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Printing long vinyl banners
Hi,
We have a long job for the night on our Mimaki, some 40m vinyl that needs to be cut afterwards (window vinyl application). I want to use the take-up roll for the job. Is it ok to leave the vinyl on the roll for the night? Do I need to give it an additional curing time afterwards? How do you do it usually?
Thanks.
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11 Replies
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I some times put a little fan in the room to assist curing of ink.
Our Mimaki JV3 works okay with take up.
Re-wetting will be down to ur tempreture settings on the ur mimaki
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i know many do, but we never leave a full roll printing without someone able to over see it from time to time… too many things can go wrong, head strike, drop out, banding etc
anyway… as i said. many do it. I’m maybe too paranoid!
make sure you have plenty ink in ALL carts/bottles.
make sure your roll is 100% with alignment.
make sure your print is fully rip’d before leaving.we have one of those (forget what they are called sorry) bright red bar heaters they use in body shops.
we have it sat a metre or so in front of the machine if printing at production speed, just to be sure there isn’t any tacky prints on heavily covered areas.we don’t use blow fans like dave mentions, but grand format machines use the "on-board" so obviously do help.
leaving the roll wound on the reel is fine till you get in next day, but you still need to let it out gas properly.
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be a bit careful with those infra-reds… i did get ours too close and it melted a panel on our agfa … its not a big deal tho
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Thanks everyone. We Left it for the night and it was ok. No we have a big roll of vinyl.
What is the out-gassing for? How long? What will happen if we’ll apply it right away? -
Put the roll upright vertically off the ground and loosely un wind it. Leave it for 24 hours. To increase the efficiency put a fan ontop of the roll blowing air downwards.
Pic attached.
I print over night all the time. I have VNC on my RIP machine and a web cam setup on the printer when I do it so I can baby sit it remotely. Doesn’t help if you have nozzle drop out etc but my machines are solid.
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Thanks Jason. Thought with eco-solvent it doesn’t need outgassing.
Will do. We also have a camera in the shop, however you can’t really see if it has "lines" or problems with quality. -
When you say cut do you mean with a ruler or in a plotter?
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Ruler.
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I think I’ve confused your post. Are you talking about self adhesive vinyl banners or pvc like 440gsm banners your going them hem and finish?
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Self adhesive vinyl.
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I’d leave it. If you cut it without proper out gassing it will shrink or curl if you have a heavy ink load. If your cutting into un printed vinyl go for it but try to leave the prints un packaged for as long as you can.
Another disadvantage the prints will be easy to scratch and mark etc if they aren’t fully out gassed and will be hard to apply if your going to apply them straight away.
So if time allows un wind the roll loosely for as long as you can.
Vinyl manufactures will advise to out gas for 24 hours usually with solvent inks.
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