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HP Latex Printing Reflective - Too hot

wrapwrap

New Member
Attached pic shows the issue, ran Avery v4000 through HP 335 with the HP provided profile (Substrate: V4000, ID 146848) Noticed the heat is set to 240F with this profile, 12 pass. The result burned/melted/caused material to flow obviously from too much heat. I typically trust the profiles because I have not had an issue before.

On the Avery profiles website, I see profiles for this material but they do not match my RIP setup (Flexi 21). The profile on AD is for Flexi 12, not sure if I can still use that. It is interesting that the curing temp for their profile is 219F, but at 10 pass. Confused as to why HPs profile is just wrong, and why they only have 12 and 16 pass options for it, when ADs profile only has the option for 10 pass, but also seems to be correct based on the lower temperature. Should I just assume HPs profile is complete BS and disregard the question of why they have it at 12 or 16 pass for this material?
 

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BigNate

New Member
"Should I just assume HPs profile is complete BS and disregard the question of why they have it at 12 or 16 pass for this material?" NO, but you SHOULD take the factory profiles as merely a starting point... since the heat looks a little high, turn it down, maybe add an inter-pass delay or more total passes - but then print a drying test to verify it works. NO CANNED PROFILE IS PRE-OPTIMIZED FOR YOUR SHOP - you must run tests and tweak the settings as needed for your environment/needs.
 

ToTo

Professional Support
Only in corner cases you should exceed 200F. If not cured enough increase the time in curing chamber by increasing passes, or decrease ink amount in respect the desired saturation. Depending on cleanliness of your curing chambers the applied heat is less effective, …
 
I've found almost all of the HP profiles on both my 360 and 335 the temps are too high. I usually have to lower them as far as they can go for Avery and 3M reflectives. I had a length issue on my 360 that HP was working with us on and they wiped all my profiles as part of the troubleshooting. As I was adjusting the profiles they agreed with me on turning the temp down including on their own HP profiles that were way too high too.

I frequently print on Avery reflective on the 360. Looks like I have the temp set to 192 using the HP Gloss profile, 10 pass.
 

greysquirrel

New Member
Every profile you download or receive from a manufacturer or even another printer needs to be configured to your environment. HP creates their profiles in a lab with perfect conditions probably in Barcelona or Alpharetta. Two different parts of the world, probably same controlled variables in their environment but by no means anywhere near your print shop environment. You cannot just download a profile and go. Learn the printer. Take time to learn how to make your own profiles.(This is why you bought the shiny toy with the spectrophotometer, isn't it?365 and up) Make your own profiles. In the case of reflective or a clear material then yes use the canned profile and make a clone(your new profile) and spend some time dialing in the settings for your shop. We are now going into winter months, so yes more than likely you will need to tweak again.
 
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