Old Banner Material could be my problem!

[Suz]

Hi Folks!

First, THANK YOU to each and every one of you who has posted helpful information and also replied to my cries of help during this "break in" time with my new HP L25500 Latex printer.:U Rock:

This thing kicks my butt some days. Other days It just kicks butt!

Yesterday I devoted a good deal of time to running all (3) rolls of various banner materials I have in stock to determine what is going wrong with my banner prints. I've had banding, spotty colors, all sorts of strange things turning up in my prints. I'd been using two rolls of banner material that was recently given to me after I purchased my printer. I had success with other materials, but not with the banner material.

So, I started to check dates on the materials I was given and discovered that what I have is probably beyond it's shelf life, and because of the fact it was probably stored in all sorts of conditions (Wa State) during it's life, it may just be too old to produce a good print. Just my suspicions.... So, this lead me to pull out a roll of banner material I'd purchased about a year ago that I have been storing in a controlled climate since I bought it.

Well, I had great success!!! My colors were beautiful, exactly what I had been after, not faded, blotchy, no banding troubles. It is a bit thinner than the 13 oz stuff I had given to me, but it prints well. Now, I just have to find the receipt for it to see what exactly it was!!!! I do remember the conversation with the supplier who touted it's "digital printing" quality, which I did not think I'd be taking advantage of any time soon. But I thought, okay, what the heck! If I can find a printer who will print on my roll of material, it may save my bacon one day. Back then, I'd purchased it for cad cut vinyl. Well, it saved my bacon!!!

So, just posting this as it may be of some use or help to others here who are using old material for digital printing.

On the other hand though, I've also discovered some old materials (such as thick drawing paper and white calendered vinyl) that the HP Latex loves!!!

I am still working on learning the Onyx software. I do like it, still experimenting though as I cannot compare it to any other digital printing software so far.

Thought I'd share my discoveries.

Again, thanks for your help!

 

[BigfishDM]

Thats great! Good job Suz!

 

[Suz]

Thats great! Good job Suz!

Josh, that poster paper that I got from you is working beautifully on my latex printer. Love it! Thank you! Now I can do some nice posters that I will be proud to show people. Just what I wanted. Thanks again!

 

[Suz]

A good day printing

We celebrated Christmas early with our kids. Typically, we make a Christmas Eve Morning breakfast. I know, Eve and Morning don't go together, but anyhow... The morning of the 24th!!!

So, yesterday in the afternoon I had a wild hair to go down to the shop and try something on the 13 oz banner material I had such bad luck trying to print before. I figured it was old and that is why I was having problems. Then, after doing some research about what to try, I read something regarding printing on the L25500 that recommended trying the print profiles for "permanent adhesive" those profiles use more ink, and experimenting with more passes. So, I tried that and it worked!!!!

The problems I had been seeing with the 13 oz banner material was ink that looked very light in most areas, then spots where it looked like it should look, deeper in color. these "spots" usually showed up where there was a hand print or finger print on the material. I was also having some wavey banding thing that kept turning up.

I had posted on another forum (when I first got my printer running) about the problems I was having and did get some good responses. I did not understand the answers at the time, but went back to those posts and tried to do some of the things that were suggested. This helped so much. I was told to try different profiles, and I had done that. However, I did not go outside of the "banner" profiles and should have. Also, it was suggested that the wavey patterns were showing up because the material had been sitting under the heat for too long and needed to be advanced before every print.

I'm posting this find because it may help someone. Don't be afraid to experiment around with different profiles until you find something that works for the material you are using. I'm so glad I did not just throw away this banner material. I'm keeping a log of my experiments so that I can just pick up where I left off last. I plan to do this each time I get a new roll, just like I have always done with my darkroom work and with screen-making.