Need Help Master MVT-500 Laminator - bubbles everywhere

[Rat_Fink]

Hello - I have the Master MVT-500 Laminator (the one with the electric up and down switch).
I almost exclusively us this machine with 30" material, but I recently had a job where I had to run a bunch of 54" wide.

Material is 3M IJ35 C with Arlon 3420 Laminate.

About 3-4 months ago I used this exact same material combination and had no problems with 54" rolls, but today I ruined a bunch of 4x8 prints because there are thousands of tiny bubbles covering almost the entire surface inside 6" or so from the sides.

Is it possible that my rollers went bad this fast as I used the same material / lam combo 4 months or so ago with no bubbles at all.

I have not changes the roller tension at all since then. The only change at all was that I unlocked the casters and rolled the machine about 2 feet to the right to make more room to get around it.

Are there any other adjustments on this machine?

Thanks for any advice anyone might have - much appreciated!

 

[ikarasu]

Can you post a picture? Easier to diagnose.

It could be that your material/laminate just wasn't loaded correctly and it caused it to wrinkle/skew.

Could also be not enough pressure...

If your 30" works fine, I'd say the laminate probably wasn't loaded correctly though.

I'd try it again on some unprinted material and see how it goes.

 

[Rat_Fink]

Here is a photo.
Ive rethreaded the material a few times with the same results. I can not add more pressure as it just uses the weight of the roller.
With the roller all the way lowered, I also ran it really slow without any material loaded and checked for gaps in the 2 rollers. I did not see any light coming through.

 

[papabud]

was this with in your 30" area of the stuff you normally run, was it outside that area?
if you run a set size for a while your rollers will change size with in that are then when you try to run something bigger it can give you issues.

 

[Rat_Fink]

It was within the 30" center area but also out of that area. I just loaded up more 30" material, but loaded it most of the way to the right.
I still got some bubble, but not nearly as bad and most of them were toward the center of the roller.

If this is an issue with the roller due to using primarily smaller material in the center, is there any solution or is the roller just permanently damaged?

 

[FatCat]

FYI - you should always run all materials in the center of the rollers, no matter what the width. The main reason is that those rollers are usually crowned, and running it off to 1 side or the other can produce some weirdness at times. (At least in my experience.)

What are the temps like in your shop? If the rollers are very cold and the material is cold you will usually get more bubbles and silvering, especially with thicker calendared materials. We have a similar laminator (AK-600) and usually have to crank the heat up for a few hours to get the laminate warm and the rollers warm and things lay better this time of year out in our bay/warehouse where the laminator is stationed. Now that we have a new laminator with heated rollers, not so much...lol.

 

[mark galoob]

Might be a bad Baruch of lam. I've had it happen before

 

[0igo]

Did you leave your rollers down at all?