Printing Presentation Posters on Fabric

[picman]

We currently print presentation posters for our faculty on paper using a HP Z3100.
We have someone who is interested in having their posters printed on a fabric material that can be folded and tossed in a suitcase.
Any one had experience with this material?
What type are you using?
Tips?

Thanks
Brian

[Ian99]

I do not know what fabric you are talking about but I print on Phototex with my Z3100.

Peel off the backing material and it will stick gently to almost anything but can be peeled off leaving no marks. I can also scrunch it up into a ball or fold it many times and it can be unpeeled with little difficulty. The downside is that the colors are less saturated than paper.

I have also tried printing on silk, which was a total disaster.

[a.lorge]

I usually use this company when I need something printed on fabric: http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome.  The interface is relatively easy to use, their prices are very reasonable, and they produce a high quality product that is washable and can be ironed (which is probably advantageous if your intention is to make prints that can be transported in a suitcase)

Another option is http://www.inkjetfabrics.com/.  Their fabrisign line of media is designed for aqueous inks.  Just a word of caution: In my experience the ink never seems to fully dry when printing from a z3200, even when using a media setting with a low ink limit (I used coated paper I think). 

[enduser]

We've used Fabrisign cotton and silk in our ipf Canon very successfully.  Use the "Special 10" setting and put saturation pretty high in your image and you can get very usefull out put.   Separation requires a hot iron on the backing paper to get separation, and once separated the fabrics look just like what you might see in a fabric shop.

We found that the cotton takes a cold machine wash very well without fading, but spin dry will make creases that are hard to iron out.

(Special 10 is the highest ink load setting for matt surfaces)

[Ian99]

Enduser & A.Lorge,
I think the devil is in the details and I would appreciate understanding more of your process.

I was doing a trial for a customer who wanted to be able to print her designs on a washable silk to make scarves.

I tried both Fabrisign and Pro-Coat Silk Satin (made by the same company) in my Z3100 which uses pigment inks in an aqueous base.

The supplier strongly recommended against using Pro-Coat in that printer as it was designed for dye based inks, however they also said that Fabrisign should not be washed, so I just tried them both.

The Z3100 has a built-in spectrophotometer so it can create its own profiles, but trying this on the first sample dumped a huge amount of ink on the silk, the rollers and generally everywhere inside the machine. This required a full strip down and clean.

So I then tried the other sample with a generic paper profile. This one shed silk fibers from across the whole roll which then wrapped around paper guides, rollers, shafts etc and ended up as a large bird’s nest. This required a full strip down and clean.

So my patience ran out, however I am interested in learning the details of how you succeeded with this product.

[enduser]

I've attached a picture of a stage production where the fabric on the chair and lounge was Fabrisign Linen, printed with a Canon ipf9000.  The inks Canon use are aqeous pigment and are very similar to the HP inks.

It sounds from your description of difficulties that you ran fabric through the printer with no paper backing.  The product we use has a quality paper backing that is not removed until after printing.  Putting unsupported fabric through the printer seldom succeeds and usually ends up causing the problems you had.

[Ian99]

Enduser, thanks for your response.
“… no paper backing”  No, I used the Fabrisign silk straight from the box with its paper backing.

Maybe sometime I will give the linen a try as you obviously have made it work well, but I do not have a need for that application at present.

[Nora_nor]

"fabric that can be folded and tossed in a suitcase"

what about tyvek, will it peel off where you fold it? I thought tyvek would be perfect for presentations one needs to be able to fold and put in a suitcase.

[Randy Carone]

Tyvek will work but it has a stiff hand compared to fabric. I sold many rolls of Tyvek banner (the base material is all the same) for use as printed field maps for Iraq. The criteria was that it had to be waterproof and be able to be folded and stuffed in a field jacket pocket with no ill effects. It passed the tests.