Air bubbles while laminating 48" prints

[BSL Graphix]

I have a US-Tech Ak-500 Laminator, it's about 4 years old and appears to be in great shape. I'm having trouble with getting like hundreds of small air bubbles under the laminate. It looks like a bad case of silvering. It seems to be worse in the middle portion of the 48" wide prints. I print/lam on 30" wide vinyl mostly and NEVER have an issue. But I switched over to 48" stuff today and ran into the problem. Is it because I use 30" a lot more often that it has messed up my laminator rollers in the center section? I've been messing with loading/reloading and tension today and it doesn't seem to help. thanks!

 

[player]

What is the temperature? Depends on how big the bubbles are. If they are really small it's call silvering, and will usually go away on it's own in a day or 2.

If it is more than silvering, too cold, too fast, too much pressure, not enough pressure are some things that can cause it.

A good picture close up would help others here to help you.

 

[truckgraphics]

Same Problem

I have a US-Tech Ak-500 Laminator, it's about 4 years old and appears to be in great shape. I'm having trouble with getting like hundreds of small air bubbles under the laminate. It looks like a bad case of silvering. It seems to be worse in the middle portion of the 48" wide prints. I print/lam on 30" wide vinyl mostly and NEVER have an issue. But I switched over to 48" stuff today and ran into the problem. Is it because I use 30" a lot more often that it has messed up my laminator rollers in the center section? I've been messing with loading/reloading and tension today and it doesn't seem to help. thanks!

We have the same problem with the same laminator, almost the same age. We printed on 36" for a several month stretch, then found the same problem (tiny bubbles - not silvering) with 54" vinyl. I also started a similar thread here several months ago, but really haven't found a great solution. USTech suggested running the laminator with high pressure for several hours, but that didn't really have much effect. It seems that the material slips or skids across the lower roller.

The only solution we have found is to use a sled, but that is cumbersome.

When or if we go back to using 54" material on a regular basis, my thought is we will have to get a new lower roller. But that is just a guess.

I would love to hear from another party who has had the same problem and found a good solution.

 

[BSL Graphix]

After investigating further today, I noticed that the LOWER roller and the UPPER roller do not fully touch (enough gap that I can see daylight) in the middle section. I think this is the problem, but I never thought this would happen from using 30" rolls of laminate. I take great care of machine, and raise top roller when not in use. It works perfect with 30" rolls. I guess the sled idea would work, I could give it a try.

We have the same problem with the same laminator, almost the same age. We printed on 36" for a several month stretch, then found the same problem (tiny bubbles - not silvering) with 54" vinyl. I also started a similar thread here several months ago, but really haven't found a great solution. USTech suggested running the laminator with high pressure for several hours, but that didn't really have much effect. It seems that the material slips or skids across the lower roller.

The only solution we have found is to use a sled, but that is cumbersome.

When or if we go back to using 54" material on a regular basis, my thought is we will have to get a new lower roller. But that is just a guess.

I would love to hear from another party who has had the same problem and found a good solution.

 

[NateF]

After investigating further today, I noticed that the LOWER roller and the UPPER roller do not fully touch (enough gap that I can see daylight) in the middle section. I think this is the problem, but I never thought this would happen from using 30" rolls of laminate. I take great care of machine, and raise top roller when not in use. It works perfect with 30" rolls. I guess the sled idea would work, I could give it a try.

I'm curious if you eventually figure out what caused this. We have an ancient GBC Orca 1 laminator. It's a beast and can run 150' rolls straight as an arrow, but we also have trouble with it not gripping the center of the media as tightly as it grips the edges. Though I can't actually see daylight between the rollers. This causes some problems when we're running short pieces, though it usually works itself out after running the first few feet of media through it. But it sounds like your rollers are in worse shape than ours. I will say that we've found that a lower pressure setting (20 psi on our machine) works best for us.

My gut feeling is that over the years the previous owners used our machine for running thinner-width media, which caused the rollers to wear unevenly. But new rollers cost about double what I paid for the machine so we'll just live with it...

 

[player]

Do the USTECH laminators rely totally on the top roller weight for pressure or can you mechanically crank the pressure?

I think you guys should run the rollers against each other for a half day/day and see if the rollers correct themselves. Perhaps put an electric heater under the machine and cover the laminator with a tarp to warm the rollers. Just warm them, not cook them...

 

[BSL Graphix]

I've yet to fully solve the problem, it's been my busy season with race cars, so I've just dealt with it. Yes the US Tech laminator relies on the top roller for pressure. I called US Tech and they told me to try lowering down the top roller some with added pressure (usually the roller itself is enough pressure). I've tried this and it's hit or miss. A time or two it worked great, then most of the time it's hard to get even pressure and I start to get wrinkles in the laminate. It's been aggravating to deal with, but it's all I can do at this time. Once things slow down, I am maybe going to try running the machine empty for a day to see if it corrects the issue.