waterbased or solvent/eco-solvent for outdoor prints?

[djeeke]

Hi,

Up to now I've managed with outsourcing print jobs and working with my vinyl cutter.

It's time for me to start looking for a printer...

It seems the water based inks are improving so I am wondering : Am I in the market for a solvent/eco-solvent printer or am I in the market for a water-based ink printer ?

Sepiax ink is I guess an example of an ink manufaturer promising great results with their water based ink.

Anybody has any experience and feedback to give on the water-based outdoor inks on the market?

 

[genericname]

Same argument you will have seen from the paint industry when lead paints were being phased out. If you're not careful, solvent will kill you, but if you're doing outdoor prints that you want to last for an extended period of time, solvent's the way to go.

We have large scale prints that have been outdoors for four years, with very harsh weather, and are just now seeing some fading in them. If we went eco-sol, there's no way we would've got that kind of longevity out of them.

 

[CS-SignSupply-TT]

Your outdoor solution is eco-solvent, solvent, or UV flatbed. Depends on environmental disposal issues, as well as what is the bulk of your business: flat sheet work -or- vehicle wraps

 

[Circleville Signs]

This is one of those common sense questions.

Think about it. Water-Based ink. Key word - WATER.

What is there A LOT OF in the outdoors? I'll give you a hint - the answer is in the line above this one....

 

[HulkSmash]

If you don't know, i'm not so sure you're ready for a printer.

 

[CS-SignSupply-TT]

Circleville, obviously, you have had pumpkins up to your eyeballs, and its not Halloween yet. Give our Belgian guest a little bit of slack...

 

[Circleville Signs]

Circleville, obviously, you have had pumpkins up to your eyeballs, and its not Halloween yet. Give our Belgian guest a little bit of slack...

LOL - that's fair

Still though, you have to admit. If someone doesn't understand the differences between eco-sol/solvent and water based inks and their applications, do you REALLY think they are ready to purchase a printer? Really?

 

[CS-SignSupply-TT]

I agree completely with your assessment. Nevertheless, he was willing to ask the question and begin the conversation.

 

[boxerbay]

LOL - that's fair

Still though, you have to admit. If someone doesn't understand the differences between eco-sol/solvent and water based inks and their applications, do you REALLY think they are ready to purchase a printer? Really?

In 2003 we purchased our first printer a seiko 64s. I had no clue about anything and learned on the job. I asked a lot of questions and read A LOT of forum posts. Your not born with the knowledge. You will have to ask questions to learn. If this is his starting point well then welcome aboard.

 

[Circleville Signs]

Your starting point should NEVER be "buy an expensive printer and learn on the job". The success rate for people using this business model is around 20%.

You have to learn the sign business first. Outsource the work until you do enough that it justifies bringing it in-house...

Common sense.

 

[Gino]

Your starting point should NEVER be "buy an expensive printer and learn on the job". The success rate for people using this business model is around 20%.

You have to learn the sign business first. Outsource the work until you do enough that it justifies bringing it in-house...

Common sense.

You're right, it shouldn't be in that order, but it happens.... and quite a bit, I might add.... and not always because the person is dumb, but rather mis-informed.... and sometimes intentionally.

When we bought our aqueous printer, we were told it could do everything and anything for outdoor use and durability as the true solvent printers at the time could do. Later, we found we had to use specialty coated media ONLY. Then we found out the added costs to that stuff. There was no such thing as eco or mild solvent printers, so we believed the salespeople that told us this stuff. That was also before there were sites such as this one from which to learn. We were purposely lied to as to what our new purchase could and would do. We asked specific questions and were given twisted replies that we couldn't see through their lies until much later. However, through sheer determination and much research we managed to make that printer do things it wasn't supposed to do. It served us well and is still serving the shop we sold it to 6 years later. However, we told them everything and how we got around obstacles.

So, for someone to come here and ask these questions is one thing, but I think due to a language barrier, if any of you would've looked at the ink the OP was asking about, you'd see clearly that it's basically a latex printer which is what 's in question here. Let's see, how many have bought these latex printers lately and are marveling over how wonderful they are ??

 

[SightLine]

Also not really appropriate to classify Sepiax ink in the same way as other water based inks. It's really nothing like what any of us think of when the term water based ink is used. That may change one day. Sepaix is a different beast - somewhat new resin based pigment technology and while some of the early reports of it sounds very promising there are not a lot of success stories regarding it's use - not many sotires good or bad for that matter. Just not many installs of it out there yet to make any sort of reasonably informed decision or opinion on it.

 

[BigfishDM]

Your starting point should NEVER be "buy an expensive printer and learn on the job". The success rate for people using this business model is around 20%.

You have to learn the sign business first. Outsource the work until you do enough that it justifies bringing it in-house...

Common sense.

x100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

[BigfishDM]

Lol But if you decide against it and you absolutley want a printer then give me a call and I will get you going in the right direction.

 

[djeeke]

Hi Guys !

This is one of those common sense questions.
Think about it. Water-Based ink. Key word - WATER.
What is there A LOT OF in the outdoors? I'll give you a hint - the answer is in the line above this one....

Yes, there is a lot of water outdoors as well as many many colors so water based is great ?
OK, sorry :Oops:

Still though, you have to admit. If someone doesn't understand the differences between eco-sol/solvent and water based inks and their applications, do you REALLY think they are ready to purchase a printer? Really?

You're right, I'm no ink expert and I don't want to be, everybody has his own business... Water / solvents / eco-solvents are just transport media and evaporate... Solvents are toxic and water is not. Solvents are designed for fast evaporation so do the job better... ECO-solvents are trying to emulate the solvent's evaporation capacity with less toxic components with moderate success and water is water, we all know it does not evaporate easily...
But I guess I should have asked about 'new development water based inks' as I'm told this Sepiax is great, prints on anything at a lower cost etc... But it would be pioneering work... (no, not for me)
Something around here that helps in a company's publicity is the ECO aspect... I see some companies around here give themselves an 'environment friendly production label' they swear by eco-solvent just because the're 'ECO' , even though it doesn't seem to deliver the best outdoor quality:

if you're doing outdoor prints that you want to last for an extended period of time, solvent's the way to go.

We have large scale prints that have been outdoors for four years, with very harsh weather, and are just now seeing some fading in them. If we went eco-sol, there's no way we would've got that kind of longevity out of them.

You're right, it shouldn't be in that order, but it happens.... and quite a bit, I might add.... and not always because the person is dumb, but rather mis-informed.... and sometimes intentionally.

When we bought our aqueous printer, we were told it could do everything and anything for outdoor use and durability as the true solvent printers at the time could do. Later, we found we had to use specialty coated media ONLY. Then we found out the added costs to that stuff. There was no such thing as eco or mild solvent printers, so we believed the salespeople that told us this stuff. That was also before there were sites such as this one from which to learn. We were purposely lied to as to what our new purchase could and would do. We asked specific questions and were given twisted replies that we couldn't see through their lies until much later. However, through sheer determination and much research we managed to make that printer do things it wasn't supposed to do. It served us well and is still serving the shop we sold it to 6 years later. However, we told them everything and how we got around obstacles.

Indeed I'm trying to make real-life talk out of salestalk, seen a few very convincing salesguys giving different stories...
No the Sepiax ink is no latex... I think I initially did mention it seems water based inks are improving and this is why I started this thread...

Also not really appropriate to classify Sepiax ink in the same way as other water based inks. It's really nothing like what any of us think of when the term water based ink is used. That may change one day. Sepaix is a different beast - somewhat new resin based pigment technology and while some of the early reports of it sounds very promising there are not a lot of success stories regarding it's use - not many sotires good or bad for that matter. Just not many installs of it out there yet to make any sort of reasonably informed decision or opinion on it.

Sepiax does mention on their website

The flagship product of Sepiax Ink Technologies is the “aquares ink”, a water based resin ink, designed for printing through Epson DX4 / DX5 printheads.

So I thought maybe someone here might have tried it... But I get SightLine's point, it is too early, not enough installs out there yet to get feedback.

Lol But if you decide against it and you absolutley want a printer then give me a call and I will get you going in the right direction.

Not deciding anything yet but looking at possibilities... For now I am just looking at setting up a short ticklist of what the printer should be able to do... I'm not afraid of new technologies but don't want to be a Guinea Pig either...

 

[SightLine]

It's not necessarily about evaporation. Yes - the solvent or water is just a carrier for the ink. What makes solvent last longer is that it allows the ink to permeate into the vinyl itself. Think of it as partially melting the vinyl and allowing the ink to actually become part of the vinyl. With water based inks the ink simply sits on top of the vinyl which is why most materials for water based inks must be specially coated with a semiporous coating to hold the ink. With eco/lite solvent the ink can still embed into the vinyl just not as deeply. Of course with certain materials that are porous such as fabrics any ink type can actually soak into it but too much soaking in is also not good.

Tried and trued are solvent and ecosolvent. Cutting edge would be HP's latex which so far seems very promising. HP latex does have some peculiarities though due to the very high heat required to cure it which will limit you on a couple of materials like heat transfer. Prints do look great from it though but in my personal opinion the jury is still out on it's true long term durability but early reports sound very good.

If you like blood then bleeding edge will be Sepiax and I believe there are a couple of other bleeding edge inks just coming to market. With the Sepiax inks being able to print on near anything , my thinking is it has to do with the resin probably acting essentially as an adhesive glueing the ink to the material.

.................Solvents are designed for fast evaporation so do the job better... ECO-solvents are trying to emulate the solvent's evaporation capacity with less toxic components with moderate success and water is water, we all know it does not evaporate easily...
...

 

[Speedsterbeast]

All of you posters who do not want to help, why answer?
Please consider this: If I wanted to "learn the sign business first" I would have to work for someone in my area first, have them train me on the business, and then leave them to move down the street and then start competing with them (and probably "lowballing" to get my foot in the market). Is this what all of you business owners would prefer? To train people with their full intention to become your competitior. I'm sorry, but I could not ethically go this route due to having full knowledge of my end goal. So if someone asks a question here, instead of criticizing their path choice, I would suggest either help them or move on. It would make these forums so much more efficient.

 

[Gino]

All of you posters who do not want to help, why answer?
Please consider this: If I wanted to "learn the sign business first" I would have to work for someone in my area first, have them train me on the business, and then leave them to move down the street and then start competing with them (and probably "lowballing" to get my foot in the market). Is this what all of you business owners would prefer? To train people with their full intention to become your competitior. I'm sorry, but I could not ethically go this route due to having full knowledge of my end goal. So if someone asks a question here, instead of criticizing their path choice, I would suggest either help them or move on. It would make these forums so much more efficient.

for your wonderful insight. You are so thoughtful.

 

[genericname]

Something around here that helps in a company's publicity is the ECO aspect... I see some companies around here give themselves an 'environment friendly production label' they swear by eco-solvent just because the're 'ECO' , even though it doesn't seem to deliver the best outdoor quality

I hate this greenwashing. The "eco" in eco-solvent has nothing do to with environmental impact. It stands for "economical". If anyone sells you ink, saying their eco-solvent ink is environmentally friendly, they're selling snake oild, and have either been lying to you, or someone has been lying to them.

The actual solvent part of any ink is a rather small percentage, and there are much higher concentrations of harmful chemicals in the inks themselves, depending on the colour.

 

[djeeke]

I hate this greenwashing. The "eco" in eco-solvent has nothing do to with environmental impact. It stands for "economical". If anyone sells you ink, saying their eco-solvent ink is environmentally friendly, they're selling snake oild, and have either been lying to you, or someone has been lying to them.

Talking about economical...
Only prints I've ever made were on thermal transfer, expensive printing... But easy to know how much your print costs, as cost cartridge specs state print area covered...
Anyone here has an idea how much eco-solvent ink is typically used per sqm for full color prints on vinyl (or other, just specify) ? Or what area is typically covered with x ml ?
Sepiax is supposed to require a lot less ink but I think for now we will not have much feedback on this one to compare...