Wrap direction - is wrap facing in useable?

[k_graham]

New latex 26500, supplied HP sample is vinyl facing out on roll.

Had ordered banner material and grommets from a different supplier (as they had grommets, machine supplier did not) so banner material is not HP brand - roll has good edge facing inwards, this seems to make a lot more sense as placing a 50 or more pound roll tends to have one use their arm not just hand and if short sleeved one is still getting skin oils on media. Anyway will the HP work okay with good side facing out on roll?

Seems to me all media should be good side in.

Ken

 

[Mosh]

Rolling a film to the inside would cause tunneling in the media, that is the reason.
Most banners I get are rolled to the inside, BTW be careful with pre-grommeted banners in your printer.
I hate rolls with grommet already in them, they never line up evenly so the banners look un-professional.

 

[MikePro]

I handle my media all the time (good side out) and rarely have issues with fingerprints/smudges.
then again ...I always burn that first few inches of media when I load, just to be safe.

less chance of media jam/head strike issues when you've got 6-10 inches of media pre-fed past the platen and into the drying element.
Its also nice to have excess material for lamination anyhow.

 

[MikePro]

p.s. that sample roll of HP media sent with the printer... is garbage. Don't use it. Stuff warps/buckles/tunnels and is a big waste of time.
I found the only way to print on it, without buckling/head striking/jamming, is to prefeed a bunch and then put tension on it as it waterfalls out of the printer.

 

[the graphics co]

Pretty much!

Whatever is exposed on the outside of the roll doesn't get printed anyways. On our Roland I factor in 24"-36" of waste for every job which covers the leading and trailing edge before a new job.

That is a lot of waste, it is only about 11" around the outside of a brand new roll and signifigantly less as it goes down. You shouldn't need/want to burn that much as that will add up to huge amounts over time.

 

[shoresigns]

That is a lot of waste, it is only about 11" around the outside of a brand new roll and signifigantly less as it goes down. You shouldn't need/want to burn that much as that will add up to huge amounts over time.

Agreed. That's far too much waste. I also run a Roland and I factor in about 12" of extra length for each job, which is more than enough to avoid head strikes by starting the material 6-8 inches forward and then leaving a few extra inches at the end. I would only burn 24-36 inches at the start of a roll to avoid the blotches that appear sometimes when you print on media that has been exposed for awhile.

 

[Browner]

That is a lot of waste, it is only about 11" around the outside of a brand new roll and signifigantly less as it goes down.

You might want to double check those measurements. On a nearly finished roll (assuming 3" core), the circumference might be 11", but on a full roll, you're looking at closer to 20".
C = πd

 

[MikePro]

12", 24", 36", either way, I believe we all agree its all about a good buffer, and the need to take waste into account each time you load a new material.
[SUP]"A couple inches aren't my problem, its hers."[/SUP]

 

[k_graham]

12", 24", 36", either way, I believe we all agree its all about a good buffer, and the need to take waste into account each time you load a new material.
[SUP]"A couple inches aren't my problem, its hers."[/SUP]

Thanks, though it did not answer, is there a problem when the roll is reverse wound with the good side in or will the HP automatically figure it out?

My next issue, the default HP lead edge after a cut is something like a quarter inch, which again seems asking for paper to catch, do you bother to cut things like posters between sheets or run without cutting, or set a larger lead edge in software?

Thanks, Ken

 

[MikePro]

Thanks, though it did not answer, is there a problem when the roll is reverse wound with the good side in or will the HP automatically figure it out?

umm no, flip your roll so that print side faces upwards when loaded.

My next issue, the default HP lead edge after a cut is something like a quarter inch, which again seems asking for paper to catch, do you bother to cut things like posters between sheets or run without cutting, or set a larger lead edge in software?

Thanks, Ken

don't cut in between jobs if you can help it, just turn the automatic cutter OFF. i believe you can also tell it to feed more before cutting in your settings, but I've never bothered... using the auo-cut feature is just asking to dump your perfectly good print on the floor each time. utilize your take-up reel, run multiple jobs at once to save labor/media/sanity.
media catching/contamination leads me back to my original comments, which I thought was the point of your OP. loading material upside-down, unless you're trying to double-sided print, is just silly and I was giving you more credit than I should have. no offense.

 

[k_graham]

umm no, flip your roll so that print side faces upwards when loaded.


loading material upside-down, unless you're trying to double-sided print, is just silly and I was giving you more credit than I should have. no offense.

It seems banner material wound good side in is the product wound correct to reduce waste so one could safely start with a 6" lead in.

By loading reversed in order to have the glossy side print (what I meant by upside down), I was concerned the roll for unwinding/tensioning would not function correctly potentially breaking something - evidently this is not the case, though when I tried to calibrate a roll using HP Spectro it failed on scan. Mind you as the HP manual suggests not to align print heads with Banner Material (because of texture). I am thinking perhaps banner material is not a good product to calibrate in shop, perhaps better the supplier calibrates a sample of equal material without texture (reinforcing) and supplies profile and leave it at that?

Or have people had success calibrating the textured banner material with an xrite eye-one, which we have for our digital press side.

Please excuse my ignorance coming from the offset and digital press side, I had this stupid idea that the cutter was there to cut, the fact the HP defaults to a small lead edge that it was designed to start off that way, where logic seems to win out, the cutter is maybe to cut the tail end of product (but not heavy banner material) and the small lead edge is really perhaps just for a space between intermediate jobs in the roll. Something not covered in the 4 hours of installation instruction.


Ken

 

[MikePro]

banner? you said vinyl. that's a horse of a different color! i don't think we're on the same wavelength here, but i'll keep shooting from the hip

you can print on either side of the banner, i do it all the time. Even on banner material that doesn't boast 2-sided printable.

as far as leading edge-curl...maybe try back-rolling your banner material onto another roll, let sit for an hour, and then load?
i've never been stumped by loading curled material before, as I really just initiate a manual load and feed my material up to a couple of feet past the drying element and everything scans as it should. if your media wants to curl on the sides within the printer, try putting a little tension, by hand, on the material that is hanging from the printer as it is beginning to scan/print until you can tie it to the take-up reel.

also, don't let the printer try to cut banner material. i believe that, if you load and select "banner/textile/mesh" from the menu, the cutter automatically defaults to "off".
...it just won't cut, it shreds/jams/buckles your media.

 

[bob]

Agreed. That's far too much waste. I also run a Roland and I factor in about 12" of extra length for each job, which is more than enough to avoid head strikes by starting the material 6-8 inches forward and then leaving a few extra inches at the end. I would only burn 24-36 inches at the start of a roll to avoid the blotches that appear sometimes when you print on media that has been exposed for awhile.

If that's too much waste profit wise, then you might want to revisit your pricing model. You're operating way too close to the edge.

If that's too much waste philosophically, perhaps you should try to develop a better accommodation of the external reality.

 

[the graphics co]

If that's too much waste profit wise, then you might want to revisit your pricing model. You're operating way too close to the edge.

If that's too much waste philosophically, perhaps you should try to develop a better accommodation of the external reality.

why would you want to lose profit? it's not about being close to the edge, its about not wanting to waste your material that is worth hard currency. If i could put a dollar in my pocket or throw one in the garbage, i would prefer to put it in my pocket.

 

[bob]

why would you want to lose profit? it's not about being close to the edge, its about not wanting to waste your material that is worth hard currency. If i could put a dollar in my pocket or throw one in the garbage, i would prefer to put it in my pocket.

If a few inches of banner material or vinyl separates you from profitability then your pricing model has some serious problems. A dollar here or there plus or minus should be pretty much meaningless if you're going about things properly. If you're in the business for very long at all you realize that worrying about material down to that level is a waste of time. A far more valuable resource than a bit of media.

 

[Gino]

why would you want to lose profit? it's not about being close to the edge, its about not wanting to waste your material that is worth hard currency. If i could put a dollar in my pocket or throw one in the garbage, i would prefer to put it in my pocket.

Regardless of putting a dollar in your pocket or in the trash, there's no reason to feed the dumpster with anything but trash. You should be quoting a certain price for your printed volume and whatever waste there is, you should be calculating and charging at a lesser rate for off-fall, called waste.

Say you have a 3' x 10' banner to print.

That's 30 sq ft of printed media, so take that times your needed price whatever you figure it to be, but in reality, you're really using about 12' into the roll. Therefore, you have 24 sq ft of unusable media, which you also charge out at a reduced cost, but still make a markup and small profit. Now, it's up to you if you wanna throw it away or save it for a rainy day, but you've been paid in full for positive usage and negative usage.

............. and you do the same thing with vinyl.
​