What is the prospect of the UV printer industry?
To understand the market prospects of UV printers, we can start from the three aspects of UV printer equipment itself, the materials that can be printed, and the applied industry.
One; UV printer equipment itself
1. In terms of printheads; the printheads used by UV printers on the market are divided into two parts. One is industrial printheads, mainly Ricoh printheads, which are mainly used by large-scale machines. They are expensive and pursue printing speed. One is a commercial print head, mainly Epson print heads. It is mostly used in small and medium-sized machines, the price is relatively cheap, and the pursuit of printing accuracy. The two complement each other.
2. Types of inks; UV printers can print on a variety of materials. For this, UV inks are also divided into various types according to different product materials. UV hard ink used for hard materials such as stone, glass, metal, ceramics, wood, etc. Special UV soft ink for soft materials such as PVC and TPU. Leather stretch ink for leather. There is also a solvent ink.
3. The number of print heads; most of the early UV printers were modified machines, and white ink and color ink shared a print head. Taking a commercial printhead machine as an example, with a six-channel printhead, four channels correspond to C M Y K four-color ink, and the remaining two channels correspond to W (white ink). Form a sequence configuration of CMYK+WW. After the self-host appeared in the later period, two nozzles were selected as standard, one for each white color. A sequence of CMCMYK (color ink)+WWWWW (white ink) is formed. If you need to print varnish, add another nozzle. When it comes to varnish, many manufacturers choose to vacate two channels of white ink nozzles to print varnish, and two nozzles achieve white + color + varnish. Although it seems that the cost of one printhead is less, in fact, the harm outweighs the benefit. The corrosiveness of varnish far exceeds that of ink. If one printhead is shared, it will only seriously shorten the life of the white ink printhead.
Two; Materials and products that can be printed by UV printers
1. In the early days, UV printers could only print flat materials. After years of development, they have now developed products that can print flat surfaces, cylinders, spheres, and micro-arc surfaces. Such as acrylic, wooden boards, packaging boxes, wine bottles, mugs, thermos cups, lampshades, basketballs, signature pens and other products. The printing drop of commercial nozzles can be up to 3.5mm. It is believed that in the future, it will be able to develop to achieve the printing of larger drop products.
2. UV printer printing products can print flat and embossed effects as needed. Among them, the relief effect can freely choose partial relief, full relief, and micro relief. The relief effect is actually built up by increasing the white ink printing multiple.
Three; UV flatbed printer application industry
1. Packaging industry: gift boxes, tea cans, packaging bags, wine bottles.
2. Building materials industry: ceramic tile, glass, leather.
3. Advertising industry: canvas, advertising boards, signs.
4. Arts and crafts industry: keychains, pendants, fake nails, lipstick tubes.
