HELP hp fb700 curling edges causing problems

[PE3185]

Hello All, I'm new to the site, and this is my first post so i hope someone could help me out. My Company Just Got the HP Scitex FB700 on Nov 2011, Training was minimual and its sorta learn as you go.

Im Having Problems Printing on compressed card stock 2 up, size is 42 x 60 thickness is .012 in.

The problem is when the first side is printed it prints well, BUT the second side has an upward curl which catches in the print carrage and marks and bends the printed piece all up ending with dog eared and marked up piece...
The Vacum suction is on high. Now are there any tricks to keep the material down, it seems that if the belt had more suction holes in it might suck the paper down better.

We have disconnected the door interlock so the lid can be lifted while its printing, so at the start of the load we pause the printer tape the corners down resume printing untill the piece gets past the last roller then remove the tape, also at the end we tape them down, at the end it is also removed before the next load.

That is a lot of extra running around from front to back of machine each load and taping and retaping

So far im not impressed with the fb700 cause of all the little stuff like this which causes lots of problems for the operator.
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[ForgeInc]

Is your material coated 1 side or 2 sides or no sides? Did you try turning the lamps down? How humid is your environment? (Do you have high moisture materials?)

Never had this problem with cardstock, but if we print wood that has moisture content of approx 8% of higher the lamps make it curl. Sounds like a similar issue.

Can you tape the sheets down?

 

[cdiesel]

We've got some thick card stock with the same problem. Tape is the answer, as it would be on any machine when trying to print on warped material.

Don't be mad at the printer when the stock is the problem..

 

[PE3185]

Is your material coated 1 side or 2 sides or no sides? Did you try turning the lamps down? How humid is your environment? (Do you have high moisture materials?)

Never had this problem with cardstock, but if we print wood that has moisture content of approx 8% of higher the lamps make it curl. Sounds like a similar issue.

Can you tape the sheets down?

We are Taping the Sheets down now but its a real pain....Not to sound dumb but im learning, what does turning the lamps down do in the printing process to help curl? would a delay do the same thing, would turning the lamps down cause any image scraping off problems...

 

[cdiesel]

Turning the lamps down would create less heat. Heat often causes warping/curling on thin plastics, and if the paper you're printing on is moist, it could cause rapid evaporation of the moisture, which could make the material warp..

 

[PE3185]

Noticed when the problem was it its worst the humidity was around 39%
turned up the humidifier and its around 49 to 50 percent and the curl is a lot better,
the lamps were on low already, plus I opened the delivery end and had a fan in there to take out the excess heat all seems to be better.....

what is a good humidity lever in the shop?