Will pigmented ink (water based) work on uncoated PVC ?

[imimix]

So Mark, did it work to print on uncoated plastic ID card with pigment ink?

I bought this modified Epson printer to automatically print 100 cards, and it works great with coated inkjet cards, but I was wondering just like you if pigment ink will work
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Best

 

[guymark]

Well I did try it just to see - and the short answer is that days later it could still be smudged (though it became less smudgable over longer time). In short totally unusable. IF however you had a printer that took pgmented ink and cheap replacement heads were available, then trying the UV cured inks may very well work (though you would need to cure them for a few seconds with UV).

I understand (though am open to correction) that these inks are pigment not dye - but instead of "drying" they CURE - and as such once they are then waterproof providing the substrate is. HP5000 and HP5500 have a UV cure option and there are people offering upgrade kits for other printers too in the HP range - eg: the 500/510/800 series but for some reason not only do the heads need changing (to No.83) but for some reason the tubes need replacing if you want to avoid leaks.

Why a plastic pipe would leak with a different ink puzzles me but I accept it to be true as so many people have tried to cut corners and had leaks at the joints. My puzzle is that plastic is impervious to acids, alkalii and pretty much all solvents - indeed all of that lot are usually supplied in plastic bottles.

Anyway, if you had a pigment printer that you could afford to replace the print head on in a worst case scenrio (some printheads can be had for under £20) on the old auction sites), then trying some UV curing pigment ink may be an interesting experiment. I would guess the ONE hazard would be to UTTERLY ensure that the UV light NEVER went anywhere near the printhead - as ink "curing in the nozzle outlets" may create an almost impossible blockage to shift.

I admit, there is a LOT of speculation there BUT certainly if I had a spare / cheap pigment printer, I would play around with printing UV curable ink onto plastic if it had a "card tray".

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It's the solvent in those UV inks, or (eco) solvent inks attacking some types of plastic e.g. tubing which is the reason that they need to be replaced by some other material e.g. silicone instead of PVC . You can get retrofit kits via Aliexpress for lots of printers, but I'm not sure that there is much support in case it doesn't work.

 

[guymark]

Ahh thank you for the clarification, I said I stood to be corrected and indeed I was

I looked up the MSDS for one of the HP UV curable inks here http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01499248 and the solvents used are indeed aggressive to PVC - I admit I thought the tubes were more likely to be polyethylene until I started playing around with my first wide format printer - though even polyethylene has issues with phenyls and some alcohols.

Learn something every day on here!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

typically when you buy a printer or a CISS you don't care whether the tubing or other plastic is PVC or ABS or PE or... until you look into such conversions. But it's not just the solvent affecting the tubing, I think the 7600/9600 firmware counts the flexes of the ink tubing to alert you when reaching a particular limit.

 

[imimix]

Thanks...this helped a lot.

Well I did try it just to see - and the short answer is that days later it could still be smudged (though it became less smudgable over longer time). In short totally unusable. IF however you had a printer that took pgmented ink and cheap replacement heads were available, then trying the UV cured inks may very well work (though you would need to cure them for a few seconds with UV).

I understand (though am open to correction) that these inks are pigment not dye - but instead of "drying" they CURE - and as such once they are then waterproof providing the substrate is. HP5000 and HP5500 have a UV cure option and there are people offering upgrade kits for other printers too in the HP range - eg: the 500/510/800 series but for some reason not only do the heads need changing (to No.83) but for some reason the tubes need replacing if you want to avoid leaks.

Why a plastic pipe would leak with a different ink puzzles me but I accept it to be true as so many people have tried to cut corners and had leaks at the joints. My puzzle is that plastic is impervious to acids, alkalii and pretty much all solvents - indeed all of that lot are usually supplied in plastic bottles.

Anyway, if you had a pigment printer that you could afford to replace the print head on in a worst case scenrio (some printheads can be had for under £20) on the old auction sites), then trying some UV curing pigment ink may be an interesting experiment. I would guess the ONE hazard would be to UTTERLY ensure that the UV light NEVER went anywhere near the printhead - as ink "curing in the nozzle outlets" may create an almost impossible blockage to shift.

I admit, there is a LOT of speculation there BUT certainly if I had a spare / cheap pigment printer, I would play around with printing UV curable ink onto plastic if it had a "card tray".