Vinyl "blistering" in printer- L25500

[SellersSign&Design]

I have had my printer for a few weeks now, and it has been great. I have printed on several different types of vinyl and have not had any issues so far until now. Yesterday evening I tried to print on some Instant One cast vinyl, and between the time it was loaded and started printing it blistered and bubbled so bad I had to cancel the print. I tried some Orafol 3640 and it did the exact same thing. Nothing has changed in my profiles, I have printed on both materials before and all the environmental factors (heat, humidity etc.) were fine. I'm stumped?

 

[AKwrapguy]

Do you have any pics?
Is this a latex or solvent printer?

 

[Andy D]

Solvent does that if you try to print too much ink, such as printing black with a double strike.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

It's a 42" latex L25500 running with Flexi Cloud as the rip. I did not get pictures, but it was a bunch of bubbles and blisters that started at the right side of the material and spread across the full width. The first 6" or so was fine, but then as it started printing and feeding out, the bubbles started showing up. The backer was fine, the vinyl was bubbling up off of it.

 

[P Wagner]

Are the bubbles visible in the print zone (area where the ink is being applied), or do they appear after passing through the curing unit? Depending on the answer, I would suspect one of the following:

a) Excessive heat in the curing zone
b) Relatively old media which has experienced degraded adhesive

Paul

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Are the bubbles visible in the print zone (area where the ink is being applied), or do they appear after passing through the curing unit? Depending on the answer, I would suspect one of the following:

a) Excessive heat in the curing zone
b) Relatively old media which has experienced degraded adhesive

Paul

They appear behind the print zone. As the printer is heating and preparing to print everything I can see is fine, but then as it advances the media and starts printing the bubbles start to show up. This media is all new, less than 3 weeks old, and it all printed fine a week ago.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

I fixed the blistering issue. There was a buildup of adhesive where the roller in the printer where the edge of the vinyl always runs. It was pulling the vinyl from the backer. So I fixed that, but now I'm having issues with the prints. The color is off and spotty. The black looks brownish with tiny spots all through it... however the outer border that is printed for the sensor on my Mutoh cutter is a perfect black.

 

[Dennis422]

Pictures say a thousand words

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Pictures say a thousand words

You are right, here are some pictures!

This is with color correction on, running the 3M IJ35C profile in Flexi, 10 pass low ink bidirectional. The black border is fine, but the black in the file is washed out as is the gold leaf. There are tiny white spots all through the print also.

Same profile with color correction off. The black looks better, but the gold leaf is too dark. Still the issue with the tiny white spots all through the print...

 

[Dennis422]

Make sure your black is only black in the file.
For some reason, rich black prints a lot lighter than the 100% Black for me.

 

[P Wagner]

Based on the testing that you have done (print with color management on and another with it off), tells us that something in the Media Profile is the culprit. With the SAi RIP, it is relatively easy to get the various media settings misaligned (ink restrictions/ linearization/ ICC) and when that happens, print quality can decline sharply.

I would suggest deleting the media from the RIP, and then re-install the media profile again from the packaged file into Production Manager. If you are designing in an outside application (Illustrator, Corel, Photoshop etc) you might be better served to bring the job into the RIP (PM) directly as opposed to importing it into Flexi.

Paul

 

[qmr55]

What material?

Looks like it may be contaminated material

 

[BIG EASY DOES IT]

I have had my printer for a few weeks now, and it has been great. I have printed on several different types of vinyl and have not had any issues so far until now. Yesterday evening I tried to print on some Instant One cast vinyl, and between the time it was loaded and started printing it blistered and bubbled so bad I had to cancel the print. I tried some Orafol 3640 and it did the exact same thing. Nothing has changed in my profiles, I have printed on both materials before and all the environmental factors (heat, humidity etc.) were fine. I'm stumped?

Has the manufacturer changed anything. Maybe the backer paper or something? After that the first thing I would think of is the temperature sensor. The sensor might be messed up and not giving and accurate reading of the printing zone. Then your printer is going to keep pumping out heat to try and compensate for that. Also, you can warm your printer up before you load media. This will give it less time to come up to heat which will give less time the leader has to sit in the printing zone.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

The material is Orafol 3640G. I bought it just to use to learn the printer since it is cheap, but I needed some temporary decals and thought it would be great for that. It is the same roll I have been using, which printed great two weeks ago. I also tried 651 which worked a little better but still had issues. I am going to delete and reinstall the profiles like Castek recommended and also load up some 3M reflective and see how it prints... that is what I have printed on the most and haven't had any issues, so if it messes up I'll know it's a rip and/or printer problem.

 

[Graphic Destruction]

Try using Oracal ICC's, I always had better prints from them than I did with 3M ICC's when I ran a 25500. ICC profiles make or break a 25500.

 

[SellersSign&Design]

Try using Oracal ICC's, I always had better prints from them than I did with 3M ICC's when I ran a 25500. ICC profiles make or break a 25500.

I downloaded the 3640 profile from Oracal's website and tried it. Believe it or not it was worse than using the 3M profile! I also tried the HP Adhesive and Briteline profiles. Printing in 1,200 dpi 18 pass with the IJ35 profile seemed to help, but there were still some of the tiny white spots, mostly in the black. Maybe the media is contaminated, but how could that happen when it was printing great a couple weeks ago?

 

[richsweeney]

print heads?

I have both a 25500 and a 360, The only time I had issues with the 25500 was due to the print heads. Clean or replace according the the manual. For $25 call HP, and they will help you for a week on that problem.

 

[richsweeney]

sleep mode too

If you are new to this machine, always leave it on, never turn it off. If you turned if off then the print heads may have dried up a bit. I have had mine for over 4 years and never have turned it off on purpose.

 

[dale911]

Did you ever come up with an answer to this problem? I have been having his problem on my 25500 lately. I ran banner material and everything was perfect. Then I ran orafol 3640g and the first several inches was perfect. Then I began getting spots in the print and vinyl pulling off of the backing paper with blisters and wrinkles. Sounds to me like maybe too much heat but it's frustrating. Seems to only happen with thinner substrates so I'm going to try lowering heat but was hoping someone here may have an answer.


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[Christian @ 2CT Media]

I used to run my vinyl prints when we had a l25500 at 130 dry and between 180 and 208 cure.