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Full solvent vs Ecosol revisited
Has anyone had any comebacks with either of these inks – we been using ecosols for years now and not a single customer has come back to report a failure due to fading or abraision – was the whole debate academic?
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12 Replies
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I have a solvent Mimaki JV3 75SPII. It does fine as to adhesion and chemical resistance.
All of these prints (eco or solvent) will probably need an overlaminate of some kind depending on the application.
That narrows the gap on which ink is needed. The overlaminate is what takes the punishment anyway.
My guess would be that either would be effective for even car wraps if protected. (3-years or so minimum)……….
Jeff
EA -
I’m not so sure.
Since buying our JV3 we have gained a couple of very good clients who came to us because they were unhappy with the Ecosol prints they had been buying previously. The thing is that I don’t think either of them complained to their previous suppliers, they just took their custom elsewhere. I wonder if those previous suppliers are sitting there saying exactly the same as you Rodney, that they have no problem, when in fact Ecosol has cost them good valuable business.
I can’t find it now, but some time ago Rob posted up his theory that the failure of wraps in deeper swages was often caused, not by the vinyl not sticking to the vehicle body, but failure of the adhesion between ink and vinyl allowing the laminate to shrink back while the vinyl stayed in place. I thought he was right because I had seen that happen myself.
The vast majority of our work is on vehicles, and is therefore laminated, but even so, while I’m sure that Ecosolvents have their place, we’ll be sticking with full solvent for the time being.
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Well wraps are another story , most likely the most harsh environment digitally printed vinyl can be in , and as you say , overlams sort of negate ecosol/solvent issues.
We do almost no vehicle graphics , mainly signage , decals etc and in that respect , our ecosol/maxx/whatever hasnt had an issue. I have a ot of repeat customers , no way to measure whether some of my one off customers just didnt come back , but we do issue a guarantee with our prints and have had no claims. (3 yrs laminated , 2 yrs unlammed *terms and conditions apply to both*)
However my point was that there were huge debates about both inksets and it appears that a lot of the fears about using either have been unfounded. -
hhmmm we’ve had this debate before haven’t we :lol1: :lol1:
I changed over to the full solvent because some clients were grumbling that the signs were not as ‘hardy’ as some of the signs they have seen from other companies.
Since changing from ecosol to Techink Full Solvent, I’ve voluntarily replaced signs to customers that were not happy. I’ve had no complaints since, but to be honest, I’ll laminate a print now if I suspect the image may get heavy traffic, so its not a fair test in that situation.
That said, my clients have expressed satisfaction with the results when before they made no comment. With a great deal of my income deriving from POS and Promotional stuff, and more sign shops around me buying full solvent, I could see the writing on the wall in regard my own client base.
Plus, I sell my work on them being full solvent, against the local blokes that have eco. Its amazing how people associate environmental as being not as ‘good’ as ‘the bad stuff’ :lol1: :lol1: I don’t have to do much talking at all to convince them my inks are stronger, better etc, as they are already convinced eco inks would be inferior.
Works for me at the moment.
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quote Rodney Gold:Well wraps are another story , most likely the most harsh environment digitally printed vinyl can be in , and as you say , overlams sort of negate ecosol/solvent issues.
That’s right, and if all you are doing is signage and stickers, or even flat panel vehicle stuff, I think you are right to question the use of full solvent.
As I said, most of our work is on vehicles, but even for those with more of a mixture of work, at least with a full solvent they will be able to tackle any job that comes through the door.
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there was a huge difference with the early sol, ecosol inks but now with the ecosol max inks the difference is so slight, i will stick with the max inks.
chris
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Im not trying to rehash the debate at all , I just am curious as to whether those using either inksets have had hassles with prints a few years on from when we started. If both sides havent had print failures or machine failures cos of the inkset , then the whole debate was moot as either inkset would have done as well. Did we waste our time agonising over which machine and inks.
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I have posted previously about the problems we had with full solvent inks
in our cadet…They just ate up the heads, we had about five changes in a year and a half. We converted back to Eco Sol Max inks with new heads at the start of the year and touch wood have had no problems.
We laminate everything and we did so with the solvent as well as it is not as hard waring as we are led to believe. Also the health issues are better, I know that just because you can’t smell it then that doe’s not mean its Ok but even with an extractor one of staff was always feeling ill with the full solvent and this does not happen with the Eco Max. -
quote Martin Oxenham:in our cadet…They just ate up the heads, we had about five changes in a year and a half.
Martin, that’s why I wouldn’t buy a converted printer.
Get one that was designed to run solvent inks from day one.
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John
although your mimaki has a more frequent cleaning system the basics are pretty much the same, a head could be removed from a cadet & fitted in a mimaki. The main thing with the Mimaki is the automated cleaning cycle which is better than someone remembering to do the cleaning on a regular basis. Mimaki is a well sorted solvent machineKev
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just spotted this thread, so quick reply…
i think its a good point to bring about just over three years since the debates kicked off…this is a post i made about one month ago… for me it speaks for itself.
when we bought or grenadier i knew it was a re-badged Roland soljet 2. i knew it was modified to run a more aggressive ink and weighed up against the eco-inks "at the time" the grenadiers ink durability won me over.
I know some time later Roland brought out the max inks with a much improved durability. still, i think if i were to buy another machine tomorrow i would still go with the 54inch grenadier and its inks.
"thats just my opinion as a sign maker doing 95% outdoor sign work" maybe if it was mainly point of sale work and the like i was doing, ide happily buy a Roland soljet.see post i made last month:
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewtopic.php?t=27645this year we may move to a flatbed using UV inks for printing direct to metal sheets. but still keep our grenadier as the speed and quality of the prints are far better than that of UV.
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Even though my posting earlier stated either inkset would be acceptable, I currently have a Mimaki JV3 that is full solvent and will stay that way.
True solvent simply "bites" deeper into the vinyl. This may not be necessary for all applications but seems to do quite well…
Jeff
EA
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