Clear Lenses: Uses & Benefits Explained

For clear lenses on your product labels, separate the lens and the 3M VHB adhesive. Manufacturing overlays with a clear window is a difficult task for any product label printer, even MSI.

The pictured lens is made from a .080 hard-coated polycarbonate. The problems happen once the protective masking is removed from the print side. The polycarbonate by nature is soft and easily scratched if not handled perfectly. Once a sheet of lenses is printed, they must be handled very carefully in the adhesive and cutting department. Our research has shown that most of the scratches occur after product label printing in these operations. To reduce the scratches and improve the fall-out rate, Marking Systems has separated the lens and the VHB adhesive, shipping both as separate parts to the customer. By doing this, we were able to put the protective masking back over the clear window as the parts come off the printing press.

Taking it one step further, since our customer had never received the parts this way, Marking Systems engineered the adhesive/lens to be easy to apply and produced a video to teach the customer’s production personnel how to expertly apply the parts.

Learn more about our product label printing at Marking Systems and contact us today to get started with a prototype.