In recent years, with the maturity of digital printing technology, digital printed glass has been quickly applied in indoor and outdoor decoration due to its beautiful patterns and bright colors.
UV printing glass is an earlier generation of full-color digital printing technology that replaces the screen printing process. It is suitable for all kinds of organic substrates such as signs, PVC, acrylic, plastic, leather, cloth, wood board, etc.
Since there was no printing process specifically for glass earlier, and UV printing can achieve rich pattern effects in the environment at the time, UV printing glass has also been accepted and applied by many designers within a certain safety limit.
Both digital printing and UV printing processes on the glass surface, both have the advantages of rapid realization in graphic patterns and the advantages of flexible graphic pattern design. It is designed for many glass applications that require personalized decoration. But the properties of their materials are completely different.
Compared with UV printed glass, digital printed glass has below advantages:
1. Digitally printed glass can be used outdoor.
The solidification principle of digital printing glass is to integrate the ceramic digital printing ink into the glass surface after the high-temperature sintering process. The toner in the ink is mined from various minerals in nature, so it has the ability to blend naturally with glass (the main component of SiO₂). , And the performance that will not change color after decades.
The inks materials decide the printed glass has perfect weather resistance,acid&alkali resistance,alcohol&water resistance., it can be used in outdoor glass projects for decades and the same lifetime as the glass itself.
“Dip-Tech” has been developing digital printing since 2005. Digitally printed glass is applied in global projects in various regional climates for over 10 years and has demonstrated its excellent weather resistance in interior and exterior projects.
UV printed glass shortage:
- UV printed glass uses organic inks, in the acid and alkali resistance test and the alcohol resistance test, the UV ink formed wrinkles and fell off.
- In terms of weather resistance, UV printed glass begins to change color in 30 days in a natural environment, and cracks and curls begin to form after three months; in indoor project applications, the glass is UV-printed glass can be used for 2-3 years.
- Because UV ink has poor adhesion on smooth glass surfaces, it can be easily scratched with nails or sharp tools.
2. Digitally printed glass can control color transparency.
The process design of Dip-Tech ceramic digital printing is quite perfect. It can easily achieve various light transmittance requirements of any area and any graphic by customizing the color transparency and controlling the printing ink volume in the printing process.
Some high-end UV printing equipment also has the function of adjusting the ink volume, but organic ink still cannot produce the effect of high opacity, so common color UV single-layer printing is the transparent color effect.
3. Digital printed glass can be further made into tempered, laminated glass, and insulated glass.
The solidification principle of ceramic digital printing is to melt through the tempering process of 680-720℃, so it must be tempered after printing.
The tempering process includes tempering, heat strengthening, heat soaked, curved, hot bending, as well as further laminating and insulating process to increase the glass's safety and energy-saving performance.
The maximum temperature of UV inks is 120 ℃， glass cannot be tempered and further processing, to increase the glass safety, UV printing must be applied on already flat tempered glass.
With the advancement of industrial printing technology, the accuracy of digital printing has gradually increased from 300dpi to 1200dpi or even higher, and its printing speed has also increased from the initial 10sqm/h hour to more than 100sqm/h. Digital printing technology realizes complex color matching, vividly presenting artistic portraits and natural scenery on colorful glass, and its visible light transmittance and reflection effect are also better.
