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Printing on Reflective Vinyl

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Copierguy

New Member
Our shop currently has had issues while printing on reflective vinyl. We have a Roland VG-640. The print comes out beautiful but once it sits drying on a table for a few hours the ink seems to look cracked. Has anyone ever had this problem? If so, what was the cause? What did you do to resolve the problem?
 
myront

myront

Dammit, make it faster!!
Latex or Solvent? Is it in fact "printable" reflective. There is a difference. We use 3M 5101 R series with no problems on our latex. Go straight from print to laminate.
 
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OADesign

New Member
Copierguy said:
Our shop currently has had issues while printing on reflective vinyl. We have a Roland VG-640. The print comes out beautiful but once it sits drying on a table for a few hours the ink seems to look cracked. Has anyone ever had this problem? If so, what was the cause? What did you do to resolve the problem?
Click to expand...

Its the Nikkalite. 100%. I've had the same exact experience you describe. Same machine. And on another occasion with Nikkalite, I printed an entire roll. And as I watched it come off the machine, I couldn't see it until the light hit it. It was like the creator was trying to warn us a of job about to go bad. It was like someone dropped their BigGulp on it at the plant. Then tried to wipe it off, and keep going. It looked like someone had splashed a hose on the roll. So I know, one in a while, there are bad spots in a roll. Normally I cut it. Feed it. And try again. So I did. Over and over again. Through 3 rolls. At that point I took all the badly printed trash back to my vendor. After a week or so of arguing. We got a few free rolls of something else. And the next month we heard that we were not the only ones that saw this. Ends up all my local vendors stopped carrying Nikkalite. So although, the cost hurt, you get what you pay for. I switched to Oracal 5600 and never looked back.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
 
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ikarasu

Active Member
What version of nikkalite? They have a printable one, and a screenprint version that "works" with latex and solvent

I've done a few rolls through our solvent... But about 100 through our latex this year... Not one issue with the latex printing, not sure if they have issues with solvents or you got a bad batch... But nikkalites been great for us. And about 1/3 the price of 3m 5100.... but again, were on latex so maybe they're having solvent issues.

Can you post some pictures? It might help diagnose the issue, especially if it's happening on two different media's. Is it all colors or specific? Could be a bad batch of ink.... Are you using OEM ink? You ruled out the media so I'd look into the ink. Heat shouldn't be an issue.
 
jimmmi

jimmmi

New Member
myront said:
Latex or Solvent? Is it in fact "printable" reflective. There is a difference. We use 3M 5101 R series with no problems on our latex. Go straight from print to laminate.
Click to expand...

What overlaminate do you use for reflective?
 
jimmmi

jimmmi

New Member
FireSprint said:
It's important that you are using their digitally printable material - 48000 series. If not, you won't get the best results. I do think posting some photos will help get you more answers as well.

Is there a special lamination for reflective vinyl? I didnt know that. I usually use Polymeric lamination


We often UV coat reflective.

Reflective Vinyl Printing
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