UV Printer & Prints Making us Sick

[White Haus]

UV ink will have a very bad taste before drying, this taste comes from the UV chemical monomer, usually the japanese produced UV ink taste will be relatively large, of course, there are also many very small odor UV ink, usually some UV opportunity built-in air purification system to solve this problem, Or recommend you install an air purifier around the UV printer.

I would recommend not tasting any inks, Japanese or other.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Our Colorado’s prints are pretty stinky. Luckily 95% of the stuff we do is laminated so that deals with that. I did make a 60” x 40” canvas that was smelly upon putting my face up at it, but it was only smelly for ~1 week. We do have quite a large space though.

are you certain everything is curing properly etc?

OH NO! smelly for a week? I just bought a Colorado and had my first full day with it and I have to say WOW the prints are smelly. Profiles etc are all good, set up during training, everything great except the smelly prints which is unacceptable as my wallpaper/mural products are printed and shipped the same day and when the customer opens them they will get hit with the smell and will complain I bet. So now I'm freaking out a bit. Canon is looking into it but sounds like they knew the prints would smell but did not mention this during the sales process and their marketing is heavily focused on "wallpaper and wall decor" which made me think prints would be odor free.

I did send out some orders before realizing the smell problem and have proactively contacted the customers and offered a refund or resend on my ecosol machines on which the prints do not smell after 45 minutes, Will be out a couple G's on the reprints if customers do not like the smell. Hoping Canon has a solution for the smell and forgetting to mention the smell in their marketing.

Printing 10+ 10ft x 15ft phototex prints I felt like I was going to suffocate in a 3000sqft warehouse, 20ft ceilings and open bay door

YIKES

 

[Pauly]

OH NO! smelly for a week? I just bought a Colorado and had my first full day with it and I have to say WOW the prints are smelly. Profiles etc are all good, set up during training, everything great except the smelly prints which is unacceptable as my wallpaper/mural products are printed and shipped the same day and when the customer opens them they will get hit with the smell and will complain I bet. So now I'm freaking out a bit. Canon is looking into it but sounds like they knew the prints would smell but did not mention this during the sales process and their marketing is heavily focused on "wallpaper and wall decor" which made me think prints would be odor free.

I did send out some orders before realizing the smell problem and have proactively contacted the customers and offered a refund or resend on my ecosol machines on which the prints do not smell after 45 minutes, Will be out a couple G's on the reprints if customers do not like the smell. Hoping Canon has a solution for the smell and forgetting to mention the smell in their marketing.

Printing 10+ 10ft x 15ft phototex prints I felt like I was going to suffocate in a 3000sqft warehouse, 20ft ceilings and open bay door

YIKES

Firstly. Your room needs an adequate amount of air changes per hour. It should be written in the preparation guide.
That goes for all printers generally speaking.
If we run any of our printers with our HVAC off (that bring in fresh air and removed old air) the room will smell up.
When it's on. It smells like a print room but it's totally fine.

As for your products smelling. That's also normal. and it's from the colorado, so it's greenguard gold etc.
Add a disclaimer or note if you need to so your clients will understand.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Firstly. Your room needs an adequate amount of air changes per hour. It should be written in the preparation guide.
That goes for all printers generally speaking.
If we run any of our printers with our HVAC off (that bring in fresh air and removed old air) the room will smell up.
When it's on. It smells like a print room but it's totally fine.

As for your products smelling. That's also normal. and it's from the colorado, so it's greenguard gold etc.
Add a disclaimer or note if you need to so your clients will understand.

I agree I can improve airflow, add some exhaust fans, I can lessen smell during printing. Not the biggest issue. One issue I have is there was no mention of this during site inspection, not cool on Canons part.

Products smelling is tougher issue to get around and my customers will not understand, they will send the product back or leave a bad review which will kill my business. I see some possible solutions, like waiting a few days before packing/shipping, less ink more curing etc but again the frustrating part is none of this was mentioned during the sales pitch. There is 0 mention of "smell" in the extended operations guide and only one mention of "odor" in the operations guide and that relates to machine catching fire/smoking. Interesting how anything odor related is left out of marketing and guides and training

 

[Pauly]

I agree I can improve airflow, add some exhaust fans, I can lessen smell during printing. Not the biggest issue. One issue I have is there was no mention of this during site inspection, not cool on Canons part.

Products smelling is tougher issue to get around and my customers will not understand, they will send the product back or leave a bad review which will kill my business. I see some possible solutions, like waiting a few days before packing/shipping, less ink more curing etc but again the frustrating part is none of this was mentioned during the sales pitch. There is 0 mention of "smell" in the extended operations guide and only one mention of "odor" in the operations guide and that relates to machine catching fire/smoking. Interesting how anything odor related is left out of marketing and guides and training

Did you get an installation prep guide?

The odor isn't terrible at all. We don't even notice it. We'll have it runnin all day. stacking 1000's of prints in a day.
There are far worse smelling printers out there.

1 client moved from another printer to us, and immediately said our prints are odorless compared to their previous supplier.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Did you get an installation prep guide?

The odor isn't terrible at all. We don't even notice it. We'll have it runnin all day. stacking 1000's of prints in a day.
There are far worse smelling printers out there.

1 client moved from another printer to us, and immediately said our prints are odorless compared to their previous supplier.

Yes I got an installation prep guide and an inspection. In the guide it mentions a certain required air turnover. The smell during printing is not an issue, I can deal with that

Smelly prints are an issue and my customers will not accept a disclaimer or getting hit with a chemical smell when opening a package - this has to be fixed and I'm trying different things to improve on that. Would've been nice of Canon to mention the prints might smell instead of joking how I won't have to smell my eco solvent printers any more (that produce odor free prints after 45 min drying). So far I have Colorado prints 48 hours old that are smelly and if that is packaged up and shipped I'm sure customer will open a very smelly box.

 

[victor bogdanov]

1 client moved from another printer to us, and immediately said our prints are odorless compared to their previous supplier.

I get returns because some customers say transfer tape (nekoosa 775) smells like cigarettes (paper transfer tapes do have a smell that resembles old cigarettes depending on humidity I think). Even explaining that the transfer tape will be thrown away after application is not satisfactory.

Here is one from yesterday (Oracal 631 vinyl with nekoosa 775 tranfer tape) - about as smell free as you can get

"Very strong cigarette smell. Dont feel comfortable putting in a baby's room. Does it contain BPA and phalates? Is it a low VOC material? Thanks for your help."


sure the Canon inks are greenguard certified when canon produces a perfect print sample on perfect media. How about going and getting a print from an average print shop and seeing what certification it gets?

 

[balstestrat]

Hoping Canon has a solution for the smell and forgetting to mention the smell in their marketing.

Hahaha definately not as it comes from the ink and some effect from your material of how it reacts with the ink.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Hahaha definately not as it comes from the ink and some effect from your material of how it reacts with the ink.

Right now Canon is verbally saying "the only time there is a smell is if the ink is not cured properly".

Their operation manual says to handle improperly cured prints with gloves and to dispose of them (although the manual makes 0 mention of smell, in the manual "smudging" is how you can tell if a print is not cured. my prints not smudging and are very scratch resistant).

 

[Pauly]

Right now Canon is verbally saying "the only time there is a smell is if the ink is not cured properly".

Their operation manual says to handle improperly cured prints with gloves and to dispose of them (although the manual makes 0 mention of smell, in the manual "smudging" is how you can tell if a print is not cured. my prints not smudging and are very scratch resistant).

I honestly dont know what you're smelling.
The colorado inks have a very low odor.

I don't know what you're comparing to??

The inks get cured very well with the colorado.

 

[CanuckSigns]

We outsource a bunch of UV prints signs on ACM, and while I don't notice a smell, one of our employees breaks out in hives all over her arms if she has to handle them, not sure why, but it doesn't affect me so now I get to do the packaging lol.

 

[spectrum maine]

i bet some of it it the uv activating the urea/formeldahyde glue in the plywood.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

When I got my new Epson V7000 installed, the room it was in smelled bad. My wife complained the day I came home after they inked it up. I have a small shop, so my design area was in the large room with print equipment. I ended up moving my design area to the front and adding 2 large charcoal filters and an air exchanger. Those all helped a lot, but was close to $5k for all of it. I also got an air quality meter. I have it next to the UV printer. It doesn't read very high for formaldehyde or solvents. What does make it go way up is when the Epson S80 is going full bore. haha

 

[victor bogdanov]

I honestly dont know what you're smelling.
The colorado inks have a very low odor.

I don't know what you're comparing to??

The inks get cured very well with the colorado.

Smells like the ink, if you smell the ink in the bottle it is extremely smelly and the print smell is similar to the ink smell. Can't describe it other than chemical/not good.

 

[GC Decor]

Old Post but it ended up being the Ink (Smells horrible to start with) was soaking into the wood & not getting fully cured. Once the wood was sitting and de gassing it created a horrible smell and bad work environment. Ended up selling it at a huge loss. Canuck, Printed ACM is normally done a flatbed printer & inks can vary from brand to brand. We bought a fluid color flatbed & there ink had a sweet smell to it & never bothered us. We are looking at a Colorado 1650 as we speak and now I'm a little worried because we were total smells are super limited - Down sizing to my home Garage/ Office so strong odor can be a challenge.

 

[GC Decor]

Victor what substrate are you printing on ?? Im curious if the material is not UV stable & if it is suitable for UV usage. I know Uv printable Canvas is really limited to only a few brands, Most brand are meant for ECO printers.
I know Grimco only had one brand of canvas suitable for uv printing. We seen a Colorado demo in person at our local vendor (Hasco) & Didn't smell anything. I go as far as smelling the print right off the printer because we had a such an issue with our Roland Uv Printer & all the test smelled fine. If your product smells its mostly not getting cured which couldn't be the case, any uncured UV ink is going to be very smelly & rough to work with. We have found if it still smells after 24 hours, than the smell will most likely always be there. I have plastic totes of our Roland printed products from 2 years ago and they still smell horrible.

 

[Pauly]

Smells like the ink, if you smell the ink in the bottle it is extremely smelly and the print smell is similar to the ink smell. Can't describe it other than chemical/not good.

The ink non cured smells bad. I accidently gave it a good smell when changing the ink tray - normal for UV inks.
cured, i honestly cannot say its bad.. it's barely noticeable.
Standard uv ink from my arizona, i can smell. it's not even a bad smell but its there.

I honestly think your expectations are far to high on odor if you're expecting none.
Im not sure what you're printing with previously??
but every other UV printer smells worse!!

 

[petepaz]

unfortunately being in the business for over 30yrs i don't smell the inks or chemicals any more, just normal every day..haha
we silk screen uv inks all day long, run an fugi/acuity uv printer and roland LEG printer with no issues as far as smell.
the silk screen department has the dryers vented but both the uv printers are not vented and we have never had anyone get sick.
i would have to believe its a chemical reaction with the material you are printing on. .
have you changed the ink cartridges? is it possible you got a bad batch of ink? (not sure if that is possible but something i would ask

 

[victor bogdanov]

The ink non cured smells bad. I accidently gave it a good smell when changing the ink tray - normal for UV inks.
cured, i honestly cannot say its bad.. it's barely noticeable.
Standard uv ink from my arizona, i can smell. it's not even a bad smell but its there.

I honestly think your expectations are far to high on odor if you're expecting none.
Im not sure what you're printing with previously??
but every other UV printer smells worse!!

My expectations were set by the marketing/sales pitch. I'm expecting the prints to be odor free in 30 minutes or less which is how long it takes my eco solvent prints to be 100% smell free.

I'm hoping there is an issue with the machine as there is no way others are putting up with the smell I'm getting

 

[balstestrat]

Well your expectation is wrong because UV ink doesn't work like eco-solvent. It won't outgass "ever".