Complaint about letterheads

[Darlek]

Printed some letterheads for a company,. However they are complaining that the image is coming off when they put them through a laser printer. Is this a common problem with digital printing and if so is there a answer.

 

[NexpressMonkey]

Sol

Sol

I think that's the nature of the beast with digital. We do not digtially print anything that runs through a laser afterwards.

 

[arossetti]

Very common problem, the only answer is to have your fuser be hotter then the end users. We have success running digital letterhead on our Xante color printer. In general I try to stay away from letterhead, low margin and big headaches.

 

[Stiv]

If it is possible to set the paper tray of their printer to a light-weight paper setting.
This would turn the heat on their fuser down a little and help reduce/eliminate the image melting off.

 

[wildcatt]

We don't print letterhead on a digital press.

EVER

just for that reason

 

[graficworx]

Is this a common problem with digital printing and if so is there a answer.

Short answer Yes. Long answer, still yes, but with an explanation.

As was pointed out, it has to do with fuser temperature. Fuser temperature is related to the melting point of the toner, which is designed by the manufacturer. The lower the melting point of the toner, the less energy and less electricity needed to melt that toner, and more cost savings to the printer. Newer copiers and digital presses use toner that melts at a much lower temperature. This temperature will vary by manufacturer.

HP states that "The enhanced toner was designed to melt at lower temperatures and to deliver print quality consistency at faster print speeds. As a result, the toner requires 15 percent less energy to reach fusing temperature".

Xerox says "The 2° C lower setpoint also drives down the fuser costs and the need to replace the fuser as often. This also contributes to lower energy consumption in the office leading to lower energy costs."

The flipside of this is that cheap, disposable desktop printers (anything over a few years old, new Brothers, etc...) don't use this newer toner design, so they still have to get nice and hot to fuse, and in doing so, will "un-fuse" the toner you already placed on there.

Solution? Not really. Its the nature of how toner works that creates this problem. Toner only sticks to the surface of paper, it doesn't penetrate like ink does. Its essentially "glued" to the surface of the paper through the application of heat and pressure. Ink on the other hand, either ink-jet or offset ink, penetrates the paper fibers and goes below the surface.

Ink is chemically cured, either through oxidation or an external force. Toner never cures, its always in the same form, so heat can remove it again.

My rule of thumb is this: when a customer comes in wanting short run letterhead, I ask them will they be printing on an inkjet or laser printer. If they say inkjet, then laser printed letterhead is fine, however if folded it can crack and peel. If they say laser, then it has to be offset printed. Since large scale inkjets aren't really popular yet, it comes back to offset printing.

 

[dabob]

Short answer Yes. Long answer, still yes, but with an explanation.

As was pointed out, it has to do with fuser temperature. Fuser temperature is related to the melting point of the toner, which is designed by the manufacturer. The lower the melting point of the toner, the less energy and less electricity needed to melt that toner, and more cost savings to the printer. Newer copiers and digital presses use toner that melts at a much lower temperature. This temperature will vary by manufacturer.

HP states that "The enhanced toner was designed to melt at lower temperatures and to deliver print quality consistency at faster print speeds. As a result, the toner requires 15 percent less energy to reach fusing temperature".

Xerox says "The 2° C lower setpoint also drives down the fuser costs and the need to replace the fuser as often. This also contributes to lower energy consumption in the office leading to lower energy costs."

The flipside of this is that cheap, disposable desktop printers (anything over a few years old, new Brothers, etc...) don't use this newer toner design, so they still have to get nice and hot to fuse, and in doing so, will "un-fuse" the toner you already placed on there.

Solution? Not really. Its the nature of how toner works that creates this problem. Toner only sticks to the surface of paper, it doesn't penetrate like ink does. Its essentially "glued" to the surface of the paper through the application of heat and pressure. Ink on the other hand, either ink-jet or offset ink, penetrates the paper fibers and goes below the surface.

Ink is chemically cured, either through oxidation or an external force. Toner never cures, its always in the same form, so heat can remove it again.

My rule of thumb is this: when a customer comes in wanting short run letterhead, I ask them will they be printing on an inkjet or laser printer. If they say inkjet, then laser printed letterhead is fine, however if folded it can crack and peel. If they say laser, then it has to be offset printed. Since large scale inkjets aren't really popular yet, it comes back to offset printing.

One more caveat, when printing offset be sure and use a wax free ink . .. because in an ink with wax (for rub resistance) will melt on toner rollers also . . .

 

[msaeger]

Letter head causes issues no matter what you print it on but running something on a laser then running it through another laser just doesn't work.

 

[Craig]

Letter head causes issues no matter what you print it on but running something on a laser then running it through another laser just doesn't work.

Rephrase to read "Letterhead causes issues no matter what toner device you print it on."

We have NEVER had an issue with offset letterhead, and we have been running it since 1966.

 

[msaeger]

Offset letter head leaves ink on feed rollers and causes jamming. I have had fuser rollers get contaminated too when places run a ton of letter head. You guys aren't going to hear about that kind of issue because that can be fixed by cleaning or replacing rollers. The toner based stuff just doesn't work so we tell customers we can't do anything to make it work then you get it returned.

 

[GusG]

I have printed a lot of letterheads over the last 4 years on a KM C352, a KM C451 and a Xerox DC3535 and I have NEVER had a complaint. I have tried on a DC2060 and on a DC12 and that doesn't work.

Without going into a lot of theory I can only say that my experience is about whether or not the printer uses fuser oil.

 

[easiprint]

From my experience, all toner based machines can give problems with letterheads, but KM's and Ricoh's give less problems. All my current Xerox's are no good (DC250, DC12, DC5252)

 

[Craig]

More than likely it's because those models use a higher fuser temperature, not whether they use fuser oil.

 

[alu]

We do a fair amount of digital letterhead on our c6500, haven't had a return yet, but have heard of others having problems.

It all depends on the printer used by your client. Older laser printers are a bigger problem because they run hotter.

We explain the risk and give them samples to try. The pricing beats the pants off offset for low quantities so for some it's right choice. When we quote we give them both digital and offset pricing, we try to educate the client so they can make their own choice.

 

[Jack Flash]

No problems with the Xerox5065

 

[Craigindigo]

We run a couple off for the customer to try, Some work some don't

 

[GusG]

More than likely it's because those models use a higher fuser temperature, not whether they use fuser oil.

I do get the logic about the fuser temperature, however, without knowing it for a fact I'd have thought the older machines like the DC12 and DC2060 have a higher fuser temperature than a DC3535 or the KMs I mentioned.

 

[richwitney]

Always thought that it was low fusing temps that caused the problem - ie when the client puts in through their own laser (with a higher fusing temp) it 'de-fuses' the original image.

I could be wrong

 

[GusG]

Always thought that it was low fusing temps that caused the problem

That's the theory but if my assumption is correct that the older machines like DC12 and 2060 (from which letterheads do NOT work) have a higher fusing temperature than the newer machines I've used such as DC3535, KM C352 & C451 (from which I have never had a complaint about letterheads) then there is more to it than the fusing temperature (fuser oil???).

But as mentioned, this is on the assumption that the older machines have a higher fusing temperature which I don't know for a fact. Does anyone know this?

 

[MarkPalmer]

A couple of things here. When we printed letterhead on offset, we used wax free ink for it to be compatible printing through laser printers, and I don't recall any problems with that.

With the switch to digital, there can be a hard to diagnose issue. We use a Xante Illumina for letterhead, which has variable fuser temperature and can fuse at a very high temp, and it has been fine with one exception, that being people who try to print the letterhead back through on really old laser printers, especially HP's. What happens with these old printers is they lose the coating on their fuser rollers through use and age. This makes their fuser roller temperature much hotter than it would be normally, to the point where it exceeds the fusing temperature used by the Xante and problems occur. In cases where we then advised the customer to try printing on a newer laser printer, the issue was resolved. Xante and our local sales agent helped to figure this issue out.

-Mark-