Question How to max out opacity on a UV cure flatbed printer.

[Tom Dalton]

Lets say you're printing on highly reflective banner-like material on a UV flatbed. When you look at something printed solid black (over orange reflective) it looks orange-ish black as some of the orange comes through the black. This is when you view it in a darkened room with a flashlight on it (simulating a car's headlight). Also, you're printing on a reflective banner like material, so when you print with 10x the ink coverage, it gets opaque enough, but it cracks when frozen and bent. Are there tricks to keep the ink layer thin while also boosting opacity?

 

[iprint]

You could try printing white under the black with normal ink coverage.

 

[Greg Kelm]

What you are describing could also be light spill, creating the effect you're describing. Make a gradient bar with 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 hits of black and see where it disappears, if at all.

 

[Gino]

White makes the best sense. All inks are transparent, regardless of how many layers ya put down. White is generally somewhat opaque, so a coat or two of that with black on top should do it. If not, get out the old squeegee and screen print it.

 

[zspace]

Try a rich black - 100/40/40/40. Gloss finish may help as well if you can reduce the trailing lamp intensity.

 

[Superior_Adam]

On reflective materials to get a block out you will need a white under base since CMYK are transparent. Flooding too much color will have negative effects.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

For workzone safety, you don't need to block out the reflectivity of the underbase with black overlay.