ARTJET UV Printer _ UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1

Until 2005, the main type was the conveyor belt type that printed both roll and flatbed materials.

The manufacturer was

• Vutek, now changed to EFI
• Zund, currently selling cutters but was a strong UV printer manufacturer.
• Durst, currently supplies labels and industrial inkjets as its main business

The advantage of using a conveyor belt is that the width of the flatbed is limited, but printing is unlimited in the length direction.

However, the unlimited length direction makes it difficult to align the material (a 1mm error when loading the material can make a difference of up to 1cm at the 2m point), making it inconvenient to use.

The initial sales price of UV printers was 200-400 million won, and at that time, customers had a high price for the equipment,

and the general thought was, ‘It has to be able to print on rolls and flatbeds! How can I buy equipment that only has a flatbed?’

2. Roll-only and Flat-only equipment appears_UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1

At that time, the 25pl print head of Spectra, a Fuji Dimatix company, was dominating the market with the highest resolution.

Konica Minolta introduced a 14pl head and took the lead in the market for about 2~3 years,

but that was only for a short while, and in 2006, OCE introduced a flatbed printer equipped with a 7pl variable dot print head.

The conveyor belt type driven by a large roll had a belt slip, so the Y-axis feeding precision was low,

but the flatbed equipment equipped with a liner scale on the Y-axis improved the Y-axis precision,

and achieved the best quality by jetting 7pl small ink drops.

After the OCE model, other manufacturers also started to release flatbed equipment rather than conveyor belt type UV printers,

and for a while, conveyor belt type UV printers and flatbed-only UV printers coexisted.

For a while, consumers also began to think that ‘roll and flatbed conveyors have limitations in print quality’, and

Almost all manufacturers introduced 2513 (4x8ft) size flatbed printers.

In 2010, companies that had taken the lead in the market, such as OCE, began to introduce roll-only UV printers.

However, the roll market was still in a period where it was okay to use solvent-only printers, so roll UV was not very active.

3. Bonus, Print Quality Comparison_UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1

In 2007, I compared the quality of the same image printed on a 6-color 14pl conveyor belt VS a 7pl 4-color (gray scale) flatbed printer at Italy viscom.

At that time, I was a salesperson selling 14pl 6-color conveyor equipment, and I had to watch customers choose OCE products.

• The gap difference between 6 colors and 4 colors could not overcome the maximum resolution that could be implemented with 14pl and 7pl ink drops,
• and the Y-axis feeding precision was not up to that of a flatbed-only equipment,
• and at that time, Variable dot technology, which was new to application and not well known, was not available to us,

so if you are curious about Variable dot technology, please refer to the following.

print head Variable dot, Gray scale, Multi drop

III. From UV(mercury) to LED_UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1 

1. Difference between Mercury UV and LED_UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1

Mercury UV lamps consume a lot of power. Because of this, consumers who purchased UV printers had to do separate electrical work.

However, in the case of LEDs that consume less power, electrical work is almost always unnecessary.

In addition, Mercury lamps generate a lot of heat, and during printing, the material would bend due to the accumulated heat, often hitting the print head.

Depending on the material, double-sided tape had to be attached or other measures had to be taken to print.

In addition, materials that are weak to heat could not be printed at all.

As LED lamps were in the early stages of development, they were mainly developed in the UK and the US, and were expensive, 1.5 to 2 times more expensive than Mercury lamps.

2. At some point_UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1

Since 2015, high-end UV printers, that is, expensive equipment, began to be equipped with LED instead of Mercury.

The price also decreased for a while as LEDs were developed in Taiwan and China, and after 1~2 years, most of them switched to LED.

In the early days of LED lamp installation,

it was expected that the switch to LED would not be easy due to the idea that ink adhesion would be weak and the high price of LED lamps,

but after 2 years of installation, almost all UV printer manufacturers adopted them.

Today, I talked about the flow of UV printer products, and next time,

I will talk about how UV printer manufacturers in early 2005 have changed and what they are doing now.

The content I talked about today can also be viewed on YouTube below.

ARTJET UV Printer _ UV Printer History and Future Prediction 1