs True Solvents. To over laminate or not

[Robert Lambie]

quick reply,
for long life vehicle wraps i would recommend over laminating.
for promotional vehicle wraps of a year or so i wouldnt.
again it can depend if its drove mainly around a city like a taxi or a van located in the country.
more polution, dirt & grime in the city that attacks the life of the print. it also needs washed more and again, the soup chemicals will vary in car washes and the like. again ar=ttacking the life of the print.

[Rodney Gold]

They both print on the same stuff , one solvent is just more agressive than the other but both inks are solvent inks and work more or less the same way.
The composition of the ink and it’s additives and solvents will determine exactly what is printable and how well it’s printable , different ink makers formulations will work differently. There is a lot more to ink than just the pigment and it’s carrier , there are tons of other additives.
You might be able to print on some reflectives or stuff not designed to be printed on , however whatever can be printed thru agressive solvent action and not via a mild solvent , will never be as good as it can get , it would be a kludged solution , the solvents will be “melting” the substrate.

As to lamination , doesn’t matter how you print , in abraisive/abusive/harsh environments you laminate for durability.
There are some new liquid laminates that are urethane based and can be rolled on and give pretty much the same protection as a cold lam at a lot cheaper too (you dont need machines for it) , they put a “plastic” layer over the print.
Remember one thing about lamination , it’s not only for durability or protection , it is a way of finishing the print for its environment. For example you often need a soft matt lam to stop reflections or a full matt to “soften” prints or even a glossy to add more vibrancy and POP to a print.
An agressive solvent ink might be more durable , but thats a matter of degree , it’s not that one ink is totally durable and the other isn’t.

The upsides of agressive solvents are that media that might not hold as agressive inks as well will do better , the inks are generally cheaper if you buy aftermarket and often prints “cure” faster. some inks are far more resistant to household solvents then mild solvent inks (however nothing is totally resistant) These advantages are not really critical and should be considered against the downsides.

The downsides are legion , the fumes are more toxic than other solvent inks , you need extraction to run a solvent machine
Maintenance on a solvent machine is much higher and components wear faster , lower ink costs are negated in respect to the amount of head cleaning and flushing is involved as the solvent based inks tend to dry up in the heads and feed tubes if the machine is left for a while.
Some solvent inks do not have the colour gamut of some mild solvents and they cannot do the resolution(cos of their agressiveness and the way the ink drioplets spread)
There are medias that get seriously attacked by agressive solvents (try thin lexan) and warp or scrunch/pucker badly after printing rendering the print useless or very difficult to apply (semi solvents do this too , to a lesser extent)
There are also problems in transporting true solvent inks , a lot of carriers class these as hazardous materials and refuse to do so or add a huge premium to do so , a lot of countries are legislating against them and this too causes problems as they cannot be imported easily. Ink spills with agressive solvents will damage far more than mild , especially machine covers and the like.
The notion that digital printing is all about printing on uncoated made to cut vinyl or standard PVC should be debunked. there are better and cheaper materials out there far more suited to digital printing and more and more are coming. We use digital specific PVC banner and a mesh that costs less than GBP1.40 per sq meter and work better than the cheapest vinyl. Even if you use a solvent printer , using non digital print friendly materials is a problem. For example vinyl cutting vinyl is often not rolled with constant tension and worse , it is rolled trapping dust and that causes fisheyes when printing. Good digital media is rolled clean. Plasticisers and other stuff on non digital vinyls/materials act as barriers to printing or interact with the solvents and inks , regardless of what the inks are. None of the various mnfgrs of machinery and inks list the “bad” stuff , just the good stuff , it’s only with experience and talking honestly to users will one find all the issues involved. The new generation machines are pretty new (like the eco ink ones) thus you wont find that much on them right now and a lot of what is read of solvent vs non solvent does not relate to those inks , more to inks which required coated substrates. The gap between agressive solvent and mild solvent has closed a LOT.

I run a Roland mild solvent machine and print on just about anything with absolutely no problems at all and can tell you that there has never been a time where I have wished for a “true” solvent machine.
You will find that a lot of mnfgrs are moving to eco-solvent inks (Mutoh and others)
I can’t advise you what machine to buy , that’s your choice , I can tell you of my experience.