MIMAKI SINGAPORE PTE. LTD.

Characteristics of Hard Ink and Flexible Ink

  • Please check the following contents.

1. About the “Hard Ink”
(1). Characteristics of the “Hard Ink”
Advantage:
・ The surface membrane of the ink is very durable, and it has a high resistance to scratching and chemical solvents.
Disadvantage:
・ Hard ink has very poor weather resistance. The cured ink separates from the print media surface easily, especially if it is exposed to rain.
・ The cured ink will crack if the finished print is folded or subjected to other stresses.
  
(2). Hard Ink Usage
・ Head ink performs well on solid, hard material such as “Resin media”, “Card media”, “Solid media”, and many types of “Molded plastic.”

2. About the “Flexible Ink”
(1). Characteristics of the “Flexible Ink”
Advantage:
・ The cured ink can be stretched about 200%, so it is good to print on material that will be deformed after printing. Bending, molding, membrane switches, and thermal forming are some examples of this work. The stretching property has a limit and it depends on the print media, so please perform tests on your print media before beginning production.
・ Flexible ink prints have higher weather resistance than the “Hard Ink”.
The weather resistance gets higher if you laminate or over coat the print result.
Disadvantage:
・ Flexible ink has a low resistance to scratching and chemical solvents..

(2). Flexible Ink Usage
・ Flexible ink works well on thin material such as “Membrane switch” and “Soft packaging film”.

Please refer to the following documents to see more details about the “Weather resistance” and “Unrecommended Usage”.
※1. 「Q: How about the weather resistance for UV ink?
※2. 「Q: Tell me about the Unrecommended print market


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