Multi-material flexibility of UV piezoelectric inkjet printer is among its core advantages. Industrial level UV piezoelectric inkjet machine is able to directly print on 0.1mm ultra-thin PET film to 50mm thick acrylic sheet, adhesion of the ink is compliant with ASTM D3359 standard 5B test, and is color stable in temperature range of -30 ° C to 150 ° C. A car parts manufacturer uses this technology to print symbols on ABS plastic parts with non-planar surfaces (curvature radius ≥3mm), and the positioning accuracy error is ≤±10 microns. By substituting the traditional pad printing process, the cost of a single piece is reduced from 0.8 yuan to 0.15 yuan, and the yield is increased from 85% to 99.7%. According to the 2023 market data, application of UV piezoelectric inkjet printers in non-absorbing materials such as glass, metal and ceramics occupied 62%, an increase of 340% compared to that of 2018.
The revolutionary productivity achievement is attributed to its digital process. A UV piezoelectric inkjet machine model has 2048 piezoelectric nozzles, the injection rate is 64kHz, and the print speed is 80 meters/min with a resolution of 1200dpi. With the 0.005 second instant curing technology, the traditional 7-day production process of conventional screen printing (plate making, color mixing, drying) is shortened to 2 hours. The comparison data of a packaging company shows that the unit cost for less than 500 short orders is 28% of the traditional process, and supports mixed line production of 200 SKUs in a single batch, and the time for line change is decreased from 45 minutes to 90 seconds. As shown by the “Flexible Manufacturing White Paper” statistics, companies using UV piezoelectric inkjet technology have increased equipment utilization rate (OEE) from 58% to 93% and increased annual production capacity by 2.7 times.
Environmental regulation and market demand propel in coordination for cross-industry penetration. The EU’s new VOC emission standard in 2024 requires that the emission of the printing be less than 10g/m³, and the VOC level of water-based ink from UV PZO inkjet printers is merely 0.5g/m³, 98% lower than that of solvent-based ink, and thus a group of printing houses has gained the ISO 14001 certification and received a rebate of carbon tax of 1.2 million yuan every year. In the medical field, a company used UV piezoelectric inkjet technology to print biocompatible coatings on 5mm diameter catheters, which passed FDA 510(k) approval, printing line width accuracy of ±2μm, replacing traditional laser engraving production costs reduced by 72%. By 2023, the global market for UV piezoelectric inkjet will be worth $2.8 billion, and the penetration rate in the electronic circuit printing market will be as high as 39% from 8% in 2019.
The modular design and intelligent maintenance system extends the whole life cycle value. The piezo nozzle of the UV piezo inkjet printer lasts for 15,000 hours, 10 times as long as that of the hot foam nozzle, and there is single-nozzle software compensation (compensation precision ±0.1pl), and fees for maintenance decrease from 5,000 yuan/month to 300 yuan. After deployment of the device by a logistics company, variable data printing speed was increased to 250 m/min, the error rate in barcodes came down from 0.8% to 0.005%, and the qualification rate of delivery was 99.99% using the AI quality inspection system. In terms of energy efficiency, the energy consumption of the UV-LED curing module is only 1.2kW, an 85% improvement on the traditional mercury lamp system. According to the calculation of three shifts, one device’s annual electricity expense is 52,000 yuan. All these technical advantages make UV piezoelectric inkjet printers the pillar of flexible manufacturing during the Industry 4.0 age.