How do the costs associated with UV curing compare to conventional inks?
Although UV inks are about twice the cost of solvent- or water-based inks, they provide more useable coverage, as they are 100% solids—that is, they require less ink to attain the same color density as a thermal-cured ink because a portion of the thermal-cured ink evaporates. Additionally, UV inks do not dry in the ink train and therefore do not require daily wash ups, and most printers are able to run at faster speeds using UV inks. The net result is that when the labor to perform wash-ups, startup time and production are factored in along with the ink usage, UV inks are actually less costly to a printing operation than solvent- or water-based inks.
