Laser Safe "Vinyl" for Heat Press Applications

[Ross Moshinsky]

Just sharing a product I recently found for a project. A customer contacted us last minute for some custom sashes. We have a vendor that does these for us but they are in Texas and require several days for production. We decided to go ahead and sublimate 100% polyester ribbon. We found this process incredibly difficult as we continued to get ghosting no matter what we did. Looking for an alternative, we found Thermoflex Plus from Speciality Materials.

It is a polyurethane based "vinyl" which has the adhesive activated by heat and pressure. It is relatively inexpensive and there are vendors that sell it online or you should be able to get it from a local sign supplier. It is something you can cut with any power laser. With our 60W ULS machine I used 5% power and 25% speed to cut the letters and 15% power and 25% speed to cut the perimeter. You simply weed out the excess material afterwards and apply your vinyl and press for 15 seconds at 335degrees. You can also stack the "vinyl" so you can do multi colored logos/designs.

Based on my limited experience with the product, I would absolutely recommend buying a roll and doing some tests. I wouldn't recommend buying a laser for this product, but if you have a laser, it's not a bad product to be aware of.

[Gary Hair]

We decided to go ahead and sublimate 100% polyester ribbon. We found this process incredibly difficult as we continued to get ghosting no matter what we did.

Did you try pre-pressing the ribbon? I found that would resolve most ghosting issues. The only one that didn't work with were mouse pads, they just required extremely light pressure.

[Bert Kemp]

I was looking at this stuff and it says designed for use with a vinyl cutter, says nothing about Laser use.
"ThermoFlex Plus from Specialty Materials is a heat transfer vinyl designed to be used with a vinyl cutter and heat press for decorating T-shirts and other apparel. ThermoFlex Plus is one of our most popular heat transfer films because it is easy to apply and very durable.

[Mike Null]

Bert

I do not believe there is a hazard when cutting this material with the laser.

[Bert Kemp]

I hope not cause I'm going to try it.



Bert

I do not believe there is a hazard when cutting this material with the laser.

[Tony Lenkic]

For heat applied fabric material use Twill. It is safe to laser cut.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Did you try pre-pressing the ribbon? I found that would resolve most ghosting issues. The only one that didn't work with were mouse pads, they just required extremely light pressure.

Whatever we did, we got ghosting. Typically at the ends. The total length of text was around 20". We pre-pressed the ribbons to get them smooth but didn't apply the paper while the ribbons were warm out of fear that it could start the transfer process while just figuring out the location. I'm not saying you can't sublimate ribbon but it didn't work for us and I don't like processes which have reasonable chance of failure.


I was looking at this stuff and it says designed for use with a vinyl cutter, says nothing about Laser use.
"ThermoFlex Plus from Specialty Materials is a heat transfer vinyl designed to be used with a vinyl cutter and heat press for decorating T-shirts and other apparel. ThermoFlex Plus is one of our most popular heat transfer films because it is easy to apply and very durable.

If it had PVC in it, I wouldn't have recommended it on here. I contacted the company directly to confirm it was 100% PVC free. If you cut PVC, it has a distinct, awful smell. This stuff did not.

[Gary Hair]

Bert

I do not believe there is a hazard when cutting this material with the laser.

It's vinyl, 'nuff said...

[Ross Moshinsky]

It's vinyl, 'nuff said...

Except it isn't. It's PVC free. It's polyurethane.

[Dave Hutton]

I got a sample of the Trotec product called Laserflex. I found that I could raster a very detailed logo and then apply to fabric, so perfect for a job I get annually which is a real pain to weed out. Quite looking forward to the job when it turns up again :-). Limited colours available but I use white for this job so that's not a problem.

looks very good on the fabric as well :-)

dj

[Gary Hair]

Except it isn't. It's PVC free. It's polyurethane.

I'm basing that on the post by Bert Kemp - if that's incorrect then it may be safe.


ThermoFlex Plus from Specialty Materials is a heat transfer vinyl

[Kev Williams]

Simply put, it's NOT vinyl, it's just 'kinda like' vinyl.

Like how Blue Bonnet is "butter" :)

[Bert Kemp]

Thats a quote from the companies website, maybe they should change their wording for us laser guys LOL :confused:


I'm basing that on the post by Bert Kemp - if that's incorrect then it may be safe.

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[Andrew Stow]

Interesting. If they're laser safe, I might order some to make some vehicle stencils.

[Mike Null]

I looked up the msds sheet and there was no mention of vinyl nor any hazard warnings.

[Bert Kemp]

I'm wondering if you can press this on with an Iron. Or if a heat press will only work

[Ross Moshinsky]

To clear some things up:

1. This is PVC free. I wouldn't have made this post if it wasn't. I'm specifically talking about the Thermoflex Plus. Other products I noticed do mention having vinyl. If you have a question, contact them. They were very straight forward when I contacted them and specifically told me they use their own laser with some of these products.

2. This is a material primarily designed to work with fabric. That's why all the pictures are of applications on fabric. This is not designed for putting on cars or exterior signs. Do I think you could potentially use it on a small interior sign? I think that's a possibility but you'd have to use the heat press to apply it. I plan on testing it this week to see if it has any other applications. I'll probably throw the sign outside to see if it will work but I'd only market it as a short install (1 month).

3. There are other laser safe "vinyls" on the market. Most are made of polyester. I believe they are more expensive than regular vinyl and also less durable/long lasting. Contact 3M or Avery for product recommendations.


I'm wondering if you can press this on with an Iron. Or if a heat press will only work

An iron will probably work but probably won't work as well as a heat press which is designed to give equal pressure and temperature over a set time. You'd experience failure after several wash cycles most likely, if it was applied incorrectly.

[Ruben Salcedo]

I find this thread interesting since I just ran some tests with vinyl (PU actually) last week.


I used a 30 watt Universal laser to cut it, Coreldraw to prepare the graphic, and it was done on Fashion film from Stahls, this film is safe for the laser since is Polyurethane base.

I prepared the image with outlines, in the outer part of the graphic I set it to just kiss cut and the inner parts to cut it off completely so no need to weed there, in the inner parts of the wheels I filled it with black and set it up to raster engraved (cutting it off via outlines don't worked do to the detail it has, it just melts away most of the detail there), this will just remove the material leaving the back liner with the wanted detail, again no weeding needed it there also... and , that's about it.

It took me less than 5 minutes to prepare the graphic, 3 minutes to cut it and about 20 seconds to weed it, the image is 4"x3".


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2954982/Other%20forums%20-%20Deco/20151204_203409.jpg

[Ruben Salcedo]

Here is another example, this is my self rasterized on the same material as my previous example, the image is 3"x3".



https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2954982/Other%20forums%20-%20Deco/Vinyl%20-%20ruben.jpg