A UV printer is a digital printer that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to cure specially formulated ink almost immediately after it is printed. It lays down liquid UV-sensitive ink and exposes it to ultraviolet light almost immediately. The UV light cures the ink, turning it into a solid printed layer on the surface of whatever material it was printed onto.
How does it compare with other types of printer?
With an ordinary inkjet printer, tiny droplets of liquid ink are sprayed onto the paper. The ink is then absorbed into the surface and dries. A laser printer works very differently. It uses an electrostatic process to place powdered toner onto a drum in the shape of the image or text being printed. The toner is transferred onto the paper and then passed through heated rollers — called a fuser — which melt and bond the toner to the surface.
A sublimation printer uses special sublimation ink, usually by first printing the design onto transfer paper. Heat and pressure are then used to transfer the design onto the final product. Rather than simply sitting on top of the material, the sublimation dye turns into a gas when heated and bonds with polyester fibres or a specially coated surface. Sublimation is commonly used for things such as T-shirts, mugs, coasters, mouse mats, blank ceramic ornaments, and other specially coated products. It can produce very bright, durable designs, but it generally needs a suitable polyester or polymer-coated surface, and it works best on white or pale materials because sublimation inks don’t normally include white ink.
New UV printers
UV printing has been around commercially for years (e.g. Epson V series), but smaller machines are now making the technology much more accessible to artists, makers and small businesses. At the time of writing (October 2026), two of the newer desktop machines attracting attention are the Anker eufyMake E1, and the xTool O1 Omni. If you’ve recently seen coloured designs printed directly onto wood, acrylic, metal, glass, notebooks, canvas or other solid objects, there’s a reasonable chance they were made using a UV printer like these.
However, the best thing about the eufyMake E1 and xTool O1 Omni printers is not just that they’re relatively affordable, or that they can print directly onto that wide range of objects listed above. It’s that they can build up layers of ink, to give the image actual texture and dimensionality.
What can a UV printer print on?
Depending on the printer, ink and surface preparation involved, UV printing can be used on materials including:
- wood
- acrylic
- plastic
- metal
- glass
- ceramic
- stone
- card
- leather and leather-like materials
That opens up an enormous range of possible products.
Instead of printing an image onto paper and attaching it to something, you can potentially print the design straight onto the object itself.
For a small craft business, that is where things start getting interesting.
What can you make with a UV printer?
Potential UV-printed products include signs, coasters, keyrings, jewellery, magnets, plaques, ornaments, boxes, fridge magnets, personalised notebooks, promotional items and personalised gifts. And those are only the obvious ones.
One reason I bought a UV printer was because I already work with laser cutters. I can cut an object from wood or acrylic and then use the UV printer to add full-colour artwork. That suddenly gives me combinations that weren’t practical with laser engraving alone. A laser is excellent at cutting shapes and permanently engraving surfaces, but it doesn’t generally give me photographic, full-colour artwork. A UV printer does. Combining the two technologies gives me a much bigger design toolbox.
Can UV printers print white ink?
Many UV printers can print white ink as well as colour. That matters because printing colour directly onto a dark or transparent object is very different from printing onto white paper. For example, if I printed a pale image directly onto black acrylic without putting white underneath it, the dark material would affect the colours dramatically.
UV printers can potentially print a layer of white first and then print the coloured artwork over it.
Can all UV printers create raised or textured prints?
No. Only some UV printers can build ink up in multiple layers. But the good news is that the newer, deliberately ‘entry-level’ machines are the ones that tend to be able to do this. So instead of producing only a flat coloured image, they can create raised areas. For example, they can imitate textures such as embossed lettering, brush strokes, scales, leather, stone, wood grain or decorative relief. This means that if you’re an artist then they can literally add another dimension to your work.
So is a UV printer similar to a 3D printer?
Nope. A 3D printer builds a three-dimensional object from material such as plastic filament or resin. But a UV printer normally prints onto an object that already exists. Some UV printers can create surprisingly thick layers of ink (e.g. up to 5 mm), but they are still printing with blobs and lines of ink rather than by manufacturing the object itself.
What is UV DTF printing?
UV DTF is another method you may come across when researching UV printing.
Instead of printing directly onto the final object, a design is printed onto a special film (DTF = Direct To Film) and then transferred onto another surface. This can make it possible to decorate objects that would be too big or too awkward to place directly inside a flatbed UV printer. The eufyMake E1 and the xTool O1 Omni can both manage UV DTF printing, but you will need their DTF accessories to achieve this.
Can a UV printer print around mugs and bottles?
Some UV printers can use a rotary attachment to print onto cylindrical objects such as bottles, glasses, tumblers or mugs. Exactly what is possible depends on the machine and the attachment being used, plus the shape and size of the cylindrical or conical object.
Are UV prints waterproof?
UV-cured ink can be very durable, but “waterproof” is a much bigger claim than it might initially sound.
Durability depends on the ink, the material, surface preparation, how the finished object is used, and whether it is exposed to scratching, washing, sunlight or weather.
Does UV ink stick to everything?
No. Being physically capable of putting an object into a UV printer does not automatically mean that the ink will adhere perfectly to it. Different materials can behave very differently. Some materials may need cleaning, preparation, primer or other treatment first. And the UV printer manufacturers commonly warn against putting UV-printed items in the dishwasher. Dishwashers are designed to get things off the surfaces of other things, so that makes sense! Even with hand-washing you may need to be careful. For anything intended to be washed regularly, check the printer manufacturer’s guidance and test the finished product properly before selling it.
Are UV printers easy to use?
I would definitely not describe mine as a magic box where you press PRINT and perfect products fall out. There is software to learn, artwork to prepare, print settings to understand, materials to test and maintenance to carry out. White ink in particular needs looking after because the pigment can settle. After only two prints I’d already discovered a print problem that involved finding out about manual, flash, and standard cleaning cycles before I could get back to making things. Not to mention the test prints and troubleshooting I’ve been doing. And I’ve only had it a week!
But that’s also why I’m writing about it.
There is a big difference between reading a manufacturer’s list of specifications and actually trying to use a machine in a small working craft business.
Are UV printers suitable for small businesses?
Potentially, yes. Until fairly recently, UV printing was something I mostly associated with much larger commercial printing equipment. But these smaller desktop machines now make it much more realistic for independent makers and small businesses to experiment with the technology. And there are now growing communities of other UV printer owners on Facebook.
These machines are fantastic… in theory. That doesn’t mean every craft business should immediately buy one. They’re expensive machines, with expensive consumables (ink, print heads), and need a lot of maintenance. Plus the learning curve.
The more useful question is probably:
What could a UV printer allow your business to make that you cannot easily make now?
For LaserSister, that answer includes full-colour products, more detailed personalised items, textured printing and combinations of UV printing with laser cutting and 3D printing.
Should you buy a UV printer?
My gut reaction is to recommend holding off for a while, at least until you’ve read through the Facebook forums and compared some of the horror stories with the frankly magical-looking successes. I’ve only recently bought mine, and part of the purpose of this page — and the blog posts linked from it — is to work out whether it will earn its place in my own small craft business.
I’ll be documenting successful projects as I go along, but I’ll also be documenting failed ones.
If you’re considering buying a UV printer yourself, my suggestion would be to start by thinking about products rather than machines.
What do you actually want to make?
Who will buy it?
How often will you use the printer?
Could somebody else manufacture those products for you instead?
Only then does it make sense to start comparing machines.
What am I using my UV printer for?
My own experiments so far include jewellery and charms, Christmas decorations, artwork on wood and acrylic, personalised products and designs intended to combine with my existing laser-cut products.
I’m also particularly interested in how UV printing could be used to create merchandise for authors, artists and other people who own intellectual property that can be turned into physical products.
I’ll gradually add photographs, test results and links to individual projects here as I make them.
Follow my UV printing experiments
My blog is deliberately a work in progress, showing what it’s like to run a laser cutting (and now UV-printing) business. As I learn more, I’ll be adding:
- photographs of different materials
- successful and unsuccessful print tests
- examples of finished products
- information about maintenance and troubleshooting
- experiments with raised textures
- tests combining UV printing with laser cutting
- tests combining UV printing with 3D printing
- and lots of things I haven’t even thought of yet
Rather than approaching this as someone claiming to know everything, I’m approaching it as someone who has run a laser-cutting business for years, has just added another manufacturing process, and wants to find out what it can actually do.