anyone know anything about this banner product?

[gabagoo]

I bought a roll of this banner material for retractables and as far as printing goes it looks good. The material is similar to Decolite (not sure of spelling) and it is cheaper and the edges stay fairly straight once in the stand. It is called PET 15oz. It is very heavy I might add and almost feels like magnetic sheeting. It has a white plastic type material on both sides with a black centre polyethelene material.

I have 2 pics here that show what resulted from a banner I printed 2 days ago. I was so careful with this as it is one solid spot colour (navy blue). I even ran a fan on top of the Mimaki fans to help dry the print before it was rolled up on the take up reel.

When I unrolled it I found these 2 perfectly straight white scratches, although I call it a scratch I can't figure out how it could have possibly happened. It is almost as though the ink never actually went down on these 2 scratches, but I know it did as I saw the banner as it printed and these are so obvious you would have to be near blind to miss it.

I looked on the back of the banner to see if the ink transfered, but no signs of anything.

Take a look at the photos, see if you have seen this before.
Also I am wondering if anyone has ever used this material before.
Thanks

 

[BigfishDM]

It has to be something in the retractable maybe. That sucks, is that an Ultraflexx banner product?

 

[gabagoo]

It has to be something in the retractable maybe. That sucks, is that an Ultraflexx banner product?

no no no , I had not even cut it up to put it into the retractable at this point. Needless to say it is toast. You will notice that both scratches are on the identical line. I can't figure out how I would not have seen that before it rolled itself up..... must be the mice....

All I can get from my supplier is PET 15oz. It is extremely heavy material I might add. Although only a 39" roll, it weighs in excess of 1.5 times my regular 54" banner material. I had trouble even getting it on the core holders when it was new.

 

[BigfishDM]

Oh ok, yeah thats super strange then. I dont understand why your supplier cant get you anything else. Is it hard getting stuff out there?

 

[gabagoo]

Oh ok, yeah thats super strange then. I dont understand why your supplier cant get you anything else. Is it hard getting stuff out there?

No, but what I find is that it seems to me unlike you guys in the US, that everyone up here rebrands the products so it becomes hard to figure out just what the heck the real name is.

I used to love printing on Avery Saturn, but it has been discontinued. Funny that Avery discards the products they make that are actually worthy..lol

Since Saturn is gone I have been trying all different types of smooth double sided banners and I have to say that as they all look the same, the print quality can differ greatly. It is frustrating.

 

[BigfishDM]

Yeah the saturn was a great banner, I am actually looking for that same product for over here. I will keep you posted on what I can find.

 

[Kwiksigns]

I have a roll of this stuff... It scratches pretty easily if you dont let it dry long enough. that looks like something touched it. I love it. So smooth and heavy and people pay for it.

 

[gabagoo]

I have a roll of this stuff... It scratches pretty easily if you dont let it dry long enough. that looks like something touched it. I love it. So smooth and heavy and people pay for it.

agree!!! I let that one dry for 2 days before it was unrolled.

I looked at the banner carefully and not only is the scratch in the exact same place, be it the Y axis, but if I follow the line it would, make I can see a slight line under the ink in different spots all the way down the roll.
I have a feeling something may have got into this particular roll during production...maybe there is even a possible contaminate on the material. I just for the life of me cant understand how I never saw it while the second banner was printed the next morning on the same roll. I leave the front roll up blind open to allow the fan to dry the ink faster. I for sure would have seen a scratch like that.

More mysteries....

 

[visualeyez]

Heavy rolls of media such as you describe can be over the reccomended roll weight limit provided by the printer mfgr. I had simmilar issues with a heavy roll, caused by media buckeling, solved by pre-unrolling heavy media rolls. Medial buckeling probably caused your print head to scrape that spot, possibly due to manufacturing inconsistancies inducing uneven thermal thansfer properties, but most likely due to media weight.

 

[rfulford]

I am actually running some of this material now. I generally have good luck with this product but I need to re-profile and adjust my ink limits and black generation. The reason is that if I print a heavy black, I occasionally see the ink stain the back of the print when rolled. Have you looked at the back of the prints by chance? I would also investigate how heavy your black is and see if that could be an issue.

 

[gabagoo]

I am actually running some of this material now. I generally have good luck with this product but I need to re-profile and adjust my ink limits and black generation. The reason is that if I print a heavy black, I occasionally see the ink stain the back of the print when rolled. Have you looked at the back of the prints by chance? I would also investigate how heavy your black is and see if that could be an issue.

That was the first thing I did and nada. Although I have seen on previous banners some ink doing that.

I now run the additional fan in front to dry the banner as much as possible before rolling up.

As much as I like the product for printability, I am not sure I would buy it again. I think it is better suited for lighter graphic coverage.

Has anyone tried running a lam on the material? how does it fair?

 

[Jake - Advantage Signs]

Static?

Some of the media I print on have been "sticking" to the rear heater and buckling a little before the weight of the graphic over comes the static charge -- most of the time... I did have something hit the plexi shield over the print area the other day... Could this have happened?

 

[gabagoo]

Static?

Some of the media I print on have been "sticking" to the rear heater and buckling a little before the weight of the graphic over comes the static charge -- most of the time... I did have something hit the plexi shield over the print area the other day... Could this have happened?

Like I said, I would have seen this massive scratch as the second banner started printing, so I am convinced it happened somewhere in the windup, but heck If I can figure it out. I am almost 100% convinced it is the material.
I can see areas as it prints that have markings and even though the ink covers it up, it is still detectable. If like everything else I buy it comes from China, then I can only figure it is a quality control issue.