ChromaLuxe prints using dye sublimation

Creative Arts
1

Just wanted to share my experience on the press and printer.

I purchased some blanks from Sublimation Aluminum Photo Panels - Professional Quality Blanks, seems to be the lowest price that I could easily find online. Not sure if the local stores that are mentioned in Cary’s class are cheaper or not, but I didn’t have the time to go out to any during business hours unfortunately.

I had the best results using the machine at about 425F and pressing for 60-75 seconds at medium to firm pressure. I think the documentation on the mspace wiki says 400F for 45-60 seconds at light pressure; these settings caused weird clouding/hazing artifacts on my pictures.

Another useful tip that I saw on a video is to ‘dry out’ both your print and blank to evaporate any trace humidity before pressing. On our press, best way that I’ve found to do this is to close the press against your butcher/scrap paper when it’s achieved its target temperature and let it soak for maybe 30 seconds. Then, open it and place your paper and blank print-side up. There is just the right amount of residual heat in the base of the machine to warm the two well enough to evaporate/dry out the pieces. This is especially useful if your prints are fresh from the printer as they are quite wet at this stage. Be sure to remove the plastic protector/liner from the blank before doing this step as I don’t know what temperature it can withstand.

Another video said that using a layer of high temperature polyester felt between the top heat element and the print is useful for ChromaLuxe products as it offers a channel for steam to escape during the press process. I didn’t have any of this stuff laying around so I tried experimenting with placing some kitchen paper towels between the two to act as a conduit. This did not work at all as it looks like the paper towels did not allow enough heat to conduct from the press top half into the part. The felt I saw in the video was thicker than a paper towel and I would imagine couldn’t be much more conductive so some follow up is going to be required for this process…

Hope that helps!

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I’ve never gone to 425 degrees for anything sublimation. That much heat is in danger of scorching the inks, and causing discoloration. You may be looking at an old version of the handout. ChromaLuxe metal has its own entry on there now. Depending on the size I recommend anywhere from 45-120 seconds at medium pressure. I did some 11" x 14" panels this past weekend at 400F for 90 seconds, and they turned out great. For ChromaLuxe I typically dress the press bottom to top with blowout paper, substrate, image, blowout paper. Occasionally I’ll put 2-3 layers of plain white paper towels under the first layer of blowout paper if the blank is large and doesn’t seem to be getting consistent pressure in the center.

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