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18oz banner for L25500

peavey123

peavey123

New Member
Hey All, Just wondering if anyone is printing 18oz banner on your L25500 or even 26500's?

We've been printing on Ultraflex for a few years without issue, but lately we've had nothing but problems. The "Wave" pattern has been haunting us on every roll.

I'm trying some Duratex 18oz as I type this. With the same result. This is getting ridiculous. I wish we could just switch to a 15oz material but we need 18oz for a particular customer for safety reasons.

Not sure what to do? Our tech support says it's static on the Ultraflex, ink lay down on the Duratex. Yet its the same pattern on both materials. Their solution is to make us a custom profile for the material but if that doesn't work we're out a lot of money as we're running onyx 7 which means we have to pay them to make us a profile. hmm...

Anyone have any thoughts? I just found another thread here saying it's contamination but to clean the first 12ft of every banner job just seems crazy! lol
 
peavey123

peavey123

New Member
Sorry I'm slow....The Duratex is printing the waves on the back (it's double-sided banner) The front doesn't contain the wave pattern but it prints really blotchy. Like it's not laying enough ink. It looks very poor. Even using the HP heavy textile profile.
 
Letterbox Mike

Letterbox Mike

New Member
We don't have HP latex printers, so take this with a grain of salt, but you might look at the Bantex Herculite 18oz. We've experimented with just about every 18oz+ weight material we could find and the Bantex seemed to be the best by far. It's not a "super-smooth" material, in fact it's got quite a bit of texture to it, because it's got a very heavyweight scrim in it. But I've found it can take a lot more heat than most other materials in it's weight range, so it may hold up better to the high heat in your latex printer.

And for what it's worth, we've had a lot of bad luck with Ultraflexx's double-sided materials, including their 14oz and 18oz. Everything from uneven tension across the roll as it's wound (causing it to skew and buckle as it feeds) to contamination on the surface. I've always been a big fan of their frontlit materials, but their double-sided stuff leaves a lot to be desired IMO.
 
dypinc

dypinc

New Member
I have had good success with Bantex 18oz double sided.

Ultrafex 18oz DS is now junk. Had to send two rolls back. Won't take ink at all. I had a sample roll of it that printed fine by to two full rolls were not the same material.

If your only needing 1 side you might want to take a look at Optima 15oz from Advantage Sign Supply.
 
jeffl

jeffl

New Member
Just an FYI.....

The Duratex 18 oz. material is re-branded Ultraflex. I'm not surprised you are having the same problem with both.

We print quite a bit of it and haven't had any issues lately.

Jeff
 
peavey123

peavey123

New Member
BigfishDM said:
What's the application your using it for?
Click to expand...

Varying applications. Skyscrapers, cranes, scafolding. etc Had to be approved by engineers and has to have blockout.

Why do you ask? lol I feel like you are going to say something regarding viewing distance? (my tech said this to me) Which I understand, but we've printed on this stuff for YEARS and had nothing but flawless results. So it's a little hard to just up and start giving our customer a lower quality product.

We just got in contact a large local sign shop who has an L25500 and all they run on it is 18oz Ultraflex. They've never had problems before, until recently they received a bad roll.

Going to try some Bantex. The Duratex is printing alright on one side but doesn't seem to have enough ink coverage. I'm really feeling the need for ONYX 10 now. lol
 
BigfishDM

BigfishDM

Merchant Member
peavey123 said:
Varying applications. Skyscrapers, cranes, scafolding. etc Had to be approved by engineers and has to have blockout.

Why do you ask? lol I feel like you are going to say something regarding viewing distance? (my tech said this to me) Which I understand, but we've printed on this stuff for YEARS and had nothing but flawless results. So it's a little hard to just up and start giving our customer a lower quality product.

We just got in contact a large local sign shop who has an L25500 and all they run on it is 18oz Ultraflex. They've never had problems before, until recently they received a bad roll.

Going to try some Bantex. The Duratex is printing alright on one side but doesn't seem to have enough ink coverage. I'm really feeling the need for ONYX 10 now. lol
Click to expand...


Ok cool, I only asked because sometimes people are not sure if a certain product is correct for the application that's all. Bantex is a great product and so is the Ultraflexx.
 
WYLDGFI

WYLDGFI

Merchant Member
Not sure if Cooley has put out this sort of product yet. We have not had luck with Bantex and minimal luck with the duratex 18oz.
 
peavey123

peavey123

New Member
So I finally found some 18oz banner that prints beautifully. It's called Select Source. 1000D BLOCKOUT BANNER 18OZ SMOOTH.
 
dypinc

dypinc

New Member
Tested a couple 18oz 2 sided blockout banner material in the last week.

CS-SignSupply 18oz banner is junk for latex. Ink coalesces terrible even a linearization target looked horrible, roller marks and all, and it didn't handle heat very well. Way to much curling going on which would make it a real challenge for 2 sided printing.

UltraFlex Outdoor Blockout LTX - I think we have a winner here. I will take tons of ink, in fact so much that one could easily get in trouble and end up with dull looking colors. I only tested it at 12 pass but from the behavior of it I think it would do good a 6 pass. It takes heat very well with no problematic curling. The test roll curled slightly inward after first printing on the inside which is excellent for then printing on the other side.

Only hope Ultraflex doesn't do like the did with Pole Banner Pro, great sample roll and then junk delivered on the full rolls.
 
dypinc

dypinc

New Member
Not bad on the second side (outside on sample roll). Not as glossy as the inside so you might want to do a separate linearization and profile for the other side.
 
E

Esdale

New Member
I have a HP l26500 and have used many rolls of Ultraflex 18 oz with no problems until now. The last roll I received gave me the same wave pattern you speak of, I tried several different profile setup but no luck. I moved the roll onto my Mutoh 1608 and it printed perfect so it leads me to believe they have change the coating on the 18 oz as only the latex printer has a problem with it.
I order the Ultraflex 18 oz in 3 different size widths and the problem only appeared on the 60" width roll so it must be a batch issue
 
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