Need Help Prevent Wrinkling with RollsRoller

[bsipsy]

We have two RollsRoller applicator tables, and for quite some time we have had some serious wrinkling problems when applying premask. Here's a quick rundown of our operation:
Material: Oramask 813 on one table, 3M 3552 + 8518 on the other (one table is for stencils and one is for decals)
Once the material is cut and pulled, it's laid on the RollsRoller and masked with R-Tape (mostly 48" or 60") for stencils, or with SCPM-3 (54" or 60") for decals.
The tables are cleaned and dusted with baby powder at the end of every day, and done as needed throughout the day when things start sticking to the table.
During application, the material will start to wrinkle as the roller goes over it, eventually causing it to crease beneath the premask. To prevent this, when the material is close to wrinkling, we slightly raise the roller, continuing to move the glidebeam forward, then when it has reach the point where the material is laying flat again, we lower the roller back onto the material. Once the pass is done, we have to go back over those areas with squeegees. Our tables are 20ft, and over the course of one pass the roller has to be lifted on average 3-5 times.
The material is centered on the table, and as far as i can tell, everything on the table seems to be in order. We have tried varying the pressure slightly, but not making any drastic changes.

Has anyone ever encountered this and found a fix for it?

 

[DChorbowski]

We have the same setup as you with two tables and experience the same issue only with certain paper backed vinyls like 3M3635-20B and 3M Diffuser films.
I have a theory that the room humidity plays a factor as some paper backing is more susceptible to absorbing ambient moisture from the air causing the edges of the vinyl to slightly swell.

Before premask or overlaminate in my case is applied, you can see some materials dont really want to lay fully flat on the table. The long edges have waves in them. I think this can possibly be caused by the absorption of moisture from the air into the paper backing. We have had some limited success letting prints sit out on the table upside down for a few hours or overnight to give it a chance to equalize the moisture absorption. Sometimes it works great, sometimes not.
My other theory is the rolls of vinyl themselves are wound in a way that the material is stretched uneven on the roll.
If you can figure this out I would love to know. Currently reprinting white onto several yards of 3M 3725-60 due to this frustrating issue.

 

[chrisphilipps]

I am not familiar with the RollsRoller table, we sell the RollOver tables. I know that the RollOver tables can do what you are describing if the air pressure is dialed up too high. I see you have tried to adjust it a little. If it isn't too hard to do, try to really lower the pressure and run a test run.

 

[bsipsy]

I hadn't thought about moisture being an issue. We have a pretty controlled environment so I'm not sure if that's a possibility in our case, however, I do absolutely believe that it could be a material issue. We have recently had a lot of material issues with our Oramask. We have been getting rolls that have problems right out of the box. Which really sucks when you go through about 10-20 full rolls of 50" per day.

 

[bsipsy]

I am not familiar with the RollsRoller table, we sell the RollOver tables. I know that the RollOver tables can do what you are describing if the air pressure is dialed up too high. I see you have tried to adjust it a little. If it isn't too hard to do, try to really lower the pressure and run a test run.

We have tried lowering it, but it eventually gets to the point where it's not adhering well enough to the material and we still have the problem. I have used RollOver in the past and experiences some similar issues but never to this level. Unfortunately we bought our tables from Tubelite right before Grimco bought them out, so now it's practically impossible to get support from them. Been trying to get someone in to look at them for about a year now :\

 

[netsol]

We have tried lowering it, but it eventually gets to the point where it's not adhering well enough to the material and we still have the problem. I have used RollOver in the past and experiences some similar issues but never to this level. Unfortunately we bought our tables from Tubelite right before Grimco bought them out, so now it's practically impossible to get support from them. Been trying to get someone in to look at them for about a year now :\

as i read this i was thinking your "sweet spot" might be fairly narrow, eliminating one problem, before you overshoot and cause a different problem.

i keep one of these handy, to get a handle on relative humidity

 

[bsipsy]

We have a similar meter on the wall right beside our table actually. For us it's primarily a way to tell if our grounding heelstraps are needed for the static buildup.

 

[CanuckSigns]

We had this issue with our rols roller as well,what we did, when applying premask, drop the roller onto the vinyl, about 6" from the start rather than dropping it onto the table and rolling onto the vinyl. Since we started.doing this it has eliminated 90%+ of our wrinkles when masking.