UV Printer & Prints Making us Sick

I've never had prints on wood, but when you order coroplast signs from Signs365 they are UV printed, and we used to have a nearby supplier that used an HP UV flatbed, and they all stink. Never got sick from them but when we get a box of 18x24's it makes the front room of the shop stink until the customer takes them away.

 

Yup UV prints stink, whenever we get UV printed products in from a wholesaler the shop stinks for days. I don't know if it's harmful but it's noticeable.

 

Our Arizona prints smell for a couple of days until fully cured then no smell.

 

Hey!

Try putting more power on your UV curing lamps. If it's not possible to adjust the power, you can try printing with more passes and less ink for each pass.
If that's not possible you can try adjusting profile to lay less ink. It will affect your colors but if it's a case of not being able to print...

I don't know about you materials, but remember, any material that is porous where ink can go places beyond the surface, the UV curing lamps isn't curing properly. It's just not possible with the technology.

This is generic advice for UV ink, i don't know your printer.

 

Interesting. I have a HP UV flatbed, and when it goes through it’s automatic printhead maintenance cycle you can smell the ink...especially when standing next to the machine but otherwise no noticeable smell. Maybe because I have a 4,000sf open floor shop with high ceilings?? I also keep yard signs up on my customer pickup counter at the front and never smell them.

 

Our Colorado’s prints are pretty stinky. Luckily 95% of the stuff we do is laminated so that deals with that. I did make a 60” x 40” canvas that was smelly upon putting my face up at it, but it was only smelly for ~1 week. We do have quite a large space though.

are you certain everything is curing properly etc?

 

FYI the prints are stinky because the chemical solvent is air drying. Only very ink heavy prints do not fully cure under UV lamps. There are, however, UV inks that barely smell at all.

 

Just to compare.....Our UV printer has no significantly noticeable smell to it thankfully. Our old printer from EFI was terrible and when we ran heavy volume, it had to be vented. Our newer printer is great. It have very little odor upon finishing the prints and we are not required to vent it. We have more issue running our 1500 latex printers on banner and such where the vapor accumulates esp. with heavy ink coverages. We have to open windows or turn the overhead vent fans on for those.

 

We run an Oce Arizona w/ 256 series ink, Roland XR-640 w/ Nazdar ink, and a Mimaki UCJV w/ LUS-170 ink. I think the Mimaki ink is the worst out of the bunch and I do notice having a sore throat after running solid coverage prints all day.

I've looked into standalone air scrubbers in the past but haven't come across one I was completely satisfied with. I think the best solution would be to have ducts running up to each individual printer but haven't had a chance to price this out.

Regarding the OP's issue - if the prints are that bad after printing, I would be looking into curing issues. Depending on the inkset you can still smell most UV inks even after they're cured but if they're making you and your staff ill I suspect they're not curing properly/entirely.

Stay safe out there.

 

I've worked with different uv flatbeds and from my experience Roland flatbed smells the worst. I am using Stratojet and no smell at all compared to others.

 

If you are using a mercury vapor uv lamp, yes it fades. Usually those types of lamps have a 600 hours lifespan and cost an arm and a leg. I've been printing on all types of wood using an LED UV lamps. The lamps lifespan I'm using is 23,000 hours. Let me know if you would like to save and I can provide you info on helping you on productivity, durability and quality.

 

UV bulbs do lose curing power over time like Jun said, but I believe those Roland LEF's use LED's which last much longer.

Unless you've got thousands of hours on them already, and based on what your sales rep said, it is possible the substrate is what has changed. If nothing else has changed (inkset? lamp settings? amount of coverage?) then the wood would be worth investigating.

Good luck, let us know how you make out.

 

I ran Arizona's for years and now a Mimaki. I am wondering if it's the MDF substrate you mentioned? I know that stuff is of an unhealthy composition. (Formaldehyde causes cancer)

https://www.epa.gov/formaldehyde/fr...ds-composite-wood-products-act#health effects

As operators we never really noticed the smell of our print room, but customers and suppliers would sometimes mention it. We were printing primarily on plastics.

 

I run a Mimaki flatbed. Have done many days of full coverage printing consecutively and never encountered an odor strong enough to cause nausea. You said the issue might be the wood. Did you start to experience the increased odor after a new shipment of substrate? I recall working in a framing crating shop when a new load of material came. There were some that had a VERY strong odor. enough to make my eyes water and throat soar. Perhaps the UV light or heat from the bulb is reactivating the chemical binders in the substrate which are highly caustic. I used to do screenprint UV and whenever we printed on highly absorbent material the drying would always be problematic. The light has a hard time penetrating down into the surface to cure the ink that is absorbed. Outgassing took significantly longer.

 

UV ink will have a very bad taste before drying, this taste comes from the UV chemical monomer, usually the japanese produced UV ink taste will be relatively large, of course, there are also many very small odor UV ink, usually some UV opportunity built-in air purification system to solve this problem, Or recommend you install an air purifier around the UV printer.


Mars Chan
artisJet inkjet printing technology co.,ltd
flatbed printer supplier

 

Try cleaning the lights. We had problems with curing and once they were cleaned these problems vanished (at least until they need cleaning again).

 

Same here...Without laminating the print ...it really smells : (