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Coatings and media must be carefully matched.
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By Jim Hingst
Who needs topcoated, inkjet vinyl these days? With the advent of low-cost, solvent printers that can print on most vinyls, sales of topcoated vinyl have declined, and some predict their obsolesence.
Think again. Just when the market assumes a product is doomed, someone develops an innovative, rejuvenating twist.
I'll discuss topcoated-vinyl upgrades and how they work, and suggest how to select inkjet-printing components.
A delicate balance
Material selection would be much easier if every inkjet vinyl worked with every printer. But, life doesn't work that way. Interrelated printing components, such as the printer, vinyl, ink, and clearcoat or overlaminate, create a very complex chemical mix. And, because the technology continually evolves, many long-term, real-time, test results aren't available for all components.
In an ideal world, purchasing decisions would be a simple matter of price comparison. However, that also isn't how it works. In fact, inkjet-vinyl selection is especially difficult, because photorealistic reproduction, color gamut and outdoor durability rely on the interrelationships of the printer, ink, vinyl and (when used) overlaminate. Any equation factor that changes can alter a delicate balance.
Top-coated inkjet vinyl
Your vinyl and printer must match. If you're printing with a thermal-inkjet system that uses only waterbased inks, you need a vinyl with a special topcoating or receptor coating so the ink will adhere to vinyl. Without the coating, waterbased inks bead up on the film's surface, just as water beads up on a newly waxed car.
Coatings can do more than bind an ink to the substrate. Some enhance the ink's appearance by controlling its flow. Although the receptor coating absorbs the ink, it also needs to maintain the dot structure on the media. This prevents ink spreading, which destroys any print definition. If the dots bleed together, the printed image can appear fuzzy and darker than intended. Good dot integrity creates crisper images and intense, vibrant colors.
Some complex, topcoating systems comprise two layers. In this type of system, the ink passes through the top layer, and the basecoat absorbs it. The top layer acts as a barrier and protects the ink system from UV light, water, chemicals and abrasion. And, the coating must accept heavy ink saturation.
Some topcoated vinyls reportedly work with dye-based and pigmented inks. Prints produced by these ink types may look significantly different.
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