Alex Crosbie
Forum Replies Created
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I saw these roof boxes the other day and thought they’d be ideal for a start out sign maker, they’re designed to take an 8ft x 4ft sheet.
https://www.roofarack.co.uk -
The bigger advertising vehicles generally have a permanent driver and don’t stop for long. That way they don’t require planning permission.
As a money making venture it isn’t something I’d want to get involved with having looked in to it in depth. -
A Luton van taxed and insured in a lay-by that doesn’t have any time restrictions can sit there as long as you like. (I have one that does exactly this job) never had a complaint from anyone even when parked for several months.
As long as you’re not causing an obstruction the most anyone can do is ask you nicely to move it.
All you have to say is it’s main role is for work use and there’s nothing they can do…. if you say it’s for advertising then it will require local planning consent and everything that entails.Alex
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Could it be a chemical that’s left on there for too long? A lot of “hand car washes” use cheap nasty chemicals that should be used for cleaning alloy wheel brake deposits all over the vehicle or traffic film remover, easier for them to get the vehicle clean quicker but they’re very aggressive chemicals especially if not washed off quick enough.
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Ive had one for over 10 years and use it sparingly.
as you say it’s not good on large areas, but where it excels is reflective vinyl lettering, the kind that usually delaminates and then the silver part comes away in tiny chunks, it’s super fast on that.
It’s also really good at getting off the adhesive left behind after badges have been removed.If you’re burning the paintwork then you’re not using the tool correctly, a side to side movement making sure the wheel stays flat and keep removing from the surface regularly ensures the heat doesn’t build up, It takes a while to get the hang of but the tool definitely has its uses and has got me out of “sticky situations” a few times.
We had one ‘vehicle wrap’ that was done with some hideous vinyl that we had to use a liquid remover on, we used a spandex own brand, it did the job but it wasn’t quick and it was nasty stuff.
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I’ve personally used over 1000 metres of mdx, I prefer the non air release version, not had any failures even in deep recesses even on sprinter recesses. though there are easier films to fit the mdx seems to stay put just as well as more expensive films
Though I agree a lot of it is down to personal preference.
I was very sceptical at first but have been very surprised as to how well it holds.
Both versions can be difficult to fit when the temperatures get a bit warmer in the summer months but the same can be said of most wrap films.
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Roland print studio only runs roland printers but does allow you to run any other manufacturers cutter.
I have it running the EJ640 and summa s160 cutter. This was the setup recommended to me by roland when I said I was interested in the GR640 cutter.
Even roland admit (though probably not on paper) that the accuracy and reliability of the the summa cutter is better than the roland.
I’ve been running this setup for over a year now.
The rip is indeed a rebadged version of the caldera rip.
To be perfectly honest It has its pros and cons.Pros:- ability to run any cutter, super fast rip speed(all jobs rip in seconds no matter the size), handles PDFs with transparency effects, has some clever features with the ability to adjust all kinds of things like even down to the orientation of the cut file when it’s printed. Add on grommet marks on banners, tiling is much more advanced. You have much more control over the speed and quality of the machine than with versaworks.
Cons:- support is not as good (roland haven’t used it much and the one guy that was brilliant has left to work elsewhere) if the support is above Roland’s knowledge then you have to contact caldera who are extremely good but sometimes they dont fix all faults, just the ones they feel like! Caldera are French so language barrier can sometimes be an issue.
You need a mac to run it.
The workflow and way it operates are totally different to versaworks and will take quite some time to adjust to, we still find some features really frustrating and counter intuitive. Updates are not always better, we updated to the latest software a few months back and went from a stable working environment to lots of crashes, we had to roll back to a previous version which wasn’t straight forward. Profiles are not readily available, I think there’s around 60 on the roland profile centre and most of these are for 3M materials.
Loading profiles is not a simple process. Installing the software and printer is a step by step process following written instructions as some steps are not intuitive. Oh and you have to pay for it!I would seriously look at some of the other aftermarket rips as the way that print studios work flow is setup is its biggest problem for me.
If you want to see what it’s like in a live environment and setup a job then I have teamviewer on my Mac and you can have a watch to see how it works or if you’re down in Gloucestershire anytime then you’re welcome to pop in.
Cheers
Alex
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Thanks both! That’s much appreciated!
Alex
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But phill have you seen what they’re doing to the cars?! It’s a masterclass in money can’t buy you taste.
Fair enough the man has found his niche but it doesn’t help raise the profile of the industry.
If anything I think it’s detrimental, from how it’s portrayed, wrapping will be seen as what you go for when you haven’t really grown up from the boy racer stage but you’ve come in to some money [emoji23]I understand they want to make an entertaining tv show and the easy way to do that is by creating things that are controversial but I happened across a Facebook advert for the show, the comments though quite amusing were not very positive about the program, the clients and the man himself.
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They walk amongst us phil 😉
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Just looked at the oracal 3651 technical data sheet, it states that when adhered to steel the material is self extinguishing and achieves a class A fire rating.
My health and safety consultant was really happy when we did our last workplace fire safety plan. Not sure why anyone would have an issue with it unless I’m missing something.Alex
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A quick google throws up a wrap company that offers finance using dividebuy or omni capital.
Regards
Alex
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Playing devils advocate on this one couldn’t a business offer a total job price and then offer a percentage discount if paid for by any means other than debit/credit cards.
Therefore not charging card fees!Personally I absorb any charges in the cost of the job, I’m just happy to get the money [emoji23]
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The S-class will do it… it’s called cut off margin and accessed via the menus on the machine.
The D-class as far as I’m aware doesn’t have it on the machine itself but if you use winplot then you could do it from there… screenshot attached
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Have tried this a couple of times on various different colours with both Matt laminate or frosted vinyl, it’s never really worked to be honest!
Best thing to do is to cut a sample piece and try it on the vehicle to see how it works with that paint finish -
If it’s on glass then get yourself a decorators scraper and plenty of soapy water…. you’ll be amazed! You might get the rest off in a day!
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Glad you got it sorted out!
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Hi chris
Did you get it sorted?
Try a different material to see if it’s the material or the printer -
Could it be heat related? We get all kinds of print issues first thing in the morning before the building heats up at the moment.
Is the printer in an office and does it get cold overnight?Alex
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Hi phil
What rip are you using?
Our rip software will chuck out pages if it detects a problem with something on that page (transparency effects for example or badly created PDF’s from word or PowerPoint)
Can you have a look in the pdf properties to see what it was created with?
Cheers
Alex
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If you’re driving then you can’t be making signs, doing artwork or any of the other things that make you money, if you’re not charging the same rate for travelling time as you are for working then by that way of thinking you’ll earn less by going out fitting than you would for making signs.
Distance doesn’t work out, as you can drive an hour to one place and it be 50 miles or you could drive an hour to go 5 miles.
Or put simply would you like to earn less money for going out fitting rather than staying in the cosy warm unit making signs.
Don’t forget with fitting work you have to provide a whole host of equipment, drills, PPE, ladders, steps, then there’s the vehicle, road tax, insurance, public liability and tradesmans insurance. Then there’s the health and safety aspect with risk assessments etc. And ongoing training and replacement of equipment as and when it needs it.
Hope that helps
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Disregard my comments please! I thought we were talking printable material!
Avery supreme might seem expensive but you’ll save the money back in application time.
Alex
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Grafityp’s wrap vinyl isn’t the easiest to fit but is good quality, start with it and you’ll find fitting anything else is a dream!
I did try their air release version but had problems with quality control and had a couple of rolls that were contaminated, we are going back probably 4/5 years now though!If you want cheap then metamark MDX range is worth a try, the air release is good but not guaranteed in deep recesses, I really like the non air release version but I know some don’t like it.
The Arlon SLX material looks very impressive but I’ve not used it personally.
The grafityp I’ve fitted over 100 metres of and the Metamark probably over 500 metres now and no complaints.
A lot of it is down to personal preference
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It sounds like the data isn’t transmitting fast enough to me.
I would try a different network cable both for the computer and the printer (or usb cable if it’s usb).
Then start looking at your network configuration for bottlenecks in speed.Hope that helps
Alex
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Roland told me my 7 year old summa cutter was better than their new cutter and be better off keeping the summa than their new machine!
Having had a demo on the roland cutter I’d say they have a fair distance to catch up to Summa.
I’d go summa first choice then graphtec then roland.
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I would try upping 5 degrees and then try it, you can adjust temperature while it’s printing to see if it makes any difference but it does take a little while to raise the temp
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Is it only on one media?
Is this a new media or have you been using it a while?
What temperature have you got your heaters on?My first guess would be try upping the heaters
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Are they rivets or big flat caps about the size of a 2p coin with a nasty rubber grommet around it ?
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No worries phil!
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Very easy, pull off from the pointy end, make sure the vehicle is reasonably warm as the clips can be brittle when cold, once you’ve done it you’ll wonder why you’ve never done it before!
Alex
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I’m with you Martyn, always leave the rollers up, I have mild OCD about people leaving machines loaded with vinyl and the pinch rollers down or rollers together on laminators!
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3M do an internally fitted one, not sure about anyone else. William Smith should be able to help.
I’d be interested to hear what it’s like to use.
Alex
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Yes, i have the same problem with some clients regardless of what industry they’re in.
I usually explain that we charge for design separately so that when they re-order they’ll actually save money rather than including it in inflated prices in the first place, that usually satisfies them.
I don’t have a set price for design of a flyer but I do have an hourly rate which I will give an indication of cost if they can give me a brief outline of what they’re trying to achieve (logo design, layout, providing images etc)
Though I tend not to really discuss prices face to face, I usually take all the details, work out the costs and send a quote so that they have everything in writing and can make their own decision.
That way if they don’t like it they’re welcome to look at alternatives, at the end of the day if they don’t want to pay for my time and don’t see a value in my training, experience and the quality of my design work then I don’t really want them as a client!
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I would say yes it’s possible in one piece.
But would I do it? Probably not, I’d much rather have a neatly cut join with two pieces of material that aren’t under any stress than no join but with a potential for failure.
It’s in an area that’s not very noticeable so I wouldn’t worry too much!
Hate all these body coloured plastics, would have been much easier if it wasn’t painted 😉
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Hi Shawn,
Do you know what’s new in the firmware?!Cheers
Alex
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The difficulty you’ll have is the centre gap being so tight that on areas where you have a compound curve (front bumper especially) that you’re two lines will be virtually touching.
I would speak to the client advise them and make your life easier by having a bigger gap, any fluctuations in spacing will be less noticeable then.In your situation I would always cut on the plotter.
We did similar on a GT35O recently but print and cut with application tape as the client wanted a white stripe with red outer pin stripe.
I wish I was better with knifeless tape but I know I’d be there all day trying to get all the lines parallel and I’m not that keen on the cut line I get with knifeless tape
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Mag tape to a thin pvc sheet might be an option. The strength of mag tape is a lot stronger than magnetic sheeting. Cherwell signs do a 20mm mag tape or eBay has it for shorter lengths, but not cheap and not sure how well it would fare in prolonged wet conditions.
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Also it runs on a Mac so a bit of extra cost and profiles aren’t as readily available, I bought it with the printer but I didn’t pay £800 for it
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It’s paid for software based on the caldera rip.
The bonus is being able to use any cutter. The tiling function is a lot more powerful than versaworks and rip speed is way faster. Also it’s a proper PDF rip so no issues with transparencies affecting things -
Cool thanks Shawn!
I must admit I’ve been very impressed with the EJ… roland print studio is an ‘interesting’ piece of software but once we got the hang of it it smashes through work -
Hi Shawn
Is that a versaworks related glitch or a cartridge chip glitch?
Have you had any problems with the machine so far?
Alex
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Hi david
Why not sell the roland cutter and buy a graphtec or summa cutter and roland print studio to run them? Or any other rip software?
Hope you get it sorted, awful situation to be in
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I bought the bundle deal of an ej-640 and the gr-640 but after I paid for the machines in full the supplier told me there was a wait for the cutter as they didn’t have any in the uk (roland couldn’t say how long the wait would be either).
Then they offered me an ex demo cutter from the roland show room, which then developed a fault before it left roland so they needed to wait for a spare part.
I decided to go for a summa cutter and roland print studio as I felt there was something amiss with the Gr-640 cutter….. sounds like I had a lucky escape!
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If it’s a simple sign and you won’t be up there long then a two man lift from ladders should be acceptable at that height but if you feel that it won’t be in any way safe then don’t do it.
If the option for a scissor lift is available then I would go with it, as long as you have someone that knows how to use it, our local hire companies survey every job for free to work out which is the most suitable means of access and which machine is right for the job.
With a scaffold tower they take time to erect and take down, correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve always felt the riskiest part of using a scaffold tower is getting the signs up the outside of the tower, if a sign is dropped then I’m sure health and safety would be interested to know why you opted for a tower over an access platform. I employee a health and safety consultant and the only scenarios that we felt a scaffold tower was of use would be for internal staircase jobs and fitting flat cut letters.
On my rough maths a scissor lift is around £130 including delivery per day.
A scaffold tower is £110 for a minimum of 1 weeks hire.
We would complete most jobs in under a day.
However the time it takes to put up a scaffold tower and take it down would increase our time to do the job and therefore outweigh any cost savings. (I appreciate if you have lots of fitting jobs week in week out then buying your own scaffold may well save some cost)There have been jobs I’ve gone to and been finished fitting the signs before I’d have had the scaffold tower up.
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Hi Chris
Yes that would be great if you could send me the details!Thank you!
Thanks for the link with structureflex Robert! Their setup looks very impressive!
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Looks like goudy or one of its variants
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If they have twist knobs at either end then they’re fine once you have them set up but they’re purely laminators, if you want to chop and change laminates and application tape and use the laminator for applying graphics to boards then it’s a different story
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The only thing with some cheap laminators is how they adjust the height of the rollers, just check that the one handle adjusts the roller height. Oh and some don’t have motors and are just hand wound.
Try and google videos of the laminator being used to see what they’re like is my advice
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I’ve checked the technical document for Avery facade film and minimum application temperature is 0 degrees centigrade though how you would wet apply at any less than 4 degrees centigrade without running the risk of freezing would be an interesting one to experience!
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Just out of curiosity how do you plan on coping with the winter months, are the facade vinyls temperature sensitive and do they wet apply?!
Cheers
Alex
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What’s the distance the image is being viewed from and what resolution is the image at full size?
Regards
Alex
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What software is creating the crop marks and is the same software then sending the cut file to the cutter?
To work out if it’s a machine issue or a software issue try creating the same job in illustrator or coreldraw, use the summa plugin to create the crop marks, print the job and then cut using wincut.
I have seen a note in a summa manual to say that software panelling should not be used when using opos panelling so could be a software to machine conflict.
As has been mentioned above the summa a class machine is more than capable of running huge long jobs without a takeup and without panelling so I would probably turn it off…. or if there’s a specific reason you desperately need panelling it would be interesting to know why to see if there’s an alternative work around!
Cheers
Alex
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We have a trimfast cutter, it’s cheap but we find it doesn’t reliably cut to the set size and can’t work out why it seems to vary.
The clamp for holding 3mm foamex isn’t strong enough so tends to move on smaller pieces, it’s an issue on thinner pieces of dibond too.
When we ordered he machine we were told we could have it next day, then a call back to say it would be three days, then another call to say it would be another week, three weeks later it arrived.
The machine came with the wrong instructions from a machine that was made a year earlier, which made it tricky to put the thing together.The laser guide is a half baked afterthought with the battery pack velcroed to the side and cables that get knocked regularly.
Allow 3 or 4 hours to assemble and mount to the wall but a good half day of trying to level and get it to cut straight with the base.
On reflection I wish I’d spent the extra and gone for the keencut however I’ve not put one together or used one.
If you want to have a go with mine you’re welcome to!
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Personally I would do it in the rip software but it can be done in Corel.
You need to draw your panels, group them, then centre them over the top of a grouped selection or image, then use the powerclip tool and select your panels.
With the powerclip selected ungroup and each panel will be moveable and able to save as an individual piece.
A handy way of doing odd shaped tiles which rips can’t always do.
If my instructions aren’t very good let me know and I’ll search for a tutorial
Cheers
Alex
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Is it like clouds in the print?
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If you’re applying it yourself the phototex material will save you a fortune in time!
It’s also removable so is ideal for rented properties that need to be put back to original condition when vacated.
If you keep the backing paper it can even be reused somewhere else so has uses for pop up events and exhibition graphics in hotels.
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Hi Danny
Flat bed applicators rarely come up second hand as once people have them they never get rid!
There are lots of people making them apart from rolls roller now.
If you have a Google for flat bed applicator there are loads to choose from, at the sign and digital show there were lots on display.
I think the most important thing is getting the right size. For me it would need to take a 10 x 5 sheet but depends on your printer size etc.
Might sound like a stupid question but what are you planning to use the machine for? Applying app tape? Laminating? Applying prints to boards? Making flex face signs?
Or something different?
Cheers
Alex
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How about printed contravision, it will only reduce the light slightly.
We’ve been doing a lot of it on shops lately, the customer has always been really impressed and its a doddle to fit.
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Looks like optima to me 🙂
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I think it’s a glitch in the program, when it happens try dropping the same file in to the queue again, quite often it will go in fine.
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Is there any print speed benefit with the light bar conversion?
Cheers
Alex
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How about temperature of where the vinyl and app tape are stored and also temperature of your working environment?
The only other thing is could there be something on the surface of the vinyl reducing adhesion to app tape, might be worth cleaning the vinyl with some alcohol as a test.
cheers
alex
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I have a Roland RS 640, print only with a seperate summa vinyl cutter. Very happy with the Roland, I think I would look at latex printers from HP as there are some very good deals on those at the moment aswell. Sorry for adding an extra machine to your decision!
If you want I visit sometime you’re welcome to come along
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I had a demo on the xr640 with some of my own files. I’ll be honest I can’t really work out where it fits in the market place.
It’s a little quicker than a VS machine, a little better print quality, build quality is slightly stronger but it’s a big chunk of extra money.
I don’t think even if the prints from both machines were side by side you would see much difference. I think a customer would be less likely to be able to see a difference but it all depends on your target market.
Also with the extra colour options you’ll have slightly higher running costs if comparing to a 4 colour machine as it pulls ink through periodically even when not in use to stop the heads clogging.
Also I’m guessing you’ve thought about a laminator matched to the printer.
I’m based in tewkesbury so not a million miles away from yourselves 🙂
Hope that’s of some help and sorry to hear of the situation with your son
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Try D&K Europe….. I was very impressed with the construction and design of their laminators.
They seemed very knowledgable and helpful when I spoke to them at the sign show last year.
From memory the price was a lot better than the easy mount too
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Have done roof registration stickers for campers but not done one for years. Any simple bold display font in a contrasting colour to the camper works well.
How about kpmf anti tamper or ultra destruct vinyl, the stuff is a pig to remove and comes off in tiny pieces and sticks like the proverbial! Careful when weeding as it sticks to everything including skin and scalpels 😉
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If only I’d seen this earlier! I have the vector version of these for a client of ours.
We put a cut contour around the shape using a mask / powerclip as discussed earlier.
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Adrian is bang on! Cheap poster printers will seriously embarrass solvent printers!
If you’re doing big volumes it’s always worth considering the time it takes to trim say 100 A0’s when you can buy them printed and trimmed with delivery for less than £200. When you take out the time, the material cost and the ink plus time to setup the machine etc it’s a no brainer.
Regards
Alex
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The canon ipf (can’t think of the model number) big enough to do A0’s is around £5k, will print edge to edge on whatever roll size you want and trim to size, so no manual work as long as you’re not doing odd sizes!
And it’s in a different league of speed compared to solvent printers, Martin is absolutely right though, if it’s volume of the same thing a trade litho printer will be much cheaper, leaving you free to do other stuff!
Cheers
Alex
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If you’re printing lots of posters then a poster printer like an Epson/HP or canon ipf range would be a lot faster and cheaper to run than a solvent printer. Also much cheaper to buy.
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If you have a look at the oracal application guide you’ll find all the specific info you need for applying vinyl at minimum temperature.
It even mentions avoiding shocking the vinyl when taking from a heated workshop to cold temps outdoors.
You can get away with it if you heat the vinyl with a heat gun after application to start the curing process but again it’s all in the application / technical instructions 🙂
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You’ll need to check the technical data sheet for the vinyl you’ve used but I would say you’re absolutely right, from now until march I doubt we’ll get more than a few days where you can confidently apply vinyl outdoors!
Glass is even worse as it tends to stay slightly colder than painted panels.
We do on average around 5 vehicles a week, when the temperature drops we tend to allow 30 minutes extra on a job so we can heat every vehicle with a gas space heater before fitting and try to leave the vehicle inside as long as possible to give the adhesive the best start in the curing process.
Hope that helps
Alex
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To convert from a PDF to an eps so that versaworks knows how to correctly interpret the effects such as transparencies that Andy is having problems with.
Like Andy says "knock-out" or "over print" is another possibly issue you from some designers, you can check for and amend in illustrator.
I’d recommend illustrator over any other design software for PDF work as it’s an adobe product so will correctly display PDFs and let you edit them.
If you’ve only just had the problem then you’ve been lucky, it’s been an issue since PDFs have been used in versaworks, Roland are aware of the issues surrounding PDFs, the answer I’ve had in the past is "it’s a postscript rip and not a PDF rip"…. It’s probably becoming more apparent recently as more designers take advantage of certain effects in later versions of software.
Hope that helps 🙂
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You’ll need to open the PDF in illustrator and then print it, printing from Acrobat gets the same issues as you’ve found!
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Hi Andy
Are you trying to print from Corel or illustrator? -
Versaworks uses an eps rip rather than a PDF rip so there will always be issues.
I’ve tried other rip software but versaworks is the one I always come back to.
The easiest way I’ve found to faultlessly print PDFs is to open in illustrator and export as an eps or print directly to the print queue.Preflight checking in acrobat reader can be problematic as it doesn’t always show hidden issues. Just something to bear in mind if you’re planning on preflighting in reader and then putting it straight to the rip for printing.
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Edward Mathias. 30degree tangential blade, they can be tricky to get the pressure right until they have a bit of use
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Brilliant! You’d have been cursing if you had to pay for it, that’s for sure!
Cheers
Alex
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If it’s the black and red that look like they’re laying too much ink down it sounds like a bad colour mix, like when an RGB colour is converted to CMYK, I think if you try creating a file from scratch as CMYK with 100% K square and see how that prints it should be fine.
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No worries!
Did you have any luck with it?
Is the machine out of warranty?They are awesome bits of kit when working so hope you can get it sorted
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I would cut on the plotter and piece it together.
You’ll have the ability to repeat it should they have another van the same and the time for a plotter to cut it will be a lot less than using knifeless tape or trying to handcut it.
Regards
Alex
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What printer do you have?
Have you opened the eps file in any other program too check it’s definitely 100%k?
Have you tried any other profile apart from the generic?It prints fine on high quality as the ink has more time to dry.
Is the printer and material kept in a nice warm environment?Regards
Alrx
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Have you tried art systems? I think they’re still the uk agent for tech support on summa’s.
Failing that how about emailing summa direct, they have both been very helpful to me in the past.
The S- class machines have a 3 year warranty from memory so worth a check if you’re near that, if it needs parts they are eye wateringly expensive as there’s only two boards inside the machine, main board and power supply.If there’s any settings you would like me to compare I can do. But I don’t think there are any.
Cheers
Alex
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What file type are you trying to print from?
Cheers
Alex
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If you want to isolate the problem try rasterising the gradient and see how it prints then.
if it looks different then it’s how the rip is rendering the gradient.
If it looks the same then it could be the profile, try a different profile and see if it still happens.
Have you printed it successfully before? Have you tried printing on anything else to see how it looks? Is your monitor colour calibrated?
Hope you sort it!
Cheers
Alex
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David I feel your pain 🙁
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Point taken, however for the vast majority two batteries will be enough.
I’m just back from putting 200 self drilling roofing screws in to 5mm plate steel on a garage canopy with an impact driver which used 1 battery, but then I had surveyed and went prepared!
I know what you mean about the hard fired brick work, have melted SDS bits on those before!
My point was buying bare units and sharing batteries between kit can save you hundreds.
Cheers
Alex
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With the new 18v Makita kit the batteries charge in 15 minutes from flat and should give a few hours hard use.
Just buy a kit with two batteries and then buy bare units for the rest of your kit.
Two batteries should be more than enough that way.
Cheers
Alex
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Avery do a wrap course in holland so you can be a certified avery installer. I don’t know of any others but I guess 3M do them.
I think most manufacturers of wrap materials aren’t that keen on having certified wrappers as once they’re out in the big wide world it’s up to the individual on how they apply the graphics so they can potentially do a lot of damage to a manufacturers brand.
From what I can remember to be a certified avery wrapper you have to complete training and have your work approved every 12 months.
I think the majority of people that do it are so they can train others.
I’ve done a grafityp wrap course and an avery wrap course. Both were very different and both very useful. I’d keep doing them as you always learn something new.
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With paint there are hundreds of variations of white.
I’ve had the same conversation with a customer in the past, I just said I matched it to the closest vinyl colour that was available. Unless the customer buys some new back doors that are painted metal it’s as close as it’s going to get!
Even if you could find a vinyl that perfectly matched chances are the dark substrate of the glass will have an affect on the vinyl colour making it look slightly darker.
You could always suggest you wrap the rest of his van to match the windows 😉
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I have my Roland on an uninterruptible power supply, not enough to power it for long at all but works a treat for power spikes and when the lights dim etc! Although you have to have the PC and router/network switch on a UPS aswell otherwise it’ll stop anyway.
If it was during a power drop the the router probably dropped out and the print would have stopped as the rip couldn’t see the printer on the network
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Could it be a network problem? Like the router rebooting so the printer loses connection to the rip?
Really annoying over that length though
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Your process sounds perfect and you obviously know exactly what you’re doing.
A few months ago we part wrapped a transit connect with avery supreme, standard cleaning procedure and all the correct conditions but a few days later it was popping out of small recesses but only down one side, we removed, re-cleaned and re-applied but a few days later the same thing again, even tested the material on a different van to isolate that as the problem. It happened about 5 times in one area and we couldn’t identify the problem, the only thing we could think of is some non stick coating on the paintwork.
Annoying when you don’t know what’s wrong though!
Cheers
Alex
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What was the cleaning procedure?
What was the temperature during fitting?
What was the surface temperature of the painted aluminium during application?
Was there any chance of contamination. Like dirty hands, sweaty hands whilst fitting?
How hard was it squeegeed in?
In all honesty with wrap stuff there are so many variables it can be difficult to isolate the problem.
I’m curious why you needed to use any heat and why it couldn’t be flowed around the shape rather than heating and stretching the vinyl, maybe I’m missing something 🙂
Cheers
Alex
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There’s a video on YouTube by 3M on the correct use of knife less tape as so many people have been complaining about the finish.
I was disappointed by the results initially but after a few goes and the right technique it improves massively!
Just search for 3M knifeless tape on YouTube, cookies tips.
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If everything is definitely CMYK my best guess is you’re using 100% K for the black areas. The print preview is simulating how it will look when it’s printed.
For black background ares you shouldn’t use 100% K, that should only be used for text so that there aren’t any registration problems.
Try making a swatch for a richer black, I like 30,30,40,100. Shouldn’t saturate the substrate as long as the rip profile is set correctly and most commercial printers will be happy as you’re not exceeding a 200% ink limit.
Hope it helps
Cheers
Alex
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All we did was pull it taught and fix with a screw and washer.
You can create a little extra tension by placing the screw on the outer edge of the eyelet to push the eyelet towards the edge of the banner.
It wasn’t as taught as a flex face sign, if you’re really paranoid at that size what about using lengths of wooden batten around the edges to create a frame. Or how about strips of clear plastic across the middle with a screw through in to the banner.
If all else fails and you think it’s dangerous then don’t be afraid to tell the client it won’t work and it needs to be composite hoarding board to do the job properly.
Good luck!
Alex
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Have you had a problem at that size before or is it a tricky location or not a flat surface?
I’ve fitted a 10m x 2.5m banner that stayed on a building site hoarding for around 12 months without a problem, there were several of us to fit it so we could get it taught so that wind wouldn’t get underneath it.
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All of the examples you’ve shown have been printed using a direct to substrate process. Either screen printing or uv printing etc.
There’s a very good reason why! I very much doubt any other. Process will give you the results you’re looking for.
If you don’t want to invest 20k in a machine to do the job to give satisfactory results then I would say the best thing to do would be to get someone that has one of these direct to substrate printers to print each one for you. No setup cost, no learning curve for new technology, no hassle!
I don’t for a minute thinking summa tangential cutter would cut the sort of lettering you want and the summa is widely regarded as the best cutter available. Even if it could cut it you’ll spend many hours swearing whilst trying to weed it.
Hope that helps
Alex
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If you have a look on the technical page the fitting instructions are there but might be best to give kpmf a call to check as it doesn’t relate fitting instructions to a particular product range.