Static Issue

[GraphxGirl]

I am currently printing on an Agfa Anapurna. We recently started to use 1/8" Palight with a release liner, for less prep time. I was wondering if anyone had used material like this before and if they had an issue with static. Our flatbed seems to be "mis-firing" when we run this material through it.

 

[Steve Werner]

Palight and Simona are both great materials with the masking. The issue can be the static and I don't know of anyone who has effectively figured out how to deal with it. Talk to Agfa and see how they feel about putting static tinsel or rope onto the feed table and grounding it to something. It's a trick that offset printers use when feeding plastics through their printing presses. Might help ?

 

[Mspec]

For static management on UV printers I usually reccomend people to spray the material down with 90% or better IPA, spray it from a spray bottle like you are cleaning glass and wipe it clean with a lint free mircofiber wipe. I've also seen people get good results with the "static string" from stopstatic.com, it is a tinsel embedded elastic with grounding magnets on the ends. It's pretty cheap, and low tech but it does work.

You can also spray static guard or similar products directly on the media, as long as you do not apply it to the point of puddles, I have not seen any issues with it for staining the boards or adhesion loss.

Last ditch, lower your head height, and carriage speed of your printer allows this. That should reduce the amount of suspended ink mist lingering in the air for the static charge to attract in the first place.

 

[jdigital]

I believe Palight also has a static free rigid material that you may want to look into. I'm not sure about the price. We print regular masked Palight on our Inca Flatbeds and have noticed static issues when removing the masking, but it doesn't affect our prints. I also agree with previous posts.

 

[klmiller611]

We ran into the static issue attempting to print on white plexi back in January. We developed something of a system to handle it, it involves a homemade grounding device, cleaning the material, and anti-static treatment as well. It seems to have helped considerably.

I'll be glad to offer more details to anyone interested.

 

[klmiller611]

Shoot, forgot to add, we are using the AGFA Mv as well.

 

[Antonyu]

static can be a b1tch to deal with.
To get rid of it I bought a Haug ionizing gun + power suply.

http://www.haug.de/html/toprilg_gb.html

Besides neutralizing static it blows away the dust from the substrate.

 

[Pendence]

We are using an Agfa Anapurna M4F. We had some bad problems with static on Sintra and Excel Pro materials until we bought a ION-EDGE MODEL 400 from Takk Industries.

The only problem we now have is printing on Sintra that we have wiped down. It shows all the wipe marks when you print on it. If it is not cleaned then it shows hand-prints or other marks from being handled. We have tried over 25 different chemicals and none have worked.

The only way we can get a clean print on the Excel Pro material is to peel the protective sheet off and use a tac cloth before we print. It is only available in 4' x 8' sheets and we need larger materials.

 

[WB]

I wipe everything I can down with 99% IPA.. you can really tell if you miss a spot.

 

[HaroldDesign]

I wouldn't recommend this as a "fix", but to get through a job just wiping it with dryer sheets works pretty well.

 

[particleman]

We have an m4f and the same takk ionizer bar, it solved nearly all of our static issues.

 

[andy]

You could try rolling the carrier film off. If you whip the carrier film off the sheet in one quick movement it increases the amount of static... if you slowly roll the carrier film back onto itself the static charge is reduced and the tacky side of the carrier acts like a sticky roller trapping any dust laid & debris.

We have some kind of anti static air gizmo but I find rolling the carrier film off the sheet solves most problems.

 

[ellsmako]

Personally do not care for the IPA route since smelly, and actually dangerous to you for both the fumes, breathing and flamable,

Go with a static eliminator by ElectroStatics, Inc to eliminate your static problems. We have one an it works great.

 

[Pendence]

We have tried the 99% IPA. When there is a light blue involved it seems to show all the wipe marks.

 

[10sacer]

Static

I wipe down everything with 99%IPA anyway to help get rid of fingerprints (big issue around here from suppliers).

I have also used Windex with vinegar on PVC and it works just as good. I have only used it on PVC, though.

Additionally - good old Bounce dryer sheets with anti-static actually works.

You will see most manufacturers tech reps at shows where they have these machines on carpet using spray fabric softener on the carpet to reduce static and wiping the metal surfaces with dryer sheets.

I have heard the ionizing guns do the trick, too. Have not heard grand results from the StopStatic cord and would depend if you can figure out a way to apply it to your particular flatbed/hybrid.

Seems like anything that would touch near the material and was grounded would work.

 

[SAI Stephan]

SIMONA offers a domestic produced antistatic foam PVC sheet, called SIMOPOR-digital, Was introduced at SGIA and SIA last year. But just got released a month ago or so.
antistatic, uv-stabilized and available with protection foil. So no pretreatment/cleaning necessary prior printing. No fingerprints.

 

[animenick65]

Shaking your sheets up and down before printing on them can help release a lot of the static as well.

I'm really surprised at the number of people here who think it ok to receive material from your suppliers that has hand prints on it. If they know you are printing direct, then more care should be used in handling your material. It's unacceptable otherwise.

 

[parkcityprinter]

Simple to solve. Go to YouTube and type in Staticure. You can watch videos of this exact problem. The company has solutions for flatbeds, roll to roll, and hybrid printers. Way cheaper than the guns and electric static bars and works better.