I was curious on a few methods of Dye Sublimation. What I'm curious about are the times and temperatures of the
presses and also how the substrate is "actually" pressed.
1)I have a small multipress for doing my dye sub stuff, but I noticed it has a preheat setting along with the max temp and time on it. I've seen settings, for example, say 265F at rest, Press for 240s at 365F. So, I'll set the temp for 265F, put in my mug, tile, whatever, see the temp drop a bit because of the room temp of material, then watch it climb to the max temp before it starts the countdown. Sometimes it can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes for the press to reach the correct temperature. How do you compensate for the time the press is getting to the correct temperature?
a) Do you set the resting temp as high as the max temp to keep the press close to the pressing temp?
b)Leave the resting temp alone, but press the "start" mode to get the temperature climbing up WITHOUT the substrate in it.
c)Leave the resting temp alone, put the substrate in when you press the "start" button to get the temperature climbing, then adjust the press time because of the time it took for the temp to climb before it hits the press temp?
2)If you use a green heat pad between the press and the substrate, how much time(in secs) do you adjust your press time?
3)When pressing flat items such as tiles, idtags, plaques, mousepads, etc, how do you place the material? When I was told to press 365F for 240s, I did and didn't like the results so I lowered the time and it looked much better. Then I was asked how I pressed it and told them substrate face up with the paper on top. They said thats why my time needs to be less. The time they provide is for the paper on the bottom(platen) and the substrate faceing downward. So, my question is...is one way better than the other...paper on the bottom platen and heat transferring through the substrate(facing down)....or paper on top and the heated platen makes direct contact with the paper(substrate facing up)?
I press aluminum face up for 90 sec. I do mouse pads, coasters, license plates, teddy bear top, key chains and I just keep my press set at 365 and 90 sec.
Why are you decreasing temp and increasing time? What benefits are you experiencing? I have never had any success in sublimation going with a temp lower than 385
I use a Mighty Press for most of my flat items, I have a mug press specifically for mugs. The mighty press I have doesn't really have a resting/idle temp, the mug press does.
The mug press I received from Coastal, and after running into some issues on mugs I called and asked what their suggested way of doing it was. They told me with that press it's best to start it up, let it reach its idle temp, put in a blank mug, let it reach temp (400), remove that mug, then put in my mug to be sublimated, and then let it reach temp do its countdown for like 10 seconds, then remove. If I'm doing multiple mugs, I'd then put in another sub ready mug, otherwise I'd let it go back to idle and repeat the procedure again. Since using this method I haven't had many issues with time/temp.
My general rule of thumb for flat objects is 410'ish fahrenheit for 65 seconds with a teflon sheet overtop and a blank piece of paper underneath (to catch any bleed). I only vary my times if it's ceramic (ornaments, tiles), or something complicated like italian charms. Tiles I haven't done very many of, I think I pressed them face down per instructions. I believe the reasoning is to avoid cracking the tile with the pressure of the top of the heat press.
Thanks for the info guys...seams like there's a variety of methods...face up, face down, heat pad, teflon, no teflon, different times...One thing that does seam to be constant is the 400F. Does anyone ever have the problem with plates cracking? I think the orignal reason I dropped my temp tp 365F was because my plates where cracking.
joehaul--
I think I understand what you're saying about the mugs...using a blank to get to the cook temp, but I was curious about the time. I noticed you said you remove the blank, put in the dye sub mug, let it reach 400 again and do the countdown...10 secs. Do you know the estimated total time your dye-sub mug in actually being pressed...how long does the mug being presses take to re-reach 400F before the countdown starts? 10 secs seams pretty quick.
Thanks for the info guys...seams like there's a variety of methods...face up, face down, heat pad, teflon, no teflon, different times...One thing that does seam to be constant is the 400F. Does anyone ever have the problem with plates cracking? I think the orignal reason I dropped my temp tp 365F was because my plates where cracking.
joehaul--
I think I understand what you're saying about the mugs...using a blank to get to the cook temp, but I was curious about the time. I noticed you said you remove the blank, put in the dye sub mug, let it reach 400 again and do the countdown...10 secs. Do you know the estimated total time your dye-sub mug in actually being pressed...how long does the mug being presses take to re-reach 400F before the countdown starts? 10 secs seams pretty quick.
I haven't done plates, so no idea bout those. After the mug is removed and the new mug to be dye subbed is put in, I'd say it takes overall about 90 seconds, maybe 2 minutes. Usually I align and tape two mugs in that time.
I cracked a few Deco tiles (thin inexpensive tiles) when I first started out but that was due to too much pressure and b4 using the green conductive pad. I also have 2 presses, 1 swing away and 1 clamshell. I use the swing away when pressing tiles to avoid uneven pressure. I also had a few mugs crack. Once I stopped dipping them in water to increase cooling I have not had one crack since. I have read so many instructions on dipping to stop the sublimation process but I just put them off to the side and I don't notice any oversublimation.
The idle temp works ok for mugs but not for tiles and other substrates. For my tiles I use the face down method to save the hassle of taping them. If you are making full bleed tiles and wrapping the image around the edges you will need the rubber and yes it will affect the time for face up, but not much for face down since you are having to heat through the entire tile anyways. I press my tiles for 7 minutes either way and never have a problem. The breakage isn't from the time & temp, but from too much pressure, especially on the thinner spacerless tiles.
For most things other than ceramics 60 seconds works fine, 240 seconds is way over doing it and you will get all kinds of things going wrong. I always use 400 degrees except on my mug press which idles at 309 and goes up to 385.
Dye Sublimation processes..material layout 
