Need Help Suggestions Opinion UV LED Printing ADA signs

Welcome aboard...not far from ya. DCS Is the only printer I have physically seen in person ...at the AC Sign Show....that can do the ADA depth on the small plaques and such to be compliant. They seem to be solid machines but slow to print.

 

Avoid the 1200 X 900 bed from DCS.
We had one of the first ones they shipped to Australia. And it was plagued with problems.
Had to give it back.

For the money, I could have bought a second hand Arizona that delivers non stop.

 

I'm also doing my homework right now for doing ADA signs. I would like to be able to produce tactile and braille. Our business is mainly architectural products, so doing ADA would be a great addition.

 

Here is an image of braille/tactile off our Vanguard.

These are .031 thick with the proper doming diameter... But they aren't off a DCS and can lead to inspection issues in some states.

 

You can look at a StratoJet, we have a lot of people printing both. In fact you can lay up to 16 layers of ink in one pass; Braille is usually between 58-64 layers. You can layer with White, Clear, CMYK, a combination and all other ink colors.

 

Well, we just started our investigation last week. So we are not very far. We have looked at DCS, but with the reviews, we are looking for something else. We are currently looking into Mimaki, Mutoh, Roland with their small footprint flatbed to see if this would work.

Very interesting. But we are looking for a machine with a smaller footprint.

Very interesting too.

 

if your doing low quantities UV printing may be ok but woudl be awfully slow to build it up enough to conform to ADA guidelines. We laser cut and use the raster braille dots on all of ours. A lot cleaner look.

 

Good to know. Can you give me more details on the equipment to do this? Can you also do tactile?

 

I agree, we do quite a bit of interior ADA signs with our laser and raster braille setup, I've seen the small UV printers doing braille/tactile and it is a very slow process, if you had an order for 500 signs to produce with a small Roland UV printer you would drive yourself nuts!

However the ability to print a design into the background of the acrylic and have the tactile be any colour you want has been intriguing to me a few times for sure!

 

You would need an engraving machine to drill the holes for the Raster Braille beads, the Raster tools from Accent Signage and a laser engraver to cut the words and images out. A lot more equipment but we can manufacture signs a lot faster than printing. As far as engravers we use a Xenetech for 1 off signs and we also have a Vision where the Raster pen sits in the machine and can punch holes then have the machine insert the beads.

 

We are lucky and have 7 UV printers in house. We print on the back side of acrylic and then do the raised letters/braille after. We are able to print 4x8 sheets and route them out quickly.

 

We do have a 4x4’ version of our flat bed

 

How do you make tactile?

 

Have you had architects refuse your uv signs?
Not for ADA/Braille specs; there’s the usual ‘printing’ stuff
We have to give a 5 year warranty on the signs we install, have you had problems with the longevity of the Braille/copy? Do you think a 5 year warranty is achievable?
Indoor is no problem with most inks, but the oils from touching can cause issues for some. Also, with the constant Covid cleaning, some issues might arise over time. Just to get the contract, you could offer a ‘warranty’ to offer to replace a sign for a discount. This would put your customer at ease and in most cases never needing replacement.
What brand of machinery do you use?
We manufacture our StratoJet printers and this info is collected feedback from years of data (our research, feedback, customers...)