BC01 Oven - handful of mugs coming out with flaws

[smiley_mug]

I recently bought the oven and was really pleased with the consistent results. I did a purge to get rid of any wraps causing less than perfect results. However just a few batches in and some of the mugs are coming out either slightly faded or slightly blurred in areas (like you describe). I've recently started leaving the mugs to cool with the wraps left on as suggested in the oven thread, but today I'm wondering if this slightly 'baggies' the wraps and although I'd purged the poor wraps, I've possibly damaged a bunch more wraps.

[gazfocus]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions so far.

I am really struggling with this still. I have tried brand new wraps and they have come out perfect, however, when working out how many mugs our wraps have done, they’ve only done 28-30 mugs each and the issue is not consistent either (we did one load, marked the wraps where mugs came out bad, did another load with same wraps and every mug came out perfect). Surely the wraps can’t only be good for 30 mugs or so?

I have put a steel rule against the mugs where they are going bad and there is a definite dip in the mug. The problem is, this dip is there on all the mugs including the ones that are printing perfect.

Also, where a mug goes bad, it is only on one side of the mug. The other side prints perfect.

If it were the paper, surely the problem would be on every mug?

I’m really getting frustrated and losing the will to live. We have thrown away about 40% of the mugs we’ve printed in the last two days.

[socialgiraffe]

I’m really getting frustrated and losing the will to live.

I feel your pain...

All I can recommend is that you start on a process of elimination...

By what you have already tried it probably isn't the wraps.

My next suggestion would be to purchase a few boxes of mugs from another supplier. My recommendation would be either Xpres or Listawood. If it were me I would opt for Listawood "budget" mugs. The reason being is that although LW advertise these with very minor defects, you can see those defects and they will not interfere with your testing, and they are quite a bit cheaper than "premium" mugs. If it is the mugs you can then decide which actual mugs you want to go for.

I would also consider increasing the time by two or three minutes and possibly the temp by 2-3 degrees to see if that helps. However be careful of gassing and also only do this if you are going to stick to the same mugs and wraps, otherwise you will not know if it is time/temp v something else that corrected the issue.

Incidentally, have you tried just doing one mug at a time? Do you still have the same random fault or does a run of 12 (for example) produce perfect results?

[gazfocus]

Thanks for your input @socialgiraffe

I want to believe it’s the mugs (just so it’s something we can change) but we have gone through a pile of mugs we’ve had for weeks that were spares and they too have the same dip so I wonder whether the wraps have just become slightly too slack to be able to compensate for the dips in the mugs?

Perhaps the only saving grace is that if it is the wraps, we bought them from Amazon so returning them as faulty shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

We have been doing 20 mugs per oven load, at 160 degrees (going by oven thermometer, not temperature dial on the oven), for 22 minutes.

What qty and temperature do you do For 14 mins 30 seconds @socialgiraffe? Maybe I could try your combination to see if that works.

[gazfocus]

This is another photo of a mug with this issue. We’ve had a small handful of mugs come out from the new batch of wraps with the same issue now so I don’t think it’s the wraps (after just having ordered £640 worth of new wraps!!)

I would be really interested to know what settings / qty’s you use @socialgiraffe so I can try that.

I did wonder if maybe I’m overcooking/undercooking the mugs which is making the ink in that spot gas out due to the dip in the mug but we have also had some mugs with a solid black colour where the black in that area just hasn’t transferred properly as if it wasn’t hot enough.

I’ve also noticed as an aside that some of the mugs appear to be more ‘cooked’ on one side than the other.

the only other thought I had is that we recently changed printer and ink (gone from sublinova sure to inkforinkjet as our old printer packed in. Wouldn’t be that would it?

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[socialgiraffe]

OK, so first things first... please see the image for where my dial is. As the weather has turned slightly and I do not have heating in my unit it would not surprise me if I had to increase the time to around 15-16 minutes. Please bear in mind that I am using better ink (see my comment below), am using a quick release paper from Ink Experts and I am using the best coated mugs from Listawood to get these times. Other coatings in my oven tend to take a wee bit longer (about 18 minutes).

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Things to note (in no particular order)

There is no doubt it could be the ink, particularly as you have gone from what most sublimation experts consider the best sublimation ink out there to arguably one of the worst. That is all I am going to say on the matter as the owner of I4I is on this forum and tends to throw his toys out of the pram with lots of false accusations and outright lies and I don't particularly want to get involved with that branch of narcissism tonight

I do think your oven is too low on temp so that is something I would advise increasing. Try incremental steps of 5 degrees.

Although I have no reason to doubt the quality of the mugs you get (never used them) I would recommend either Listawood or Xpres to see if that makes a difference. Again, I recommend Listawood as I think their coating is the best around. However others don't mind a slightly poorer coating for what they consider to be a better mug. Obviously that is a personal choice, but either of those two suppliers are a good starting point.

The "more cooked on one side" comment is worrying. I assume you have tried other ovens and it is not a fault with the oven you are using (i.e. one of the fans has stopped, or the seal on the door has worn)

[socialgiraffe]

Incidentally, that is for 12 mugs.

In my old age I take things a bit slower these days LOL

[gazfocus]

Thanks [MENTION=911]socialgiraffe[/MENTION] I sincerely appreciate your help. I won’t debate the merits of inkforinkjet on here but I shall, out of wanting to eliminate as many possibilities as I can, try and get a run of mugs printed on our old printer. I would assume though that if the ink was the issue then most, if not all, mugs would be the same and bot just a random number of mugs?

In terms of the oven temperature I think I’ll try bumping the temperature up and lowing the time (currently doing 22 minutes).

Xpres mugs that everyone raves about are 10oz and we only use 11oz so will think about trying listawood (although not had great experience with them previously). Neil brothers are adamant that the issue isn’t with the mugs. We do have some old stock left as well so might give them a go if the temperature adjustments don’t make a difference.

With the “more cooked on one side”, We have three BC01’s and the number of bad mugs is random but we are getting them in all three ovens. We’ve only had the ovens a couple of months so I doubt all three ovens will have developed a fault in that time.

We currently place 10 mugs on each tray (strong trays that we bought separately) with the handles facing the back for 5 mugs and the opposite side of the mug for the other 5 (so the printed faces are towards the sides of the ovens). This creates a reasonable amount of distance between each printer area.

The frustrating thing is that if this had been happening from day one with the ovens I could understand it but we’ve had two months without issues and now BAM! But it’s not coincided with anything we’ve changed (we changed the ink two weeks ago and the last delivery of mugs was about a month ago) so there just seems to be no logic to the issue.

So tempted to just go and buy a load of freesub presses lol

[socialgiraffe]

Can you send me a picture of a mug wrapped with one of your prints please?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gazfocus]

Can you send me a picture of a mug wrapped with one of your prints please?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

of course. Will ping you a couple of pics first thing in the morning.