Printing a 40ft banner run

[icex]

We have a Versacamm VS640I and have started printing things for the local football team. Their wanting to order a 40 foot banner. I just ordered a reel pro take up wheel for the job along with a couple of other banners we have to print. One of the problems I have when printing on a 30" wide banner material is that the right side of the material wants to crinkle up, and we've even had a head crash from it (luckily no damage to the head). The only way I have found to resolve this problem was to pull out the amount of material we needed and then roll it back up so its loose behind the machine. When the machine pulls it off of the roll is when the crinkling occurs. IT does not occur on our 54" roll of material.

Is there anyway to solve this problem? I estimate the job to take 4-5 hours and don't want to babysit it that long.

 

[TheSnowman]

I have tried this a couple times, and everyone tells me it's a heat setting. The last long banner I tried to do, I had a head strike, destroyed my ability to do nice printing, and was almost to the end of the banner and had to throw it all in the garbage. My tip now...Signs2Trade if you question rather it'll make it through. Dropping the thousands it cost to get my print head repaired wasn't worth it.

I would guess someone will be able to help you here though, I've just always been told heat settings.

 

[Mosh]

The rollers should be 2" from the edge of the material for that long of a run, you might want to use larger material.

 

[Graphic Destruction]

Signs 2 trade will sell and ship the banner to you for less than you can make it for.

 

[SIGNTIME]

sounds like your not getting the material square to the take up reel to me or maybe your using a 54" core to take up 30" material?

 

[Mosh]

Signs 2 trade will sell and ship the banner to you for less than you can make it for.

This is true if you are only doing 1-2 banners a day. I run 10-12 a day so this is not my case.

 

[icex]

sounds like your not getting the material square to the take up reel to me or maybe your using a 54" core to take up 30" material?

We just ordered the reel pro yesterday and won't have it in until tomorrow.

The problem is when printing and the machine is pulling the material from the roll, it barely crinkles up on the end. This causes the material to wave and the print head to streak across, and sometimes do a head crash (we've only had this happen once)

We've tried using the media clamps from roland, but that makes it even worse. The only solution thus far is pulling the required length off the roll (usually we print 6' banners) and then rewinding it back behind the machine.

 

[J Hill Designs]

you can try lowering your pre-platen temp to zero, but I always have trouble w/banner unless I pull enough slack so it doesnt tug on the roll

 

[player]

I think with banners you need to have the material slack off the roll as it pulls it through the printer. It should not tug on the roll like it does with vinyl.

 

[icex]

Had Stephen jackson just give me a call. He recommends prerolling like we've been doing plus use as many rollers as possible. I'll update to let you guys know how it goes when we print the job shortly!

 

[icex]

Who is Stephen Jackson and why did it take him to repeat the same thing 10 people have just said for you to believe it?! :ROFLMAO:

Steven Jackson with imprintables warehouse, one of the largest suppliers of roland products.

 

[player]

Steven Jackson with imprintables warehouse, one of the largest suppliers of roland products.

Then it must be true.