Here's what I have for me.
An email came, and it says I have a customer has tried the following with bad results.
HP Photo-realistic Poster Paper, SIHL 86, uh 3686 TriSolv photo realistic premium paper,
Magic GF 10P212 9Mil wet strength paper, and Briteline Photo Paper 9Mil.
Now assuming that that name and the skew numbers are correct,
because it helps sometimes to be very specific about what the skew is.
I'm looking these over and the first thing I do, is I approach this, are these certified medias.
Has somebody evaluated any of these medias.
Are these medias compatible or incompatible with a 500 Series Latex Printer.
And then the next question would be, what did you use to print them with?
Um, what preset?
Did you use a different preset?
Did you use a generic preset?
Did you choose a preset from a different paper and apply it to this paper?
So, the first thing I want to know is, are these certified or are these profiled,
or have we not tested these whatsoever on a 500 series printer, and for that I turned to the HP Media Locator.
The first thing I want to know is, are any of these on the Locator.
Well, I can tell you that the first one here, which is the HP Photo-realistic Paper,
is not on the HP Media Locator, if that's the paper that the name means.
The HP Photo-realistic Poster Paper is not compatible with the HP 500 Series printers,
and when you go to the Media Locator and you choose a couple presets, now ideally, I would
ask a customer who wants to print on a media to use this before you randomly grab papers.
Because if you start with the Media Locator, you use the filter tool and you choose 560
or 570 and then you go to type and hit paper, you get all of the papers,
and there are 28 papers that are either profiled, or either HP Certified or profiled.
So, you have 28 selections.
Now not all 28 selections may be available in the United States, agreed.
But many of them are, and I see several on here that would be good choices.
If you go through the HP, there is no photo-realistic poster paper,
and that's for a reason because it's not compatible with latex.
Let me rephrase that.
It is not compatible with the Latex 500 Series.
It is barely compatible with the 300 series.
It would be perfect for the Gen two or 200 series.
So, if you had a 260, the photo-realistic poster paper was excellent.
If you have a 360, it's not so excellent and I would recommend other choices.
If you were to go to HP's website and you go into paper and you look at our papers and
you search by media filter, which is the printer, you will see again, there is no photo-realistic poster paper.
We have a lot of different papers that will work with it that are compatible,
but this isn't one of 'em.
So, the first one on here is a bad choice.
It is neither on the locator nor does HP recommend it.
So, it's not clear to me how this landed in your selections.
The second one, the SIHL TriSolv, now I know that the SIHL, uh, 3686 is a certified media for the 500 series,
and I know that because I can go to the Media Locator and I see SIHL 3699,
and then down here, I, Sihl, see the SIHL 3686, and it lists profiled and certified modes.
When I open it up and I select 560, it shows that both of them are certified, which is a little confusing.
It also shows that they were made on the 14th of February 2008, so quite recent.
Um, this media was flagged as having some settings that may be incompatible with a 500.
They revisited it and they came up with two presets, one at six pass and one at 10 pass.
Now they're both listed at certified, but the logo suggests that one is profiled.
I'm not sure exactly what the case is.
But one of the modes in here certainly shouldcbe a certified mode.
So, then my question is, if you loaded this SIHL 3686, did you download this,
load it on to the 500 series and then run it, and if it has a problem, which mode did you run?
Did you run it with or without the take-up roll and, in that case, if there's still an issue,
it's possible that you have a very high level
of humidity or something in your environment.
But because that's a certified media, HP has a clear responsibility to try to solve this.
Because we've looked at it, we put a stamp on it.
That should be fine and that is a good choice, and of these four choices, that's the one
that being a certified media, I would be very interested in knowing those details.
Now the next one is listed is Magic nine Mil wet strength.
Now normally, a wet strength paper is fairly compatible with the latex 5 and 300 series.
It's a good choice, I use a lot of, HP has a wet strength paper, which is the,
uh, let's see, it's the HP, sometimes the names confuse me.
Every, uh, the HP White Satin Poster Paper is a wet strength paper.
I have built my own presets for that and gotten quite nice results.
Also, the Neenah Endura is a wet strength paper.
Both the gloss and the, or the satin and the matte run quite well on the latex, in my experience.
Because wet strength paper allows for more moisture,
it's a paper that has, um, latex impregnation, and so it has a short-term outdoor durability.
It can get a little wet without breaking apart.
When you put a lot of water on it in a Gen three Latex, that water can stay there,
and the paper will not cockle or buckle.
It reacts well to the amount of liquid that's going on the paper.
So wet strength paper is usually a good choice.
But it's not certified, it's not on the Media Locator anywhere, and we don't know anything about it.
All we know is, somebody tried it with some setting at some speed, some temperature
and with some ink load, but all of that is unknown.
And then the Briteline Photo Paper is a Grimco product and I don't know anything about it
and it also is not on the locator.
So, of the four medias tried, three of, one of which I know is highly incompatible, two
might work, but I don't know anything about them and they've never been tested with the locator,
and the only one on here that actually I think has validity to ask how come this didn't work is the SIHL, 80, 3686,
and I would like to know, what did you use to print it.
When you're printing, now, it may be possible to get virtually all of these papers to work.
But you can't necessarily use generic settings.
So, if you go to the printer and you choose generic paper, the paper you're loading in
and the generic paper that it was built from may not be compatible,
and you say, well, it's not working.
There's a great video right here which is on YouTube, I made this about two years ago,
and it is called, uh, Building Paper Presets Considerations and Workflow.
It's on the HP YouTube channel in the graphic arts playlist.
So, if you go to HP graphic arts, you scroll down to, um "How to use Your Latex 300 series
Printer", it applies to the 500 equally, and then this will go through my recommendations
for printing on an unknown paper.
They are, I start with 12 pass.
I do not use anything faster than 12 pass.
In some cases, I will even go to 16 pass.
I am doing this because paper needs two things,
especially offset coated or poster paper, to work effectively.
One, the temperature cannot be too hot.
I generally keep everything under 200 degrees.
It's going to be generally between 165 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the paper,
the width of the paper and how thick the paper is.
The second thing is I'm going to limit the ink load usually to no more than 100 percent.
If I can get a paper that will take 110 percent density, that means it's probably got a nice coating on it.
Usually I shoot for 90 percent.
I'm happy with 90 percent on a poster paper, an offset coated paper.
If you run too much ink and too much, heat, the paper is going to buckle, it's going to cockle.
The wider the paper the more of a struggle it is and it's going to come up right in the
center and you're going to get head strikes.
Now later I asked a few questions, and the information, I got was, the tech at one point
had them at 240 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ok, that's completely the wrong direction.
You do not run hotter you run cooler.
The hotter you turn it up, you can almost watch the paper come up right in the curing zone.
You'll usually get a buckle right in the center of that paper,
and it's all of this liquidity on the paper, you're heating that paper, and together it causes the paper to come up.
You can try to offset it with vacuum.
Here's the trouble with vacuum.
You have effectively what is almost a chemical process happening with the water,
the heat and the paper and you're trying to use vacuum to mask the symptom.
But you are not addressing the cause.
The cause is, you have too much heat and too much liquid.
If you lower the temperature, you slow it down to compensate for that lower temperature,
and then you adjust the ink accordingly.
So, for me, a standard paper formula is 12 pass, 180 degrees at 80 or 90 percent density.
I'll start with 90 and see what it looks like.
I can then lower my vacuum because the vacuum is not being asked to try to
compensate for this paper coming up,
and in most cases, the vacuum is not going to have enough of an effect to hold it down.
If you have too much heat and too much water, the vacuum is not going to make it.
It's not going to do anything.
That paper will buckle in the center.
The carriage will rub the edge of it or you'll get it in the door coming out, and it's gonna
have a little scratch marks all the way down the, the face of it.
It's something that has to be adjusted with temperature and then with the amount of ink,
and then you co, you compensate with speed reductions,
and that can be pass modes, going to 12 or 16 pass, or you can use inter-pass delay,
and in my case, I use both inter-pass delay and slower pass modes.
So, I don't even consider a paper for 10 pass, eight pass or six pass, which proven to me that it works in 12 pass.
If it works in 12 pass, then I will consider it for faster modes.
There's a product, for example, by CMA called Nano paper.
I have been able to run that in 12 pass very effectively.
Then I went to 10, then I went to eight and then I went to six.
But the paper has to prove that it can do a 12 pass with a low temperature and,
and, resist any buckling or cockling as a result of the ink.
Coated papers generally are going to perform better.
But every paper has its own characteristics.
So, understanding that, you have several things that I think I recommend here.
One, start with the Media Locator and get an idea of what we already know about and
what works, and the only thing mentioned here that really is on the locator is the SIHL 8636.
The other three, one is incompatible, two are unknowns.
If you're going to run unknown papers, there's nothing wrong with that, but accept the fact
that some generic preset is not necessarily going to work.
Go to this video.
Ok, this is a very specific video on fixing paper issues and where to start
and why things work the way they do with papers, so you understand them.
I have run almost all three-inch core papers available in the United States.
I can get most of it to work.
Every once in a while, I get a paper I can't make work.
But, and that includes 12-point card stocks, but I may go a little narrower on the roll.
I may not go out to 60 inches.
Uh, I'm going to adjust perhaps with a low ink, ink setting.
I might have to bring my density to 80 percent.
In some cases, even 70 percent.
Because you cannot put a lot of water on the paper.
Those things all have to be taken into consideration
if you're going to use papers outside of the Media Locator's purview.
That's on the Media Locator and you're having issues with the preset, then call HP 1-800 support and say,
I loaded a paper, it's certified, I ran the certified mode, I press play, and it's buckling or cockling.
We'll look at things that might be, um, on the periphery of your issue like, say,
a temperature issue or high humidity or some other variable and try to isolate it.
But we'll take responsibility for that because we've looked at that paper.
OK, just some general outlines on paper issues.
I see this regularly.
It's an ongoing sort of problem.
But a lot of this problem could be solved if you would use the Media Locator first
and then looked at what worked rather than grabbing rolls and then using,
you know, unknown settings.
I don't have information on what settings were used.
And then also even if you're using HP media, check the HP Media site.
But most of that stuff is synchronized with the Media Locator and they should be in harmony.
So, what you see on the locator is what you see also on HP's site,
and the locator does not show the HP Photo-realistic Poster Paper as available for the 500 series.
Little overview on paper, little technical deep-dive, some recommendations.
Hopefully, that helps and get you going to the next stage.