Silvering with Latex Printer

[Djpheelug]

Hello everyone,

I have spent hours on here stalking and finding EXTREMELY valuable information for my venture into a new home-based print shop. A little about me; I have been in the sign industry for almost 6 years, primarily in print production and installation. I have installed all types of signs and graphic including wall murals and car wraps. I finally have decided to cut away and start my own business with the support of my family and friends. I bought a 62" MIMAKI PLOTTER CG FX II as well as an HP L260. I am still on the fence about what type and brand of laminator to purchase, primarily because of budget (of coarse the less I spend the better!!). I've used RSs and Seals of which I LOVED the Seal so I am looking for something like that. I've narrowed it down to either a US Tech or GBC (still waiting for Price quote but I hear they are affordable). I was at one point looking at the lightning Lam Lite from US Cutter but the customer service and time to get back to me has been horrible. Sooooooooooooooooooo my question to you kind folks is does anyone know of any reason why silvering should be any different on a Latex printer VS a solvent, and is it THAT big of a deal in general that I should absolutely be sold on a heat assist version laminator??
Thanks for all the hours y'all put in here! Any other advice in general is also welcome

 

[Dennis422]

Welcome.
I recently purchased US Tech laminator. It looks well built and worked well on the limited number of projects I did.
Not much experience with laminators, but this one seems fine.

I have the MVT-500 model.

 

[Asuma01]

Our shop bought a Seal with the heat option. and to be honest. Its more of a pain in the *** to use. Example: when the roll is fully heated and you need to switch out to a new roll of laminate its extremely hard to properly set up when the roll is still hot. So we would have to end up waiting around 30 or more min for the roll to cool down every time we needed to switch out the lam. We ended up just leaving the heat switched off. The silvering effect goes away on its own after about a week or so. If I could do it over I wouldn't have gotten the heat option.

Hope that helps.

 

[Djpheelug]

Thanks for the input! The more I hear about people's experiences with these things, the better I can make a decision. It's a LOT different buying one for your own shop then having to acclimate to whats already at an existing shop you work at.
Looking forward to more input.

 

[Gino]

Welcome from PA.....................

 

[danno]

We have a Seal 62 pro D and love it. It does have the heat option, but we rarely use it. Have had it 7 years now. A little TLC here and there, but very dependable. Also have a HPL26500 that all decal from it gets laminated.

 

[AF]

In theory, since latex ink cures on the surface you may expect more of a silvering effect than solvent. In practice, however, this is not the case and any initial silvering dissipates within 24 hours. UV prints may have more of a silvering concern since the ink cures with the most topography. If you go UV, you can order a customized AGL laminator with dual-durometer nip rollers to minimize the effect.

 

[Typestries]

We process a ton of latex prints on various medias with various lams. We see zero silvering on any lam, EXCEPT for Oracal 210 matte over 3651 and then it's typically only in the blacks. It's also gone the next day.

All in all, silvering is LESS of an issue with latex than with solvent in our experience.