Mouse Pad ?

[Johnch]

I want to try and print some custom Mouse Pads
My old printer puked and I was able to buy a high end printer , that only was a few months old from a local store that was closing it's doors
And when I read the instructions , it gave the settings to print on a number of things

I have not even started looking for mouse pad material in large pieces or in roll form
But to save me a ton of work , I hope to print 8 1/2"x 11" mouse pads for the gun club
No plans on selling them .....way to many Workmans Comp problems if I even think about that
But the Gun Club says they will buy everything , I am just going to "donate" the time for my printer to print on the mouse pads

But I need to find out some prices first , not going out on a limb and ordering anything , I will let them buy the mouse pad material and ink refills ( $$ talks , and I don't have the extra to donate to the club for all the stuff )

Anyone have a place they have dealt with that sells the mouse pad material ?
They want 100 Mouse pads in the first batch to use as hand outs and door prizes

Thanks
John

[bangerjim]

Most mouse pads I have ever had are silk screened, not printed on ink jet or laser printers.

Good luck on that one.

banger

[MaryB]

I buy mouse pads(black, Blue) at Walmart... but I laser engrave them. I know of no printer than can handle the thickness unless it is a plotter.

[Johnch]

I will have to re read the instructions
Not the first time I had to read things 2 or 3 times to get stuff to work

John

[MaryB]

An option might be one of the color laser iron on decals... not cheap but then it can be put on any thickness material.

[NavyVet1959]

There are a few different materials that mouse pads are made from. Some are made from neoprene, some are made from a thin flexible piece of plastic. Depending upon the type of mouse you have, some materials work better than others.

[Johnch]

I re read the directions and it listed a thin thickness and I checked my mouse pad and it is a lot thicker
So I guess I am not going to be able to do it after all
Thanks for the help
John

[NavyVet1959]

I re read the directions and it listed a thin thickness and I checked my mouse pad and it is a lot thicker
So I guess I am not going to be able to do it after all
Thanks for the help
John

It's probably expecting those thin plastic sheets for mouse pads. They're similar to the roll-up cutting board plastic sheets.

Many of the mice these days are optical / use a laser instead of using a ball and mechanical linkages like we used to see. With the ball and mechanical linkages, there was always the issue of needing a surface that would give the ball a bit of traction when you moved it across the pad. If it just slid across the surface and the ball did not rotate (due to how slippery or dusty the surface was), you would either get no movement of the pointer or it would be jumpy. These days, with the optical ones, they detect the imperfections in the surface you are moving it across, so you don't need to have traction anymore. As such, you don't really need to have a mouse pad unless you have a very glossy table surface. If you have a glass top on your table, a mouse pad is often needed. I suspect that more often than not, the use of the mouse pad is to designate an area where the other junk on your table does not intrude in your mouse movement area. :)

[bangerjim]

The only thing you could consider that I can think of is print your "stuff" using a laser printer onto transparency film and then some how glue it onto a light colored rubber/foam mat. Printing would be on the reverse side. There are sparay-on glues that would work. You would have to use a hard roller to get things stuck and squeeze out most of the air bubbles. Most glues will dissolve ink jet inks.

Not a proven technique by any means, but you are definitely in the realm of "product development and research"!

Silk screeening is not that difficult to do. There are hobby kits that let the home crafter to easily do it. Do a net search. That would allow you to "print" directly on litterally any surface with permanent inks and colors.

good luck

banger

[MaryB]

If they are interested I could laser engrave but not cheap, anywhere from $5-15(or more) depending on design. And no colors, it is shades of gray scale

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd248/maryalanab/Gun%20engraving/IMG_20150209_1920356381_zps043c61bc.jpg

[Johnch]

If they are interested I could laser engrave but not cheap, anywhere from $5-15(or more) depending on design. And no colors, it is shades of gray scale

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd248/maryalanab/Gun%20engraving/IMG_20150209_1920356381_zps043c61bc.jpg
I will ask
But my guess ...the club is looking for a cheaper handout
I am going to give them the idea of shirts , as a club member works for a screen printing place and I bet the club could get shirts
More in the price range I expect they want to be in

Thanks
John

[w5pv]

Best of luck

[NavyVet1959]

I will ask
But my guess ...the club is looking for a cheaper handout
I am going to give them the idea of shirts , as a club member works for a screen printing place and I bet the club could get shirts
More in the price range I expect they want to be in

Thanks
John

If you already have someone who can do screen printing, then they can screen print on the neoprene mouse pads since they have a fabric layer on one side.

For an order of 100 of them, it seems that the blank ones go for about $1 each and if you are getting them printed full color, they go for around $2 each. If you are ordering 5000 of them, the printed ones can go down to around $1 each.

[MaryB]

Inkjet printer iron on transfer sheets. http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/bpa04107 could roll your own that way