UV Print on Metallic Vinyl

[ImpactSignCo]

Anyone had any luck UV printing on metallic vinyl? I was warned when our UV printer got installed to not print on chrome or mirrors as it could ruin the lamps, but what about metallic vinyl?

 

[petepaz]

i have done short runs on chrome or mirrored vinyl with no problem (2-3 ft x 24in). print brushed silver with no problem and have printed on a sparkle metallic as well.
try not to make a habit of it. also make sure you do cleanings afterwords.

 

[Andy D]

I never heard that, makes sense though. I glad I read this, I have a large reflective print job coming up
that I was going to print on the UV Printer..

Do you have a solvent printer? Metallic prints nicely on our solvent printer.

 

[Andriy]

I've done multiple prints (4x8 sheets of mirror acrylic, chrome vinyl and even pieces mirror) with regular UV lamps and LED UV lamps and neither seem to really affect the lamps.

 

[ImpactSignCo]

I was told by our Roland dealer that there was the potential for the reflection of the lamp to come back and ruin the lamps. I didn't want to risk it.
I tried metallic through our solvent printer and the ink just seems to spread. Any thoughts?

 

[Andy D]

I was told by our Roland dealer that there was the potential for the reflection of the lamp to come back and ruin the lamps. I didn't want to risk it.
I tried metallic through our solvent printer and the ink just seems to spread. Any thoughts?

Too much ink and/or printing at too low of a pass, or switch to a different brand vinyl.
I have printed tons of 3M metallic in our solvent printer and it works great, but you do have to slow it down
and turn up the heat. I would also give it more time to gas out before laminating.

 

[Andy D]

I was told by our Roland dealer that there was the potential for the reflection of the lamp to come back and ruin the lamps.

I would be more worried of the UV light reflecting back up and curing the inks in the heads.
I know of a shop where they printed a bunch of 2" thick media with a bleed, but they didn't
have it surrounded by 2" thick "sacrifice " material... so when the heads went pass the edge of the media
the 2" gap allowed the light to bounce back up to the print heads and they ended up ruining their heads.

 

[petepaz]

I would be more worried of the UV light reflecting back up and curing the inks in the heads.
I know of a shop where they printed a bunch of 2" thick media with a bleed, but they didn't
have it surrounded by 2" thick "sacrifice " material... so when the heads went pass the edge of the media
the 2" gap allowed the light to bounce back up to the print heads and they ended up ruining their heads.

this is the problem. the chrome or mirror products don't harm the lamp. the reflection of the light off the chrome material has the potential of causing the in to dry in the print head.

 

[Andy D]

this is the problem. the chrome or mirror products don't harm the lamp. the reflection of the light off the chrome material has the potential of causing the in to dry in the print head.

Shouldn't been an issue if you run it real close, correct? But if you run it too close
I could see it causing the lamps to overheat... Not sure about that though.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

We've been printing onto glass mirrors on a weekly basis for two years now without issue... but on an Océ Arizona, so I'm not sure how the Roland UV is designed.
As mentioned above, it's all about reflections onto the print heads that can cure the ink and cause clogging. How close are the lamps to the heads on one of those?
On the Arizona there's probably a good 3 inches between the lamps and heads so there isn't much UV creep between them.

 

[Charlie J]

I never heard that, makes sense though. I glad I read this, I have a large reflective print job coming up
that I was going to print on the UV Printer..

Do you have a solvent printer? Metallic prints nicely on our solvent printer.

What metallic vinyl are you using?

 

[Andy D]

What metallic vinyl are you using?

3M, not sure of the series though, 3630 I think.

 

[uvgerard]

UV light on metallic substrate

Anyone had any luck UV printing on metallic vinyl? I was warned when our UV printer got installed to not print on chrome or mirrors as it could ruin the lamps, but what about metallic vinyl?

I cannot imagine that a substrate could ever cause the UV lamp to fail. Perhaps if there was something that out-gassed and released a coating on the bulb but that is a long shot.

A reasonable scenario is a shiny metal might reflect some of the UV toward the print heads causing a clog. Even this is a reach but at least it is plausible especially on a LED UV device.

 

[Brian27]

I was told almost the same thing. However, like others have said, it's to prevent the ink from curing on the heads not the possibility of damage to the lamps. They said to avoid mirror and aluminum. Or was it stainless? Can't remember. I would guess aluminum because it reflects UV light way more than stainless does.

Either way, I don't think a metal looking vinyl would ever be able to to reflect enough UV rays to cure it on your heads. Especially considering if you stop a job mid-print, there will be about a 1/2" of uncured ink even though it's nearly directly under the lamps.

If I had some I'd test it on my printer. It's already screwed anyways. Haha

 

[fastmax]

true

we used to do it alot on our old mimaki, its not so much that it will kill the lamps as it will reflect uv back at the heads and cure the ink onto them.

that said we have had some very nice prints on mirror plex and polished steel regardless