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Gassing out Eco solv printed media.

bmaine

New Member
We have been told we need to gas out our printed media, we don't roll in off the printer very often. What kind of stand does everyone use to gas out your printed material before laminating? Or what do you do with it after printing?
 

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
If it's spooled up on the take-up reel, I take it off, loosen the roll a bit and then stand it up on end. We have some ultraboard standees from past projects that work great for this. if it's a little job, not big enough to spool up, I'll lay it on a table or drape it over a machine to sit.
We usually let our prints gas-out for a day.
 

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unmateria

New Member
Hi :) just dont roll it tight, try to keep it horizontal holded with a bar inside the tube, and try to leave it there 48h. 24h is ok if not much ink.
 

unmateria

New Member
If it's spooled up on the take-up reel, I take it off, loosen the roll a bit and then stand it up on end. We have some ultraboard standees from past projects that work great for this. if it's a little job, not big enough to spool up, I'll lay it on a table or drape it over a machine to sit.
We usually let our prints gas-out for a day.
We do the same but always horizontal since when big areas of blacks (or much ink in general) gets like blandiblup lol we have like 10 big stacks (like 130cm table legs) in a wall for just unrolling them there (up to 4 meters). For complete rolls we have a big horizontal roll holder.
And yes usually 24h, but if time is not problem, 48h. If it has much ink, always 48h since I always do our rip densitometry/linearization until it nearly bleeds.

Id you are in a hurry, you can check if its ok just smelling it or peeling it (lifting?) a little of ink covered área... If vynil is like a gum, dont laminate it.

Uff, sorry for my english today lol
 

ikarasu

Active Member
People always say don't worry about it and needing to offgas is a myth.... Despite the printer manufacturers telling you to offgas themselves. One of latexs biggest selling points is instant lamination.... If you could do that with solvents, you can sure bet one manufacturer would come out and use that as a selling point.

Well, it finally happened where I could get a photo! We did 26 store front windows and 2 doors. Everyrhungnoffgassed overnight, but the artists setup the doors wrong.... So we reprinted, waiting an hour or two, laminated and then threw it up. 2 days later..... Out of 28 prints, guess which 2 were the only 2 that bubbled like this?!

I installed all of them - it was going overtop of another vinyl install.... They were all cleaned and adhered fine. Same material, same roll, only difference was one offgassed for an hour and the rest over night. I suppose it could be a hell of a coincidence that both that didnt offgas ended up bubbling.... But why risk it when you don't have to? Heavy ink deposit, so 1 hour offgassing wasn't enough.... It was dry to the touch though!

Read your printers specs. I believe the epsons are 6 hours offgassing.... It probably needs half that, but they do 6 to be on the safe side. We try for overnight.... I think waiting 48 hours is overkill.


20221114_100112.jpg
 

GAC05

Quit buggin' me
People always say don't worry about it and needing to offgas is a myth.... Despite the printer manufacturers telling you to offgas themselves. One of latexs biggest selling points is instant lamination.... If you could do that with solvents, you can sure bet one manufacturer would come out and use that as a selling point.

Well, it finally happened where I could get a photo! We did 26 store front windows and 2 doors. Everyrhungnoffgassed overnight, but the artists setup the doors wrong.... So we reprinted, waiting an hour or two, laminated and then threw it up. 2 days later..... Out of 28 prints, guess which 2 were the only 2 that bubbled like this?!

I installed all of them - it was going overtop of another vinyl install.... They were all cleaned and adhered fine. Same material, same roll, only difference was one offgassed for an hour and the rest over night. I suppose it could be a hell of a coincidence that both that didnt offgas ended up bubbling.... But why risk it when you don't have to? Heavy ink deposit, so 1 hour offgassing wasn't enough.... It was dry to the touch though!

Read your printers specs. I believe the epsons are 6 hours offgassing.... It probably needs half that, but they do 6 to be on the safe side. We try for overnight.... I think waiting 48 hours is overkill.


View attachment 162646
What material is that? Looks almost like collapsed air channels/trapped air in IJ180c V3. Definitely, with full coverage and heavy ink, prints need time to cure before lam and installation. We do eco-sol full-bleed dark purple panels on IJ that will stretch out of shape just coming off the backer if they didn't cure first (even with laminate).
 
We don't print a lot thus I can print as slow as I want; I use 12 passes with 9 sec between them so print takes 30 minutes to pass over the heater which is plenty of time to actively dry for immediate lam. No problems so far and I can book wraps for next day application.
 
People always say don't worry about it and needing to offgas is a myth.... Despite the printer manufacturers telling you to offgas themselves. One of latexs biggest selling points is instant lamination.... If you could do that with solvents, you can sure bet one manufacturer would come out and use that as a selling point.

Well, it finally happened where I could get a photo! We did 26 store front windows and 2 doors. Everyrhungnoffgassed overnight, but the artists setup the doors wrong.... So we reprinted, waiting an hour or two, laminated and then threw it up. 2 days later..... Out of 28 prints, guess which 2 were the only 2 that bubbled like this?!

I installed all of them - it was going overtop of another vinyl install.... They were all cleaned and adhered fine. Same material, same roll, only difference was one offgassed for an hour and the rest over night. I suppose it could be a hell of a coincidence that both that didnt offgas ended up bubbling.... But why risk it when you don't have to? Heavy ink deposit, so 1 hour offgassing wasn't enough.... It was dry to the touch though!

Read your printers specs. I believe the epsons are 6 hours offgassing.... It probably needs half that, but they do 6 to be on the safe side. We try for overnight.... I think waiting 48 hours is overkill.


View attachment 162646
I'm pretty sure that's just a bad (wet?) installation
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
Read these, I have photos of our box in one of the above links.
 

ikarasu

Active Member
I'm pretty sure that's just a bad (wet?) installation
Nope, we only wet install frosted.

The only difference is that was printed at lunch time, the other 20ish windows were printed the night before. The material didn't even leave the printer.

Both windows that were reprinted are bubbling, not just in one spot either.... The whole window is pimpling. Not a single other window has even one bubble... Some were installed after these ones too. I peeled back a corner and the glue is gummy where it's bubbling... Can't pop them and press them down as it just lifts again. I believe next week once their grand opening is done I'll be pulling it off and putting a new one up, I'll see if I can get a photo of the glue.


Everything is cleaned with 70% alcohol all at once, then before applying the graphic it gets a wipe down with a dry cloth and no liquids, so the windows were dry for hours.

I'm not perfect and make install mistakes - but this definately wasn't one of them... It is a heavy ink print, and there was only an hour of offgas time, this print is likely the the worst case scenario of a print needing to offgas with how much ink and coverage.

There's always going to be times you don't offgas because of a rush.... And 90% of the time it's fine. I just don't agree with telling people offgassing is a myth!
 

ikarasu

Active Member
What material is that? Looks almost like collapsed air channels/trapped air in IJ180c V3. Definitely, with full coverage and heavy ink, prints need time to cure before lam and installation. We do eco-sol full-bleed dark purple panels on IJ that will stretch out of shape just coming off the backer if they didn't cure first (even with laminate).
Drytac polar, an air egress high tac vinyl.

The part I pushed back the glue feels gummy, and while there is air... If you pop the bubble the vinyl won't lay down, it's like it lost it's stickyness.

We've printed since but stuff on the material and it's fine too, so unless there was a bad 15 ft on the mid of the roll... It can't be a material issue
 

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Don't listen to him, he's not a real sign guy.
Yet he's the only one that got it right. If a print can pass the fingertip glide test, the solvent has pretty much evaporated. This shouldn't take more than a few minutes. However the chemical changes in the media fomented by the ink coating most like have not stabilized. That can take more time than you have, just laminate it and try not to blame poor installation technique and a host of other factors on the 'outgassing' boogyman.
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
Ikarasu is correct, the adhesive itself is degraded by the solvent. One you trap/block the solvent from off-gassing through the front by laminating it, it has nowhere else to go but "into" the vinyl/adhesive itself. Vinyl rushed like this will fail more often then vinyl which isn't. For most flat surfaces it might not be an issue, but putting it into channels or on anything else complicated, it's going to fail. You can heat it and push it back into place, but it's never going to work correctly.
 

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
I wonder if the out-gas debate has anything to do with liquid laminate vs adhesive laminate. Random suggestion: for those (Bob) who don't believe outgassing solvent inks is important, maybe because they can out gas while the liquid laminate you use is setting/drying? but with an adhesive laminate, it's trapped immediately. Just a thought.

Also it really depends on the type of printer, and how much ink is being laid down.
 

ikarasu

Active Member
I think the argument is dumb.

Latex sells a ton of machines because of their instant lamination.

Why on earth would Epson / Roland / Mimaki / everyone else gimp their sales by saying you need to wait xx hours if you didn't? There is zero benefit to them telling you that their ink needs time to offgass when it doesnt. And do they make up the number? Gs2 ink was I hours... Then they cut the solvents down in her, and now it's 4 (or 6?) Hours. What'd they do.... Decide they need to compete with latex and cut the made up number down?


You guys are supposed to be professionals and doing stuff properly. Ignoring the specs on your machine because "I've never seen it do any harm" is just dumb.

Don't get me wrong. Everyone laminates rush jobs when they shouldn't, shit happens. But to ignore the advice and environmental values of the manufacturer who spends millions of dollars on RND and testing is just dumb.
 

2B

Active Member
we took the plastic end caps, zip tied to a scrap piece of MDO, and then took the cores, glued them onto the plastic caps
IMG_6533.JPG
 

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
The term outgassing only seems to exist in the decal/sign world. The solvents may be a little slow but if you paid much attention to solvents used in pretty much any process, you would know that they don't linger. Latex is just forced dried with a pile of heat but if it doesn't dry, you're gonna have more issues than a solvent based ink, like adhesion with uncured UV.
 
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