After More Than 100 Unique Tests, I'm Ready to Recommend This UV Printer

CNET

5 days ago

James Bricknell/CNET
As the resident printing expert here at CNET, I get a lot of interesting tech that comes through my testing lab. Most of the products fall into one of two creative camps: additive or subtractive. Additive products can be 3D printers like the Bambu Lab H2D that use plastic material or resin to build up a 3D model that becomes a fully 3D object in the world, or 2D printers that use ink to print on a flat medium. My best list contains paper printers, sublimation printers and apparel printers, all of which create different end results. Subtractive products like laser engravers remove material by cutting or burning to create either 3D or 2D images.
UV printers are a hybrid of 3D and 2D printers. They use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) inks and a white resin-style ink that is cured with a UV light to build up a shallow 3D image on a hard surface. Most of them are industrial and cost several thousand, if not tens of thousands, of dollars. EufyMake, formerly AnkerMake, has launched a Kickstarter for the E1, which it is calling the "world's first personal 3D-texture UV printer." I've spent several months testing it and printed over 100 different prints, and I think I'm ready to say, this is a product that's worth buying.
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While EufyMake assures me the unit it sent me is the production model, the E1 is currently on a Kickstarter campaign and at the time of writing, has made $33 million with over two weeks to go. The packaging certainly suggests this unit is a full retail product. It was packed securely in a proper printed box, at any rate. EufyMake provided some blank products for me to print on, but I've also used a dozen or so unofficial materials to further my testing, including brass coins, Lego bricks, craft knives and even my own 3D printed models.
The printer is relatively small. It's around 15 x 23 x 10 inches, so not much bigger than a laser printer if it were stood up on its front. You'll need about 32 inches of clearance to use it with the biggest plate it has, though. Like the Cricut, the E1s print area moves in and out of the machine as the print head moves left and right across the surface, so you need some clearance at the front and back. The mini flatbed is small and can be used with both doors open, but the standard bed will need them open. The other bed option is a rotary machine designed for tumblers and mugs, and, like the other beds, simply clicks into place. The printer recognizes the type of plate and adjusts your software to match.
Both the large and small beds have replaceable mats that stick to them. Much like Cricut cutting mats, these are tacky, allowing you to hold down the product you're printing on securely. These are considered consumables, and while you do get several with your initial order, know that you will need to buy more of them as you continue to use the E1. Overspray is a big issue, so if you want to reduce the amount of mats you use, green or blue painter's tape will be your friend.
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Setup and installation were very quick and mostly done through the EufyMake app. This is the same app that you use for your AnkerMake/EufyMake 3D printers, which is nice. You can have all of your creative machines in one place. The app takes you through the initial setup, while the written instructions explain how to install the inks and cleaning solution. The ink installation is the simplest I have seen on these types of machines, with no manual bleeding or priming. All you need to do is make sure you put the correct cartridge in the correct slot. Simple. Each ink is 100ml, which is a good amount for the colors, though I would like to see a larger white cartridge available in the future, especially since it's the central ink used.
To build the 3D image on your surface, the E1 uses the white ink to print in layers. It can print up to 5mm thick, and if you're printing something large like a canvas, that can use a lot of white. In my testing, a metal Displate-size print with 1.5mm of 3D effect took nearly 40 ml of white ink, 40% of the entire bottle. If you were planning to start a business, you would need a large supply of white ink. Currently, they cost around $44 a bottle, so you need to think about what you're going to make if you intend to turn a profit.
The E1 UV printer can print on just about any hard surface.
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What is the E1 really for?
Profit is really the main thrust of the E1, and why I can recommend you get one in specific circumstances. If you're not looking to use this as part of your existing small business or looking to start a small business off the back of this, you shouldn't get one. It's really fun to use and you'll have a blast using it, but the cost of the materials and the consumables makes it an expensive proposition if you aren't making something in return. EufyMake knows this and has said that the E1 is specifically aimed at the prosumer market.
Over the course of printing over 100 products, I tried to take measurements based on what the software says it's using. I also measured the accuracy of the software by weighing the white ink in a full cartridge, which came out to 104ml, then printing a canvas art piece that my wife had drawn. The software said the E1 would use 6.89ml of white ink, and after it had finished, my new weigh-in showed it had used 6.6ml, a little less than it had told me. This wasn't a perfectly accurate test, but I'm much happier that the software estimated high, rather than low. Running out mid-print would definitely not be cool at $44 a bottle.
The graph I made should give you an idea of the real-world applications of using the E1 in your business and how you might be able to leverage it. It's not a perfect representation. A lot of the products came from EufyMake, with no idea how much they will cost to order in bulk. Instead, I focused on how much white ink they would take to make, and therefore how many you could make per 100ml of white ink. In this way, you can at least see how much the ink will cost you.
EufyMake E1 products per white ink Product type White use ml Gloss use ml Black use ml Cyan use ml Magenta use ml Yellow use ml Amount per white cartridge White ink cost per unit Jellyfoosh art canvas 6.89 5.23 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.01 15 $2.96 Portrait ceramic magnet 0.22 0 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 455 $0.09 Partial cover tumbler 0.45 0 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.03 222 $0.19 Full size metal plate with 1mm raised emboss 39.21 30.33 1.01 0.52 0.97 0.51 3 $16.86 Large wooden image 0 0 0.13 0.12 0.37 0.18 270 $0.16 5mm deep magnet 2.63 2.28 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 38 $1.13 Full cover iPhone case 0.17 0 0.06 0.07 0.07 0.07 588 $0.07 Balrog acrylic HQ W-CMYK 4.72 3.13 0.01 0.03 0.03 0.04 21 $2.03 Lego brick poster 0.21 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 476 $0.09 1mm thick hummingbird hat patch 0.13 0.09 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 769 $0.06 5mm flower on leather 0.79 0.68 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 127 $0.34 Itsboyinspace coaster 2mm depth 0.57 0.42 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 175 $0.25 Hung Jury magnet 3mm depth 0.8 0.69 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 125 $0.34 Challenge coin 1.5mm depth 0.38 0.29 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 263 $0.16 Carved challenge coin 0 depth 0.1 0.2 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.1 1,000 $0.04 Full color coaster 2.31 1.82 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.02 43 $0.99 Fidget spinner flat color cover 0.16 0 0.04 0.02 0.06 0.04 625 $0.07 3D model with overpaint x2 1.15 0 0.09 0.05 0.09 0.08 87 $0.49 Full coverage tumbler 3.37 0 0.06 0.13 0.2 0.05 30 $1.45
I was able to pull better data from products that I bought myself. Challenge coins are a big thing, and in my testing of the , I used them on the F1 Ultra laser, carving them using depth maps, so I had several left over. These cost $20 for 10, so I knew how much every part of the process would cost.
Using some fairly basic math, I was able to figure out that you could print 131 double-sided challenge coins with one bottle of white ink -- the color use is only about 0.05ml per color -- so if you sold them for the average price of $20, your profit would be around $652. Now, that's not including your time, but for a basic cost calculation, you can see how this would be a great addition to your product lineup.
Challenge coins are a big thing right now and a great way to make money
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It's not just challenge coins, either. Phone cases, magnets, coasters and more can be printed for a fairly low cost and sold for a decent return. The included software also offers the added bonus of easy customization, adding another avenue to increase profit. It would be easy to make a bunch of cool things to take to a farmer's market or a convention. You could even take the printer itself and make things on the fly, as it is fairly compact and easy to move around. In fact, EufyMake suggests you make at least one thing a day to keep the print heads moisturized and reduce the amount of print head cleaning and maintenance you'll need to do.
Maintenance reduces costs
Maintenance is another outlay you'll need to consider. The cleaning fluid, which is the same price as the ink, is designed to wash and maintain the print heads, but it can only do so many washes before you'll need to replace it. There are three different wash types, from a quick flash to a deep clean that can take 15 minutes. Deep cleans are for when one of your print heads seems not to be working, while the others can be used a little more regularly. It costs about the same as the ink to replace, around $44, or you can buy one of each ink, including white and gloss, and a cleaning fluid for around $300 a pack.
The print head is also a consumable, though one with a longer lifespan than the inks
James Bricknell/CNET
It's important to note that the print head itself is also a consumable. Like hotends on a 3D printer or needles on a sewing machine, the part of the machine doing the work is subject to wear and tear. EufyMake covers the print head with a three-month warranty, and you can buy new ones for $600 each, but you should expect yours to last much longer with the right care. Like all complicated equipment, proper maintenance is key.
Camera quality issues
You'll also need to properly calibrate the machine after any major movement or maintenance cycle. If you replace the print mat, you should recalibrate the camera and do a print calibration. In fact, each mat has a cover designed to do just that before you get started. The camera will require a lot of calibrating and is my least favorite physical thing about the E1. It's really not that great.
James Bricknell/CNET
Because the camera is static and uses a wide-angle lens to capture the plate, it is almost impossible to get the image aligned correctly the first time. No matter how many times I adjusted the pattern I wanted to print on this coin, it simply wouldn't sit dead center. There isn't even a grid on the mats or on the software, which would be an enormous help. You could align the grids and get a good idea of where things are. And, because you can't align things perfectly, you end up with a lot of overspray that ruins the printing mat.
Laser engravers have a simple solution to this issue that I wish EufyMake had thought of. They use a marking laser to highlight the outline of the thing you're trying to engrave. Once you have aligned it with the camera as best you can, you can use the marking laser to physically move the object into the correct position. The E1 also uses lasers, but they are for measuring distances for the Z-axis, so they wouldn't be able to be used for marking. I really hope they work on this issue moving forward as it, and the software are where the E1 fall down.
Software always lags behind
James Bricknell/CNET (Screenshot)
AI is everywhere. We all know the perils and the pitfalls, and I have spoken at length on how it could be used to help less artistic people give birth to their imagination. The EufyMake studio software uses a lot of AI features to help you create a lot of the projects, but doesn't have the more basic granular features that it really needs to excel. The lack of a measured grid, for example, is a huge oversight and a feature that should have come before the ability to make your selfies look like cats. It also lacks a lot of basic editing tools that would make the experience better. A lot of editing can be done off the app through Photoshop, for example, but if you've used software like Glowforge's or xTool's studio software, you may be disappointed in what EufyMake brings to the table.
Another example of this is the amount of white bleed when you choose the white-CMYK setting. This is designed to make the color more secure on the surface of the material, but you can see that on certain materials, it just looks bad. You should be able to adjust this on a per-design basis, but you can't. It's set in the software, and you can't change it, which could potentially cause problems with your prints. That's a running theme with the software. There are no settings at all that can be adjusted, not even a "preferences" section that's normally available in any software.
James Bricknell/CNET
That being said, the best part of the software is the AI used to make your images 3D. AI has a tendency to distort your image when it tries to change it, but EufyMake Studio does a good job at picking out the parts of the image that can be raised for it to make sense. I would like to have something a little more manual as well, though. I want to create a stained glass effect where the color is flat and the black lines are raised, but I can't select just the black lines. It's a feature that I hope to see added very soon. This kind of software is often made fast and scrappy, then refined over the years. This is still in the Kickstarter phase, but right now it's lacking.
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Most of the issues I have with the E1 are software or firmware-based. With some fine-tuning of the camera and some better editing choices in the EufyMake Studio, I think the E1 is a strong starting point for UV printing. I've had a lot of fun coming up with interesting and fun things to print, many of them unique and marketable. One of my favorite things is using the E1 to print movie posters or wallpaper onto Lego walls. The print can break apart with the bricks and would allow you to create customized wall art for people to add to their Lego collections. It really is the variety of potential designs and materials that makes the E1 worthy of your time.
If you're already making products for a shop and your order count is in the hundreds, then the E1 shouldn't be your only UV printer. Invest in something larger that can help you with bulk orders. But as a supplement to your other work, it's going to be a great choice. If you're already 3D printing fun products, making cool Cricut designs or laser engraving, and you want to diversify your product catalogue, then the E1 is a creative way to do that on a tighter budget than a full-scale upgrade to a large UV printer. The Kickstarter campaign is nearly over, but there is still time to get involved.