PPP Screenprinting just got cheaper!

[BraindeadAudio]

Hopefully they will still honor old screens and can still print on hammertone...I dropped a chunk of cash to get my stuff set up this way with them...

[Rockhorst]

PPP have a bitof a history to get overwhelmed and taken by surprise. I guess they underestimate the value of their business and theservice they provide.

[BraindeadAudio]

This actually isnt cheaper if you dropped over 300$ on screens to have it done the old way at 1$ a case. They now have it as a 10$ set up, on top of the 2.30$ charge for 5+ cases when it used to be 1$. Thats a 65% increase with 0 forewarning about this and I got the latest screen burned a month ago. I am sure they planned to get this new machine well before that and didnt tell me, and I order cases at 250+ at a time.

Im not too happy and I have to call them tomorrow about this.

It just seems like the cost for the new machine is being pushed off onto the older customers now

[jkokura]

Perhaps, but on the other hand, for those of us who would do one offs, or smaller batches, it's pretty much awesomeness incarnate.

Is there a possibility of getting them to do it the old way for the same price?

Jacob

[BraindeadAudio]

Ya but a 65% increase on my end, equals out to an additional 1000$+ for my next case order. I dont have a spare grand to be tossing around. I am going to ask them to honor the old price, otherwise I guess I have to find another supplier which I really dont have the time to do right now with 6 more models in the line.

[Stomptown]

Is there a possibility of getting them to do it the old way for the same price?

Jacob

It looks like they will only do the old way if they already have a screen from a previous order. For new designs (which it sounds like he has) they are going to be using the new machine. Hopefully they will be willing to work with people doing medium sized to large runs and come down on that price.

[pickdropper]

Well, I got my first couple of enclosures printed with the new service.  The good news is that the printing looks very good.  Vibrant, well-centered and has a nice, thick texture to it.

Unfortunately, there are serious adhesion problems.  The first one had about a 1/3 of the printing pulled off with low-tack painters tape (which I use when drilling holes to prevent the vise from scratching the enclosure).  For the second one, I didn't use tape, so it survived the mill, but some of the print rubbed off while I populated it.  To make it look better, I removed the rest of the part that rubbed off.  I was able to remove it with very light fingernail pressure.  On the first box, I was able to remove the remaining 2/3 of the printing with my fingernail.  Luckily? it came off cleanly, so I was able to reuse the box.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to rehouse this at some point with a laser etched case.  The printing just doesn't stick to the substrate.  I hope they can fix their process as I am a big fan of PPP.

[Stomptown]

Bummer! Thanks for the update Dave. I guess I'll probably hold off until they get it figured out (hopefully they do!). If it can't handle painters tape then it definitely can't handle a foot stomping on it! The reason I etch so much is purely because of durability. I'll never do another waterslide decal and I was really hoping to give this a shot. Have you contacted them about the issue yet? Maybe they can reimburse you or something.

[gtr2]

Well, the blue 3M painters tape will rip waterslides with a nice hard clearcoat as well...  I had a bad experience this weekend with a 1590DD 

I do hope they perfect their process.  It's something I would certainly use.

Josh

[pickdropper]

Well, the blue 3M painters tape will rip waterslides with a nice hard clearcoat as well...  I had a bad experience this weekend with a 1590DD 

I do hope they perfect their process.  It's something I would certainly use.

Josh

I did take that into consideration, but really it should withstand that.  There are industry standard TABAR (abrasion resistance) tests for printing, and these definitely fall short of that.

The second box didn't have any painters tape on it at all.  It was basic finger handling and I was able to easily scrape with light fingernail pressure.

To be fair, I could have just received a couple of bad boxes.  There are a multitude of things that can interfere with proper adhesion.

I expect they will get past this hurdle and, at that point, I will happily give them another shot .

[steveperiod]

i received an enclosure from ppp the other day using their new printing process and i can second the positives noted by pickdropper. i did white on a translucent red sparkle finish and the print just looks awesome. great clean lines, well defined edges....just a really good looking end product.

the only real negative is my box came back with some extra printing on the top corners. it looked like two registration marks or something, printed in black. i've tried to get these off with my fingernail and with painter's tape but neither one worked. to ppp's credit they've offered a replacement but i'm just not sure i can ask the guy to wait another month for his pedal (i had them drill it for me as well, which took a while as they were backed up). i haven't tried to test the adhesion on the white ink to see if it exhibited the same issue's as pickdropper's box.

all of that to say it definitely seems like this could be a fantastic service for guys like me that are just doing a couple boxes at a time once a couple kinks get worked out. once my box was drilled the printing process only took a day or two, and at $10 the price is super good.

[jkokura]

the only real negative is my box came back with some extra printing on the top corners. it looked like two registration marks or something, printed in black. i've tried to get these off with my fingernail and with painter's tape but neither one worked.

Try acetone.

Jacob

[pickdropper]

the only real negative is my box came back with some extra printing on the top corners. it looked like two registration marks or something, printed in black. i've tried to get these off with my fingernail and with painter's tape but neither one worked.

Try acetone.

Jacob

Yep, Acetone should work.

Actually, I am encouraged to hear that you were not able to remove the lettering with your fingernail.  That means that it is possible I just got a bad batch (or the finish I ordered isn't compatible).

[jkokura]

Yeah, it is good to hear. I read Dave's feedback the day after I placed my own order with PPP...

Jacob

[pickdropper]

Yeah, it is good to hear. I read Dave's feedback the day after I placed my own order with PPP...

Jacob

Yeah, I just found out about it yesterday when I started working on the boxes.  The whole reason I posted wasn't to give PPP a hard time, but to give a heads up to the folks here so they can check their boxes.  I would suggest trying to carefully scratch off some of the text and see if it holds.  I certainly would be wary of shipping these to customers without some level of abrasion testing.

The small consolation is that the text was easy to remove in a way that left no trace that it was ever there, so at least the enclosure was still usable.