UV Ink and Ink Info

  • Thread starter Thread starter GN
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G

GN

Hi to all

1. Do you know if there is UV ink for Inkjet printers?

2. Do yo know where I can buy bulk ink black color etc?

3. The ink jet ink is different from normal pen ink e.g. pelican, mont blanq etc.



Thanks a lot

George
 
Hi George,

I assume you are not looking for ink for a specific printer at this
point, but more just specific materials for some project or production.
The reason I say this is inkjet printers use differing technologies
(the main ones are thermal and piezo technologies) and this can alter
what can and cannot be done with the printer in terms of the inks that
can be used.

To answer your questions in a general sense, I would imagine UV inks
are made and available for inkjet printers.

You did not specify if the UV inks you require need to be visible or
invisible in daylight.

Many ink formulations for inkjet printers are available in large
quantities, in black and colors.

No, the inks used for I'm assuming fountain pens are not formulated for
inkjet printers. SOme people have tried them, and sometimes they have
been lucky enough to get them to work for a while, but they do not have
the same specifications (viscosity, drying time, dielectric charge,
density, pigment grain size (if you are think of something like India
inks), etc.

Inkjet printers are inexpensive enough, and you can probably fine older
used one, that if you wish to experiment and try different ink formulas,
change dilution and such, you can see what might work, but you could
conceivable damage the head and therefore make the printer non-functional.

Inkjet technology is being used to do everything from printing circuit
boards, to printing pills and capsules, to printing onto plastics and
metals, and so on, with the right ink formulas and the right inkjet
design almost anything is possible.

Art
 
I would imagine that there are no UV inks for inkjet
printers. The reason being that nobody would really need
them. Why would you want to use UV inks? The lamp would melt
the printer, lol.
 
If this is funny, I'm missing the humor...

There are a lot of uses for UV inks. As mentioned, ones in the visible
spectrum would simply glow brightly under UV, which might be required
for certain types of equipment which reads specialty codes, etc. The
Canadian Post Office puts a UV ink bar code on letters to track the
postal code location it is going to. Those are visible in a bright by
light orange or yellow.

Invisible inks, that are no visible in standard white light, have all
sorts of special usage, such as dating codes or lot numbers that a
manufacturer may not wish to be readable by the general public.

I'm nut sure what type of light will melt the plastic (certainly not a
standard long or short wave UV lightsource), but even if a lamp
could/would it wouldn't have to be in the printer for it to use UV inks.

Art
 
Ah, I see what you want... an ink that flouresces under UV
light. I had thought that you were looking for a UV cure
ink. This type of ink is common on large printing presses
and requires very powerful (read HOT) lamps to cure the ink.

As far as I know you cannot buy such inks meant for inkjet
printers. If I really needed such an ink I would try
refilling a new/empty ink cartridge (use the black one). I
have right beside me a pen that writes with clear, UV
flourescing ink, a Staedtler Lumicolor 317. So the inks are
out there, just not in carttridges.
 
GN said:
1. Do you know if there is UV ink for Inkjet printers?
Click to expand...

DayGlo makes florescent inks for inkjet printers. In the past they offered
refilled cartridges for various printers, their current online stuff looks a
bit more specialized, focused on large format printing. See:
http://www.dayglo.com/.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging
 
Thanks for explaining your reference. I couldn't figure out what you
were getting to regarding the heat of the lamp. Perhaps the original
poster had curable UV inks in mind and I'm the one that's
misinterpreting his needs.

I suppose one could still use a UV cured ink with an inkjet (if the ink
would be able to get through the head) as there are no heat or minimal
heat UV LEDS and also fibre optic delivery of UV, or it could be cured
outside of the printer, once the media or product was ejected. In fact,
one certainly wouldn't want the UV source anywhere near the head, or the
ink would cure and seal the head closed pretty darn quick!

I think one of the reasons for using UV curing over heat curing is that
there are a lot of ways to deliver cool UV, since it is a cool wavelength.

Art
 
Hmm. I've never seen a cool UV lamp. As far as I can tell
the common bulbs used to produce UV light also produce light
in the other wavelengths. The lamps get extremely hot (300 F
+). A lot of light enerfy is required to cure a UV cure ink.
For instance, you'd have to leave the ink out in the sun for
weeks for it to cure.

I know there are lamps that produce *mostly* UV light waves
but they are very expensive and not very powerful.

In any case. I assume that the initial poster just wants to
print something in *invisible* ink. The error was mine. As a
commercial printer I often think of printing on professional
terms, not in inkjet related terms. :)

Heck, if my Epson used UV curable inks I'd never have a
clogged printhead again!

Andrew
 
Relative to the other side of the visible spectrum; far IR is difficult
to deliver "cool".

Art
 
Arthur Entlich said:
Relative to the other side of the visible spectrum; far IR is difficult
to deliver "cool".
Click to expand...

For IR to make things hot, it has to be absorbed.

If UV is absorbed, in what sense do things not get hot ?


Think of

IR as a 'heat lamp'

and

UV as a 'burn lamp'.


J/.
 
I don't know, different wavelengths? I know far IR is a major source of
heat, while near IR is not. UV may cause "burn" to human skin, but it
is not sensed as heat while it is occurring (which is why people don't
realize they have been "burned" until hours later. The warmth they
experience from the sun's rays is basically IR. The UV damage is a
radiation burn.

Anyway, this is going off topic, and is not my area of expertise,
perhaps a physicist might know, I'm just going on personal logic.

Art
 
Both UV and IR light can turn into heat when absorbed by a surface. It is
easier to make UV curing ink than IR because UV photons are each
individually more energetic.

Charles P. Lamb
 
It is easy to filter IR and visibile light out of a source. Filtering out
IR is commonly done on optical equipment needing only visible light. This
is usually done by using an IR abosorbing filter or a mirror which doesn't
reflect IR.

Charles P. Lamb
 
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