Possible bad batch of 3M 180CV3

[SightLine]

Heads up and also wanting to hear of anyone else has material from this lot and has run into this...
We print tons of this - we are in the middle of wrapping a couple of dozen 40' buses right now. Printed a roll from a new lot number and all is fine except install. It is hyper agressive. You literally cannot reposition it - once its touches the bus it is near impossible to pull it back at all to reposition before you squeegee it. Nothing changed on our end - all of the buses are identical, same printer, ink, settings, etc - we literally just resend the same job from the RIP to print the next one.... the past 4 buses on this run have been fine and we have literally used probably close to a thousand rolls of 180 over the years.
We are going to work through this roll but just emailed Grimco to see if they will swap out the other two rolls we still have on hand with a different lot number. The main lower driver side - we print as one single long piece a hair over 40 feet long x 52" tall. I can typically install this entire piece in about an hour and half - this one is pushing 6 hours....

54" x 50yd IJ180CV3-10
Lot L2329416 (the roll core label has L2329418 for some reason)
Report No B041565
Cust Ref 10/23

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

3m’s quality control problems has greatly helped my company in massive Arlon sales!
It is great to sell the American made product
Bruce

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I think it must be cyclic. About four or five years ago, we got in 10 or 15 pallets of the stuff- from the factory, as the company was a 3m subcontractor- and just kept having issues. And we were printing on 5 printers at a time. When we noticed the first issue (a dark print that just looked horrible), our thought was "ooh, that machine needs a strong clean, blah, blah, blah", so we did that. No luck. Same thing on a different printer. Then another, another, and the last. Heavy cleans on all of them, changed inks (just in case), checked printheads, tried different rolls from different pallets... everything. We finally took a close look at the material (with a loupe and then with a microscope) and could see contaminants on every roll we checked.
Out of those 10-15 pallets, we got- maybe- 30 "good" rolls with no issues (the pallets had 30 rolls each on them).
3M finally admitted (after we kept telling them we were missing their deadlines due to material quality issues) that they'd had a "bad run" or some such nonsense. They were shipping rolls and hoping people didn't notice.

 

[White Haus]

They were shipping rolls and hoping people didn't notice.

I feel like this is 3M's MO. We're not printing anywhere near that scale but we've run into issues with their "premium" products for years. Mostly with 8519 and 8518 laminates. Depending on the rep, they would either flat out deny that they've had any other complaints/issues or nonchalantly admit that they've had issues. Caused us to stop using 8519 years ago, and now we've been slowly replacing 8518 due to consistent quality control issues with the finish.
We've been testing/evaluating 8418G and so far it seems better, but who knows.

I realize every manufacturer runs into issues but it's extra frustrating when it's the "most reputable" and certainly most expensive, and they clearly don't stand behind their products.

 

[White Haus]

3m’s quality control problems has greatly helped my company in massive Arlon sales!
It is great to sell the American made product
Bruce

We've been replacing 3M 8518 w/ Arlon 3220 Gloss, and much prefer the Arlon product's finish and price point. Unfortunately (for Arlon I guess) 3M 8418 comes in even cheaper than 3220 so we're considering moving to that now.

 

[SignZoo]

Heads up and also wanting to hear of anyone else has material from this lot and has run into this...
We print tons of this - we are in the middle of wrapping a couple of dozen 40' buses right now. Printed a roll from a new lot number and all is fine except install. It is hyper agressive. You literally cannot reposition it - once its touches the bus it is near impossible to pull it back at all to reposition before you squeegee it. Nothing changed on our end - all of the buses are identical, same printer, ink, settings, etc - we literally just resend the same job from the RIP to print the next one.... the past 4 buses on this run have been fine and we have literally used probably close to a thousand rolls of 180 over the years.
We are going to work through this roll but just emailed Grimco to see if they will swap out the other two rolls we still have on hand with a different lot number. The main lower driver side - we print as one single long piece a hair over 40 feet long x 52" tall. I can typically install this entire piece in about an hour and half - this one is pushing 6 hours....

54" x 50yd IJ180CV3-10
Lot L2329416 (the roll core label has L2329418 for some reason)
Report No B041565
Cust Ref 10/23

We have. Same exact situation for the past 2 weeks. Super aggressive vinyl and we've had no change with our systems either.

 

[SightLine]

I feel like this is 3M's MO. We're not printing anywhere near that scale but we've run into issues with their "premium" products for years. Mostly with 8519 and 8518 laminates. Depending on the rep, they would either flat out deny that they've had any other complaints/issues or nonchalantly admit that they've had issues. Caused us to stop using 8519 years ago, and now we've been slowly replacing 8518 due to consistent quality control issues with the finish.
We've been testing/evaluating 8418G and so far it seems better, but who knows.

I realize every manufacturer runs into issues but it's extra frustrating when it's the "most reputable" and certainly most expensive, and they clearly don't stand behind their products.

We switched to their 8548G about 5 years ago - far better lam than the 8519....

We have. Same exact situation for the past 2 weeks. Super aggressive vinyl and we've had no change with our systems either.

If you can, check the lot #, report #, and date on the rolls and post here.

For the most part we have always had great results with their 180 line other than a rare 1 off defect like a spot of adhesive missing or something. In the current projects we have going we will be using about 28 rolls. Rolls from the prior month which have a different date and lot numbers are perfectly fine. My other worry on this 1 rolls we are struggling through is going to be 3 years down the road when it comes time to remove it. I have a feeling this 1 bus will be a nightmare.

 

[SightLine]

Bump to see if anyone else has been having issues..... we got some in for a contract install from another company and had a similar issue. Not quite as aggressive and the rolls we had but still moreso than normal and another issue we ran into was the unprinted white areas would break and tear super easy. On this one it was 180CV3 with 8518 lam. The printer for the contract install indicated that they have had others state the same. I've also seen other state recently having very aggressive rolls on a couple of industry facebook groups.

Sent 3M samples back in early December and still have not heard anything back and still have 2 rolls from what I know were a defective lot.

 

[danno]

We are having issues here. Very aggressive adhesive. We have been told they aren't sure which lot numbers are affected and which lot numbers are good.

 

[RabidOne]

We had a similar issue with Avery 1105. Turns out what we were shipped wasn't EZRS so not repositionable.
I wonder if 3M is mislabeling what they are sending out?

 

[Kbrecken]

I had a similar issue with 3M 180mC-53 Cardinal Red, for a fleet of transit buses, the adhesive was peeling away from the vinyl when installers tied to pull it off to reposition, epic disaster, 25 rolls from same lot number all had to be sent back and replaced,

I lost 3 weeks of labor, because off of the kits I had prepped to keep ahead of installs have to be replaced,

 

[Boudica]

We've had to deal with this too. We didn't print the graphics, it was a contract thing - no idea who printed it or where they got the vinyl but though it had the 3M control tack printed on the liner, it did not behave like the IJ180 we typically use... it was super aggressive. Our installer said it reminded him of some bad stuff that was circulating around a few years ago - cheap stuff from china that was assumed to be a knock off.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

We've ran across super aggressive 3M too. Once it hit the surface there was no going back and air entrapment was a big issue. Went to SLX+ for cast and Substance 275 to replace IJ40. Not sure if it's better but at least it is consistent.

 

[TheAngryCanadian]

The liner is the issue. The embossing that gives the air regress in the adhesive is very shallow. That why it feels more sticky. I know it sounds lame when you’re reading this but I swear that is the issue . The new ij280 shouldn’t have any of the issues like we see in cv3 and MC. Personally I wish they’d just discontinue the original BIG”X” the Mc ( micro comply ) and cv3 for the new IJ280

 

[SightLine]

Well ours was finally resolved.... sent 3M samples (they provided a shipping label) of the defective material back when I first posted about this. Finally were refunded for for the defective rolls plus a roll of lam for the roll we printed. Of course nothing for the ink, time wasted, etc... but that is par for the course. Newer rolls from newer lot numbers that we have been using seem fine.

 

[TheAngryCanadian]

Yeah unfortunately None of the manufacturers cover ink , time …etc… if they do it’s extremely rare. They all have it buried in the fine print. Thankfully you’re able to send samples of the defective material and get replacements. Our shop keeps records of materials used, lot numbers and the print samples from the jobs just in case . Makes it WAY easier to make a claim if we need to . Yes it’s a little more work but ….