UV printing readily
taking the leap

More Concerned by
More Printing Companies

Although having been sensational years ago,
UV printing is recently gaining a big interest,
readily taking the leap.
Indeed, it has been called as a next generation ink,
followed by water-based and solvent, but its share in the
sign market had failed to meet the expectation. Early, a few companies
have bought and used it 3 or 4 years ago but there was no case that could demonstrate its successful introduction. Notwithstanding, the companies introducing it have recently increased while the public have started to take an interest.

Alternative
Solvent Printers

Korean large format printing market is slightly different from other countries. Asking to users of water-based and solvent printers, they say that they could handle all the works sufficiently with water-based and solvent equipment because most materials which they used are the roll type of soft materials and they are interested in printers using UV curable ink but they think that it's hard to introduce in Korean sign market, which means that Korean digital printing companies using large format printers don't show any interest about UV printers, anyway.
However, it seems that since a few years ago, some companies have started to introduce UV printers, more companies are recently interested in it. Actually, its merits and strengths look widely spreading over in other industries as well as in sign industry. Another good news for manufacturers is that the price of equipment has been decreased as time goes by.
"We decided to use it because we thought it could have better market share. The major strength of Expedio, a roll-to-roll printer was high productivity. It doesn't have ink trouble that existing solvent equipment used to make so it is more effective although the price of ink is a little expensive" said Mr. Lee, the manager of Syungji Adcom, which first introduced and used UV equipments last year.

More Attractive
in the Frontlit Printing Market

Importantly, you should choose types of UV equipments, considering which part of your business you're going to use. Unless condition is deeply considered, you may have some difficulties. "To know where your business is heading is important before buying it and even after buying it and facing some troubles, you have to try to overcome them. It is preferable to use the existing digital printer for companies manufacturing simple signs. I think we still need to have the efforts for making new market" said Mr. Lee, the representative of JNC Design using Rho Pictor 600.
It is hard to figure out which equipment is better between UV and solvent. In this case, It's better to consider the quality and usage of equipment. Experts make a decision with three standards for using printers; firstly, the difference of visible distance. Most advertisers are likely to prefer soft substrates. In general, prints by solvent are smoother and finer while UV prints look a little more tough. The very point of UV can, however, be more powerful when we use it for billboards because we can see them well far apart.
Secondly, the difference between backlit and frontlit. UV prints are more effective than the prints of solvent as a frontlit because they have less scattered reflection; finally, the difference of color tone. UV prints are better in the case of natural colors while solvent prints are better in the case of artificial colors.

Users Learning, for themselves,
How to Use UV
UV curable ink is subject to chemical reactions but it is eco-friendly as it doesn't include any volatile solvent.
The primary advantage of UV printers is the fact that we can have various materials. Companies using UV can cut down the amount of time and cost as the manufacturing process is more simplified. For instance. we had to print image on the sheet and put it onto rigid substrates for making a finished product, but with UV printers, we can directly print onto rigid materials years ago.
The president of a Korea-based digital printing company said "We are supplying prints for indoor graphics market through water-based equipment and have been thinking of developing a new item using different media and made a decision to use UV. Now, we can use various materials although indeed, there are still some media limits so we have to search for materials which can guarantee the durability and print quality. We are experiencing the process of trial-and-error processes everyday to solve them."

Increased Demand
in the Soft Materials Market

UV is mostly divided by two categories; one is a flatbed printer for manufacturing indoor signs, the other is a roll-to-roll printer for outdoor signs including billboards and general digital prints and there is the equipment used both roll-to-roll and flatbed.
Mr. Kim, the director of Visual Eye using UV flatbed printer from 2004, said "For the steps of buying UV, generally, flatbed should be bought, followed by roll-to-roll, but I think that the steps do not matter. Important thing is to figure out which one is more preferable for the future of a corporation."
Especially, UV is actively used in wrapping and point-of-purchase advertisement but it can be also applied to various fields including dimensional signs. It's hard for non-experts to discern between UV and general prints but there are two ways of classifying. First is the print quality of UV that is certainly better. The other is white printing which normal digital printer can't do.

More Strictly Checking
Printhead

Like other printers, UV equipment needs managing and maintenance. UV printer mostly consists of printhead, roll and flatbed. Each of them is in each printing field but the ways of maintenance are almost same.
Mr. Kim, the director of Visual Eye, said "We have to check and change the printhead of UV flatbed printer periodically. It's really hard to delete splashes on the head unlike normal digital printers. If even small particles were placed on it, it would suffer from bending. A printhead needs checking to solve this problem before working. If there is a small problem, you can just wash ink with a cleaning fluid but if a problem is more serious than this, you have to take off a head, and put it into a cleaning fluid or use a way of electrolysis. If the said methods are not available, you have to replace it.
Mr. Hwang, a manager of ChunSung AdCom, explained the know-how of maintenance "My first duty when I was just employed in the company was cleaning printheads. They should be carefully washed up. We have to take care of it to get the highest quality results and also clean a filter; the best way to handle about the problem of ink filter is sending it to the repair service. The role of UV filter in the equipment is purifying the air. You need to change when normally its color become black. If you use a dirty filter, you can have some troubles like bending.
Mr. Mun, the president of ColorIn pointed it out that it's dangerous to excessively rely on the capability UV flatbed printer. "One can print them out on a variety of substrates through UV, including wood, glass, acrylic, textiles and so on. But customers can have a negative response because sometimes, materials scratches off with a fingernail while handling them. Customers need to properly comprehend the level of UV technology exactly and distributors should give the details" he added.

New Applications like
Dimensional Signs
UV inks require a high intensity source of UV light to initiate a chemical reaction. This reaction dries the ink or coating in fractions of a second. UV lamp is the proven and used source of high intensity UV light. The process of using ink is closely related sustainance, especially the impact of toxicity on the environment. Most of conventional digital printers used to have a environmental problems because of toxic ink. The durability of UV image is still not as good as solvent equipment but nowadays, almost business fields are deeply affected by impact on the environment. That's why the interest of UV has been increased.
Environmental restrictions have been surprisingly increased in Europe over the last several years. The representative of Microqnix, which imports and sells equipment from Durst, said "Not only the environmental restrictions about products but also working conditions are strictly controlled by the government in Europe, so it is expected that UV would be more popular and widely spread all over the world."
The possibility of using UV printers has been also increased in Dimensional sign market. A representative of a certain company said "Everybody knows that the demand of dimensional signs has been dramatically increased owing to government policy. We expect that we can get drastically different results if we print to substrates like acrylic sheet through UV flatbed printer."

Build up
Your Own Blue Ocean

Companies relying on UV seem to complete various jobs through printing on any substrates. "There is a potential to start a new business field though it depends on firms. Companies willing to branch out can open up a new market in the part of interior, furniture, wallpaper that conventional digital printer can't perform. In other words, we can say that works with UV is a new blue ocean" said Mr. Ro, the director of IP&I.
There are many cases that UV is preferentially selected because it contributes to expanding a business into other fields. "We decided to introduce this equipment as it was considered as a new technology and the business of using it has been recently increased" said Mr. Ji, an assistant manager of UV D&A which had purchased Vutek QS2000.
Wide Art has been using it for 3 years. They mainly print on substrates like acrylic and glass and trying to make full use of it. They are planning to get into the field of construction materials. They said "Our biggest advantage to having a flatbed is the fact that we don't have to be in only sign market because we can manufacture various products that can be applicable in several fields."