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Neville Stewart
01-09-2016, 4:33 PM
I could replicate it but it would be a multitude of steps. Anybody know how they are made? PS. Looked fine when I loaded, how do you stop the rotation of pics?

329015

Tony Lenkic
01-09-2016, 7:44 PM
Neville,

Here is a system that does just that.........

http://www.novapolymers.com/

Joe Pelonio
01-09-2016, 8:21 PM
I have made literally thousands of similar signs, mostly for medical facilities a local new high school, and many offices. In my case it's been painted 1/8" acrylic, sprayed with flat acrylic enamel mixed to match their corporate colors. For the lettering I used Rowmark ADA Alternative, laser cut with 3M 467MP on the back. I also cut the same file in the exact size of the sign in card stock, for a mounting template. Same for the ADA sign, but I use the laser to cut the holes and insert the braille dots.

Kev Williams
01-10-2016, 2:14 PM
I'm thinking 3D printer and roller-printed (or whatever it's called) afterward- maybe?

Steve Morris
01-10-2016, 2:26 PM
the red one could be done with blow moulding and paint

Scott Shepherd
01-10-2016, 2:43 PM
Tony has nailed how that one was made, and Joe's told you how to get around doing it that way. It's Photopolymer. You make a negative, expose it to UV in their system, and the exposed parts harden. Then it goes through a washout process where it scrubs away the material that didn't harden, down to a 1/16" thick core that it's all on. They paint it with something like Matthews paint, which dries hard as a rock, then they use a blank screen in silk screening and kiss the top with white.

It's how higher production jobs are run. The entire process takes a little while, but you can fit a bunch of signs in the machine at one time. When we were close to buying one, I think the cycle time for the Photopolymer machine was about 1 minute each when it was loaded. We stopped because of the paint station required. It began to get too complicated and expensive for what we were doing at the time.

It's how most all of the signs in commercial and retail spaces are done because it's so fast and the paint is so durable.

Of course many of us are called in years after they were installed and no one knows who made them, and we're asked to reproduce them. That's what we used to do a lot of several years ago.

Ross Moshinsky
01-10-2016, 2:47 PM
Beware, that ADA sign is not compliant as far as I know. The braille needs to be a full dome.

Bill Cunningham
01-22-2016, 2:18 PM
Tony has nailed how that one was made, and Joe's told you how to get around doing it that way. It's Photopolymer. You make a negative, expose it to UV in their system, and the exposed parts harden. Then it goes through a washout process where it scrubs away the material that didn't harden, down to a 1/16" thick core that it's all on. They paint it with something like Matthews paint, which dries hard as a rock, then they use a blank screen in silk screening and kiss the top with white.

It's how higher production jobs are run. The entire process takes a little while, but you can fit a bunch of signs in the machine at one time. When we were close to buying one, I think the cycle time for the Photopolymer machine was about 1 minute each when it was loaded. We stopped because of the paint station required. It began to get too complicated and expensive for what we were doing at the time.

It's how most all of the signs in commercial and retail spaces are done because it's so fast and the paint is so durable.

Of course many of us are called in years after they were installed and no one knows who made them, and we're asked to reproduce them. That's what we used to do a lot of several years ago.
I have also used the same system to make nice plates to be mounted on wooden plaques. The result is nice raised text on a coloured back ground. Most of the polymer (that I used anyway) is Green on a gold coloured plate base, You can spray paint the entire piece, then roll contrasting paint onto the raised surfaces. Even halftone photos can be photoetched into the polymer along with the text for nice raised surface results. The machine can also be used to make photopolymer rubber stamps. I originally bought one for stamps way back before lasers were affordable. It doesn't get much use anymore,
but the built in drying oven is used on occasion to reactivate Molecular Sieves or Silica Gel for the air dryers.

Keith Downing
01-23-2016, 5:15 PM
Neville,

Here is a system that does just that.........

http://www.novapolymers.com/

Curious to know what the nova photopolymer machine costs. Can't imagine that's cost effective for making a few hundred signs, or even a small sign making business.

Scott Shepherd
01-23-2016, 6:05 PM
Curious to know what the nova photopolymer machine costs. Can't imagine that's cost effective for making a few hundred signs, or even a small sign making business.

It can be. I think they had a demo unit at a show once about 5 years ago and it was about $15,000 for the demo unit. I saw something recently that said some of their machines were in the $40,000 range.

Keep in mind, this machine isn't for doing 1 sign (it can, but it's not a machine you'd buy to make one sign at a time). It's made to crank out high quality signs. The types of jobs you get with these machines are jobs that are easily $50,000 and up. It lets you compete in a market when you can't compete with making them one at a time. It's for hospitals, colleges, large corporate buildings.

We'd own one right now if it wasn't for the painting part of it. You really need a Matthews or Akzo Nobel paint station to do it properly because you need to be able to match pantone colors and the paint needs to dry hard as a rock because they are often in high traffic areas. The paint station alone was about $10,000 per sheen (flat, gloss). There's no doubt in my mind that if we had the setup, along with a paint booth, we could easily pay for it in 12 months.

Art Mann
01-23-2016, 7:51 PM
Looks like a CNC router job to me.

Scott Shepherd
01-23-2016, 8:23 PM
Looks like a CNC router job to me.

Except that it's about a 1 minute job when running a batch, with the braille and raised letters. You can't compete with Photopolymer when it comes to making signs. It's an amazing process and I've never seen any technology that was faster.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5gjdimeokA4#t=27 3

Ross Moshinsky
01-23-2016, 11:08 PM
As I've said above, the only issue with polymer setups is that some produce a product that really aren't ADA complaint. To be ADA complaint, the braille must be domed. This is an extra step in the process as far as I know. Professionals will take this extra step but some will skip over it and just hand out flat topped ADA signs.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about: http://www.signssandiego.com/brailledome.html

Scott Shepherd
01-24-2016, 1:12 PM
Ross, a couple of comments. First, it's my understanding that Accent lobbied to have the "dome" part put in the law, but it's my understanding that it's not in there. I confess, I haven't looked for it since we use balls, so it doesn't matter. If it is in there, I seem to recall the people at Nova having a solution for it. It's in the way the graphic is done and the coating applied. I can promise you that what comes off those machines is ADA compliant. If not, it wouldn't be the machinery used to make the vast majority of every sign in every large complex in the USA.

Art Mann
01-24-2016, 6:01 PM
You have got to be kidding! How can you say the process takes a minute when the guy in the video took 14+ minutes to demonstrate the process and he cut out the 20 minutes or more of wait times. Neither did he account for the time required to produce the negative. This process may be faster than CNC routing but not hugely so. There is another issue. At the end of the process, you have a thin sheet of plastic that will require either framing or laminating to a thicker backing before mounting. If I were carving such a project, I could choose a substrate that could be mounted directly. I do agree it is very impressive technology but I can't see it being a general purpose replacement for either conventional sign engraving or CNC routing. Based on the demo, I am not certain it would be any faster in this case.

Does anyone know what the equipment and raw materials cost? I agree that it has a lot of potential.


Except that it's about a 1 minute job when running a batch, with the braille and raised letters. You can't compete with Photopolymer when it comes to making signs. It's an amazing process and I've never seen any technology that was faster.

Keith Downing
01-24-2016, 6:22 PM
You have got to be kidding! How can you say the process takes a minute when the guy in the video took 14+ minutes to demonstrate the process and he cut out the 20 minutes or more of wait times. Neither did he account for the time required to produce the negative. This process may be faster than CNC routing but not hugely so. There is another issue. At the end of the process, you have a thin sheet of plastic that will require either framing or laminating to a thicker backing before mounting. If I were carving such a project, I could choose a substrate that could be mounted directly. I do agree it is very impressive technology but I can't see it being a general purpose replacement for either conventional sign engraving or CNC routing. Based on the demo, I am not certain it would be any faster in this case.

Does anyone know what the equipment and raw materials cost? I agree that it has a lot of potential.


I could be wrong, but after watching the video, I would assume you can do all 4 parts of the process in parallel. So, while making one sign might take 20 minutes, making 20 signs also takes 20 minutes (assuming 4 signs per piece of photopolymer.

Guessing that's where his 1 minute per piece estimate is coming from when comparing to custom making them. Just my take, not an expert by any means.

Scott Shepherd
01-24-2016, 7:23 PM
You have got to be kidding! How can you say the process takes a minute when the guy in the video took 14+ minutes to demonstrate the process and he cut out the 20 minutes or more of wait times. Neither did he account for the time required to produce the negative. This process may be faster than CNC routing but not hugely so. There is another issue. At the end of the process, you have a thin sheet of plastic that will require either framing or laminating to a thicker backing before mounting. If I were carving such a project, I could choose a substrate that could be mounted directly. I do agree it is very impressive technology but I can't see it being a general purpose replacement for either conventional sign engraving or CNC routing. Based on the demo, I am not certain it would be any faster in this case.

Does anyone know what the equipment and raw materials cost? I agree that it has a lot of potential.

Yeah, not how it works. Believe me, I'm in the sign business, have made 10's of thousands of signs. The actual cycle time once you have a set running is about 1 minutes. It doesn't require any additional backing, they provide a variety of materials and thicknesses to use. You saw a demo, a very slow demo. When you are running, it's very fast. I think the longest cycle was 4-5 minutes and you could fit 6 decent size signs in at a time, meaning every 5 minutes, you pulled out 6 signs. Producing the negative isn't too time consuming. Those are do using programs like InDesign, populating from a list, creating the files automatically, so all you need to do is make it.

There isn't another setup out there that will produce ADA signs as fast as that, unless you are molding them and in that case, they'd all have to be the same. I've probably looked at the machine about 5 times and we were really, really close to buying one years ago. You do literally compete with the big boys then. I know people that have them and their customers. Their customers are hotel chains, etc. When a hotel wants to rebrand themselves, these guys make all the room signs. They do it because it's the fastest, best way to make 10's of thousands of signs for 100's of hotels at a time. When you get a contract like that, you're talking millions of dollars.

Another company we do some work for has one and one customer is 1.1 million a year. They all have CNC routers and they aren't making any of the signs on those for a reason.

Art Mann
01-24-2016, 8:09 PM
What I saw was an exposure, a wash and a dry cycle, and a color application each of which took maybe 5 minutes on average. Are you saying that the presenter demonstrated a method or product that isn't typical? The plastic sheet appeared to be 4-up. I would do the same thing if I were carving with my router.

Scott Shepherd
01-24-2016, 8:22 PM
What I saw was an exposure, a wash and a dry cycle, and a color application each of which took maybe 5 minutes on average. Are you saying that the presenter demonstrated a method or product that isn't typical? The plastic sheet appeared to be 4-up. I would do the same thing if I were carving with my router.


Yup, and all of them are done simultaneously. The machine has 3 or 4 trays, each one a different cycle. You could easily shear them while it's running. I'm not making this stuff up, it's VERY fast.

Ross Moshinsky
01-25-2016, 12:25 PM
Ross, a couple of comments. First, it's my understanding that Accent lobbied to have the "dome" part put in the law, but it's my understanding that it's not in there. I confess, I haven't looked for it since we use balls, so it doesn't matter. If it is in there, I seem to recall the people at Nova having a solution for it. It's in the way the graphic is done and the coating applied. I can promise you that what comes off those machines is ADA compliant. If not, it wouldn't be the machinery used to make the vast majority of every sign in every large complex in the USA.

As far as I know, domed/rounded is part of the rules and regulations as of a few years ago. As I said, you have to make sure as SOME aren't ADA compliant. I have first hand experience with receiving something that was not ADA compliant made by a polymer setup that was something like 15-20 years old. I don't know the details off making the braille domed/rounded, but I do know in their circumstance it was an extra step/process. My point really is that if you wanted to buy one of these machines, make sure you're getting domed/rounded braille and not flat top.

Paul Phillips
01-25-2016, 5:12 PM
FWIW, I ran a "Jet" photopolymer machine for about 5 years and processed thousands of ADA signs with it for many big named Hotels and Resorts, if someone received photopolymer signs that were deemed "non compliant" then it was done wrong and it would have to be rejected by a licensed inspector. Like Steve said, this has been accepted as the primary method for producing high volume ADA signs for decades, BTW "rounded or domed" includes the photopolymer method, it does have to be done very precisely though or it will not come out right, once the process is done correctly then the correct amount of Matthews paint must also be applied to fill in around the flat spot and make it "mostly round". This is from the NovaPolymers site-
Once you have the proper dot size in the artwork and adequate exposure you will need to apply a top coat. This means a coating of paint for surface decorated signs or a clear coat for signs that are decorated sub-surface. We work very closely with Matthews Paint and per their specification you will need to apply a 4mil wet /2mil dry top coat on all photopolymer signs. This coating is the final step in creating complaint photopolymer Braille dots that "have a domed or rounded shape." - See more at: http://www.novapolymers.com/resources/photopolymer-faq/#sthash.fDjG8A7Y.dpuf
Some interesting reading- http://adacentral.com/ada-compliance-blog/photopolymer-signs/
IMHO, having produced Braille signs for the last 20 years there is absolutely no problem with the Photopolymer method being compliant when done properly, in fact of far more concern is the issue of the design, materials used and contrast being compliant. On the other side of that coin is the person with little to no ADA knowledge making their own Braille signs using their own home made Raster method and using incorrect spelling methods and all Caps and using imprecise drilling methods that result in varying depths of Rasters that are either too shallow or too deep or a combination of both, are not properly inserted and end up falling out (I've seen it first hand!) At least with the Photopolymer method there is some training involved when you purchase the equipment which should include a basic understanding of the Laws and requirements.
Hope this helps bring some clarity. BTW, everything Steve described is spot on as to how it works, Raster method if faster for short runs and PP is for large qtys.
Paul