What's the thickest/deepest item you printed directly on to with a UV Flatbed? Something more than golf balls

[dreko]

Most of the direct to substrate/item UV flatbed printers can accomodate thick items (like 5 - 8" high objects) but what is the deepest print you've made on a object?

Did you print on a item that tapered or curved up and down, a distance of like 2 - 4 inches? Or are all the UV flatbeds, only printing about 10mm of distance (like the top curve of a golf ball or curve of mug)

I'm trying to see what printer/machine, was able to jet the ink further and greater distances... than just a shallow depth

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

Most of the direct to substrate/item UV flatbed printers can accomodate thick items (like 5 - 8" high objects) but what is the deepest print you've made on a object?

Did you print on a item that tapered or curved up and down, a distance of like 2 - 4 inches? Or are all the UV flatbeds, only printing about 10mm of distance (like the top curve of a golf ball or curve of mug)

I'm trying to see what printer/machine, was able to jet the ink further and greater distances... than just a shallow depth

None of them will jet to a depth greater than a few millimeters without losing image quality or fidelity its just the crux of inkjet. So you would have to align your print heads to the depth you want to print, but then you lose the fidelity on your flat surface prints.

What are you trying to accomplish?

 

[dreko]

So far 20mm is the largest depth from the manufacturer. Jetting distance.
Wanting to print directly onto topographical surfaces, that are not flat planes... and have varying z axis heights

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Did some Playstation 5's, those were a lot of drop. Stuff gets pretty dusty. Using LD2 mode on a UJF-6042MKII helped a bit, but it did come out well enough for the customer to like it. If using a bidirectional printer, set print to unidirectional for better results.

 

[dreko]

If you had to guess the drop... 1/2 inch?

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Over an inch, but at that point, it looked like it was badly airbrushed.

 

[MarkSnelling]

We sell the Roland "object printers" which are very deep and can also add the ability to print on bottles. I've got customers who print on mini basketballs and Christmas ornaments with these units. Looks great. www.RolandDGA.com

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

So again, no printers have active z-height control nor the physical ability to even move with out crashing into the surface... you will have to be satisfied with lower fidelity the further from the printhead the surface is.

Or you could look at other processes like printed thermoforming or texture printing and building the depth with Ink.

So far 20mm is the largest depth from the manufacturer. Jetting distance.
Wanting to print directly onto topographical surfaces, that are not flat planes... and have varying z axis heights

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

I mean, you can print cylinders and spheres, just use unidirectional and keep it on the shallower part of the curves.

 

[dreko]

I need to win the lottery, so I can buy a large scale cobot, hire a mechanical engineer, and attach a industrial inkjet system to the cobot.
Then one could program a toolpath that follows the topographical contours instead of the usual XY rail/head travel...

I guess computational thermoforming is my best hope at the moment

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Looked into this, the trick is getting a printhead that is big enough to print a decent area, while having a small enough nozzle plate footprint to support quick, precise motions. Computational power is definitely there, as well as the kinematics and topology detection.

 

[dreko]

Looked into this, the trick is getting a printhead that is big enough to print a decent area, while having a small enough nozzle plate footprint to support quick, precise motions. Computational power is definitely there, as well as the kinematics and topology detection.

A company in California, took apart each channel of the inkjet head, and put each color channel on a contollable z axis motor that moved up and down following the topographical contours of geological maps they CNC'd. They shut down a few years ago... but a very clever printer. Entire head assembly moved in the traditional XY, they just modified the channels in the head to also travel in Z as it went back and forth. Custom modified printer for sure....

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

With long-jetting heads, might be doable with dynamic controls to firing power. Would just require a relatively slow scan speed. That said, there are some HUGE printheads out there. Something like tilt would probably help a ton too, but overall, lots of demons to suss out.

 

[dreko]

Take a look at this incredible printer (1 of a kind)

I've tried to reach out to them, but unfortunately no response. I wanted to buy the printer from the now defunct company

Youtube link: youtu.be/oSDkOrfdWrI?si=NJD57JzNUoCbzXM9

 

[Vassago]

Take a look at this incredible printer (1 of a kind)
View attachment 173709

View attachment 173710

I've tried to reach out to them, but unfortunately no response. I wanted to buy the printer from the now defunct company

Youtube link: youtu.be/oSDkOrfdWrI?si=NJD57JzNUoCbzXM9

I remember the company.. Great idea, but ultimately obviously not making enough money from it - should be possible to recreate, just need to split colour away from z height and put head on z rail. It's all down to how much money you will (not could) make v cost of making such a machine.. I think that one used hp deskjet cartridges

 

[dreko]

They were in business for a very long time, produced many many topographical maps... I think the owner just retired... nothing about 'not making enough money from it'
Nevertheless... I wish someone would make a open source or conversion kit that was like this...

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Vaccuforming inks are probably considered to be the replacement, which is not a bad way to do it. However, articulating heads in that particular case are a pretty good idea as you're working with known geometry. Technically speaking, it wouldn't be terribly hard to replace such a system. Controls and the like aren't crazy hard to do, but firmware/software would be the crazier part.

 

[netsol]

if you look at older posts, for a while, i was on a LETS JAILBREAK OUR PRINTER /CUTTERS KICK

i may have been ahead of my time

i believe it was just roland locking you out of setup menu...

 

[Patrick Farrell]

I printed on 3" Ultra Board once. Not super interesting though hahaha

 

[edcooleyar]

We made a jig and printed airtags