Just bought a secondhand Versacamm VP300 grafityp help

[Lorraine Clinch]

Hi Paul, 3-year white printable vinyl is effective for stickers, a clear printable also, can be used for window stickers, and to laminate the white vinyl, which can work out cheaper than a proper laminate. It is thicker than laminate though. Or use any CHEAP normal vinyl if it is to practice, and not to sell.
Printable vinyl is much cheaper per metre than cad-cut vinyl.
Grafityp produce several printable heat press vinyls, the C-Print range, and the transfer tape is TTD (page 43 of the latest catalogue). You need a strong transfer film (yes it does go in the heat press) to lift the vinyl off the adhesive backing which is very sticky.
Oh, and I am not a sales rep, just ordered some more C-Print recently!

Lorraine

[Gary Birch]

If you give Metamark a call they will let you have a few samples to try to print with… In fact most suppliers will

Cheers

Gary

[Denise Goodfellow]

We use md3 for cheap stickers. Md5 for signs and vans (flat panels)

[Phill Fenton]

quote Paul.Gadsdon:

Is there any transparent media? As I feel some designs will lend themselves to transparent backing

Yes there are plenty of options in terms of transparent media, but be aware that the cmyk printing process (which your machine uses) requires a white background or the colours will appear weak and washed out.

[Paul.Gadsdon]

Thanks for everyone’s help its much appreciated

Lorraine: thanks for the advice, is there a need to laminate stickers?

Gary:Thanks I will give Metamark a ring as well

Denise:MD3?

Phil: Really thats a shame, although I have noticed that most CMYK printers have images of window stickers with them, making one feel that it can be done.

Thanks everyone, and I am sure that I will have more questions

[Lorraine Clinch]

Stickers get laminated if there is a need (not paper, obviously), or if they are reverse printed to clear.
MD3/5 are Metamark printable 3/5 year vinyls.
I think you can do a double-pass, although never tried. It, what I have done, with great success, after reading on here, was to send completed print back to origin, and print again (this was to perforated window film).

[Paul.Gadsdon]

I will try the double pass for the clear vinyl cheers

However, what sort of color setup does print on clear vinyl without being washed out?
Would it be cmyk+white?

Could get a BN20 for the white print and clear vinyl!!

Cheers

[John Harding]

quote :

Phil: Really thats a shame, although I have noticed that most CMYK printers have images of window stickers with them, making one feel that it can be done.

Paul you can do great window stickers with your machine just print to clear in reverse using a clear profile and back out laminate with white after gives your perfect window stickers.

john

[Hugh Fraser]

Metamark have always been eager to help with samples….. of a reasonable sixe.

MDE for labels MD-SC for static cling type

[Paul.Gadsdon]

I have my VP300 up and running and at first things were fine, until I noticed that I had some smudges. After close inspection the vinyl had lifted a little. I reset this and the smudges had disappeared.

However, on close inspection there was a little spidering on the black, so I printed some test patterns. These showed arround 15 missing or off-line strips on the black head.

I have run the normal, medium and powerful cleaning cycle with no luck, still the same.

Oh dear 😳

I am currently using the generic vinyl 1 profile using Versaworks 5.1. with Graphityp digital media SP52 – Could this be the issue with the spidering?

What profiles do you lot use? Is generic vinyl 1 correct?

Oh and the manual suggests manual cleaning if the test pattern isnt correct, where can I get a kit? I know I can get the swabs but what sort of fuild should I get

cheers and sorry for all the questions

[Andrew Weaver]

Hi Paul,

Merry Christmas to you all !

You can try using a seringe to pull some ink through.
To do this you will find the tubes from each capping that join on a "Y" under the capping area.
If you pull off the tube that goes from the black and blue head and then pull a bit of ink through with a seringe I think this will help you.
Once that is done do a medium cleaning and try a test print once again to see if that has cleaned things up a bit.

Another way of getting a print done with heads that are not 100% is to use the High quality and choosing the white glossy photo profile as this has many more head passes and W pass which can give you an acceptable print even when with other profiles you get lines in the prints. It is obviously a lot slower in printing though.

Generic Vinyl profile is fine, however are you printing in high speed, Standard or high quality ?

Are the wipers in good condition, is your printer used on a daily basis ?
Good luck and let me know how you go on with it !
Andy

[Paul.Gadsdon]

Thanks Andrew

I am not sure what you mean by using a syringe because the ink is getting to the heads. I have ordered a cleaning kit with new wipers and Roland say that if I clean once a week the heads should return to normal.

My prints seem to be fine and have mastered contour Cut and perf cutting

Cheers

[Andrew Weaver]

Hi Paul,

I have an SP540V and the technician that came to do a job on it showed me that if the medium or strong cleaning process didn’t work, to use a syringe.

I had changed the wipers and done all the cleaning but still had a few lines not quite in place.
When I used a syringe to pull the ink through, that helped me.
The technician also said that it would save time and that using the strong clean over and over again wasn’t a great thing … why I do not know ??

Glad to hear that things are OK.
They are great machines and real work horses.
Good printing.
Andrew