Need Help Print quality issues with General Formulations 212

[Andrew Hodgson]

Hello, I am having troubles printing on General Formulations 212. I don't see this happening in any of my other vinyls I print on using the same printer. I have created my own profile in Caldera and have tried some other generic vinyl printing profiles but with no luck. The cracking is most prominent with darker colors in the print. When I made a printing profile for this material, I really toned down the ink limit but it didn't seem to help much.

RIP Software: Caldera 11.2
Printer: HP Latex 260

 

[jwilde]

I just ran this exact vinyl on my 560 yesterday with no issues. Maybe plasticizers? How old is the material? General says it only has a 6 month shelf life.
Maybe start with a generic matte vinyl profile that you know works already, then try a section that's wiped down with a isopropyl 90+.

 

[dypinc]

For some reason all at once I started having this issue with new rolls of their 201OAP. I have made them replace the rolls a couple of time now but have decided I need to use something else as it seems to be a manufacturing defect. No problems with the other 201s just the OAP version.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

I just ran this exact vinyl on my 560 yesterday with no issues. Maybe plasticizers? How old is the material? General says it only has a 6 month shelf life.
Maybe start with a generic matte vinyl profile that you know works already, then try a section that's wiped down with a isopropyl 90+.

Thank you for the information. I did the test and the print looks fine in the area that was cleaned with isopropyl. Is there anyway I can prolong the quality of the roll so this doesn't happen? Is this roll now garbage?

 

[jwilde]

I'm not entirely familiar with the 260, but the 560 has a plasticizer roller that supposedly eliminates issues and I must say when we do use it, it seems to work. We burn through a ton of GF vinyls of all types (almost everything they have) and haven't had issues, but I'm not leaving this stuff on the floor for an extended amount of time either. They're truly a great company and fortunately for us they're only about 20 minutes away. We've used them for almost 20 years.

If you have the plasticizer roller try using it... Otherwise, try running out several feet of the roll in question, then try printing further in the roll. Not knowing the environment, the outer few ft could have gotten contaminated with something sitting around for however long. Otherwise it seems the options may be limited, clean off the sections to print on or pitch it. the problem won't go away with another manufacturer. Latex can be finicky and honestly even some of the HP approved substrates don't print all that well.