Poor iphone cover results (washed out)

[Gelert]

Well that was odd - doubling the time made them look even worse. Lower pressure made them look worse. So supplier's recommended settings at med/high pressure gives the best results but those results aren't good enough. Colours just not intense at all:/

[bigj2552]

@gelert - did you not set some cash aside for stock to practice on ?
You are gonna have wastage at the very begining as you are just finding out the settings for your equipment ect, regardless of what suppliers say.
i,m like yourself, just starting out and i set aside £100 for stock to practice on / get settings right.
People can give advice but at the end of the day, you will have to trial n error yourself to get 99% satisfaction - and that means losing a little bit of cash/stock to attain this

[NiNJACQUES]

@gelert - did you not set some cash aside for stock to practice on ?
You are gonna have wastage at the very begining as you are just finding out the settings for your equipment ect, regardless of what suppliers say.
i,m like yourself, just starting out and i set aside £100 for stock to practice on / get settings right.
People can give advice but at the end of the day, you will have to trial n error yourself to get 99% satisfaction - and that means losing a little bit of cash/stock to attain this

I have to agree here. I set aside around R2000 (200gbp) just for "testing". All I can say is that I am gonna be giving out mugs for Christmas for a very long time :p

[JSR]

Well that was odd - doubling the time made them look even worse. Lower pressure made them look worse. So supplier's recommended settings at med/high pressure gives the best results but those results aren't good enough. Colours just not intense at all:/

Is it possible that your press isn't getting as hot as you think it is? Go back to your original time, but increase temperature by 10 degrees and see if you get better results. It might be that your press is saying 180C, but you're only really getting 170C

I did a couple of test iPhone covers a few months back, treated them just like any other piece of aluminium, and they pressed just fine (using the increased time that I always have to use). Pressure doesn't make much difference to me, I just make sure there's a solid pressure - I don't faff about working out what "medium" is meant to be.

When you try your next one(s) out, print a small image (or cut one in half) so you can use the same piece of metal two or three times. That'll save wasting too much stock.

[willoman]

Hi, you may have a bad batch of the iphone inserts.
I've been pressing these for a few months with great results (185 degrees, medium press, 50 sec), but the last batch i got this week are really bad. Colour looks really washed out. Tried all different settings and times - nothing worked.
Were and when did you get the ones your working with from?

[hughb40]

Agree with checking platen temp...As the responses suggest IMHO its a case of take the initial suggested settings then experiment wth your own variants until you get what is right for your own set up - then write it down in your magic book or wherever (we use tabbed card index) as at my advanced age my grey cells can't retain the information and its hopeless thinking now what was the ideal temp/time/pressure combo for this product . Incidentally we use a digital infra red thingy to check heat platens against read out but has anyone correlated heat test strips against digital infra red readout for comparison validation? It took me a while years ago to realise that test strips on metal and on mugs etc were the cheapest way of finding right set up - although not good news for family and friends

[Gelert]

It's been suggested to me that I've been supplied with a bad batch of iphone covers. Willoman above is having the same problem. I've just pressed some metal with the same image and same settings, and the metal has come out brilliantly. So at the moment, having played with every variable I can think of, I'm tempted to believe it's the blanks. Will get some from a different supplier and see if I do indeed get better results.

[AJLA]

The only failure I've had on these is doing several in one batch. In one particular area I found that one was really faded. Second attempt...the same result which suggested to me that the platen on the heat press wasn't even. Moving them to a different area of the platen wall was fine. My heat press has since proved when pressing vinyl there is definately not an even pressure. All over the platen. I had to increase the pressure slightly.

[willoman]

There is a bad batch of these doing the rounds. Tried contacting my supplier of them a few times but there not responding at the moment - but i know of a few people having a problem with a recent batch.

[Gelert]

Yep, I got some more from a different supplier and the results were much better