Dry Time and Printing Considerations

A real world dry time refers to how long prints will need to dry in a production enviornment. This will vary from shop to shop and can be as little as 5 minutes to about 20 minutes. If you need to wait 12-24 hours for the prints to dry before handling consider that the ink and media are not compatiable or reevaluate your ink restrictions before continuing.

Here are a few example of how to determine the best dry time.

1. When does the print hit the floor or is taken up by a reel?
2. How long does a print need to stabilize before lamination or mounting?
3. What is a realistic production time?

Some additional printing considerations require you to keep the printer actively printing from edge to edge. This helps to evaluate the heaters under the print head and any variations with the printer vacuum system.