How I get a perfect print everytime

[galerion]

Printer: Ricoh 3110dn
Press: chinese
Mugs: longforte 11oz

Place a warm up mug in press, the press is set to 320f/160c idle temp.
Once warmed up place mug with printed image in and tilt handle slightly towards you as the heated area on the wrap ends earlier that side.
The pressure on my press is firm (not single finger shuting but not forced) and the operating temp is 338f/170c.
Press for 180secs then slide the mug so only about 2 inches from the bottom are in the press and place your warm up mug in behind it.
Press again for another 180 secs and out comes a perfect print top to bottom (219.7mm x 98.7mm).


I have read lots of post on pressing mugs and tried heating the bottom of the mug before putting in the press with the print on but still got fades.
Increasing the heat will result in blacks going brown at the top of the mug.
Away just thought i'd share.

[tlworkwear]

Thank you very much for the info

can I just ask a newbie question, what do you mean when you say idle temp? Do you change the temp from 160 to 170 when you put the mug to be pressed in? Sorry if the question seems stupid just thought I would ask and will be trying this tomorrow morning

[galerion]

The idle temp is what the press heats up to when you turn it on, it beeps when it gets to this temp and the operating temp is what it heats up to when you hit start. Once it gets to the operating temp your 180 sec counts down starts and end with a long beep sound.

[pisquee]

... Not all mugs presses have two different temp settings, and this is what will be causing confusion.

[Justin]

Press for 180secs then slide the mug so only about 2 inches from the bottom are in the press and place your warm up mug in behind it.
Press again for another 180 secs and out comes a perfect print top to bottom (219.7mm x 98.7mm).

Reads a little confusing if I may say. You print your mug for 180 secs and then slide it up putting the warm up mug behind it? You then press again for 180 secs so each mug gets 360 secs?

The way i read this is that you are printing the lower section again? If that's the case I'd say two things, firstly you might want to check the straightness of your mugs, secondly, you'd be better getting some heat into the base before you print it and would only need 180 secs then.

What works for one person won't necessarily work for another, time, temp, pressure, paper, press and so on.

[galerion]

The bottom 2 inches of the mug are pressed for 360 secs the rest of the mug gets 180 sec.
I put my warm up mug in to protect the blanket, the paper is not removed untill the bottom has had 360sec.
I've used both bms 10oz and longeforte 11oz and got the same results.
As for pre heating the bottom I tried this by placing the lower half of the mug in the press before apply the print but it didn't work.

I know this might not work for everyone but I thought i'd put it out there as another way to avoid fades.

[Justin]

How long did you leave it in when you tried the other method? I don't usually need to do this (but I only use the thinner 10oz mugs) but if I do, 20/30 secs does the trick. Others are finding sitting mugs on a heated tray prior to printing helps.

Not sure which press you have, many won't allow you to put the other mug back in at the same time. Aren't you finding this lower section overcooked? Just sounds like a long way around it.....especially if you have 100 mugs to print! lol

[galerion]

The press is in the style of the DF ones at BMS.
I read about using a griddle but haven't tried that yet.
When I tried heating in the press it would have been longer than 30sec.
As for not overcooking i'm assuming that is because the base is sucking up the heat and I agree that is a long way to go about it.
I decided on 170 as I had a black mug I did at 180 with a black background, the lower half was fine but the top over the image went brown.

If I was a person who designed presses based on my experience with this one I would either have a blanket that had 2 temps 1 hotter for the bottom or a additional round heated pad that would swing in just to heat the bottom of the mug up.
At 170 for 180secs I can hold my finger against the center of the bottom of a mug for the entire press time without burning so that seems like a bit of a flaw to me.

[Edit] As for how straight the mugs are longforte will touch at the top and have about a 2mm gap at the bottom where as BMS touch in the middle and have a 1mm gap top and bottom.

[Justin]

Lol, it's a good point. A blanket that could 'boost' heat/time at the bottom might well be very useful

Also, a much better blanket that would immediately take up any space in-between the mug and the blanket itself, obviously blankets do differ from press to press.

[galerion]

In theory it would be just a case of having two heated pads side by side but if you could do that without the sides of each them cooler than there centers I don't know.

The only other thing I can think of and I'm probably wrong about this is that looking at Wikipedia ink is water, glycol and dyes or pigments. If the water could be replaced with propylene glycol that maybe bring down the temp required as propylene glycol evaporates at a lower temperature.
I'm only suggesting propylene glycol because I switch from smoking to a e-cig and have read lots of stuff on propylene glycol as it is one the main ingredients in e-liquid there is probably something better out there for this.
But lowering the temp at which the ink evaporates could be a good improvement.