Running costs of a UV printer: ink, maintenance and print head
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The purchase price is only the beginning. A UV printer continuously uses ink, cleaning fluid and wear parts, and not only while printing. If you print rarely, you often pay more per print than someone who produces every day. Here you can see which items add up over a year.
The running costs
| Item | What it depends on |
|---|---|
| Ink for prints | area, coverage, white and varnish |
| Ink for cleaning cycles | number of cleaning cycles, idle time, number of colour channels |
| Cleaning and maintenance fluid | cleaning cycles, keeping the head moist |
| Wipers, capping, pads | use, manufacturer interval |
| Print head | head type, care, luck |
| Electricity | operating hours, standby |
| Waste | experience, material, product type |
Ink: not only for printing
Part of the ink never ends up on a product. It is used up during flushing and cleaning. eufyMake has published exact values for the E1:
| Procedure | Ink per colour channel | When |
|---|---|---|
| Short cleaning | 0.0002 ml | every 10 minutes when idle |
| Medium cleaning | 0.2 ml | as needed |
| Deep cleaning | 1.5 ml | automatically, if none has taken place for 72 hours |
| Flushing before printing | 0.2 ml | only if nothing has been printed for at least 12 hours |
For a deep cleaning, 1.83 ml of cleaning fluid per channel is added. If you print several jobs in a row, you therefore only pay for flushing before printing on the first one.
On top of that comes a white flush if less than 3 ml of white has been used in the last 36 hours. It costs up to 3 ml of ink, but is optional: the printer asks, and you can skip it. If you skip it often, take a look at the nozzle check, because white settles when there is little movement.
With six channels, a deep cleaning therefore costs 9 ml of ink and 11 ml of cleaning fluid. At €29.99 per 100 ml of ink and €29.99 per 380 ml of cleaning fluid, that is a good €3.50 per procedure.
Other machines work differently, but the principle remains: nozzles have to stay moist and clear, and that costs ink. When buying, ask how much a cleaning uses and how often it runs automatically.
Idle time costs ink
Many people think: if I am not printing, the machine costs nothing. With a UV printer that is not true. If a machine such as the E1 sits switched on, it still cleans itself. With 100 automatic deep cleanings a year, that would be about 900 ml of ink without a single print. The exact figure depends on how often the humidification runs instead.
Switching it off is not a solution either. Without movement, white settles and nozzles dry out. A clogged head costs more in the end than the cleaning ink. More on this in Maintaining a UV printer and Clogged nozzles.
Wear parts and print head
Wipers, capping and pads clean the nozzle plate and keep it moist. They wear out. For the E1, eufyMake offers a set of scrapers, pads and gloves for US$29.99 and recommends replacing them every few months, depending on use.
The print head is the most expensive wear part. Price examples from retailers:
| Head type | Example price, single |
|---|---|
| Epson XP600 (DX11) | about US$325 to US$625, on eBay from about €365 |
| Epson i3200 | about US$1,380 |
| Ricoh Gen5 | about US$2,650 |
| Ricoh Gen6 | about US$3,555 |
| eufyMake E1 (head module with circuit board, presumably an XP600 variant) | US$599 |
No manufacturer will tell you bindingly how long a head lasts. It depends on care, ink and use. Plan a reserve instead of relying on luck.
UV lamp: It ages too. For the UV lamps of its UV DTF machines, Procolored gives a service life of about six months with normal use.
Electricity
Desktop machines need little electricity. The OMTech Spectra A3+, for example, states 280 W in operation and 15 W at rest. Over a year, depending on use, that adds up to a few tens of euros up to just under €200. If the machine runs around the clock, standby makes up a noticeable part of it.
Worked example: hobby and small business
All values are assumptions. Electricity price in each case €0.35 per kWh.
Hobby: closed system as with the E1, six channels, ink €0.30 per ml, cleaning fluid €0.08 per ml. Machine switched on permanently, 50 print jobs a year with 3 ml of ink each, each after a longer break and thus with flushing before printing. 100 automatic deep cleanings. Optional white flushes skipped.
Small business: open system with bottles, ink €0.15 per ml including shipping. 250 print days with 15 ml of print consumption each, 4 ml of cleaning at the start of the day, 5 ml per week for white maintenance. XP600 class as the head. 6 hours of operation a day, standby otherwise.
| Item | Hobby | Small business |
|---|---|---|
| Ink for prints | 150 ml = €45 | 3,750 ml = €563 |
| Ink for flushing and cleaning | 960 ml = €288 | 1,250 ml = €188 |
| Cleaning fluid | 1,100 ml = €87 | €40 |
| Wipers, capping, pads | 2 sets = €60 | 4 sets = €100 |
| Print head | reserve €150 | one head a year = €400 |
| Electricity | 136 kWh = €48 | 529 kWh = €185 |
| Waste | €20 | €190 |
| Total per year | around €700 | around €1,670 |
What stands out: with the hobby machine, most of the ink goes on cleaning, not on prints. With the small business it is the other way round. The print head is a large item in both cases. Not included are humectant fluid, the optional white flushes and primer.
For business use
- Printing regularly lowers the cleaning cost per piece. A machine that runs every day is more economical than one that waits for weeks.
- Include running costs in the unit price. Divide the annual costs by your number of pieces. How to do this is covered in What does a UV print cost?
- Plan for a spare head. For a business it can make sense to keep a head in stock so that a failure does not mean weeks of downtime.
Continue with: Which UV printer suits me? and Maintaining a UV printer