Question Epson 60600 leaves an emboss effect on double sided banners.

[AndyPeat]

We need to produce double sided banners for a client and so we are currently looking at Epson's eco solvent printers. Latex were too slow for the quality required. The banner HQ setting was very fast and high quality with no banding but where there was high contrast areas it seemed to but an emboss effect on the other side. The media we were using was a standard scrim banner 650gsm 400mic. Has anyone had this problem and if so did you manage to resolve it.
Thanks
Andy Peat

 

[unclebun]

We abandoned making double sided banners with our Epson because we couldn't find a satisfactory substrate. We were using double sided blockout material, which didn't show the effect you are talking about, but getting the second side to feed through the machine without buckling or wrinkling and head strikes was far too much trouble. The double sided materials weren't stiff enough. Seems counterintuitive that a three layer material isn't stiffer, but that's what we found.

 

[CanuckSigns]

I thought this was one of the applications where the latex was superior, it has some type of sensor on the underside that reads the printed edge of the banner and aligns them up. I'm not a fan of the latex machines, but this seems to be the most effective way. Also, what kind of quality do you really need on a banner?

 

[AndyPeat]

I thought this was one of the applications where the latex was superior, it has some type of sensor on the underside that reads the printed edge of the banner and aligns them up. I'm not a fan of the latex machines, but this seems to be the most effective way. Also, what kind of quality do you really need on a banner?

We tried the latex machines but they were way too slow. We are looking at producing around 600 linear meters of double sided banners but only have 5 days to do it. The epsons are blazingly fast on Banner HQ setting. (4 minutes to do a single 2000 x 800mm banner) we will be buying three machines to fulfil the order and we've done a lot of testing. Epson is the closest to getting what we want apart from two issues. One is the media distortion (I'm currently looking to see if I can find a 750gsm double sided media to see if it's more resistant to distortion) the other is the registration on the second side. I think this can be resolved by a disproportionate scale but I have a inkling that the two problems might be related.

 

[asd]

what are your heat settings on your epson? I have my heaters off and I do get a little bit of the embossed effect on the other side, but is not enough to make contacts with the head. we get 15oz cooley brand banner from midwest sign,

 

[unclebun]

The registration issue we dealt with by using our RIP to set the banner to be completely centered on the material, then making a mark on the heater surface to always start the banner material when starting a print. It worked well enough that our banners were within 1/4" of the desired size after trimming and hemming. We did find it necessary to ensure that the banners were absolutely dried before printing the second side. You could not leave them rolled up on the takeup and just move them to the supply side. They stick to the platen too much.

 

[klingsdesigns]

We need to produce double sided banners for a client and so we are currently looking at Epson's eco solvent printers. Latex were too slow for the quality required. The banner HQ setting was very fast and high quality with no banding but where there was high contrast areas it seemed to but an emboss effect on the other side. The media we were using was a standard scrim banner 650gsm 400mic. Has anyone had this problem and if so did you manage to resolve it.
Thanks
Andy Peat

Isn't it just the thickness of the ink. If you print on vinyl and apply it to a substrate and apply a solid color vinyl over that you will see the difference in thickness where the inks are and it shows through.

 

[unclebun]

It's more than the thickness of the ink. It's the effect of the ink solvents on the vinyl itself.

 

[AndyPeat]

We abandoned making double sided banners with our Epson because we couldn't find a satisfactory substrate. We were using double sided blockout material, which didn't show the effect you are talking about, but getting the second side to feed through the machine without buckling or wrinkling and head strikes was far too much trouble. The double sided materials weren't stiff enough. Seems counterintuitive that a three layer material isn't stiffer, but that's what we found.

Isn't it just the thickness of the ink. If you print on vinyl and apply it to a substrate and apply a solid color vinyl over that you will see the difference in thickness where the inks are and it shows through.

Hi, Not really what I'm seeing, sorry, I probably didn't describe it accurately, what I'm seeing when you turn the banner over is the image on the other side in contrasty areas such as white out text on a coloured background or dark text on a light background there is a distortion of the media in the shape of the text that looks like an emboss effect.

 

[AndyPeat]

what are your heat settings on your epson? I have my heaters off and I do get a little bit of the embossed effect on the other side, but is not enough to make contacts with the head. we get 15oz cooley brand banner from midwest sign,

We don't have the machine yet, the samples were done by our media supplier. I spoke to Epson about it and I'm waiting for them to get back to me. Curiously though I did get the same banner produced on a Canon Océ Colorado and saw a similar effect but nowhere near as bad.

 

[AndyPeat]

The registration issue we dealt with by using our RIP to set the banner to be completely centered on the material, then making a mark on the heater surface to always start the banner material when starting a print. It worked well enough that our banners were within 1/4" of the desired size after trimming and hemming. We did find it necessary to ensure that the banners were absolutely dried before printing the second side. You could not leave them rolled up on the takeup and just move them to the supply side. They stick to the platen too much.

Thank for the reply, that's definitely useful.

 

[GAC05]

What are your finishing options for the hems? At that 2000x800 size you could run front & back side by side - fold and hem on 64" material. Should be faster than a print - dry - align and print again if you are going to have to finish the edges anyway.
If they are too wide for side by side you can do them with the tops joined and fold on the short side - then hem.

 

[AndyPeat]

What are your finishing options for the hems? At that 2000x800 size you could run front & back side by side - fold and hem on 64" material. Should be faster than a print - dry - align and print again if you are going to have to finish the edges anyway.
If they are too wide for side by side you can do them with the tops joined and fold on the short side - then hem.

That's a really good idea! It resolves both issues I'm having: Registration and localised media distortion. I'm going to explore this idea. Thank you so much.
Andy

 

[unclebun]

Hi, Not really what I'm seeing, sorry, I probably didn't describe it accurately, what I'm seeing when you turn the banner over is the image on the other side in contrasty areas such as white out text on a coloured background or dark text on a light background there is a distortion of the media in the shape of the text that looks like an emboss effect.

That comes from what I said in another answer. The solvents in the ink actually "melt" the vinyl, making it kind of pucker up.

 

[bpatrick3]

We need to produce double sided banners for a client and so we are currently looking at Epson's eco solvent printers. Latex were too slow for the quality required. The banner HQ setting was very fast and high quality with no banding but where there was high contrast areas it seemed to but an emboss effect on the other side. The media we were using was a standard scrim banner 650gsm 400mic. Has anyone had this problem and if so did you manage to resolve it.
Thanks
Andy Peat

Andy what you are seeing is where ever you print medium to heavy ink on the first side it will soften and swell the vinyl so that when you look at the second side
you the that swelling or "embossed" look. I would recommend either an 18 oz blockout banner material or do as I do and print two banners on 13oz material and sew/tape them together
As mentioned earlier in these posts it is tricky aligning to print your second side but it can be done but you should set you file up with bleeds so that you can be a little mis aligned
and be okay.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

I have been setting up inkjet printers for 20 years for customers.
The large banner production people have gone to the OkiData H3-104 printers since it runs production at 2 linear feet per minute.
While it has a setup to run double sided banner, it is much more effective to just print the files top to top and that way when you finish them, they already have a very strong pole pocket!
Also the 104” wide prints are very popular!