New JFX-200 2513 owner here

[Dacsi]

Hey guys,

New JFX-200-2513 owner here. (LUS-120 inks CMYK CPWW)
We recently had some complaints about the prints coming off and bubbling up, so I’ve changed a couple of things in the settings.
The material is TPU and I first started printing with these settings: 30 % primer, 100%/100% white, and on the top a 30% clear layer.
Because of the complaints, I’ve increased the primer to 50% and also started to clean off the TPU with a lint-free cloth.
I’ve also changed the printing profile to a PVC Gloss profile(I used to use the default Matt paper (??) profile).

I’m not really sure if this is what I needed to do in order to get the problems to disappear but in a week we had no complaints so far.

I’d like to learn more about the machine and how I need to start testing out the printing for each material(we also do MDF plaques) and find out if these settings are good at all or we could save more ink with other settings and still get the same quality out of our printer. I’ve checked most of the videos on YouTube and checked most of the topics here about the printer (even checked other printers' topics) but I couldn’t find anything useful so far.


I’d appreciate any help if I missed something.
I don’t mind reading through long topics etc. if there is valuable information in that.

 

[Adam Vreeke]

I am running same machine, although a bit different. LH-100 and CMYK/CCWW. The best advice that I can give you is to test, test test! Test a little 2" x 2" square on your material and test it with 10% / 20% / 30% etc. primer and then finish the print off exactly how you described above on all of them. I do an initial scratch test as soon as it comes off the machine, and then wait 24 hours for the ink to fully bond and then do another scratch test and just see what combo works best with your material.

Get different material in? Do another round of tests on it!

I have 4 different types of primers here for different materials and I do tests like the above with all the primers testing with just CMYK, CMYK + Clear etc. until I get a good combo.

 

[NathanR]

As a Newbie with the JFX-200 and uv printing as a whole, I completely agree with the test everything everything advice.
I wish I could offer exact settings but a lot of those I'm still learning and what we are using now where set before I started working with the printer.

So far with underlayment and mdf we use we haven't needed to use primer or a clear coat on a good share of our prints but most of our items are on the smaller side (dice trays and the like)
we also print on acrylic which we had a heck of a time with as most prints just chipped right off even with a clear coat.
we started hand applying AP3155 before starting a print and it seems to be helping with the adhesion factor a lot.
The one caution I would say is printing on shiny black acrylic with this method causes every possible finger/glove/dust print to stand out and get baked into the surface and often when cleaning it we end up with streak lines that look like scratches despite using super not abrasive clothes. On the whole do not recommend printing on shiny black acrylic.

Best of luck with the printer

 

[Dacsi]

Thanks very much for these guys! Now I know that I didn't miss anything (or the information is really hiding on the web) and we just need to test test test.
Hopefully, the new settings are going to be good and we won't have any problem with the prints coming off of the TPU.
With MDF I also print just white and colour layers and it seems to be good.

NathanR: With the acrylic have you tried the primer 100% as well? Was everything the same?

We had a tech guy here in our unit not long ago and he told me that even if I would set the primer to 100% it would only print 30%.
I don't know if it's true or not but it's very interesting as the guy(also a tech) who showed me the machine on the first day didn't mention this.

Do you guys have any experience with printing on varnished wood? Would the primer be enough for those products or we would need to sand the surface a little bit to get the primer working?

We also try to create our own jigs for the products but it is not easy, even though we have lasers in our unit.
We've tried to stick MDF sheets together but sometimes the sheets moved and we also had height differences which is not too good.
We reached out to a couple of CNC manufacturers to get the jigs from one thicker sheet but the cost of those are in the sky, unfortunately.
They ask £600-£1000 for one jig and we would need like 20 or more different one for the start. So now we're trying to figure out something in house.

 

[NathanR]

Thanks very much for these guys! Now I know that I didn't miss anything (or the information is really hiding on the web) and we just need to test test test.
Hopefully, the new settings are going to be good and we won't have any problem with the prints coming off of the TPU.
With MDF I also print just white and colour layers and it seems to be good.

NathanR: With the acrylic have you tried the primer 100% as well? Was everything the same?

We had a tech guy here in our unit not long ago and he told me that even if I would set the primer to 100% it would only print 30%.
I don't know if it's true or not but it's very interesting as the guy(also a tech) who showed me the machine on the first day didn't mention this.

Do you guys have any experience with printing on varnished wood? Would the primer be enough for those products or we would need to sand the surface a little bit to get the primer working?

We also try to create our own jigs for the products but it is not easy, even though we have lasers in our unit.
We've tried to stick MDF sheets together but sometimes the sheets moved and we also had height differences which is not too good.
We reached out to a couple of CNC manufacturers to get the jigs from one thicker sheet but the cost of those are in the sky, unfortunately.
They ask £600-£1000 for one jig and we would need like 20 or more different one for the start. So now we're trying to figure out something in house.

So I went back and read your set up again and realized its slightly different than what we are using we have a CMYK CCWW so we don't have a printable primer.
For our acrylic we apply a primer (adhesion promoter) by hand before printing.
I'm not sure about the percentages printable primer if its true it only prints at 30% so I can't really comment on that other than I know for normal ink channels you can chose the over print option if say for instance your white seemed to be a little softer than what you wanted, but I don't know if that works with the primer or if that would even be recommended.

We haven't tried on varnished wood yet so not sure how well it would hold or if it needs additional prep.

Making jigs can be a little annoying but certainly are worth the time. We tend to use 3mm mdf as it's cheap and as long as it's kept flat works pretty well. We also use lasers in our shop and one thing that we figured out pretty early on the zero point on the lasers and the zero point on the printer where not only on opposite ends of the unit but there was a few millimeter offset. My boss came up with the idea to make an alignment ruler where the feed and scan lines can be printed in 0.1mm intervals and then that same file has twin cut file you can run on the laser and compare marks and adjust the printer file to match the lasers. I'll try to attach a picture of it

Wood height difference is an on going annoyance.
with larger sheets of underlayment typicly we just tape around the whole board with weatherproofing tape as it holds better than blue tape but still pulls up easier than others.
we also have a few thin plastic sheets (0.5mm) that can be moved around the print area to help focus the suction force of the vaccume to the print project itself and also doubles as a dust cover when the printer isn't in use.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

I’m surprised you guys need primer at all. We have a primer channel, but never use it. We use the 150 inks and they seem to adhere to all materials very well, including white ink

 

[Dacsi]

Thanks, NathanR for the attachment, it seems pretty cool. We will check this as we also noticed a little offset that can cause problems.

Zendavor Signs, I'm totally new to the machine, so I'm trying to figure out the settings.
Unfortunately, without the primer, the TPU didn't work before and it worked with the primer. It would be very good if we could print without it.
Could it be that I use an incorrect profile for the TPU or should I change the UV level maybe? Do you have any suggestions if not too much to ask?
Any idea where to start would be appreciated.