Black color not drying on HP 365 Latex

[Annette Asberg]

Has anyone tried to print a dark color on an HP 365 Latex printer? I have done several prints where the black is not drying and I have to wipe the black with a towel to get it even and dry.
What shall I do to get it dry?

 

[DL Signs]

From the limited experience I've had with latex, temp and/ or cure time. Try running more passes, it'll print slower, but give the heat more time to cure it. Make sure your temps are high enough, but don't go overboard or you'll create other issues with messing up the adhesive and warping media. Another thing is if it's vector and you're going for rich black, make sure the file color isn't too dense like 100C/ 100M/ 100Y/ 100K, I've seen designers do that, and if you don't catch it before you sent it to the printer, you're just laying down too much ink it won't cure on latex or solvent. That's all I got.

 

[MNT_Printhead]

I have been dealing with this on my 360 and 365 for almost a year. Usually bumping up the curing temp will help - One of my prints still does it on blacks at the highest setting allowed. I am surprise it isn't smudging when you wipe it. I sometimes will use a heat gun to get prints to finish curing.

 

[chester215]

When we had a latex printer, sometimes designs provided by the customer would over saturate black resulting in wet prints.
We fixed it by modifying their designs by removing their black and replacing it with one from the design program.

Or it is the heaters.

 

[DL Signs]

Another thing you can do is grab an IR thermometer and check the heaters all the way across to see if they're in the ballpark of the temp you have it set to.
Just because it's hot doesn't mean the temp is what you set it to, or need to cure ink. It's rare, but I have seen issues where they're way off because of a bad sensor, control unit, failing heater, maybe not calibrated (don't know if they can be calibrated).

 

[BigNate]

... I am running a latex HP 700W, does the 365 let you print a test that has a patch for rubbing to test dryness? for ours this print is accompanied by a test of lots of different ink densities - you pick a density that is as low as possible to reach the needed color gamut. More density is not good as extra ink takes longer to cure and is less scuff resistant. If you have this test, just run a few different scenarios, 4 pass, 6 pass, 8 pass - I find I can run most posters at 4 or 6 without issues, but for prints where I need to hit much more dense on the ink than normal I can go 12 or more - then the lighter passes can dry... adding inter-pass delays helps as well as bumping up curing temp and air flow (but make sure it does not adversely affect your media)

 

[MikePro]

sounds like a linearization/saturation issue. usually remedied by setting up a proper profile or modifying an existing one.