Pad Printing vs UV Printing. What's the difference?
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- čas přidán 3. 01. 2023
- So in the world of Custom LEGO, most places will use with UV, or Pad printing. But what's the difference? Is one better than the other? Let's find out.
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The quality on the UV-print is just plain bad with todays technology. The UV-print is just a print. Blurry and with clearly visible raster dots and distortion on the curved surface. Pad printing is crisp clear and uniform in colour. :)
There’s obviously a difference but what I find interesting is how often people ask “is it UV or PAD?” To that point I think, for the majority of consumers not be able to tell at a glance, having one or the other isn’t really necessary. While with pad you can certainly make the claim to higher quality, UV is more than serviceable at this point if you have one of the better printers.
This video was greatly disappointing to me. It started off well, and I appreciated you trying to be objective and give the facts early on, later on tho that all seemed to fall apart. You said that the only difference between pad and UV is price, that’s just not true, and just because your unable to tell the difference dosent mean there isn’t one. One of the people I talk to a lot dosent like UV because of the way that light glares off of it as opposed to UV. To say that it’s dumb to dislike UV without understanding why some people do is in my opinion just dumb. I cannot fully express just how disappointed I am in this video.
I'm in the same boat with you saying that a figure being pad or UV doesn't matter as long as the figure is good, although I do prefer UV in most cases, as it's more friendly towards my budget.
The Hera figure in the thumbnail makes me wish the LEGO one had normal eyes rather than just being blue.
I'm not so much interested in the "quality" of the figures as much as I'm interested in how close they are to official Lego designs. That's why I'm not a huge fans of CAC, their designs are really cool but they're very noticeably different from how an official Lego design of that figure would probably look
I really prefer pad printing because of the texture, the UV printing just annoys me cause it just looks a bit more different than official lego. But outside of CAC, not sure of anyone who does a lot of pad printed figures that are affordable. (Anyone happen to have any suggestions for that?)
Thank you so much for making this video and answering my question
UV is obviously a lot more viable, but I can see the difference. UV is thicker and has a bumpy texture when compared to pad. and honestly that wouldn't be a problem, if it weren't for the fact that LEGO pad prints. I don't like when custom figures are noticably not lego, but that's just me.
In my opinion, I like UV printing because it’s not that hard and it gives it like a texture and that’s my opinion
Another downside of UV-printing and also a difference between the 2 (except the price) is that you can feel the print with UV printing. PAD printing keeps the surface smooth
One thing on the number of colors with UV prints -- my guess is that for a low color count most printers would choose to use what are known as spot colors (i.e. pre-mixed colors, like Orange) but as individual colors in the design increase (or there's a lot of blending and shading) the printer will probably be looking to print the art with a 4-color (aka CMYK) separation, possibly with followup spot colors on top (industrial toy pad printers are like 12-color) -- in videos I've seen of the process it looks like a top outline print is common.
Im glad you made this video. When i first got into custom printed minifigs, i always wondered why some had this weird rough texture. I mean its not great, but not horrible either. Now i know what it is, and why original lego isnt like that (nice smooth and sharp).
So I recently got a Uv printed fig and they are a lil lacking on the quality side when it comes to the printing. I like to bring my figs with me to work, or just when I drive somewhere and after the first day with the UV printed one I could see someone if the fading print fading off. Vs actual lego pad printing that I’ve taken many times and haven’t gotten those types of fading on figs.
Do u know a website to buy „cheaper“ uv printers for own use?
Great video! Thank you for clearing it up. Personally I prefer pad printing as I don’t like to feel the texture of the print. I also only buy custom figs from CAC but I will decal figs using thiccybricky decals. Keep up the great work
To add to the final point part of that cost/lack of cost is Pad printing has a ton more room for error so you have to throw out/redo more parts then UV... Or just do what Lego has done recently and just don't care just ship it out anyway errors or not at the same price.
What kind of ink is used for pad printing on Lego?
Hello On the Brick,
Hey man, i am planning to do UV prints so i am wondering where and what uv printer would you recommend i should use for around 400-1200 bucks?