Long Run on the Edge...

[SellersSign&Design]

I have a job coming up that is going to require 5.5" tall by 10 feet long Sign Gold lettering on a fire truck. I have done fairly long runs on the Edge before, but I have always been able to break them up to minimize the risks of something going wrong. Ideally, this needs to be ran straight through. But Murphy's Law normally doesn't work in my favor and I do not want to ruin 10 feet of Sign Gold. I am thinking about separating each section of the bigger top lettering and running them separately, even though I know alignment is going to be a pain when it comes time to install. If anyone has any better ideas I am open to suggestions! (The vertical lines in the picture are breaks in the body where the ladder rack is, and the black panel will be cast vinyl applied before the Sign Gold)

 

[Drip Dry]

So, the red and black is regular vinyl ? And the sign
gold will be laid on top ?.
Since everything is 5.5" tall, seems like a big waste of sign gold material.
Did you consider splitting it somewhere in the middle and stacking on top of one another. This
way you only use 5'
This may give you a seam through a letter somewhere. You could then go back and replace just the letters
that you have a seam on.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

The red represents the side of the truck, the black is regular vinyl. Both sides of the truck are getting this design, and luckily the 5.5" height worked out to where both sides will stack on top of each other. That is why it is so tough to split it up, because in a perfect world it would work great to run them both stacked all the way through.

 

[J Hill Designs]

so you will be printing the red drop shadow onto the sign gold? looks easy to split apart, since all lettering is separated

 

[artofacks1]

excuse my ignorance as I'm a total newb. Why would you worry about messing up the print if you run it long? Isn't the track of the edge the #1 reason why it keeps everything aligned and straight? Or are you worried about the ink messing up?

I have a job coming up that is going to require 5.5" tall by 10 feet long Sign Gold lettering on a fire truck. I have done fairly long runs on the Edge before, but I have always been able to break them up to minimize the risks of something going wrong. Ideally, this needs to be ran straight through. But Murphy's Law normally doesn't work in my favor and I do not want to ruin 10 feet of Sign Gold. I am thinking about separating each section of the bigger top lettering and running them separately, even though I know alignment is going to be a pain when it comes time to install. If anyone has any better ideas I am open to suggestions! (The vertical lines in the picture are breaks in the body where the ladder rack is, and the black panel will be cast vinyl applied before the Sign Gold)
View attachment 98430

 

[SellersSign&Design]

excuse my ignorance as I'm a total newb. Why would you worry about messing up the print if you run it long? Isn't the track of the edge the #1 reason why it keeps everything aligned and straight? Or are you worried about the ink messing up?

Yes the Edge tracking is great, but color alignment and then plotter alignment get off the further the run is. The biggest issue is how unpredictable the Edge is. It may be just my machine, but it will print fine for two weeks then decide to shut down and give an error in the middle of a job. I don't want that error to happen 8 feet into a 10 feet print on Sign Gold.

JHill- I guess I could break up the top lettering and then print the bottom "serving since 1978" separately. The only thing about that is breaking up all the top lettering will make the install a pain.

I'm thinking a 3-4' run should be fine and not have any alignment issues. I'm going to pull up the file and see if I can break it down into somewhere between 2-4' sections. Ill probably run a test print on some plain white vinyl to see how it acts.

 

[striper14]

why are you printing at all ? I've never used sign gold but i assume you just run it thru the plotter to cut ? I'd just cut out the black then us clear premask to drop the gold in..that way you can cram all the gold together & the cut out black gives you all the alignment you need for the gold

 

[beckys]

I've run 30' thru my edge with no issues..
but why are you using the edge, should be plotted vinyl.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Printing the drop shadows and highlights looks a lot cleaner. I could use layered vinyl, but that starts to look messy when you lay the clear vinyl on top to protect the sign gold. I do agree with it being easier as far as registration goes though.

Edit- I just realized the picture I uploaded is pretty poor quality. Some of the lettering has traditional white highlights and some of it has a black outline between the gold and the red shadow. This is why I'm using the Edge.

 

[JRgraphics]

What Edge model are you using? What program are you using to print with? If you are using Omega, what version is it?

 

[MikeD]

Splitting it up some how would lessen the risk of a print defect or software/hardware error impacting the entire job if you can figure out a "neat" way to put the tiles together seamlessly.

I would make sure all the squeegees inside the printer are in good shape, all adhesive ooze is cleaned from the sprockets, keep the print off of the floor while watching it feed to ensure it is clean before it enters the printer body, run the calibrat file to make sure your print-to-cut reg is good before loading the job substrate, clean the printhead (maybe even between foils,) clean out the Queue folder and set path folder to avoid any old job info that may confuse the workflow, take your print media out of the box and let it acclimate to your print environment for about 20 min prior to printing, maybe scale the job down and run it with cheap consumables to test your tiling...

Good Luck!
Miked

 

[Marlene]

have you had issues running 10 feet and over? if not, you should be OK. since there's no connection between the letters any problems should be easy to patch if something does go wrong half way thru. can could print the red on the black using white for a primer and get rid of that color in your print onto the gold

 

[jfiscus]

I've never had an issue on longer runs just because of length. Go ahead and use one of the expensive wipes before you start though.

Thankfully, if you are just printing a solid black onto the signgold - black fills at 100% opacity.
So, if you hit your home button to register the vinyl before the start of the run and something screws up - let it finish and then just hit home and re-insert the vinyl at the same start location and run it again!
I've had to do that a few times with black on unevenly-surfaced specialty materials.