[sdiy] UV Printer (Face Panels)

Fri Jun 20 18:03:55 CEST 2025

On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 2:28 PM Paul Perry via Synth-diy
<synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> If you look at AliBaba etc, there are plenty of A4 models for around $1,000 or less. And youtube comparisons.
>
> Pretty sure Tayda would do panels, they certainly do UV printing on pedal enclosures..
> But there are plenty of others such as https://amplifyfun.com
>
> paul perry Melbourne Australia

Front Panel Express has UV printing too

https://www.modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=170035

My main problem is that all those UV printing places either have no
print examples at all, or have print examples that just don't look
great at all compared to the video examples of Eufy. They all look
dull, meanwhile Eufy stuff looks really vivid in all the promotional
materials. So either everyone takes very bad photos, or Eufy has
people take videos in super high CRI settings only, and then boost
color vibrance digitally, or Eufy ink is really that much better.

With Eufy, I can easily see putting photos of people on their prints
and making them look natural. With all the existing front panel
services, I can't see that happening at all. It's like comparing
printing a photo on copy paper on a hp deskjet 720 vs a dedicated
photo printer with photo ink and glossy photo paper. The difference in
print quality seems huge.

With that said Eufy lock down the ink and apparently also the software.

I asked them for APIs for their UV printer and they said there are
none and they'll consider it in the future. I don't think they really
understood why that's something important. At first they thought I was
applying for a job with their dev team which I had to explain that I
wasn't.

An interesting thing about Eufy is that they can do thick prints, up
to what... 5 mm? Something like that. Which makes whatever thing that
you're operating on obviously even more stunning especially up close.

But it has a texture, so it'll amass dirt and grime unless you first
put a thiiiiiick cover of varnish or resin on it first. Which, you
better have a vacuum pump and a dust free chamber to do this in. One
of those fixed-glove compartments, like for sand blasting, but with a
hepa filter in it instead. So things aren't as quick and easy as you'd
think.

One other nice thing is that it can print stickers, which means it can
go around bends. So if you have an enclosure that isn't flat, it can
do that. Which means you can have indents, or you can do stomp box
artwork that'll go off the front panel and onto side panels as a
continuous part. So that's one thing that's great.

The locked down ink is a really bad thing about Eufy. I'm sure people
will jailbreak it in no time, but on the other hand I can't imagine
third party ink being as vivid as Eufy, especially at first. The
problem is that a print head replacement from Eufy is $500 or
something. To the point that they even sell an insurance policy for
it, lmao. So that's a massive expense. It's not like with 3d printing
where if you gum up a hot end you just clean it out manually or, worst
case, buy a new one for $20. This is a major expense if you fuck up.
So, to make things viable for an open market where people will be
fucking up the print heads, you need the price of a print head to go
way below $100 for people to want to be "experimental" with what inks
they use. Only at that point will UV printing really lift off to
amazing levels the same way we see thousands of different 3d printing
filaments, for all sorts of uses. You could even begin to imagine this
sort of thing becoming an interesting avenue with conductive or
semiconductive resins, which could perhaps lead to at-home
semiconductors. Or photoresist, which could, again, be used for making
semiconductors.

Anyways I am curious about the Aliexpress UV printers... I haven't
looked at any yet. If anyone has print examples from any of those that
look impressive (photorealistic or very vivid colors), I'd be
interested in seeing them.

So to bring one printer up that I found with photos of prints, the
ones on here don't look so great. The colors look washed out.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008591572842.html

it's the "A3 A4 UV DTF multifunctional flat cylindrical printer and AB
film laminating machine kit UV DTF transfer stickers CMYKWW"

On a side note, apparently people are selling funky art blank panels
now too, not UV printed by the seller, but instead ordered from a PCB
house, which, I assume, has UV printed the silk screen:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1051950583/12hp-eurorack-blank-panel-with-artwork

$20 gets you a panel. kind of steep but whatever, they look fun. The
photos have vivid colors, but again the question of digital vibrance
comes up. The designs are cute.

> On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 7:06 PM Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
>>
>> It's certainly better priced than the $20k or so that a serious professional one from Roland would cost you. Seems like there's a niche for more budget-friendly UV printing.
>>
>> On 17 Jun 2025, at 08:58, Ben Stuyts via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>>
>> Cool device!
>>
>> Problem is, I just watched (a totally unrelated) video of Techmoan about a 4k DLP projector from Eufy/Anker. The comments for that video say that Eufy/Anker quality is a bit hit or miss, and their customer support is not that great. I have no personal experience with them, so I don’t know if this is applicable to this particular device.
>>
>> Ben
>>
>> On 17 Jun 2025, at 00:30, Tim Parkhurst via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>>
>> Okay, this thing could be a mind blower for making face panels. I think it's going to run $2500 which seems super pricey for personal use, but the results are astounding. And actually, how many of us have spent that much on one synth?
>> Oh, and it can print with white ink. Cool.
>>
>> https://youtu.be/IwtKvhBTAi8?si=TD4JcmjIlKMy1g9L
>>
>> Tim (IV, UV, we all V for UV) Servo
>> ---
>> "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
>>
>>
>>
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