UV Printing on Metal, Leather and 3D Prints with the xTool O1 Omni

For this one I put the O1 Omni on three very different materials: aluminum, a flexible leather patch and a 3D printed PLA part. Nothing was pre-treated. Everything went straight on top, and I used a different print mode for each one so you can see what Flat, Relief and Texture actually do.

Below is the full workflow for each, with the settings I picked. This was filmed on my early unit before launch, so your version of xTool Studio may look a little different, but the steps are the same.

Jump to: Loading the bed · Smart mask · Metal (Flat mode) · Leather (Relief mode) · 3D print (Texture mode) · Glass and heat

Loading the bed

1. Press the button on the front and the bed comes out to meet you.
2. Put your item down and push it flat so the grippy surface holds it.
3. Press the button again and the bed goes back in.

The sticky surface is replaceable. You can peel it off when it's worn, and you can scrape overspray off it with a paint scraper. Mine was getting a bit dirty by this point and it still held everything fine.

Scan and smart mask

In xTool Studio, click Scan. On the small bed mine took about 35 to 40 seconds. The camera focuses on the top surface of your item, so you get a clear picture to design on.

Next, click Smart mask. This finds your item and tells Studio where it's allowed to print. You get four extraction methods:

• Subject extraction picks the item out from the background. This is the one I used.
• Auto segmentation lets you pick out and combine specific parts of an object.
• Precise extraction and Magic wand are the other two.

Hover over each one in Studio and it explains what it does. There's also a Manual tab if you'd rather draw the area yourself.

Once it's extracted, the box in the bottom right lets you change the Offset and Smoothness. Smoothness tidies up the lines around the edge. Offset pulls the print area in or pushes it out. I went for -7 on the metal part, which left a neat border around the design.

If it misses a bit, switch to manual and use Remove or Retain to brush over that area. It doesn't have to be perfect, just enough for it to tell where to go.

Now import your image. Wherever you drag it, it only shows inside the smart mask, so anything off the edge of your item is cut away for you. I love how it does this every time.

Metal: Flat mode with matte varnish

My first item was the back of an aluminum coin jig. On the right you'll see three parameter modes: Flat, Texture and Relief. For this one:

1. Choose Flat.
2. Set the ink mode to White + Color + Varnish.
3. Pick a varnish type. The options are matte, gloss, foil stamping, fluorescent yellow and fluorescent red. I went with matte.
4. I kept it to one layer each of white, color and varnish.

Click Preview to see a 3D view of how the finish will look, then Process. Studio said 11 minutes 3 seconds, with 0.065 ml of color and 0.21 ml of white. Back then I hadn't set my ink prices, but you can click Cost settings and enter them to see what each print costs.

The colors are so vibrant, and the offset border sits pretty much spot on all the way round. The matte finish feels really nice and sturdy.

Leather: Relief mode with flexible white

Next was a leather patch. Press it down so it's as flat as you can get it on the bed. The design covered the whole patch, so I didn't need the smart mask this time.

Leather bends, so you want flexible ink. Click the arrow on the right and choose Adjust:

• White ink type: pick Flexible white. You'll only have rigid and flexible white on the Dual-Head UV edition. The Single UV and UV + DT Fabric editions don't have them.
• Precision: Fast, Standard or High quality.

Then I switched to Relief to give it some height:

1. Click Relief, then Generate. Studio turns your image into a 3D relief. What you get out depends on what you put in.
2. Set the number of layers. I tried 30.
3. I left smoothness on the default. It controls how gently one height blends into the next.
4. Choose your inks. The options are white and color, white and varnish, white only or varnish only. I went with white and color.
5. Preview it, then Process. This one was 18 minutes 17 seconds, with 0.049 ml of color and 0.484 ml of white.

While it prints, it builds the height up with layers of white and puts the color down where it's needed. You can see it growing.

Then the real test. I scrunched it right up, and the ink did exactly what it promises. It flexed with the leather and the design was fine.

3D print: Texture mode with gloss

My last item was a blue silk PLA part. It was a bit too big for the small bed, so I switched to the large one. Studio noticed straight away and popped up a bar to switch to the bigger workspace. Scanning the large bed takes longer, about a minute, and it's so detailed you can see the filament lines.

I used the smart mask again. It missed a couple of areas, so I went into manual, chose Retain, drew round them, smoothed it out and clicked Apply.

This time I tried Texture mode, which adds raised texture to the image:

1. Click Texture.
2. Choose White + Color + Varnish with gloss varnish.
3. I left the layers on the default of 20 and smoothness on the default of 1.
4. Set precision to Standard. I haven't noticed a lot of difference between Standard and High quality, and Standard is considerably faster.
5. White ink type: Rigid, because this part won't bend.
6. Process. This one was 26 minutes 39 seconds, with 0.21 ml of color and 2.12 ml of white. It uses more because it's building all those layers.

This was the best of the lot, which really surprised me. The gloss catches the light so you can see every raised area, and the fire looks excellent. It started as a plain 3D printed part, with no surface treatment at all.

What about glass? Watch the heat

I planned a glass coaster too. I gave it a wipe with IPA to get it as clean as possible, and the smart mask picked up the clear glass, which I wasn't sure it would. I set it to Flat with two layers of white and two of color, rigid white and Standard precision.

When I hit print, the machine warned me the print head temperature was too high. We were in a heatwave and it was 35°C (95°F) in my office. Print quality can suffer when the heads are above their optimum temperature, so I didn't risk it. If you're printing in a hot room, keep an eye out for that warning.

I did get to glass later. It's one of the items in my UV printer rescue video (or read the written guide).

Which one would you try first?

Let me know in the comments on the video what you'd like to see printed next. If you want to print lots of the same item lined up in exactly the same place, take a look at my O1 Omni jigs.