Question Warping Substrate - HP Latex 365

[heyitsme]

Hi I'm basically a noob so bare with me

I've used a latex 265000 for most of my employment I was thrown into, now we had to upgrade to a 365000 due to lack of parts etc, and its new way of curing/drying is driving me mad. Most of my substrates I've always used warp inside the printer and touch the top of the curing zone, scaping the ink off before it's dried, so i either have to run a load of substrate out first to pull on, or push it down while printing.

I've tried substrate profiles from the companies I'm purchasing it from, making new ones using temperatures, passes etc from the printer supplier, changing temperatures higher and lower (it either helps make the substrate sit flat, but doesnt dry, or dries and the substrate warps). I can't really use the takeup roller because of the constant small jobs being done.

I don't know enough about delays, passes etc to know what to try next, as I've never really been given proper training. How can I make the substrate sit flat while printing like they did on the 265, or is there something wrong with this printers' curing zone (i notice the metal warps when heating up).

 

[balstestrat]

Always start the print so that the leading edge you can touch inside the heater. So you waste like 10" or so.

Next take a profile that's as close to the material as you can get. Then If that doesn't work you can try to lower the heat and add a little bit of interpass delay. If that doesn't work you have to go up in passes and lower the heat.

There is so much to this that it would be best to ask the reseller to train you to it. Let them check some profiles for you together. Its included in the Installation anyways...

Also there's probably thousand different materials that work just fine so maybe you have to consider changing some of the worst performing ones to a different product.

 

[P Wagner]

There are a few medias (primarily poster and photopapers) that ran fine in the L2 machines that are not compatible with the 300/ 500 Series, as they react in the manner that you describe. One common example is HP Photo-Realistic Poster Paper. It is not recommended on the 300, but ran fine on previous models. For the 300/ 500, HP recommends a different product called HP Premium Poster Paper.

 

[MNT_Printhead]

The 360s and 365s pretty much require you to burn about a foot of most medias, just to have it print without striking etc.

 

[brdesign]

Heat is the main issue. In addition to increasing the number of passes to reduce the heat needed for curing, you can also reduce the saturation of that media profile to reduce the temperature. Also having the material attached to the take-up to keep tension will also help.

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

I keep 3 metal clamps, like big bulldog clamps, that I hang from the front when starting - and you can move them up the 2 side edges as it comes out, until you have enough to put on the take-up reel.
One in each corner and one in the middle.

 

[Chris Keena]

All good advise here from everyone

 

[Proofread People]

Heat is the main issue. In addition to increasing the number of passes to reduce the heat needed for curing, you can also reduce the saturation of that media profile to reduce the temperature. Also having the material attached to the take-up to keep tension will also help.

I've learned, if the vacuum is too high for paper, it hinders the media from advancing and I get headstrikes. Briteline photo paper seems to play nice with our 570. I had to tinker with the heat setting to find the "Goldilocks, just right" temp.

Does anyone notice a change in curing when the seasons change? Whenever there is more humidity in the air, my optimizer doesn't seem to cure completely, print is still sticky tacky.

 

[Chris Keena]

I've learned, if the vacuum is too high for paper, it hinders the media from advancing and I get headstrikes. Briteline photo paper seems to play nice with our 570. I had to tinker with the heat setting to find the "Goldilocks, just right" temp.

Does anyone notice a change in curing when the seasons change? Whenever there is more humidity in the air, my optimizer doesn't seem to cure completely, print is still sticky tacky.

Funny, I just had the conversation with our print production guy and he brought up the humidity. And yes, as seasons change here in NJ, stuff won't cure on backlits, or headstrike on Avery wrap vinyl. I have a client who once said, "that's why I don't print" He was a broker, I hate him.

 

[heyitsme]

Thanks for the all the responses. I understand the passes etc now better after watching some HP vids too, but the only way i can stop the substrate warping inside the curing zone is by printing at 70 degrees, 16 passes, and 80% which isn't giving me very bold blacks/colours any more and has made the printer so slow to print a job its affecting my work output (I was using 10 passes before). And this is just trying to get the vinyl to work, not even got to paper and pp which also warp and touch the curing plates yet...

I want the 265 back

 

[balstestrat]

Change to a different brand of vinyl because there's tons of them that you can run 115C just fine.

PP should be able to work OK. Paper is not easy.

 

[Proofread People]

Thanks for the all the responses. I understand the passes etc now better after watching some HP vids too, but the only way i can stop the substrate warping inside the curing zone is by printing at 70 degrees, 16 passes, and 80% which isn't giving me very bold blacks/colours any more and has made the printer so slow to print a job its affecting my work output (I was using 10 passes before). And this is just trying to get the vinyl to work, not even got to paper and pp which also warp and touch the curing plates yet...

I want the 265 back

Could it be a bad batch of vinyl? Have you tried 10pass? Maybe at 16pass its spending too long under the heater? Our bread & butter is 3M IJ35c-10 or IJ40c-10. As for paper, I've had my share of headaches but found a Briteline Photo paper plays nice with our HP 570.

Also, before we changed our HVAC system, I would have issues with the optimizer not curing, prints would come out sticky. We borrowed a humidifier and that helped a lot. We use 3MIJ180 CV3 for wraps, have not had any issues with headstrikes.

Good luck Chris!

Funny, I just had the conversation with our print production guy and he brought up the humidity. And yes, as seasons change here in NJ, stuff won't cure on backlits, or headstrike on Avery wrap vinyl. I have a client who once said, "that's why I don't print" He was a broker, I hate him.

 

[darrellcarpenay]

It's a bit of a learning curve to figure out the right temperature, passes, and delays to use on each media, but with constant use, you'll get it.
For adhesive vinyl, I use 210F, 12p with no delay and it works out fine for me, but you may need to go even lower in temperature if you find that your media still warps.

If you have to turn down the temperature to avoid warping, it simply means you have to increase the time the print has to pass through the heater - you can do this in two ways: increase the passes, and increase the interpass delay in advanced profile settings (you can also do this while printing). Interpass delay basically. increase the time between each time the print head passes to make a print - the higher it's set, the longer the delay, and the longer the print has to pass through the heater giving it more time to cure.

You can also reduce the amount of ink printed by decreasing ink saturation, but I am always set to at least 100% for the best print quality. Darker and more saturated colors, especially black, take a long time to dry - so you might need to increase the passes or delay for these prints - just watch out because even at lower temperatures, once the media takes longer to pass the heater, you can still end up with warping.

For small jobs that you have to print, sometimes you might have to put some tension on the media to avoid it from smearing on the heater due to warping. For perforated, I've had to go up to 20 pass to be able to lower the temperature to an acceptable level to avoid warping. Slows jobs down significantly, but there's not much else I've found to be a solution.

This is one of the major disadvantages with this printer, and if HP manages to at least reduce the heat required to dry their inks by 50%, that would make a wold of difference, but for now, we're stuck with this. Great printer, awesome quality, but the heat is a major issue.

 

[akuarela]

In the HP365 - adhesive vinyl, I use mainly Substance Incorporated ICON PM-2755, used to do the 3M IJ35C but found some inconsistent colors between batches.
I've had lots of issues with paper medias, but otherwise most other stuff has behaved well.

 

[dmgdesign]

With self adhesive vinyl, make sure you buy media that has a ‘two side PE coated backing paper’ or ‘double sided silicone coated backing paper’. Theres a few Avery products that have ‘one side coated kraft paper’ and they’re basically unusable when curing at high heat.

I used to attach a 1m metal ruler to the media just as it came out of the heater just like the bulldog clamp method mentioned above. But once i figured out the backing paper thing there was no need for any of those workarounds anymore.

The other thing that’s worth mentioning is.. If you leave the media loaded in the printer when you’re done and then go to use it the next day, the first 100mm or so will be curled. You may not notice it because it gets sucked flat by the vacuum bed, but once the vacuum turns off the media will curl up again at the front and if that part is under the heating thing, you wont see it lift up and it will often touch the top and get stuck. If your using preloaded media, let out some waste at the start. I usually go until i can just grab it from the front.

 

[myront]

Our print tech has taken an empty media tube and routed out about a 1/4" slit down the length of it. Once the leading edge is out far enough he takes one of those clamping type pop up banner attachments and clamps to the leading edge of the media, then he slips that tube over it all.This will keep tensions on until it gets down far enough to tape to the take up reel. Just one of many "workarounds"

 

[greysquirrel]

You have a 360/365…create your own media profiles. Every profile that you download through the HP have been created in a lab with perfect environmental conditions. Every profile needs its temperature reduced. Adh vin start at 210-214 banner 215-218 backlit films 220-225
Most papers 180-185. Your environment will be different. Change of season’s absolutely has an affect. 1-2 degrees makes a big difference unlike eco solvent.

 

[darrellcarpenay]

You have a 360/365…create your own media profiles. Every profile that you download through the HP have been created in a lab with perfect environmental conditions. Every profile needs its temperature reduced. Adh vin start at 210-214 banner 215-218 backlit films 220-225
Most papers 180-185. Your environment will be different. Change of season’s absolutely has an affect. 1-2 degrees makes a big difference unlike eco solvent.

I hear you on the temperatures but what number of passes do you use on these? Sometimes I want to go a bit faster but then the ink doesn't dry so you have to put an interval between the passes or just increase the pass number.

 

[greysquirrel]

so if you want to go faster, your profile has to have less ink and higher temps. Adhesive vinyl needs to stay at 8pass

 

[DovetonPress]

Hi I'm basically a noob so bare with me

I've used a latex 265000 for most of my employment I was thrown into, now we had to upgrade to a 365000 due to lack of parts etc, and its new way of curing/drying is driving me mad. Most of my substrates I've always used warp inside the printer and touch the top of the curing zone, scaping the ink off before it's dried, so i either have to run a load of substrate out first to pull on, or push it down while printing.

I've tried substrate profiles from the companies I'm purchasing it from, making new ones using temperatures, passes etc from the printer supplier, changing temperatures higher and lower (it either helps make the substrate sit flat, but doesnt dry, or dries and the substrate warps). I can't really use the takeup roller because of the constant small jobs being done.

I don't know enough about delays, passes etc to know what to try next, as I've never really been given proper training. How can I make the substrate sit flat while printing like they did on the 265, or is there something wrong with this printers' curing zone (i notice the metal warps when heating up).

Hello, did you manage to sort this issue?
We have the same here for only one particular substrate which is a 200gsm satin, tried so many different things.