Solving wrinkles on membrane pressed components

Wrinkles on components can be improved or fixed completely by a series of trouble shooting steps.

WRINKLE SHADOWS:
If your part has a shadow were a wrinkle was but has been pulled out then it means that a wrinkle has formed and was stretched out during the press cycle. There may be different steps to solve this but this article will primarily focus on wrinkles that remain after pressing.

WRINKLES:
Typically wrinkles are caused by the material becoming too soft and "gaining" inside the press. When film is calendered it is pulled through the machines. This means that when you reheat the material it will grow length wise and shrink a bit width wise. So there is some movement to the film as its getting reintroduced to heat.  And typically wrinkles are caused by excessive exposure to heat via high temp or preheat so if you adjust settings it should be a reduction of heat in some manner.

DUMMY PARTS:
The first thing to always try is to put a dummy part on the size of the part. Items such as large doors or table tops are prone to wrinkles as the vinyl slides across the table then wrinkles up on the part. By putting a dummy part beside the large component it will capture excessive vinyl and stop it from sliding onto your large component. You can play with the distance and height of the dummy part but in general this should solve most problems with wrinkles.

PRESS SETTINGS:
If your component is too large to put a dummy part or if a dummy part didn't solve the issue you can finally go to settings. The vast majority of issues can be solved by reducing the heat by a few degrees. Normally you will notice that wrinkles will occur later in the shift and only on large parts. This is due to excessive heat build up. By lowering the temp you should solve the issue but if you are not getting the definition needed you may need to then increase the preheat. Longer preheat slowly soaks the vinyl so that it will still stretch but not so soft that it expands in the press and causes excessive growth of material. 

CONCLUSION:
Above we have discussed not only the settings but also the characteristics of WHY wrinkles are occurring... We've discussed the nature of expansion length wise and contraction width wise showing movement as well as the growth (increase) in material that is now trapped between the gaskets. I hope that the above has solved your problems however if it has not you can contact us for more assistance.