Anyone have any thoughts on the best way to do these, I use decal paper and inkjet straight onto that , but find i cant seem to get deep enough blacks… Does anyone know how the pros do it? … Archives dont seem to throw up much.
Merry Christmas…
Hi
I had the same problem some years ago - printing black only logo - the printer made the black up with colours…make sure you go through the advanced settings on your print driver and if it allows you select ‘black ink only’ - failing that select ‘black and white’ and print at best quality…hopefully it will solve your problems as it did mine!
Cheers
Richard
Thanks, ill give it a try…
Tommo,
The Pros do there logos via silkscreen, they use real paint. if you want to do it better, get a slik screen kit and make them that way. That’s the only way you will get a real black logo.
If you are doing a black and white logo go for a laser syste,. If you want/need color, do the laser, or find an all pigment inkjet: both Canon and HP have good offerings. Dye based systems (most inkjets) generally have much lower KOD (Black optical density) than pigmented systems and will fade much more quickly. The composite black (mixing Cyan magenta and Yellow) is the worst case as it will miss the density and hue from the start and, as the colors fade at different speeds, will always look bad.
This subject is near and dear to my heart as I am 2 months out of a 11year employment relationship with HP. I am happy to answer any questions you have about integrating printed graphics into your boards. I have played with it a lot
Now that clears something up for me!
I’ve often wondered about your signature “Designer of very small holes”, now it makes sense!
I have also been toying around with getting a silk screen kit. Lots of how to videos on youtube if you want to visualize what goes into it. Doesn’t seem too hard.
Yeah,
I designed the micro-fluidics portion of many of the recent HP printhead offerings. No wonder I like hanging out in this place eh? Same game, different scale.
The sig keeps me humble by recalling my wife’ epiphany, regarding my explanation of designing holes and channels, that " So… you’re in charge of designing nothing." I guess I need change it to reflect my new employment charter of putting Microsoft and Intel out of business.
As far as printing goes, I am happy to share anything I can without violating confidentiality, and no longer feel the need to tow the company line as far as honest opinions on individual products go. I have been thinking about writing a tutorial about printing directly to glass (I have done digital graphics for ~40 boards, the first posted here), but have been short on time with the new job, and have been neglecting all of my board projects as well: my latest ( a 7’4" semi-gun) sat through the big swell earlier in the month unglassed on the rack in the garage while I worked at my desk ~3 miles from Black’s Beach.
“and have been neglecting all of my board projects as well: my latest ( a 7’4” semi-gun) sat through the big swell earlier in the month unglassed on the rack in the garage while I worked at my desk ~3 miles from Black’s Beach."
Don’t worry, Black’s wasn’t really doing anything special…
- Cheers Resinhead ill give the silk screen method a go , not a clue where to start but sure theres loads of info on-line. Any idea what kind of paints they use?
Speedball deluxe printing kit. Come with everything you need including how-to-cd
Has anyone tired lams that have been printed via dye sublimation?
I have used the cheapest HP 2-cartridge inkjets and get the same density of black as silkscreens. I also use a heavier rice paper and CorelDraw for the artwork. Corel allows for a degree of color management when you print, and the type of paper you select in the print menu will also effect color density. I have some over 5 years in boards that haven’t faded yet. Even my colored lams have never faded, but I paint the backside of the rice paper white to opaque them. There’s a lot of info in the archives on different rice papers.
Waterbased paint.
Howzit Pete, If I’m not wrong almost all printers use pigment ink for black, it’s the other colors that are a dye ink which fades pretty fast. HP, Canon and Eposon have archival inks that are UV resistant and work well. I have probably printed over 2000 lams using my Epson C-82 and the only thing I would change is to get a large format printer so I don’t have to cut the paper down to fit my printer.Aloha,Kokua