[Using the Platen Covers with Your HP Latex Printer]
Timothy Mitchell: These came with your 365 or 500 series.
And you probably set them aside or kept them in the box or put them somewhere
and don't even realize you have them.
There are two of them.
Here's one, here's the other.
they have an aluminum ridge on one side that's shaped in an L, and then they have a velcro on the other.
It has two parts.
Felt and then a smooth part, kind of a shiny part.
Here is the reason they're in the box.
These are platen covers that are designed primarily, it's primary function, is for fabric printing on long rolls.
If you do long rolls of fabric, extended rolls, like an entire roll,
and you're running large amounts of ink, you're probably at 185%, 200%.
It's going to create quite a bit of condensation.
These are there to prevent the accumulation of condensation
from getting onto the fabric and creating a discolored stain.
If I were to run one poster or one roll-up of fabric, I might not use these,
but if I'm going to run an entire roll, like at a trade show, I'm going to put these on
because I'm going to run continuously without letting this evaporative heating zone cool down,
and it's going to create a lot of moisture in there, and that's going to be necessary to have this felt
The velcro here attaches to the bottom side of the platen.
You're going to have a strip of velcro that comes with these.
Clean the bottom of this well, because you don't want the velcro adhesion
to stick to something that's not clean, and then run it all along the bottom side.
You can see mine's coming up a little bit.
It's a little old.
If it does come up over time, you can just buy more velcro.
It's just velcro.
And then that holds this end down so that you pull it taut,
completely covering the bottom part of the external platen.
Here is the other function.
There are some materials, mainly double-sided, like a double-sided banner,
where the side that you've just printed, which has some ink on it, is getting warm from the platen,
from the curing zone, and then it sticks while it's trying to roll forward.
In those cases, you put this on and this shiny side here, where it slides across,
will prevent it from sticking or from scratching.
The worst case scenario is the vinyl comes down
and that printed vinyl kind of gets stuck on the platen.
And because it gets stuck, it causes it to fold in the next feed and then the carriage catches the vinyl.
So the purpose of that with a scrim banner is particularly to eliminate it from sticking.
I have been to sites where where customers have these on permanently.
No.
They are only designed for fabric, and then in instances where the material,
whatever it is, like a double-sided vinyl banner that has a soft PVC, or in the case, for example,
where you are printing a type of magnet or something where the back side of the magnet is kind of sticky
and it doesn't have a smooth surface and it's touching up against that platen
and the platen is causing it to stick instead of slide.
Otherwise, take them off.
They do not help.
They are not making things better.
They do not increase the efficiency of the printer.
They are designed simply to solve those two issues.
It changes the equation that we've built and how the printer runs,
and it doesn't really solve the problems you think you're solving.
It doesn't make media travel through there better.
Almost all media, canvases, wall coverings, adhesive vinyl, films, both front-lit and back-lit,
they travel through the printer just fine the way it's designed,
and they are not assisted by putting these on.
I wanted to explain what they are, what they're for so you can get them out of the box
and at least know in what circumstances you'll need them and what problems they solve
so that you put them on when you need them and don't use them otherwise.
These are the platen covers.
There are two of them.
If you have an older printer, like a 360, then they may not be in there or the design may look different.
If that's the case, give HP Support a call and let them know.
[HP]