Glass, Metal & Industrial

On some of it, yes. Uncoated float glass, bare aluminium and most rigid plastics take the ink directly. Coated and low-e glass, anodised aluminium, glazed ceramic and polypropylene need primer — that is exactly what MI-920 PRIMER is for. The rule: test print every new batch of material, wait out the 24-hour post-cure, then run an ISO 2409 cross-cut test. Surface chemistry varies by batch number, not by material name; glass that keyed last month may not key this month.

There are two separate axes and they should not be confused. Outdoors, the reference we publish on the ink side is 24 months of unlaminated vertical exposure in a central European climate; annual UV dose on the southern Turkish coast runs above that reference. Indoors the life is far longer, but there chemical resistance is what decides: no ink makes a label permanent, unprotected, if it is wiped with isopropyl alcohol every shift. Where cutting fluid, cleaning chemicals or fuel are in contact, test the sample against that chemical — we do the same before quoting.

On decorative and partition glass the print usually goes on the second surface, the back face, so the graphic sits behind the glass and is protected from scuffing and cleaning chemicals. The print order is reversed with it — colour first, then opaque white. Toughening must be finished before printing; UV ink does not survive the 600 °C of a tempering furnace. If the specification calls for kiln-fired ceramic frit, UV printing is the wrong technology, and we would rather say so before taking the job.

Part size and height decide. Flat parts up to 100 mm high and 50 kg/m² sit on the MF-2513 R8 bed; sheets up to 3200 × 2000 mm need the MF-3220 K12. For small but thick parts the 180 mm print height of the MF-6090 U3 is easier to live with, and that machine runs single-phase. The MF-1216 R4 and everything above it wants 220 V three-phase at 45 A plus 6 bar compressed air, and the MK-1612 cutting table runs on 380 V three-phase. No flatbed can print a curved body — that job is solved as a UV DTF label on the MC-300 U1, which is single-phase again.

Not on its own. Three things make industrial work repeatable: a separate, locked ICC profile per material, regular verification with a spectrophotometer, and re-measurement whenever the ink batch changes. Without them a reprint six months later drifts visibly. We do not publish a single ΔE figure in the catalogue, because that number is not the same on glass, anodised aluminium and glazed ceramic; we set the target together, on your material.