Anyone ele having issues with 3M ink Over-saturation?

[Active Sign]

Saturation is a big problem. Sometimes it’s best to invest some time in building your own profiles. The profiles you download from the website are hit and miss. Those profile downloads are built in the manufacturers ideal conditions and the temperature, lighting, and humidity play a huge role. Obviously nobody’s shop has the same conditions.

For long runs with heavy coverage I run my pre and post heat higher than normal and have a second heater pumping warm air on the face of the print before it rolls up.

Allowing good off-gassing time is critical. Also full post heating on deep channels and contours is extremely important. Use a heat gun (NOT A TORCH!) and laser thermometer to get it to the proper post heat temperature to actually break the vinyl memory. So many monkeys [emoji205] wave a torch over it or run the heat gun across the area quickly and think they’re done.

We switched to Avery 4 years ago and have no problems with it, install and removal is good. My question: is 3M overrated? We use 3M when a customer requests it but they also pay 20% more for it.


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[Pitzu]

Usually recessed areas are needed to reinforce somehow large areas of metal sheets otherwise can be bent easily and are prone to vibrations when you drive the car. Even so, vibrations still occur and the vinyl will eventually pop out (usually right at the edge of the recessed area) due to vibrations, since the adhesion surface is small and vinyl is not a very elastic material (as latex for example).
Another idea would be that if the vinyl can draw air in the edge of the recessed areas, it will pop out, since there is no vacuum to hold it down. It can happen if you remove bubbles in those areas with a needle or when you have vinyl with air release channels. At least in theory .
I've always wondered if it's possible to use a vacuum pump to draw all the air from the recessed area and molding the vinyl like a plastic sheet in a vaccum forming machine. You seal the edges and put a small tube where you connect the vacuum pump. That would be the day! )
Arlon has a good video for applying vinyl into deep channels:

 

[Pitzu]

I remember we had a batch of Taiwan vinyl that had the adhesive so strong that if you tried to remove it without the heat gun it would peel off the coating of the car. It was thick as floor graphics vinyl, you could double stretch it and still have room for more.
We did a car fleet with it, since they wanted the cheapest vinyl possible, like 10 years ago. At that time we printed with real solvent inks, very aggressive...once I've stepped into some spilled ink and one of my shoes melted.
I still see those cars in the traffic and that printed and laminated vinyl outperformed anything I've worked with. I believe it became one with the paint

 

[Grizzly]

I thought this was interesting.
Avery and Seiko just approved their ink and material combo for only 8 hour outgassing before lamination.

In addition to its durability testing, Avery Dennison conducted tests with OKI inks to determine best practices for using overlaminates on printed graphics. The tests found that the necessary pre-lamination outgassing period for ColorPainter printers and their SX inks is eight hours when properly ventilated, one-third of the 24-hour industry standard for solvent printers.

https://sdgmag.com/news/oki-announc...rformance-guarantee-its-colorpainter-printers

 

[CSOCSO]

I had so many issues with 3m back in the day. Actually i started to have problems with 3M when they had the old air channel in the 180. That was the one with just horizontal lines not the mixro X pattern.
Even with right profile and outgas the material was super tacky. If it folded and touched itself then you can just forget about it. No way in hell the pull itt off the glue. Even the paper liner was hard to pull. If there was a white spot with no ink the paper liner came off easy then once you reached a part where there was a bunch of ink the liner was hard to pull again. The new glue did fix the liner issue. but it is still more agressive. Once it touches thee surface and you want to reposition it and pull the vinyl up you can say goodbye to the micro channel. it will leave bubbles that you can not push out any more.
Long story short: use the right profile. if you still have problem lower the total ink limit in that profile by 20.
Outgas; 24 hrs minimum. 48 might be better. I had a vinyl outgassing 48 hrs and it still wasnt perfect.
Best option: change to avery. that's what i did. Cheaper by $200 a kit and It's so much easier to install

 

[the east coast kid]

Saturation is a big problem. Sometimes it’s best to invest some time in building your own profiles. The profiles you download from the website are hit and miss. Those profile downloads are built in the manufacturers ideal conditions and the temperature, lighting, and humidity play a huge role. Obviously nobody’s shop has the same conditions.

For long runs with heavy coverage I run my pre and post heat higher than normal and have a second heater pumping warm air on the face of the print before it rolls up.

Allowing good off-gassing time is critical. Also full post heating on deep channels and contours is extremely important. Use a heat gun (NOT A TORCH!) and laser thermometer to get it to the proper post heat temperature to actually break the vinyl memory. So many monkeys [emoji205] wave a torch over it or run the heat gun across the area quickly and think they’re done.

We switched to Avery 4 years ago and have no problems with it, install and removal is good. My question: is 3M overrated? We use 3M when a customer requests it but they also pay 20% more for it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What Avery combo do you prefer for wraps?
I was thinking of MPI 1105 EZ with DOL 6460