25500 and shrinkage!

[ddarlak]

ARGGGG!

when the guy set my printer up I asked him about printing lengths and if they vary from the actual image size.

he said no.

I just printed 10 backlit panels on FUSION polyester film and they ended up printing 3.25" shorter than the image sent.

i went to the manual to see if there were settings and found that they are calling this shrinkage from the high heat settings.

panels were 144", i sent a print 144.5" knowing i still had about 1.25" on each side to play with because of the retainers.

got to job site to install and all the prints were 3.25" short!

got lucky, the live image minus the retainers was 141" and i had 141.25".....

 

[HulkSmash]

shorter because of heat settings? As in the media actually shrunk? I print on translucent almost every day, and i have never had it shrink.

for all translucents i use - 90-95 celc. on curing heat.

what do you use?

 

[StarSign]

One of my employees thought our HP was shrinking our banner material, but when I showed him that if you are trimming 1/16"-1/8" all the way around the finished size is a little smaller. (My shed contains a lot of tools, some just aren't as sharp as others)

 

[Border]

wow, 3 1/4 inches....that's some pretty significant shrinkage.

 

[ddarlak]

for all translucents i use - 90-95 celc. on curing heat.

what do you use?

92

page 37 of the manual has the different shrinkage percentages you can expect. this translates to 2.5% for a polyester backlit film. i just printed another this morning to make sure i wasn't going crazy, and it was 2.5% shorter than it was supposed to be.

a little dissapointing, as this was one of the reasons i purchased this machine. i was having difficulty tiling large banners. on my old fj-50 i'd get a different size depending on how much material was on the roll, ie, if the roll was brand new the first piece would be the shortest, as the roll got lighter, the pieces would get longer...

i now get most of my larger banners from Merritt anyway, but sometimes there is a time restriction, where doing yourself is the only option....

 

[HulkSmash]

Odd.. mines doesn't shrink.. at all..
can you increase the % in the rip by the shrinking percentage? Is it consistently shrinking the same amount?

 

[Bly]

What rip are you using?
Onyx has a setting to compensate for this.

 

[Jack Knight1979]

Well at least you didn't buy a 60" and have a 42" delivered. that's shrinkage. haha

 

[signswi]

What rip are you using?
Onyx has a setting to compensate for this.

You're referring to "vertical compensation" which is an option through the machine (Onyx just has access to it). You can set it manually through the machine interface. Worth trying OP.

 

[quicksigns]

Haha, I've been telling my wife it shrink when it's cold and she said it shrink when it's hot too?

 

[Bly]

You're referring to "vertical compensation" which is an option through the machine (Onyx just has access to it). You can set it manually through the machine interface. Worth trying OP.

No I'm not.

In Media Manager there's a Scale Adjust settting in the Basic Print Mode Settings page.
You print a strip, measure it, then enter the actual printed length.
The adjusted scale is used on all prints from then on.

 

[ddarlak]

flexi

before you rip me on my choice of rip, i've been using flexi too long to change now. i'll have to look into flexi's settings and see if there is a shrinkage compensation, if not i'll do it myself.

 

[GAC05]

flexi

before you rip me on my choice of rip, i've been using flexi too long to change now. i'll have to look into flexi's settings and see if there is a shrinkage compensation, if not i'll do it myself.

In 8.6 it is in the Production Manager under set up > "Output Size Compensation"
Most likely the same in v10.

wayne k
guam usa

 

[Gino]

And here all this time I thought going in cold water caused this phenomenon.... turns out it's high heat

 

[signswi]

No I'm not.

In Media Manager there's a Scale Adjust settting in the Basic Print Mode Settings page.
You print a strip, measure it, then enter the actual printed length.
The adjusted scale is used on all prints from then on.

Ah, so there's two places to do it. Makes sense to attach it to the media profile as long as you don't mind modifying the profile every time your shop environmental conditions change.

 

[ddarlak]

I found the correction.

The last setting under driver options is vertical correction, with the option of either on or off. My question is what exactly does it do? Does it scan the image as it's printing and check the distance and auto correct or does it correct the lengths based on the percentages in the book based on what material you tell the printer your printing? I guess I'll find out soon enough when I try it, just wondering if any flexi users know??

 

[Kim]

We have shrinkage problems too. We have a L26500 with caldera.
I printed a 60 inch banner and we ended up with 59.50 .
We lost more when we printed 20ft banner.

I haven't noticed it on anything else except banners.

 

[Rooster]

I've seen shrinkage even on my Mimaki. Printing without the takeup reel, or setting the tension to as low as it will go and still roll the media up reduced it significantly. I think the media gets stretched by the tension combined with the heat and when it cools it can shrink quite a bit.

 

[ucmj22]

It might be a feed calibration issue. On my roland, depending on the thickness if the material, I have to change the feed calibration for it to be exact. It's hard to tell its off, sometimes it's off so little there is no visible banding, but on a long print it can be off by an inch or two.

 

[ProWraps]

the omas sensor on the HP's automatically calibrates the feed.

 

[Slamboni]

Costanza

We experienced shrinkage on the L26500 here as well, on 24" stop sign prints on diamond grade reflective. The manual says this happens. Insane. I've never heard of a product with a defect where the defect is called out in the manual as 'tough noogies, these are the breaks'. If I wanted shrinky dinks i'd put my signs in the oven. Have you all found a good place to get profiles for this machine?