Whats the difference between UV flatbed printer and UV DTF printer?

Recently UV DTF printer(direct to film) is going to hot at both sign market and label printing market,both of them use same UV technology, but do you know the difference? Here we can discuss one by one:

1. Different media. UV flatbed printer can print on any kinds of material such as wood,acrylic,metal,etc. Anyone can be the media. But UV DTF printer can only print on special film with glue (or printing glue with CMYK&White&Varnish together) and then transfer on other substrates.

2. Different printing mode. UV flatbed printer usually use white layer to do an embossed effect,and white use much than varnish.And UV film we required more about varnish to make sure sure the sticker looks more bright and easy to peel off.

3. Different varnish ink.Here the CMYK ink may commonly used,but the varnish ink of UV DTF printer is a bit different with the flatbed one.

4. Different pre-treatment way. As we know for some smooth surface materials like glass or ceramic,need to do a pre-treatment with primer and then print with UV flatbed printer,and different materials with different primer,then this also an expense.But with UV film sticker, no need primer, just use alcohol do pre-treatment on materials before you transfer.

Actually UV film solution just expands the application of UV flatbed printer.The advantages as below:

1. Save time and you can sell the film only. As we know flatbed printer need to put one by one on the platform before printing, for UV film, they can be take-away and stick as will,no need to send all materials to you in advance.

2. For some irregular substrates, like fastigiate or unflat objects the flatbed printer cannot offer good solution,the UV film can.

3. For some mirror or reflective materials, cannot use flatbed printer since it may hurt printhead during printing.

4. For bottle printing, i think UV DTF pritner is better. For flatbed printer,we required a rotary device for bottle printing, different diameter with different device,also if with cup handle the device may also change. If you have all in one device, there is also important thing which is printing mode, as we all know that for bottle printing, usually use one third or half nozzles (all flatbed printer with this mode or not the white and color would be misalignment),then for long time printing it may hurt the printhead,too.

All above are the differences between flatbed printer and UV DTF printer, if you still confused with UV flatbed or UV DTF printer,please contact with us and TODOjet printer team is always here for service to you.