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Window Perf Holes Clogging

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stickersmc

New Member
I have an HP Latex 315 and every cheaper brand of window perf I buy, puckers up and jams in the printer from the heat. I finally spent almost $700 on a roll to see if it wouldn't pucker and it was great... until I printed off half the roll and realized when I put it on the office windows, half the holes were clogged with ink. That never happened on the cheap rolls, but now it's the new problem. The perf company tells me to "experiment until you get it right", but this is crazy costly experimenting! Anyone else have a similar experience they can share a remedy for?
 
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Andy D

Active Member
Am going to sound like a broken record, because the answer of what (I think) your issue is, is the same as I gave three times this week
for people having different issues, you are putting too much ink down. I assume you're using a pre-made ICC profile, correct?
In my experience most premade profiles have their ink limits set way too high, I believe this is the default to make sure older printer heads
are not ink starved. Youtube how to adjust inklimits for your rip software, make a clone of the profile, and print off the ink-limit tests, you can make adjustments
by eye you don't need an eye1 for that.
Not only will less ink not clog the holes, but you will be able to drop the cure temps allowing you to use the cheaper perf vinyl.
 
Z SIGNS

Z SIGNS

New Member
I have had similar experiences trying to make cheap stuff work. I learned a long time ago that cheap stuff actually cost more. Try using the best materials you can get.
 
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ikarasu

Premium Subscriber
We use the cheapest perf you can get. A lot of our projects are up for a month then they come down. So we buy the no name garbage media we normally wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. We had the same issue with it tunneling in the center and causing rubs.... We set it to 80% ink, lowered the heat and slowed it down a bit. Since then we made a 6 pass 80% ink profile and it never tunnels... We slow it down if it's a heavy black flood, but other than that it runs perfect. I'd say try the cheap stuff again... Lower the ink, drop the temp way down... Print a ft or so and see if it's dry... If not just keep incrementally increasing. Latex can handle the cheap stuff, you just need to experiment like the vendor said.

The $700 a roll stuff is great when you need it. We'd never put cheap crap on vehicle windows or anything that needs to last more than 2 months... But cheap $100 rolls have their place for temp graphics that we change out on a monthly basis.


Have you tried gans digitals latex perf? I've heard nothing but good things, and all his stuff is tested to work great on latex machines. If he ever finds a Canadian supplier who will distribute his stuff, I'd gladly buy a ton from him!
 
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Reveal1

New Member
ikarasu said:
We use the cheapest perf you can get. A lot of our projects are up for a month then they come down. So we buy the no name garbage media we normally wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. We had the same issue with it tunneling in the center and causing rubs.... We set it to 80% ink, lowered the heat and slowed it down a bit. Since then we made a 6 pass 80% ink profile and it never tunnels... We slow it down if it's a heavy black flood, but other than that it runs perfect. I'd say try the cheap stuff again... Lower the ink, drop the temp way down... Print a ft or so and see if it's dry... If not just keep incrementally increasing. Latex can handle the cheap stuff, you just need to experiment like the vendor said.

The $700 a roll stuff is great when you need it. We'd never put cheap crap on vehicle windows or anything that needs to last more than 2 months... But cheap $100 rolls have their place for temp graphics that we change out on a monthly basis.


Have you tried gans digitals latex perf? I've heard nothing but good things, and all his stuff is tested to work great on latex machines. If he ever finds a Canadian supplier who will distribute his stuff, I'd gladly buy a ton from him!
Click to expand...
2nd that. We too print 6 pass, heat around 200F (93c), always on product with paper liner, with great results. Agree that the ink probably set too high but ours at 90% and works fine. On the 560 at least, best to run about 2ft past print head to start. I've never seen a $100 roll unless you are talking about a 25'X36", but haven't had any problems with any perf (on 560 or earlier L25500) except product with film liner. Current favorite is Fellers Solvex for Latex which you can buy around .76/sq. ft. and will last 2-3 years if edge taped and spray laminated (but wouldn't want to have to remove it after 2)
 
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ikarasu

Premium Subscriber
:p
Reveal1 said:
2nd that. We too print 6 pass, heat around 200F (93c), always on product with paper liner, with great results. Agree that the ink probably set too high but ours at 90% and works fine. On the 560 at least, best to run about 2ft past print head to start. I've never seen a $100 roll unless you are talking about a 25'X36", but haven't had any problems with any perf (on 560 or earlier L25500) except product with film liner. Current favorite is Fellers Solvex for Latex which you can buy around .76/sq. ft. and will last 2-3 years if edge taped and spray laminated (but wouldn't want to have to remove it after 2)
Click to expand...
I think our go to perf is about $300 a roll. We had a supplier try to get our business... It was a small company who imported direct from China. Said hes done all his research, tested the material for a year... Sold hundreds of thousands worth already# and wanted us to try him.

Were a 3M company, so 99% of our proud ts have to be 3m... The only time we deviate is if they can't supply something another vendor can. So we weren't interested... Plus, we don't use cheap crap. Saving a few hundred on a roll and having an early failure or unhappy customer isn't worth it. We did have a campaign for all the lo go ernment buildings though. They wanted 20+ buildings to be perfed with new graphics every week..... So they'd go up, come down in a week and new ones would go up. So we decided to just get this guy's $100 roll... Mainly to throw him a bone, material cost is nothing compared to install... But we figured it was up for a week, so who cares.


It was weird to work with... It was really thin and very very temp sensitive. We had to turn the heat down way more than our other cheap perf... There are really cheap $100 rolls out there. I can vouch they'll stick for a week, but who knows if they'll fall off in week two:D

But if that cheap crap can be printed in our latex, you can get any perf to print without tunneling.
 
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Jb1983

New Member
Sorry to hear about the major loss of vinyl that sucks. For future jobs on untested material you should really print a test piece before going to the extent of printing half a roll. That’s what I do anyways.

start with low heat and work your way up until it is dry. Depending on ink load you can run cooler, also worse case done ink doesn’t dry you can use a heat gun to dry it before it hits the take up real. I’ve had to do this a few times and it saves a couple ft of vinyl.

having the cheaper vinyls hooked you to the take up certainly reduces the chances of tunneling from heat, sometimes I hold the leading edge a bit to emulate the take up until it’s printed enough to tape it on. I always start the print with the vinyl sticking a few inches out of the heater panel too.

I really like contravision perforated vinyls for buildings/storefront.
 
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stickersmc

New Member
Thank you to everyone that posted your possible remedies. I searched first, but using the wrong terminology apparently, so I came up with nothing before I asked. I know some people get bent out of shape, thinking we don't search first. I'm running more today, in small increments, to make sure everything works before wasting so much. I never had this problem in the past, so it never dawned on me to test more after it was running smooth. "Hindsight". Once again, thank you all!!!
 
BigfishDM

BigfishDM

Merchant Member
stickersmc said:
I have an HP Latex 315 and every cheaper brand of window perf I buy, puckers up and jams in the printer from the heat. I finally spent almost $700 on a roll to see if it wouldn't pucker and it was great... until I printed off half the roll and realized when I put it on the office windows, half the holes were clogged with ink. That never happened on the cheap rolls, but now it's the new problem. The perf company tells me to "experiment until you get it right", but this is crazy costly experimenting! Anyone else have a similar experience they can share a remedy for?
Click to expand...

You should try my perf, it will not do that!
 
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