Tayda UV printing, a few questions.

[OiMcCoy]

Hey everyone,

Welcome to yet another Tayda printing post.

For those who have used the service, I have a few questions. The primary one is the size of the artboard. When compared to the design template I have used to create the PCB for a 1590B enclosure, it's smaller than I would expect. My design involves a permimeter boarder. I am worried that it will not be close enough to the edges of the pedal to look right. Does anyone have any examples they could share of their design/printed enclosure to give me a better understanding of how it may look.

How matte does the print come? is it worth getting the matte finish?

Finally, how durable is the finished product? Should I expect to have to give it a clear coat first, or will it be good to go out of the box?

Thanks everyone. I really apeaciate the help.

[Toy Sun]

May I suggest not doing a design with a perimeter border? That kind of design really asks for very good, controlled registration of the artwork on the substrate (the enclosure in this case) and that will be difficult, I think, with the fact that with Tayda, you really get one shot.

in a perfect world, a border like that would have "bleed" and actually print off the edge a bit. But not sure how that is handled by a UV printer. You may end up with your design printing onto the edge radius, which may not be a bad thing.

If you are patient, you can try a file and then see how they manage it - make changes and try again. Not a workflow I could manage, personally.

My 2 cents. I hope that someone proves me wrong and tells us how accurate they get it.

J

[vigilante397]

May I suggest not doing a design with a perimeter border? That kind of design really asks for very good, controlled registration of the artwork on the substrate (the enclosure in this case) and that will be difficult, I think, with the fact that with Tayda, you really get one shot.

in a perfect world, a border like that would have "bleed" and actually print off the edge a bit. But not sure how that is handled by a UV printer. You may end up with your design printing onto the edge radius, which may not be a bad thing.

If you are patient, you can try a file and then see how they manage it - make changes and try again. Not a workflow I could manage, personally.

My 2 cents. I hope that someone proves me wrong and tells us how accurate they get it.

J

I've never used Tayda's printing service, but I have my own printer (mainly because I like being able to try things, adjust, and try again) and I assume the reason they don't want to print over the edge radius is that once you get beyond a certain distance from the nozzles, the ink just turns to overspray. The top of your box will be set to the correct printing height, anything lower than that will look like ink just sprayed onto the side.

The ink itself comes out somewhat glossy depending on how it cures, if you want a matte finish then you should request the matte finish.

As for durability, it should be good to go out of the box. The ink bonds fairly well to powdercoats, that shouldn't be an issue. I like to print directly onto bare aluminum enclosures, and the ink doesn't bond as well to bare metal so I do a clear powdercoat over the top.

[glops]

I haven't seen many threads on Tayda's printing service here at DIYSB but there's an extensive thread over at the pedalpcb forum:

https://forum.pedalpcb.com

Lots of folks over there have used the service so might be worth a visit.

[newperson]

Got a web link to your machine?  How does clear powder coat work?  Any processing tips?  Care to share some pictures of your work?

[mark2]

My design involves a permimeter boarder. I am worried that it will not be close enough to the edges of the pedal to look right. Does anyone have any examples they could share of their design/printed enclosure to give me a better understanding of how it may look.

Here are some examples of a 125B, which has a printed border of 59.353 mm x 114.353 mm on an artboard that is 62x117.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYkR3erul8D/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYcUD2QOWI2/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYcv6k5uayz/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYZRX7EOy8n/

How matte does the print come? is it worth getting the matte finish?

Pretty matte, and I don't believe an extra matte finish is worthwhile. I had it done once and didn't like the extra haziness it imparted. And the durability didn't seem noticeably better.

This is emphatically an opinion of one, and a single experience so it may be worth an experiment where you try ordering 2: one with and one without and see what you think.

Finally, how durable is the finished product? Should I expect to have to give it a clear coat first, or will it be good to go out of the box?

Just as durable as any commercial pedal. Definitely wouldn't recommend more clear coat over it, as that'll make it look worse probably and won't be more durable anyway.

[OiMcCoy]

My design involves a permimeter boarder. I am worried that it will not be close enough to the edges of the pedal to look right. Does anyone have any examples they could share of their design/printed enclosure to give me a better understanding of how it may look.

Here are some examples of a 125B, which has a printed border of 59.353 mm x 114.353 mm on an artboard that is 62x117.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYkR3erul8D/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYcUD2QOWI2/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYcv6k5uayz/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYZRX7EOy8n/

How matte does the print come? is it worth getting the matte finish?

Pretty matte, and I don't believe an extra matte finish is worthwhile. I had it done once and didn't like the extra haziness it imparted. And the durability didn't seem noticeably better.

This is emphatically an opinion of one, and a single experience so it may be worth an experiment where you try ordering 2: one with and one without and see what you think.

Finally, how durable is the finished product? Should I expect to have to give it a clear coat first, or will it be good to go out of the box?

Just as durable as any commercial pedal. Definitely wouldn't recommend more clear coat over it, as that'll make it look worse probably and won't be more durable anyway.

Thank you so very much for this reply. Definitely very helpful.

With your boarders, are you going to the very edge of the art board, or do you leave a small space?

[mark2]

With your boarders, are you going to the very edge of the art board, or do you leave a small space?

There's a small space. The border is 59.353 mm x 114.353 mm, and it's centered in the artboard that is 62x117.
So you could get closer to the edge.

[niektb]

This is of a prototype I've been working on. I may have made a positioning mistake with the led hole  Though I also get the sense everything is a tiny bit shifted downwards

But the finish is good quality, fairly matte, but not super dense. I think next time I will tick the option to print the color layer twice

(btw it looks a bit blueish but that's the outdoor sky and my smartphone that causes that )

[ElectricDruid]

I may have made a positioning mistake with the led hole  Though I also get the sense everything is a tiny bit shifted downwards

It looks to me like it might be a good policy to get Tayda's print service to print onto undrilled enclosures, and then you can put the holes where their print says the holes are, instead of having to get them to line up!

That would be a shame though. Getting drilled, printed enclosures back that you just drop a built circuit into and bingo it's done is so damn appealing...I hate all that messing around with aluminium boxes, drills, paint, clearcoat, trays of water, decals, laser printers, etc etc etc...frickin' nightmare!! And I only get it right a percentage of the time.

Surely it won't be long before there are UV printer bed robots that also have tool fitments, so you can drill/laser etch/print/whatever on the same machine? The mechanism is basically the same thing in all cases, so it's just a question of what the head does, really. But *not moving stuff* between one step and another would really help with accuracy, so if it could all happen sequentially on one machine, that might help.

[mark2]

But *not moving stuff* between one step and another would really help with accuracy, so if it could all happen sequentially on one machine, that might help.

I agree in principle, but just want to add that I've gotten a bunch of enclosures drilled and printed by Tayda and they're always lined up really well. In this instance I would be really surprised if this was due to their own manufacturing process, rather than simply a mistake in the layout.

On the other hand, they DO say to give them 1mm tolerance on drilling (which is insanely too large IMO), so I don't trust them with lining things up on 2 axes (i.e. board-mounted jacks), but on a single face it's always spot on.

[niektb]

I may have made a positioning mistake with the led hole  Though I also get the sense everything is a tiny bit shifted downwards

It looks to me like it might be a good policy to get Tayda's print service to print onto undrilled enclosures, and then you can put the holes where their print says the holes are, instead of having to get them to line up!
[...]

Hmm better would be to hide the holes prior to exporting (the holes are useful to line up stuff like text), which is something I knew but forgot xD

[OiMcCoy]

This has been very helpful!

[ElectricDruid]

But *not moving stuff* between one step and another would really help with accuracy, so if it could all happen sequentially on one machine, that might help.

I agree in principle, but just want to add that I've gotten a bunch of enclosures drilled and printed by Tayda and they're always lined up really well. In this instance I would be really surprised if this was due to their own manufacturing process, rather than simply a mistake in the layout.

On the other hand, they DO say to give them 1mm tolerance on drilling (which is insanely too large IMO), so I don't trust them with lining things up on 2 axes (i.e. board-mounted jacks), but on a single face it's always spot on.

This is good news, thanks.

I generally have knob-sized circles on my panel graphics rather than hole-sized so I can see where to put the text, but I agree with niektb that forgetting to hide that layer before exporting is a classic mistake!

[duck_arse]

This has been very helpful!

never say this as a reply. it gets the mods all itchy about spambots and the like, they start deleting things.

[OiMcCoy]

This has been very helpful!

never say this as a reply. it gets the mods all itchy about spambots and the like, they start deleting things.

Is it that it's just too generic? I'm a little at a loss about why this would be of concern.

[PRR]

Yes, generic.

> This has been very helpful!

Works on a pedal forum, a horse forum, a porno forum..... anywhere.

The process is: post something innocent (don't bother what the forum or thread subject is). When post appears (can take time for first-posters), then come back and put the spam payload in. Either in the message (but may be too late to edit) or in the Signature.

The Duck sees a LOT of this and it gets his tail-feathers in a bunch. I'd think someone with 70+ posts is liable to be "for real", especially as the thread starter with multiple on-topic posts(!), but on spamdays it can be hard to stay ahead, much less who has been posting.

Also know that there ARE now "robots" who can mass-post hundreds of forums in a click. And the dumber ones use real-generic text. (The "smart" ones find a few keywords, bounce them on Bing/Google, and copy text from old messages found on the web.)

[OiMcCoy]

Yes, generic.

> This has been very helpful!

Works on a pedal forum, a horse forum, a porno forum..... anywhere.

The process is: post something innocent (don't bother what the forum or thread subject is). When post appears (can take time for first-posters), then come back and put the spam payload in. Either in the message (but may be too late to edit) or in the Signature.

The Duck sees a LOT of this and it gets his tail-feathers in a bunch. I'd think someone with 70+ posts is liable to be "for real", especially as the thread starter with multiple on-topic posts(!), but on spamdays it can be hard to stay ahead, much less who has been posting.

Also know that there ARE now "robots" who can mass-post hundreds of forums in a click. And the dumber ones use real-generic text. (The "smart" ones find a few keywords, bounce them on Bing/Google, and copy text from old messages found on the web.)

Oh wow, what a load of unnecessary BS mods have to contend with.

If I was a bot, I would want better pay. I'm in deep cover at this point.

[vigilante397]

Got a web link to your machine?  How does clear powder coat work?  Any processing tips?  Care to share some pictures of your work?

I paid a little less than this for mine, but this is exactly what mine looks like: https://www.amazon.com/Automatic-Printer-Flatbed-Printers-Lighter/dp/B08FSVYYH2/

Clear powdercoat works the same as any other powdercoat, you apply it with your powdercoating gun of choice then throw it in a curing oven of your choice (I used a thrift store toaster oven until about a year ago), let it cure at the temperature and duration indicated by the powder manufacturer, then pull it out and let it cool down et voila.

You can see some pictures of my work here https://www.sushiboxfx.com/product-category/pedals/ I print over the edge on everything because I like the look. I initially left a border around it like most people do, and my wife commented that it looked just like a waterslide decal, so she suggested going all the way to the edge to prove it's better than waterslides

Sorry it took me a few days to reply, I've been on jury duty this week and haven't been online as much.