UV Printer Test Kit: Free Files and How to Read Them

Something comes off the printer and it's just not right. The color's a little flat, the white looks thin, there's a faint line running through the middle of the job. So now you're standing there guessing. Is it the file? The media? The machine? A nozzle that quit on you three prints ago?

That guessing is expensive. You burn blanks, you burn ink, and you burn an hour you didn't have.

So I built a test kit to take the guessing out of it. Seven tests, all 85mm x 85mm, free to download and use. Each one isolates a different part of your printer so you can point at the actual problem instead of chasing it.

They're 85mm square on purpose. Two reasons. First, that's small enough to land on the scrap you already have piled up next to the machine - an offcut of acrylic, a coaster blank that came out wrong, a leftover piece of PVC. You shouldn't have to sacrifice a good blank just to find out what your printer is doing!

Second, and this one matters if you're on a eufyMake E1: the mini bed only gives you about 88mm of print height. Anything taller than that will not print at 100 percent, and scaling it down defeats the whole exercise. At 85mm square the card clears the mini bed with room to spare, and it fits every other UV printer I've tested it on.

What's in the kit

Every test prints on the same 85mm x 85mm canvas at 600 dpi, with corner marks and a place to write the machine, media and date on the print itself.

1. Test 1 - Nozzle Check. Per-channel line arrays and light tint flats. Print this one first, every time.
2. Test 2 - Overall. The one-card health check. Solids, tint ramps, white, gloss, fine detail, registration and a scale bar.
3. Test 3 - Color and Tone. Full ramps down to 2%, gradient sweeps, overprints, rich black and gray balance.
4. Test 4 - Detail. Line widths from 0.08mm up, type from 3pt up, knockout type, checkers and dots.
5. Test 5 - White Ink. Opacity over four substrates, underbase gain, white lines and white type.
6. Test 6 - Gloss. Gloss level over four substrates, gloss-to-color alignment, gloss detail.
7. Test 7 - Registration. Five targets across the sheet plus X and Y scale bars.

The download also includes How to Use These Tests, a printable PDF of everything on this page, so you can keep it by the machine without a browser open.

They're listed in the order you should print them. Nozzle Check, Overall, Gloss and Registration come with White and Gloss files as well. White Ink adds a White file. Color and Tone and Detail are Color only.

The daily check

Checking your nozzle and color output before you start a printing day saves a lot of trouble. It's two tests and about ten minutes, and everything you print afterward is something you can trust. The full detail on every test is further down; this is the short version you'll actually run every morning.

Nozzle Check Test

Step 1 - Print the Nozzle Check Test. Files: Nozzle Check - 1 - Color, Nozzle Check - 2 - White and Nozzle Check - 3 - Gloss. Open all three as layers in a single print project, set each layer's output to match its name (Color to CMYK, White to White, Gloss to Gloss), then run each layer as a separate print job. Start with Color, then White, then Gloss.

Step 2 - Look for issues. Inspect the result of all three layers. Gaps or streaks mean missing nozzles. Run a cleaning cycle and print it again. No gaps means the machine is ready and your nozzles are good.

Overall Test

Step 1 - Print the Overall Test. Files: Overall - 1 - Color, Overall - 2 - White and Overall - 3 - Gloss. Same routine: three layers in one project, outputs matched to the file names, each layer run as its own print job in that order.

Step 2 - Look for issues. This one card checks color, white, gloss, fine detail and size all at once. If something looks wrong, the deep-dive test named after it tells you why.

What the file names mean

Each file is named after its test, then the order you load it, then the channel it goes into:

White Ink - 2 - White.png

• White Ink is the test it belongs to. That name is printed on the card too.
• 2 is the order you load it. Color is always 1, White is 2, Gloss is 3.
• White is the channel it goes into.

Those small numbers are load order, not test order. Nozzle Check is still the first test you print, no matter what number is on its files.

Every test has a Color file. Only some have a White or a Gloss file, because the rest have nothing to put in those channels. Nothing is missing from your download.

One more thing: the White and Gloss files will look empty when you open them. That's correct. Their backgrounds are transparent, so only the marked areas print. If your software shows a checkerboard or an empty box, that's the transparency, not a broken file.

Which test do I actually need?

Start here and you'll save yourself some prints:

• Machine's been sitting a while? Nozzle Check, before anything else.
• Just want to know if everything's healthy? Overall.
• Colors look off or you're seeing banding? Color and Tone.
• Small text or fine lines coming out mushy? Detail.
• White looks gray, thin or blotchy? White Ink.
• Gloss isn't landing where you put it? Gloss.
• Print coming out the wrong size, or channels look shifted? Registration.

How to run them

1. Load the Color file

Drop the file marked Color into your printer software, set the size to 85mm x 85mm, and print at 100%. Do not let the software scale to fit. If it offers, say no. The whole point of the Registration card is measuring whether your machine holds size, and you can't measure that if the software already moved it on you.

2. Turn OFF auto white

Most UV printer software will happily generate a white underbase for you. For these cards you don't want that, because it floods the areas the card is trying to measure. Turn it off and load the White file into the white channel yourself.

3. Load White and Gloss by hand

The White and Gloss files are masks with transparent backgrounds, so only the marked areas print. Every file in the set uses the exact same 85mm canvas, so if you place all the layers at the same size and position, they line up on their own. No alignment step.

One thing to check: a few RIPs expect the opposite convention, where black means ink. If your first white print comes out as a solid block with square holes in it, that's what happened. Invert the file and run it again.

4. Write on it

There's a line at the bottom of every card for machine, media and date. Use it. Three months from now, a drawer full of unlabeled test cards tells you nothing. A labeled one tells you exactly what changed.

Reading the results

Test 1 - Nozzle Check

The line arrays should be solid and even all the way across, every channel. A clean vertical gap in a row is a dead nozzle in that channel. If you see one, stop testing color, because everything downstream of that will lie to you.

The light tint flats at 8%, 5% and 3% are where streaking shows up first. A flat should look flat. If it looks like brushed metal, you've got partial dropout, and that's usually the moment to run a cleaning cycle and print it again.

Test 2 - Overall

The eight solids should look dense and even, with no mottling and no visible pass lines. M+Y should be a real red, C+Y a real green, C+M a real blue. If your CMY composite is browner or greener than the K patch next to it, your color balance is drifting.

On the ramps, you should be able to tell every step from the one beside it. If the 100, 80 and 60 patches all look the same, you're laying down too much ink and the darks are plugging up.

Test 3 - Color and Tone

The gradient sweeps are the honest ones. A sweep should get lighter smoothly with no bands, no stripes and no sudden steps. Bands running the same direction as the printhead travel usually means a nozzle problem. Bands running the other way usually means a feed or step problem.

On gray balance, the CMY row should look neutral next to the K row. If it's leaning warm or cool, that's your color management, not your machine.

Test 4 - Detail

Find the thinnest line that still prints as a continuous line, and the smallest type you can actually read. Those two numbers are your real limits, and they're worth writing on the wall. Once you know them, you stop sending customers artwork that was never going to print.

The knockout block matters too. If the white text on black is filling in and closing up, your ink is spreading more than the software thinks it is.

Test 5 - White Ink

The white over black column is the honest test of your white. At 100% it should hide the black underneath it. Thin, gray, patchy white almost always means the ink needs circulating, especially if the machine has been sitting.

The underbase section prints the same four colors twice, once over white and once straight onto the media. That comparison is the whole reason white ink exists on these machines. On anything dark or transparent, the difference is dramatic.

Test 6 - Gloss

Tilt it under a light. Gloss is invisible straight on. The alignment row is the useful part: the first square has gloss sized flush to the color, the second is inset 1mm, the third overhangs by 1mm. If the flush one shows a dry sliver along one edge, your gloss layer is offset from your color layer, and now you know which direction and roughly how far.

Test 7 - Registration

The nested squares should sit evenly inside each other, with the same gap all the way around. Uneven gaps mean the channels aren't landing on top of each other, and comparing the five targets tells you whether it's the whole bed or just one area.

Then get your calipers on the scale bars. The X bar is 70.00mm and the Y bar is 52.00mm. If your print measures 70.2mm, you're running about 0.3% long on that axis, and that number is worth knowing before you cut a jig to match a print.

Troubleshooting

What you're seeing	Usual cause	What to do
Clean gaps in the line array	Dead nozzles	Run a cleaning cycle, reprint Nozzle Check, repeat. If a gap survives three cycles, it's a service issue, not a settings issue.
Streaks in the light flats only	Partial dropout or ink starvation	Cleaning cycle, then check ink levels and that the cartridge is seated.
Bands across the sweeps	Feed or head-height issue	Check that the media is flat and the head height is set for the actual thickness. Warped or taped-down media is a common cause.
Dark tints all look the same	Too much ink for the media	Drop the ink density or pick the profile that matches your material, then reprint Color and Tone.
Thin or gray white	Settled white ink, or too few white passes	Circulate the white, reprint White Ink. If it's still thin, add a white pass.
White prints as a block with holes	Inverted mask convention	Invert the White file and print again.
Gloss offset from the color	Layer alignment	Confirm all layers are placed at the same size and origin. If they are and it's still off, note the direction from the Gloss card and check your machine's layer offset setting.
Card measures the wrong size	Software scaled it, or the machine has a scale error	Reprint with scale-to-fit off. If it's still off, the error is in the machine and you can compensate for it in your files.
Fuzzy edges on small type	Head height, or ink spread on that material	Lower the head to the minimum safe gap and reprint Detail on the same material.

A few questions I get

Will the test kit work on my printer?

If it prints CMYK, yes. The color tests work on any UV printer, any brand. The white and gloss cards need a machine with those channels and software that lets you load a file into them by hand. I've run this set on the xTool O1 Omni Printer and the eufyMake E1.

Why 85mm x 85mm and not a full sheet?

Two reasons. It fits on scrap, so you'll actually run it instead of feeding good material into a test every time. And it clears the eufyMake E1 mini bed, which tops out around 88mm of print height. A bigger card would force E1 owners to scale it down, and a scaled test card measures nothing.

How often should I run one?

Nozzle Check any time the machine has been sitting more than a week, and Overall before any job you can't afford to redo. It's a couple of minutes and a scrap of material against a batch of ruined blanks.

Do I need to print all seven tests?

No. Overall covers the ground. Print a deep dive only when Overall shows you something worth chasing.

Can I share the kit or use it in my own shop?

Please do. Print them, hand them to your team, use them on client work. Just leave the Samcraft mark on the card so the next person who sees it knows where to get their own.

My machine has been idle for weeks. What should I do first?

Print Nozzle Check cold, before you clean anything. That first print tells you what the idle time actually cost you. Then run a cleaning cycle and print it again. The two side by side is the real answer, and cleaning first throws that information away.

Where to go next

If you want to go further on size accuracy, my free print scale calibration tool picks up where Registration leaves off.

Grab the kit

That is everything. Print the Nozzle Check on a scrap, print the Overall, and you will know more about your machine in ten minutes than a week of guessing will tell you.

Disclosure: xTool provided the O1 Omni and eufyMake provided the E1 in exchange for YouTube content. Neither company has any say in what I publish, and neither one saw this before you did. Samcraft sells its own independently designed accessories for both machines.