You can click the printer symbol next to the material size and it will poll for actual width. It comes in hand every now and then just to fit things in. Material says 36" x 150' it may actually be 36.5" that may help if you are using a weed border for certain things.
Coworker reminded me the Print and EC film side by side you show was without the print on aluminum and the material is translucent so it mounted to a piece of clean aluminum may cause it to reflect a bit better just a thought. I would still use EC Film for the color.
If you didn't apply the 1170 EC film on the digitally printed stop sign it will not retro-reflect properly. It also makes the color a little darker but still not as dark as the EC film. If you have a retro-reflectometer check the the reflectivity of a printed stop sign without 1170 and with, it makes a big difference!
The 1170C will help the fading by the sun. Without it the sign will fade quickly. We do night vision checks for reflectivity. Reflectometers take to long to cover all the signs in our county.
Do an experiment on the printed Stop sign that you showed in the video. Cover half the sign with 1170c and do a visual test. I think you will be surprised. Trust me I've been making traffic signs for 30 years and I have had the HP 365 since 2019. The 1170C is not just for UV protection it does affect the retro-reflectivity. @@BobTheSignMan
@@BobTheSignMan If you don't mind me working with you to fix this - unless you changed it later in the video, up to the point where you created the STOP sign, you only used 'Red' as your fill color. You are supposed to use 'Traffic RED' - this will tell the RIP side to use the right CMYK formulations for the traffic red. I can email you the HP cookbook if you like more information on how to print the right colors.
I too am a heavy user of the EC Film. . the other disadvantage to the printed signs is how fast they fade. Not only are they not as reflective they fade quick in direct high UV light. I'd rather replace an EC film sign that has degraded over many years vs replacing printed signs that will generally turn all white over time. they are quick an easy for small towns and such to buy and have a maintenance person install. . . but in the end they are replacing them more often. The online print shops make a killing off what I consider substandard signs.
@@BobTheSignMan We switched over in 2018 to full print no more EC film. All 4090 prints laminated with 1170. We inventory every sign and keep track of the dates. We had 3m replace some of the EC Film in the past the had a few bad runs and the material faded out in about 5yrs. As of now I have been printing signs for 4 yrs. We also us an HP 365.
Hi Bob. What brand is that Applicator Roller you are using? We need an easier way to apply our transfer tape on our vinyl without ripping the transfer tape.
