Ink Fading

[Bob Henn]

I have a HP Desighjet 5500 that we print posters on and lately the ink has been fading after a few weeks.
Any ideas!!!!

[imagesetting]

What is the media you are printing onto, and are you laminating over the print, and if so how soon after printing are you laminating.
What environment are the prints are being exposed to.

I assume production has been fine up till now ?

http://www.imagesettting.com

[Bob Henn]

I am using Saphira Premium Semi-Matte EZ Plus Paper and we do not laminate. Most of our poster are hung indoors.
I guess my question is how long can I expect these posters to last without fading. Does HP have any literature on this.

[imagesetting]

Forgot to ask, what inkset are you using.

http://www.imagesetting.com

[Bob Henn]

We are using the HP 81 dye

[imagesetting]

We have experienced something called 'mordantic' fading, even laminated - after a week prints would fade terribly. The media was wholey responsible, the coating was incompatible with the dye based (Encad GX) inkset we were using.

Have you read this forum topic:
Business support forums - Fading issue with dye based ink in Designjet 5500

The pertinent section is:

We've found two things that may be causing this:
1) The HP instant dry gloss paper. We no longer stock this paper, since it was the worst culprit (and had other problems, like sticking to itself and ruining prints)

2) Exposure to ozone. Some customers have ionizing air filters in their homes and offices, which generate ozone. The prints exposed to these devices faded rapidly (within weeks). The fading was less on satin papers, but still present.

Our solutions:
1) Educate our customers - discourage any display of prints without lamination, framing behind glass, or a protective spray like Print Guard or Bulldog.

2) Elimination of instant dry papers from our stock.

This has solved the issue for us since the dye products aren't likely to be changed anytime soon. We chose not to switch to the UV ink set because the color range and accuracy of the dye set is substantially better.

http://www.imagesetting.com

[Bob Henn]

Thanks for all the info! What kind of paper did you switch too?

[lfelton]

Bob - we've run this type of printer for years and I'm afraid that the issue may just be direct sunlight, plain and simple. If you read up on HP's literature, it's buried in there somewhere. Even laminated, even indoors, if that type of dye based ink is in direct strong sunlight, the time it takes to fade is days. I believe that I'm right in saying that HP tweaked the ink a few years ago to make it slightly less bad, but basically if you are sticking with that printer you need to change the inkset to pigment. The good news (& I suspect that this is why you still have one!) is that those old HP5000/5500s just keep on going. We have one that must be 8 or 9 years old, still printing good quality posters. Of course, it's a bit like your faithful old broom, where you've replaced the handle twice and the brush head three times...

[biggreydog]

I just joined this forum based on a search for this very problem. We are a print shop and use a HP Designjet 5500 for proofs and posters. We had a job proofed on a Wednesday, printed on Friday (the proofs and press sheets matched then) and the proofs has a noticeable change in color by Monday. These proofs never left our building and the lights were off over the week. I don't believe we've had this problem in the past.

Like the original poster we are using HP 81 Dye inks and Heidelberg's Saphira Premium Semi-Matted EZ Plus paper. This paper was new to our market sometime in the past year and it is a quick dry coated paper. The old Saphira paper was not a quick dry paper and I know it didn't fade (it could be messy though since the ink sat on top of the paper).

So any real world solutions to this? I haven't contacted Heidelberg yet on this issue.

[CarolineN]

Hallo to everybody!

In our company we print posters with canon ipf 605. We've been using it for a few years already and we haven't ever had any problems with it. The inks are bright for a long time, no lines on printing. Moreover, there's a special offer for this printer now, so we are going to buy one more ipf 605.