Quickstartguide:UVFlatbed

Before you start

A quick overview of possibilities and limitations:

• Preferred file formats for ease of use: png and pdf.
• Maximum size of print bed: approx. 60 cm x 40 cm.
• Maximum height: approx. 20 cm.
• Possible colors and effects: white, CMYK, primer, embossing, gloss and matte varnish.

Preparatory work

• For your convenience, design your file on the intended size and, preferably, on the size of your material. This will save you the hassle of positioning in VersaWorks later on and you will avoid overstretching your design.
• For an easier workflow, measure your material beforehand (size, thickness, etc.)
• Avoid using .tiff and .jpeg files. Although they do work, they tend to come with their own shortcomings. Especially .tiff has the tendency to crash the software.
• If you are unsure about the best way to approach your material, ask an instructor so we can come up with a good method together.
• Bring more than one piece of material, or bring small test pieces. You should do this always and in every Station.

How does this machine work

The Roland VersaObject MO-240 (a.k.a. 'The Mimaki') is a UV flatbed printer that uses a number of highly chemical inks to print on surfaces a normal printer cannot. The way it does this, is by moving over a subject and spraying very fine dots of ink over the material much the same way an inkjet printer does. However, unlike an inkjet print, the Roland immediately exposes the freshly sprayed ink with the UV-light attached to its printer head. The chemicals in the ink react and harden in response to the UV-light allowing you to print on a wide array of surfaces. Another unique feature of the Roland is that it can print white. Most printers cannot print white, instead relying on the whiteness in paper to accommodate the whites in your design (both the obvious white parts and the white in light colors). Because this machine can do this, it opens up a whole range of potentially printable surfaces without losing the colors of your design.

WARNINGS & RULES

• Although the machine is perfectly safe to use, do keep in mind that the inks used are very toxic.
  • Practically this means that you should avoid sticking your head in the machine, leaving the hood open unnecessarily long or touching other parts than the printing bed. Unless, of course, you love head aches.
• It is advisable to open the window upon operation.
• Never touch the inks or remove the cartridges.
• Never touch or open the discharge fluid of the machine.
• The flatbed can only print on flat or very slightly curved surfaces.
• Make sure you do not print on the table (the print bed). Although removable with a scraper and some alcohol-based cleaner, scraping it off the table's surface is not advisable considering the intense toxicity of the inks.
  • If this is almost inevitable, please place a piece of paper underneath your material.
• Alerts - if the machine has any alerts open (indicated by a number next to a bell on the screen) please let one of the instructors know.
  • Do not execute or attempt to fix any of the alerts yourself.
  • Do not replace empty ink cartridges yourself.

Basic operation

A word of context

To make you understand the operation of the flatbed better, here's a short explainer as to its way of working: a subject (a box, a piece of metal, a book cover, whatever) is placed on a printer bed (the table, in Roland-world) that moves the subject deeper into the machine, and underneath a horizontally moving printer head (with UV-light). Once the whole subject has been printed and the job has been completed the table moves back to the front. To ensure good results and to prevent stuff from ramming into the printer head, the flatbed makes use of a sensor in the form of a wide black piece of metal in the back of the machine. The table moves underneath this sensor and if anything on the table (even lightly) touches the sensor, the machine will stop and give a table height error. The height of the table therefore needs to be adjusted to the material you are about to print on, so that nothing touches the sensor. Keep this in mind for the rest of this guide and when you have to do some troubleshooting.

Alright, now that you have some basic understanding of the flatbed, let's start on the machine side of things.

At the machine itself

• First measure the thickness of your material with the calipers.
  • If your material is flat, but also a little bumpy, lay it on the table and measure its heighest point.
• Adjust the table height by clicking on SETUP, preset MANUAL and then on CHANGE next to 'Table Height'
• Don't panic. Here a bit of maths gets involved. To calculate the correct table height, solve the following: table height = 102 mm - [the height of your material].
  • For example: you have a piece of wood that is approx. 4 mm thick, then that means 102 mm - 4 mm = 98 mm = table height.
• Click on the little pen to edit the height. Fill in the correct height.
• The table adjusts itself to the submitted height.
• Open the lid and place your subject in the lower right corner. This is its starting point of reference.
  • To align your material properly you can use the convenient red tool Baschz made.
• Make sure that, if you're using paper or something similarly thin, that the material is taped down as much as possible. Same goes for wobbly pieces of wood.
• Close the lid and move over to the computer

To the computer

• Get your file on the computer and drag it into the queue of VersaWorks
• Once in the queue you'll get a horribly pixelated preview of your design. Don't worry it won't turn out this bad. Double-click the file in queue or select the file and click the cog wheel on top.
• Alright, so on the left you'll see a number of tabs. Most of those tabs are not relevant to you, except for the two top ones LAYOUT and QUALITY.

Layout tab

• As the name suggests this tab mainly deals with the positioning and sizing of your design on your material. Because this is a quickstart guide we won't go into every detail in this tab.
• The first measurements you can give in on top are those of your material. By default it's set to the complete printing table, but if you want to work precise you can put in the dimensions of your subject.
• Underneath that we find the size of your design as you've made it. Here the suggestion to design on your intended size comes in handy. If you've done this you will not need to resize. Either scale to your own wishes, or check the box to cover the whole material.
• If need be you can adjust the x and y positioning of your design.
• Next, click on the tab QUALITY.

Quality tab

• The quality tab deals with the type of ink(s) the machine will use and in what order.
• First there is the dropdown menu MEDIA TYPE, which is by default set to GENERIC
  • There's a number of options here, but because this part of the guide deals with basic operations, we'll only deal with GENERIC (for most surfaces) and GENERIC DISTANCE (for most surfaces with a slight curvature).
• Below we find another dropdown menu called MODE. Here we can find the possible orders of operation available for your selected mode.
  • With GENERIC and GENERIC DISTANCE the following are available:
  • CMYKRe (10p or 12p) - The machine only prints color, without white. If you want the color of your material to come through in your image, this is the way to go.
  • White->CMYKRe (10p or 12p) - The machine first prints a layer of white and then moves on with the colors. This means that the color of your material won’t shine through in your image.
  • CMYKRe->White (10p or 12p) - Like the previous setting, just the other way around. In case you want to print on something see-through and see the image on the other side.
  • White - This is just a white under coating, no colors.

In case you selected CMYKRe (10p or 12p):

• Click on OK in the lower right corner and then on PRINT.

If you selected White->CMYKRe or CMYKRe->White or White:

• Head to SPECIAL COLOR GENERATION and check the box saying GENERATE SPECIAL COLOR PLATE
• Subsequently, select what part of your image it should cover with the special color plate.
  • Print Area - The special color plate (for example a white layer, or a varnish) is only printed on the printed area.
  • Outside Print Area - The special color plate is only printed outside the printed area.
  • Entire Image - The special color plate is printed all over the image, regardless of what area is printed.
• A vague purple haze will come over your design, indicating the area where the special color plate will be present.
• Click on OK in the lower right corner.
• Click on PRINT in the upper right corner.
• The machine will now first check whether the height you gave in is correct and it doesn't touch anything on the table.
• Once that's approved it'll start.

Advanced operation

To be added.