What is the difference between UV printers and eco-solvent printers?

It was called "Flatbed Printer" when the first flatbed printer appeared in China around 2003. Because this new inkjet printer can only print on the surface of flat products.
Regarding UV printers, it is developed from weak solvent printers. People add UV systems (cooling systems and LED UV lamps) to ordinary multi-function flatbed printers, and then add UV ink to become UV flatbed printers.
Therefore, in general, UV flatbed printers have just joined the UV system to become UV printers (the first UV printer in China in 2011)
UV printers can also add different inks, but only UV inks can dry at the same time, because this special UV ink reacts chemically with LED UV light, that's why UV printers can dry instantly (not because of high temperature).
So you can add different inks in UV printers, but they won't dry right away. For example, when you add eco-solvent ink/textile ink/edible ink to a UV printer, the UV printer will work like a normal flatbed printer, except they can't dry immediately because LED lights are useless for them.
So, what is the difference between UV printers and ordinary eco-solvent printers?

1. The UV printer adds a UV system on the basis of the ordinary weak solvent printer;
2. Different inks:
Ink color (white ink):
1) There are only 5 colors of UV ink: C, M, Y, K, W (of course you can add double white, because the printer accepts 6/8 colors);
Eco-solvent ink has 6 colors (6-color printer) or 8 colors (8-color printer), you will know that eco-solvent ink does not have white, so eco-solvent printers cannot print black items;
2) Printing process:
Since UV ink is a special kind of ink, it can be directly printed on most materials except metal, wood, glass.
But eco-solvent ink should be sprayed on your product with a coat (coating is a colorless liquid that helps the eco-solvent ink to be absorbed by your product surface) before printing (will show you the video), wherever you print What material is printed with ink after drying at high temperature, and finally dried at high temperature. So compared with UV printers, eco-solvent printers are a bit troublesome when printing.
3) Immediately dry
We said before that UV printers can chemically react with LED UV lamps so it dries instantly. But eco-solvent printers need to dry at a specific high temperature. Therefore, after printing, you need to heat the product or wait about two hours at normal temperature (28 degrees) to dry.
PS: After coating and printing ink, you need to heat/wait to dry
4) Embossing printing
Since UV printers can print white ink, and it dries instantly, you can print reliefs by UV printer. But eco-solvent printers can't do that.

5. printing color

Since the UV printer has only 5 colors, and the eco-solvent printer has 6 or 8 colors, the pictures printed with the eco-solvent printer will be more vivid and colorful.
6) Anti-scratch
Generally, both will stay for a long time. For example, the printed pictures on your phone case can be kept for about 3 years. You must know that neither UV printers nor weak solvent printers can print on rubber, and it is easy to scratch after printing.
Ink cost
7）Whether it is UV ink/eco-solvent ink/textile ink or edible ink, one liter of ink can print a full size of about 100 square meters. For example, if your phone case size is 5*8cm, one liter of ink can print about 25000 white cases.