UV printer is known as its universality, its potential to print colorful picture on nearly any kinds of surface like plastic, wood, glass, metal, leather, paper package, acrylic, and so on. Despite its stunning capability, there are still some materials that UV printer can’t print, or not capable of achieving desirable print result, like silicone.

Silicone is soft and flexible. Its super slippery surface makes it difficult for ink to stay. So normally we don’t print such product because it’s hard and it’s not worthwhile.

But nowadays the silicone products are getting more and more diverse, the need to print something on it becomes not possible to ignore.

So how do we print good pictures on it?

First of all, we need to use soft/flexible ink that’s especially made for printing leather. Soft ink is good for stretching, and it can withstand -10℃ temperature.

Compare to eco-solvent ink, the advantages of using UV ink on silicone products is that the products we can print are not restricted by its base color because we can always print a layer of white to cover it.

Before printing, we also need to use coating/primer. First we need to use degreaser to clean the oil from the silicone, then we wipe the primer on silicone, and bake it in high temperature to see if it’s properly combined with the silicone, if not, we use the degreaser again and the primer.

Finally, we use the UV printer to print directly. After this, you will get a clear and durable picture on the silicone product.

Feel free to contact our sales to get a more comprehensive solutions.