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Dealing with bowed material

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echeverrit

New Member
any thoughts or suggestions on dealing with bowed material for flatbed printing when vacuums won't hold down to bed? we have a Roland VersaUV LEJ-640 flatbed and we raise the head height as high as we can while still keeping our bi direction in register and we use double sided tape, but some material still pops up during the print run. sometimes we just stay with uni direction so we don't have to worry about the di directional registration.
we've asked our substrate vendor to please try to keep material as flat as possible when fabricating however we realize this isn't always possible, especially when you have the corners rounded as well.

thanks!
 
BigfishDM

BigfishDM

Merchant Member
What if you applied a removable double sided tape to the bottom to secure it in a flat position?
 
Gino

Gino

Premium Subscriber
You shouldn't need any extra persuasion to get that stuff to lay flat.

If it's small and you're printing pre-cut pieces, perhaps laying more things over the open areas would help.
 
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echeverrit

New Member
yes, we are printing pre-cut pieces - 5x7, 10x14, 12x18, 14x18...etc.
we do lay other material over any open holes in zones where the vacuum is turned on..unfortunately, the vacuum power is greatly lacking on the Roland. before we bought this Roland flatbed, we had a Teckwin PQ300 that had awesome vacuum power which helped pull down bowed material so it wasn't as big of an issue....I guess it's just part of the process...
 
rjssigns

rjssigns

Active Member
Are the pieces being sheared? Improper shear set up can create waves. Try cutting with a table saw or track saw.
 
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echeverrit

New Member
it's possible vendor is shearing...not exactly sure though - or if they can cut another way with their setup - I can certainly check though.
 
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equippaint

Active Member
You may need to have a sit down with your vendor and explain why the material needs to be handled differently. If I had to guess, they are leaning the sheets against a wall or bench while they are making the blanks. Another thing could be running them through the shear and letting the sheet droop down as its fed. I noticed our stuff has slight bows in it and this is what we do but were not running it through a flatbed.
 
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echeverrit

New Member
I have inquired with vendor to see if they're shearing and they are...he did tell me he would do a better job of policing to try and get flatter pieces...
 
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echeverrit

New Member
at one time it was and we changed for the very same reason...this is a local vendor who is super helpful and easy to work with so that's a huge plus!
 
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Superior_Adam

New Member
why not get 4'x8' sheets and cut them yourself? You would save yourself money and have control over the process. I buy hundreds of sheets of 040 aluminum and 3mm Palight PVC from Grimco and run full sheets no problem. A good sheer large enough will only run you a couple thousand, but will save you money in the long run.
 
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echeverrit

New Member
that is a great idea and even thought about it; however, at this time we do not have the proper space to store 4'x8' sheets, nor manpower to cut right now-we're an in-house printshop so there are several layers for purchases, etc. we have to go through..maybe in the near future
 
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Aflac

New Member
Unfortunately we have been fighting the same problem with the same printer for 3 years. It's a problem with the vacuum not the material. Roland has sent multiple factory techs (not dealers) out to look at and state "it's working the way it was designed". However if you use the vacuum on the router table you can't even budge the material.
Please post the fix if you find one.
Good luck!!!
 
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