Clean off Vinyl

[Hielorojo]

Hello there, how you clean off your vinyl before print? With Isopro Alcohol ? Distilled Water? With alcohol? With a Soft cloth?
Thank you in advance.

 

[SightLine]

Generally speaking I do not think anyone really does since we are printing on vinyl that is intended to be printed on. On the occasion that we are going to print on something different like a solid color vinyl we wipe it down with isopropyl alcohol. Even that has limitations though - say we need to print a half a roll of metallic silver vinyl.... we are not going to unroll 25 yards of vinyl to wipe it down, we are just going to go with it. I can say that we have done this many many times though and have really never had much of any issue. The catch of course is that vinyl not specifically intended for print is not guaranteed to be free of any surface contamination that might affect printing. Vinyl that is specifically manufactured just for printing should be free of any sort of surface contamination already.

Edit to add - yep just noticed this is in the Edge section. Same as Fred below.... I've never cleaned vinyl we use on our Edge other than making sure there is no dust on the first foot that might have been exposed while the roll sits on the racks.

 

[Marlene]

I assume you are printing with a gerber Edge as this is posted in the Gerber section. no need to clean the vinyl if you are using Gerber vinyl. I do run it back and forth for the first couple of feet and let the brushes remove any dust that is on the outside of the roll but nothing more

 

[Fred Weiss]

I have never, in 18 years of running an Edge, cleaned the vinyl to be printed in any way beyond what Marlene suggested. If the vinyl has accumulated any dust or contamination from sitting on the rack unused for too long, the most simple and cost effective approach is to start printing after the first turn of the film on the roll. If you are getting dropouts and pinholes on your first print after turning the Edge on, try printing a solid block about 11.8" x 3" before you print your first job. Doing this will heat up the print head evenly and works well.

 

[Jburns]

What Fred said. I wipe the vinyl to be printed with a dry micro fiber towel.

Also I have found that if i clean the round rubber platen with a dry cloth- getting tiny specks off it improves quality. A spec of material -etc on the platen has created what i thought to be issues.

 

[Hielorojo]

Thank you for your advices mates.
Best Regards.