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Media Clamps for Versacamm – Any alternatives?
Hi Versacamm users.
Dont know if anybodys ever had these problems, but if they have I would love to hear their solutions:
1) Using a lightweight banner material ( such as 450gsm ), neither of the clamps that came with my versacamm effectively ‘hold’ it down. What happens is that it ‘ripples’ up, pushing the metal of the clamp up, which hits the bottom of the print head. Also when the material is rippled up in this position the print head deposits loads of unwanted ink, ruining the print….The only effective way i have to stop this is to ‘hang’ weights onto the material at the front so that it pulls the material down, preventing the ripples and the problem
2) We have just started using a static cling from Victory, that you can print straight onto the cling side, which means you dont have to do all the backing with white, putting back to cut…Great stuff. Anyway there is so much resistance between the static cling and the clamp ( basically the clamp is sticking to the static cling ! ) that it is causing problems. Any suggestions?
Thanks for reading this. hope it makes sense
Danny
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6 Replies
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unless i ve missed the point sounds like the material in both cases dont like the heat – i always raise the head and lower the heat when printing banner if the versa can ?.
chris
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if the versacamm is of the 540 range ie sp540v you could raise the head hieght.
no height adjustment on the 300.
as said before lower the heat to 35 or turn off all together.
if you are using max inks it should dry ok without .
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hi, well we went for the JV3 as it clamps to the material well, it has about 50 clamps so we don’t get any serious ripple but we will on the initial warm up. The head height also needs to be on the thick setting so it is off the material a good 3-4mm.
Tips for any printer….
1: Make sure there is no grime/dried ink under the print-head, this makes the distance to the substraight shorter so can cause marks (and bad sucking).
2: Keep material warm, if you can justify the cost then the material dont like frost or coldness, keep them warm and we do put a heater in the room and bring it to about 22c.
3: Our JV3 operates dickson banner material fairly low, its about 35degrees on both heaters, so the tempreture distance between 22deg to 35deg is quicker and will not make the banner material go rippled.
4: The JV3 has two heaters (i wonder if the versa has this?), at the back is a pre-heater and this warms/softens the material before it is put over the main-heater, this help ripple.
5: When setting up the printer and you have just placed in the roll, have your print-file ready to roll. Do not faff about by putting the roll in the printer with the heaters on and then open the file/setup the job/rip the file, you need to print quickly as the material is sat over the main-heater and will cause distoration.Hope that help but ripples are tempreture change related.
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We found when printing banner that the vacuum settings were too high when left on automatic and by turning the vacuum down down allowed the banner to slide more easily over the vacuum area thus reducing drag and the material to ripple up under the clamps and also leaving a bigger waste area on the front of the print area allowed the weight ofthe material to help to hold it down flat,
We usually use Ferrari banner from Hexis which doesn’t seem to give us these problems probaby a bit more expensive but just works with no problems changing set ups etc -
We print both banner & static cling with out any problems on our SP540, but we don’t put on all the clamps, just the ones on the very outside, in fact that’s all we use for any material.
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Try heating up the material and when its at the right temperature unclamp and reclamp the material and it should most of the issues if your other settings are correct.
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