Use UV Printer to Make DIY Cup Printing
Nowadays, “DIY” can be heard everywhere, and almost everyone knows exactly what it stands for “do it yourself”. It's a pretty straightforward-sounding concept. But it might conjure up different images for different people because really, it can be about so many things. Personally, when I think about the projects, my mind goes to home improvement tasks. Things like painting, installing carpet, building furniture, putting up shelves, repairing things that need maintenance — that's where my brain goes. But, I'm also an avid crafter. To me, arts and crafts fall under the personal umbrella for sure, but I think of that as "crafting" — at least, that's the word that makes me think of the kind of projects I do. 
When mentioning DIY, the first object that pops into everyone’s mind probably will be cups. Because the process of making a cup is rather simple so that most people will choose it as the first choice to start. And it provides a lot of business opportunities for someone who would like to start a printing business. Cup printing refers to the process of achieving a direct-to-substrate print on a cylindrical item. This can be accomplished using a pad printing machine or a UV printer for cups.Industrial UV printers take digital images and print them directly onto a substrate. These machines utilize cyan, magenta, yellow, black, white, and varnish UV inks to reproduce stunning graphics on a variety of materials such as plastic, glass, stainless steel, ceramic and more. As its name states, the UV ink is cured after printing using a UV light. Now in the market, there are mainly three types of UV printers for sale: flatbed, conveyorized and cylindrical inkjet printers. Here we will mainly talk about the cylindrical inkjet printers.
Benefits of digital cylindrical printing
1. Digital cylindrical printing has a lot of benefits as follows：2. The printer can print high-resolution pictures on the cup. 3. The color is not only more vivid but it can also last for a long time. 4. It can be used on any cylindrical item even if it has an unusual or difficult image surface.5. Once an item has been printed, the job can easily be repeated at any time. No need to store plates or screens, simply save your artwork and print again at your convenience.These features and benefits ensure that when using the printer for DIY or mass production, we can produce high-quality pictures on the bottles or cups. 
What type of cup/bottle can a cylindrical inkjet printer print?
A cylindrical inkjet printer can not only be used to print perfectly cylindrical objects but it can also be used to print items that simply have cylindrical features. Some of the products that can be used in the cylindrical printing process include beer bottles, candle holders, measuring cups, makeup containers, tubes, and so on. In the following are some specific objects. You can check the following list to further check whether your objects suit the cylindrical printers.
| Cups |
Tumblers |
Thermoses |
| Bottles |
Makeup containers |
Machines parts |
| Carrier tubes |
Pens |
Tubes |
| Jars |
Measuring cups |
Cylindrical holder |
These materials are just for the suggestion the printer can print more than those and fits more types of cylindrical objects. 
How does a cylindrical printer work?
Once we have chosen a proper material for cup printing, we may be curious how a cylindrical printer work? We had got one of the cup printing from one Chinese inkjet printer manufacturer TUHUI. From the video, we can see that cup printing only need a few steps. Cylindrical printing works by affixing the item into a designed parts fixture. These fixtures can be designed to hold one or multiple products. The product is then placed into the fixture and moved into the UV printer. The printer will apply the ink to the pad that is in the pattern of the desired design. These designs will be broken upon each inking plate based on the color being applied. Once the ink has been picked up onto the pad, the pad will move over and then press onto the item. If the item is getting multiple colors, it will move to the next station where the next pad will pick up the design for the second color and place it on the item. This process will continue until all colors are applied.
Summary
The printers still have disadvantages that can cause some problems, such as flying ink and cross color. These problems are usually caused by improper operation and print head. So all in all, the cylindrical printer is good for a businessman to start now field. But for DIY printing, such a printer is too expensive, it can only suit the business. As the future trend of DIY cup printing goes viral, it has a lot of potentials to help entrepreneurs to earn money.
