Need Help Printing on practical board or mdf...

[HA]

Hello from a newbie.

I have this real crazy idea of printing on particle board on a large scale. We are already in the business of supplying components to a certain industry and this would be a natural direction.

I have no experience with digital printing but I'm trying to get up to speed as quickly as possible.

I need a flatbed, 4x8.

I need CYMK plus white plus lacquer or possibly three lacquer.

This will be a production level machine in a factory.

UV inks. Approx...360x720dpi

UV fade resistance is critical

So far, I hate to say this, but the sales people are trying to pull me wherever their interest may. Nothing surprising there, but pretty annoying. Worse, when I ask questions that I already know the answer, a few of them have no problem twisting the facts.

Forget them...i need help...so

1.....is there any flatbed that is above the rest?

2....is Ricoh one of the tougher and more reliable print heads?

3...can I lay down a 2-3 thou clear coat? One salesman says yes, the other no....and if I am going to cut down on labor, I can not take these components off line to spray coat them.

4.....i spoke with a chemist from one of the largest paint manufacturers. His advice was to go with 15-20 picoliter heads in order to use inks with thicker particles. Then go with even larger picoliter printhead to lay down the lacquer. Of course the salespeople are arguing their inks are Gods creation and a senior chemist with one of the largest paint suppliers on the planet doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm almost 100% on who is right...but....i can be surprised.

Good grief...i have a million questions.....but let's start with these.

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[ikarasu]

Keep in mind if your board isn't perfectly flat, which is usually never is... You might have problems printing on MDF / particle board.

We were promised the world with out fb500... Print directly to plywood. Problem is if there's even a slight warp, the heads will crash... And wood is much, much harder than vinyl... One head crash could just destroy the head. We no longer print directly to plywood or anything that tends to warp.

We can print on plywood... And on occasion still do, but we're talking a small sign here or there, we'd never do it in large quantities just because of the chances of warping.

That said our fb500 is a hybrid flatbed, so maybe there are ones out there that run great, or maybe true flatbeds aren't as picky with warps.

 

[Jason DeLuca]

From my experience I don't know of any flatbed printers that print lacquers/clear coats that are what you would be looking for. My guess is that even if they did it would be faster to just seal coat it after it is printed anyway.
As far as the other questions I would start by getting a practical idea of how much you want to spend on a printer, they range from as low as $70,000 up to $600,000. Once you know how much you can make a list of printers in that price range and most of the reputable manufacturers will do print tests on the material you are looking to print and you can decide based on the print quality of the samples and available print speeds. If you are going to do any volume of prints you want to make sure the machine is fast enough to keep up with your output.

As to question #1, I admit I am very biased, but SwissQprint has excellent quality of both print and equipment durability. as well as very good print speeds. If you're ever looking for some samples or product information let me know.

 

[HA]

Keep in mind if your board isn't perfectly flat, which is usually never is... You might have problems printing on MDF / particle board.

We were promised the world with out fb500... Print directly to plywood. Problem is if there's even a slight warp, the heads will crash... And wood is much, much harder than vinyl... One head crash could just destroy the head. We no longer print directly to plywood or anything that tends to warp.

We can print on plywood... And on occasion still do, but we're talking a small sign here or there, we'd never do it in large quantities just because of the chances of warping.

That said our fb500 is a hybrid flatbed, so maybe there are ones out there that run great, or maybe true flatbeds aren't as picky with warps.

I'm concerned about headstrikes and protection of the heads are one of my concerns.

When we machine mdf, we always check for cupping.

 

[HA]

From my experience I don't know of any flatbed printers that print lacquers/clear coats that are what you would be looking for. My guess is that even if they did it would be faster to just seal coat it after it is printed anyway.
As far as the other questions I would start by getting a practical idea of how much you want to spend on a printer, they range from as low as $70,000 up to $600,000. Once you know how much you can make a list of printers in that price range and most of the reputable manufacturers will do print tests on the material you are looking to print and you can decide based on the print quality of the samples and available print speeds. If you are going to do any volume of prints you want to make sure the machine is fast enough to keep up with your output.

As to question #1, I admit I am very biased, but SwissQprint has excellent quality of both print and equipment durability. as well as very good print speeds. If you're ever looking for some samples or product information let me know.

It can be done. It's a little "textury" if uv-ed immediately but if you let it sit for 30 second before uv, it's glossy and smooth.

 

[d fleming]

Sounds like you will need a custom machine. If that is a possibility maybe a vacuum hold down will solve a portion of warp issues.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

If you care trying to eliminate labor for spray costing you should look at a double row cmyk machine for speed and a coater that can do a hard cost up to the thickness desired like the tec lighting megacoat xl.

As for machines they run the gamut, but the one you should look at is the jetrix l8xi... It has self adjusting heads and is highly configurable and very fast. But that being said there is also SwissQPrint, Vanguard, Agfa, and the top line Oces to consider.


I can also add that we print on MDF and Peg board all the time with our HP FB750 and it works fine as long as you set your carriage height above the highest point of warp.

 

[cstone94]

EFI's Mid-Range H2000 machine will print CMYK + W + Clear Varnish.

You typically want to have printheads with a happy medium between small and large pL. Right now it seems 7pL is the most popular to not have a grainy print.

Of course they are extremely costly, but if interested we have the capability of printing on this substrate if you are interested in outsourcing.

 

[HA]

Sounds like you will need a custom machine. If that is a possibility maybe a vacuum hold down will solve a portion of warp issues.

YUP. All the machines I'm looking at have vacuum. It will not work on heavily warped mdf so we are going to be very careful to avoid it.

 

[HA]

If you care trying to eliminate labor for spray costing you should look at a double row cmyk machine for speed and a coater that can do a hard cost up to the thickness desired like the tec lighting megacoat xl.

As for machines they run the gamut, but the one you should look at is the jetrix l8xi... It has self adjusting heads and is highly configurable and very fast. But that being said there is also SwissQPrint, Vanguard, Agfa, and the top line Oces to consider.


I can also add that we print on MDF and Peg board all the time with our HP FB750 and it works fine as long as you set your carriage height above the highest point of warp.

The entire business plan revolves around minimum labor. My first choice is going to put the clear coat on the machine.

Our test showed a 4 minute cycle time and a 5 minute layup/removal. Even if there is a 2 minute extension to get it done on the machine, it beats adding another process.

My market has a ceiling. Stay below it and we carve a market. Go above it and we're going into headwinds.

 

[HA]

EFI's Mid-Range H2000 machine will print CMYK + W + Clear Varnish.

You typically want to have printheads with a happy medium between small and large pL. Right now it seems 7pL is the most popular to not have a grainy print.

Of course they are extremely costly, but if interested we have the capability of printing on this substrate if you are interested in outsourcing.

7picoliter is great.....but our need for lightfastness is more important then fine detail. In fact, critical. I'm asking for 20 picoliter heads in the hope I can get inks with thicker pigments. Then 80 picoliter heads for lacquer.

My " ask" has turned off some of the big boys.

 

[ikarasu]

If you care trying to eliminate labor for spray costing you should look at a double row cmyk machine for speed and a coater that can do a hard cost up to the thickness desired like the tec lighting megacoat xl.

As for machines they run the gamut, but the one you should look at is the jetrix l8xi... It has self adjusting heads and is highly configurable and very fast. But that being said there is also SwissQPrint, Vanguard, Agfa, and the top line Oces to consider.


I can also add that we print on MDF and Peg board all the time with our HP FB750 and it works fine as long as you set your carriage height above the highest point of warp.

How do you determine the highest point, or do you just guess? I've never printed anything bigger than 24x30 on plywood..the shop in at refuses to print bigger because they used to do 4x 8s and said it caused way too many head strikes.

I've manually raised the head a few times on our fb500, but I find it does make the quality suffer a bit .I guess on 4x8s and being far away it wouldn't matter though.

 

[HA]

How do you determine the highest point, or do you just guess? I've never printed anything bigger than 24x30 on plywood..the shop in at refuses to print bigger because they used to do 4x 8s and said it caused way too many head strikes.

I've manually raised the head a few times on our fb500, but I find it does make the quality suffer a bit .I guess on 4x8s and being far away it wouldn't matter though.

First, mdf is normally more warp resistant then plywood.

We've cut more then a thousand truckloads of mdf and....

.....most of the mdf is flat in the center. The last few sheets is the most likely to be warped because of the strapping boards. Plus the very top sheet can also have a problem because top surface is exposed the whatever plant conditions which may be different from what the core was normalized at.

Worse, mdf is sanded to a finish dimension and as such, it can vary by as much as 20 thousands.

It's a serious problem and i need to do more trials, particularly how far I can print versus quality.

What is your experience as far as printing gaps? Do you have accurate measurements? Is 1/8" out of the question or just a bit less quality? If 1/8" is not a problem then the strike issue is secondary.

 

[ikarasu]

We usually do plywood and not mdf. Most of the stuff we print on our flatbed is for outdoors.. and we live in Vancouver,BC where it rains 364/365 days a year. So MDF won't last too long outdoors here unless we do many coats of shellac/epoxy, it makes.more sense for us to use plywood.

Ive never personally had a headstrike on plywood... They had that problem before I came along, so I'm not sure what they did to rectify it. I know when I printed on a smaller piece I put the head height up to max, and it did cause some overspray. Nothing too noticeable.

I know with Coro we do get some head rubs still. Not many, and I'm sure the Coro is warped more than plywood/MDF would be .Coro is soft and when it gets a head strike it just pushed down, so it doesn't damage the head .I'm presuming MDF/plywood would damage it easy though, so my bosses don't want to even try / figure it out .

We just did 900 24x30 ReMax signs on plywood... They didn't want to risk the head so we used 8 rolls of media + overlam. Cost an extra $6-7000 just in nedia, nevermind labour, that's how afraid of plywood in the flatbed they are

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

To determine the highest point, lay the sheet on a flat/true surface than take calipers and use the depth gauge to check various points to the table.

Raising the head height will affect quality but that can typically be remedied by using fine text mode.

 

[chromira]

Hello from a newbie.

I have this real crazy idea of printing on particle board on a large scale. We are already in the business of supplying components to a certain industry and this would be a natural direction.

I have no experience with digital printing but I'm trying to get up to speed as quickly as possible.

I need a flatbed, 4x8.

I need CYMK plus white plus lacquer or possibly three lacquer.

This will be a production level machine in a factory.

UV inks. Approx...360x720dpi

UV fade resistance is critical

So far, I hate to say this, but the sales people are trying to pull me wherever their interest may. Nothing surprising there, but pretty annoying. Worse, when I ask questions that I already know the answer, a few of them have no problem twisting the facts.

Forget them...i need help...so

1.....is there any flatbed that is above the rest?

2....is Ricoh one of the tougher and more reliable print heads?

3...can I lay down a 2-3 thou clear coat? One salesman says yes, the other no....and if I am going to cut down on labor, I can not take these components off line to spray coat them.

4.....i spoke with a chemist from one of the largest paint manufacturers. His advice was to go with 15-20 picoliter heads in order to use inks with thicker particles. Then go with even larger picoliter printhead to lay down the lacquer. Of course the salespeople are arguing their inks are Gods creation and a senior chemist with one of the largest paint suppliers on the planet doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm almost 100% on who is right...but....i can be surprised.

Good grief...i have a million questions.....but let's start with these.

Thank you in advance for your help.

We use a Mimaki JFX200. It's loaded with cmyk/primer/clear/white. It has a max resolution of 1200x1200. We print on just about anything the customer wants. The feature I really appreciate with this machine is the automated head height measuring and head crash protection. It has 2 flanges (one at either end of travel) that detects a change in height and stops the machine before the head gets there. It gives you the opportunity to either cancel or clear the obstruction and continue. I am biased having used Mimaki printers in the past. It's worth a look.