INK PRINTER
Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto
paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer,[1] and range from small inexpensive
consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost tens of
thousands of dollars.[2]
The concept of inkjet printing
originated in the 19th century, and the technology was first extensively
developed in the early 1950s. Starting in the late 1970s inkjet printers that
could reproduce digital images generated by computers were developed, mainly by
Epson, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Canon. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers
account for the majority of inkjet printer sales: Canon, HP, Epson, and Lexmark, a 1991 spin-off from IBM.[3]
There are two main technologies in
use in contemporary inkjet printers: continuous (CIJ) and Drop-on-demand (DOD).
Continuous
inkjet
The continuous inkjet (CIJ) method
is used commercially for marking and coding of products and packages. In 1867 Lord Kelvin
patented the syphon recorder,
which recorded telegraph signals as a continuous trace on paper using an ink
jet nozzle deflected by a magnetic coil. The first commercial devices (medical
strip chart recorders)
were introduced in 1951 by Siemens.[4]
In CIJ technology, a high-pressure
pump directs liquid ink from a reservoir through a gunbody and a microscopic
nozzle, creating a continuous stream of ink droplets via the Plateau-Rayleigh
instability. A piezoelectric crystal creates an acoustic wave as it
vibrates within the gunbody and causes the stream of liquid to break into
droplets at regular intervals: 64,000 to 165,000 droplets per second may be
achieved. The ink droplets are subjected to an electrostatic field created by a
charging electrode as they form; the field varies according to the degree of
drop deflection desired. This results in a controlled, variable electrostatic
charge on each droplet. Charged droplets are separated by one or more uncharged
"guard droplets" to minimize electrostatic repulsion between
neighbouring droplets.
The charged droplets pass through an
electrostatic field and are directed (deflected) by electrostatic deflection
plates to print on the receptor material (substrate), or allowed to continue on
undeflected to a collection gutter for re-use. The more highly charged droplets
are deflected to a greater degree. Only a small fraction of the droplets is
used to print, the majority being recycled.
CIJ is one of the oldest ink jet
technologies in use and is fairly mature. The major advantages are the very
high velocity (~50 m/s) of the ink droplets, which allows for a relatively
long distance between print head and substrate, and the very high drop ejection
frequency, allowing for very high speed printing. Another advantage is freedom
from nozzle clogging as the jet is always in use, therefore allowing volatile
solvents such as ketones and alcohols to be employed, giving the
ink the ability to "bite" into the substrate and dry quickly.
The ink system requires active
solvent regulation to counter solvent evaporation during the time of flight
(time between nozzle ejection and gutter recycling), and from the venting
process whereby air that is drawn into the gutter along with the unused drops
is vented from the reservoir. Viscosity is monitored and a solvent (or solvent
blend) is added to counteract solvent loss.
Drop-on-demand
A Canon inkjet with CMYK
cartridges
Drop-on-demand (DOD) is divided into
thermal DOD and piezoelectric DOD.
Most consumer inkjet printers,
including those from Canon, Hewlett-Packard, and Lexmark, use the thermal inkjet process. The
thermal inkjet principle was discovered by Canon engineer Ichiro Endo in August
1977. In the thermal inkjet process, the print cartridges contain a series of
tiny chambers, each containing a heater, all of which are constructed by photolithography. To eject a droplet from each
chamber, a pulse of current is passed through the heating element causing a
rapid vaporization of the ink in the chamber to form a bubble, which causes a
large pressure increase, propelling a droplet of ink onto the paper (hence
Canon's trade name of Bubble Jet). The ink's surface tension, as well as the condensation and
thus contraction of the vapor bubble, pulls a further charge of ink into the
chamber through a narrow channel attached to an ink reservoir. The inks used
are usually water-based and use either pigments or dyes
as the colorant. The inks used must have a volatile component to form the vapor
bubble, otherwise droplet ejection cannot occur. As no special materials are
required, the print head is generally cheaper to produce than in other inkjet
technologies.
Most commercial and industrial
inkjet printers and some consumer printers (those produced by Epson and Brother Industries)
use a piezoelectric material
in an ink-filled chamber behind each nozzle instead of a heating element. When
a voltage is applied, the piezoelectric material changes shape, which generates
a pressure pulse in the fluid forcing a droplet of ink from the nozzle.
Piezoelectric (also called Piezo) inkjet allows a wider variety of inks than
thermal inkjet as there is no requirement for a volatile component, and no
issue with kogation (buildup of ink residue), but the print heads are more
expensive to manufacture due to the use of piezoelectric material (usually PZT,
lead zirconium
titanate). A DOD process uses software that directs the heads to
apply between zero to eight droplets of ink per dot, only where needed. Piezo
inkjet technology is often used on production lines to mark products. For
instance, the "use-before" date is often applied to products with
this technique; in this application the head is stationary and the product
moves past. Requirements of this application are high speed, a long service
life, a relatively large gap between the print head and the substrate, and low
operating cost.
Ink
formulations
The basic problem with inkjet inks
is the conflicting requirements for a coloring agent that will stay on the
surface vs. rapid dispersement of the carrier fluid.
Desktop inkjet printers, as used in
offices or at home, tend to use aqueous inks
based on a mixture of water, glycol and dyes
or pigments. These inks are inexpensive to
manufacture, but are difficult to control on the surface of media, often
requiring specially coated media. HP inks contain sulfonated polyazo black dye
(commonly used for dying leather), nitrates and other
compounds. Aqueous inks are mainly used in printers with thermal inkjet heads,
as these heads require water to perform.
While aqueous inks often provide the
broadest color gamut and most vivid color, most are not
waterproof without specialized coating or lamination after printing. Most Dye-based
inks, while usually the least expensive, are subject to rapid fading when exposed
to light. Pigment-based aqueous inks are typically more
costly but provide much better long-term durability and ultraviolet resistance. Inks marketed as "Archival Quality" are usually pigment-based.
Some professional wide format
printers use aqueous inks, but the majority in professional use today employ a
much wider range of inks, most of which require piezo inkjet heads and
extensive maintenance:
Solvent inks
the main ingredient of these inks are volatile organic
compounds (VOCs), organic chemical compounds that have high vapor pressures. Color is achieved with pigments
rather than dyes for excellent fade-resistance. The chief advantage of solvent
inks is that they are comparatively inexpensive and enable printing on
flexible, uncoated vinyl substrates, which are used to produce
vehicle graphics, billboards, banners and adhesive decals. Disadvantages
include the vapour produced by the solvent and the need to dispose of used
solvent. Unlike most aqueous inks, prints made using solvent-based inks are
generally waterproof and ultraviolet-resistant (for outdoor use)
without special over-coatings. The high print speed of many solvent printers
demands special drying equipment, usually a combination of heaters and blowers.
The substrate is usually heated immediately before and after the print heads
apply ink. Solvent inks are divided into two sub-categories: hard solvent
ink offers the greatest durability without specialized over-coatings but
requires specialized ventilation of the printing area to avoid exposure to
hazardous fumes, while Mild or "Eco" solvent inks, while still
not as safe as aqueous inks, are intended for use in enclosed spaces without
specialized ventilation of the printing area. Mild solvent inks have rapidly
gained popularity in recent years as their color quality and durability have
increased while ink cost has dropped significantly.
UV-curable inks
these inks consist mainly of acrylic monomers with an initiator package. After
printing, the ink is cured by exposure to strong UV-light. Ink is exposed to UV
radiation where a chemical reaction takes place where the photo-initiators
cause the ink components to cross-link into a solid. Typically a shuttered
mercury-vapor lamp is on either side of the print head, and produces a great
amount of heat to complete the curing process (this lamp is used for free
radical UV ink, which is what the majority of flatbed inkjet systems use). UV
inks do not evaporate, but rather cure or set as a result from this chemical
reaction. No material is evaporated or removed, which means about 100% of the
delivered volume is used to provide coloration. This reaction happens very
quickly, which leads to instant drying that results in a completely cured
graphic in a matter of seconds. This also allows for a very fast print process.
As a result of this instant chemical reaction no solvents penetrate the
substrate once it comes off the printer, which allows for high quality prints.[5][6] The advantage of UV-curable inks is
that they "dry" as soon as they are cured, they can be applied to a
wide range of uncoated substrates, and they produce a very robust image.
Disadvantages are that they are expensive, require expensive curing modules in
the printer, and the cured ink has a significant volume and so gives a slight
relief on the surface. Though improvements are being made in the technology,
UV-curable inks, because of their volume, are somewhat susceptible to cracking
if applied to a flexible substrate. As such, they are often used in large
"flatbed" printers, which print directly to rigid substrates such as
plastic, wood or aluminium where flexibility is not a concern.
Dye sublimation inks
these inks contain special sublimation dyes and are used to print directly
or indirectly on to fabrics which consist of a high percentage of polyester fibres. A heating step causes the dyes
to sublimate into the fibers and create an image with strong color and good
durability.
Head
design
Inkjet heads: disposable head (left)
and fixed head (right) with ink cartridge (middle)
There are two main design
philosophies in inkjet head design: fixed-head and disposable head.
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Fixed
head
The fixed-head philosophy
provides an inbuilt print head (often referred to as a gaiter- head)
that is designed to last for the life of the printer. The idea is that because
the head need not be replaced every time the ink runs out, consumable costs can
be made lower and the head itself can be more precise than a cheap disposable
one, typically requiring no calibration. On the other hand, if a fixed head is
damaged, obtaining a replacement head can become expensive, if removing and
replacing the head is even possible. If the printer's head cannot be removed,
the printer itself will then need to be replaced.
Fixed head designs are available in
consumer products, but are more likely to be found on industrial high-end
printers and large format plotters. In the consumer space, fixed-head printers
are manufactured primarily by Epson and Canon. Hewlett-Packard also offers a
few fixed-head models, such as the HP Photosmart 3310. Industrial fixed-head
print heads are manufactured by these companies: Kodak Versamark, Trident,
Xaar, Spectra (Dimatix), Hitachi / Ricoh, HP Scitex, Brother, Konica Minolta,
Seiko Epson, and ToshibaTec (a licensee of Xaar)[citation needed].
Disposable
head
The disposable head
philosophy uses a print head which is supplied as a part of a replaceable ink cartridge. Every time a cartridge is
exhausted, the entire cartridge and print head are replaced with a new one.
This adds to the cost of consumables and makes it
more difficult to manufacture a high-precision head at a reasonable cost, but
also means that a damaged or clogged print head is only a minor problem: the
user can simply buy a new cartridge. Hewlett-Packard has traditionally favoured the
disposable print head, as did Canon in its early models. This type of
construction can also be seen as an effort by printer manufacturers to stem
third party ink cartridge assembly replacements, as these would-be suppliers
don't have the ability to manufacture specialized print heads.
An intermediate method does exist: a
disposable ink tank connected to a disposable head, which is replaced
infrequently (perhaps every tenth ink tank or so). Most high-volume
Hewlett-Packard inkjet printers use this setup, with the disposable print heads
used on lower volume models. A similar approach is used by Kodak, where the
printhead intended for permanent use is nevertheless inexpensive and can be
replaced by the user. Canon now uses (in most models) replaceable print heads
which are designed to last the life of the printer, but can be replaced by the
user if they should become clogged.
Cleaning
mechanisms
The primary cause of inkjet printing
problems is due to ink drying on the printhead's nozzles, causing the pigments
and dyes to dry out and form a solid block of hardened mass that plugs the
microscopic ink passageways. Most printers attempt to prevent this drying from
occurring by covering the printhead nozzles with a rubber cap when the printer
is not in use. Abrupt power losses, or unplugging the printer before it has
capped the printhead, can cause the printhead to be left in an uncapped state.
Even when the head is capped, this seal is not perfect, and over a period of
several weeks the moisture (or other solvent) can still seep out, causing the
ink to dry and harden. Once ink begins to collect and harden, the drop volume
can be affected, drop trajectory can change, or the nozzle can completely fail
to jet ink.
To combat this drying, nearly all
inkjet printers include a mechanism to reapply moisture to the printhead.
Typically there is no separate supply of pure ink-free solvent available to do
this job, and so instead the ink itself is used to remoisten the printhead. The
printer attempts to fire all nozzles at once, and as the ink sprays out, some
of it wicks across the printhead to the dry channels and partially softens the
hardened ink. After spraying, a rubber wiper blade is swept across the
printhead to spread the moisture evenly across the printhead, and the jets are
again all fired to dislodge any ink clumps blocking the channels.
Some printers use a supplemental
air-suction pump, utilizing the rubber capping station to suck ink through a
severely clogged cartridge. The suction pump mechanism is frequently driven by
the page feed stepper motor: it is
connected to the end of the shaft. The pump only engages when the shaft turns
backwards, hence the rollers reversing while head cleaning. Due to the built-in
head design, the suction pump is also needed to prime the ink channels inside a
new printer, and to reprime the channels between ink tank changes.
Professional solvent- and UV-curable
ink wide-format inkjet printers generally include a "manual clean"
mode that allows the operator to manually clean the print heads and capping
mechanism and to replace the wiper blades and other parts used in the automated
cleaning processes. The volume of ink used in these printers often leads to
"overspray" and therefore buildup of dried ink in many places that
automated processes are not capable of cleaning.
The ink consumed in the cleaning
process needs to be collected to prevent ink from leaking in the printer. The
collection area is called the spittoon, and in Hewlett Packard printers this is
an open plastic tray underneath the cleaning/wiping station. In Epson printers,
there is typically a large absorption pad in a pan underneath the paper feed
platen. For printers several years old, it is common for the dried ink in the
spittoon to form a pile that can stack up and touch the printheads, jamming the
printer. Some larger professional printers using solvent inks may employ a
replaceable plastic receptacle to contain waste ink and solvent which must be
emptied or replaced when full.
Labyrinth air vent tubes on the top
of an Epson Stylus Photo 5-color ink tank. The long air channels are molded
into the top of the tank and the blue label seals the channels into long tubes.
The yellow label is removed prior to installation, and opens the tube ends to
the atmosphere so that ink can be sprayed onto the paper. Removing the blue
label would destroy the tubes and cause the moisture to quickly evaporate
There is a second type of ink drying
that most printers are unable to prevent. For ink to spray from the cartridge,
air must enter to displace the removed ink. The air enters via an extremely
long, thin labyrinth tube, up to 10 cm long, wrapping back and forth
across the ink tank. The channel is long and narrow to reduce moisture
evaporation through the vent tube, but some evaporation still occurs and
eventually the ink cartridge dries up from the inside out. To combat this
problem, which is especially acute with professional fast-drying solvent inks,
many wide-format printer cartridge designs contain the ink in an airtight,
collapsible bag that requires no vent. The bag merely shrinks until the
cartridge is empty.
The frequent cleaning conducted by
some printers can consume quite a bit of ink and has a great impact on
cost-per-page determinations.
Clogged nozzles can be detected by
printing a standard test pattern on the page. Some software workaround methods
are known for re-routing printing information from a clogged nozzle to a
working nozzle.[citation needed]
Advantages
Compared to earlier
consumer-oriented color printers, inkjets have a number of advantages. They are
quieter in operation than impact dot matrix or daisywheel printers.
They can print finer, smoother details through higher printhead resolution, and
many consumer inkjets with photographic-quality printing are widely available.
In comparison to more expensive
technologies like thermal wax,
dye sublimation,
and laser printing, inkjets have the advantage of
practically no warm up time, and lower cost per page. However, low-cost laser
printers can have lower per-page costs, at least for black-and-white printing,
and possibly for color.
For some inkjet printers, monochrome
ink sets are available either from the printer manufacturer or from third-party
suppliers. These allow the inkjet printer to compete with the silver-based
photographic papers traditionally used in black-and-white photography, and
provide the same range of tones: neutral, "warm" or "cold".
When switching between full-color and monochrome ink sets, it is necessary to
flush out the old ink from the print head with a cleaning
cartridge. Special software or at least a modified device driver are usually required, to deal with
the different color mapping.
Some types of inkjet printers are
capable of very high speed printing. One commercial high speed ink jet printer
can print on 30 inch wide web at 200
meters / minute.[7]
Disadvantages
Inkjet printers may have a number of
disadvantages:
- (Original) ink is often very expensive. According to
the BBC (2003), "The cost of ink has been
the subject of an Office of Fair
Trading investigation. Which? magazine
has accused manufacturers of a lack of transparency about the price of ink
and called for an industry standard for measuring ink cartridge
performance".[8]
- Many "intelligent" ink cartridges contain a microchip
that communicates the estimated ink level to the printer; this may cause
the printer to display an error message, or incorrectly inform the user
that the ink cartridge is empty. In some cases, these messages can be
ignored, but some inkjet printers will refuse to print with a cartridge
that declares itself empty, to prevent consumers from refilling
cartridges. For example, Epson embeds a chip which
prevents printing when the chip claims the cartridge is empty, although a
researcher who over-rode the
system found that in one case he could print up to 38% more good quality
pages, even though the chip stated that the cartridge was empty.[8]
- The lifetime of inkjet prints produced by inkjets using
aqueous inks is shorter (although UV-resistant inks are available) than
those produced with solvent-based inkjets and so-called "archival
inks" have been produced for use in aqueous-based machines which
offer extended life.
- Because the ink used in most consumer inkjets is
water-soluble, care must be taken with inkjet-printed documents to avoid
even the smallest drop of water, which can cause severe
"blurring" or "running". Similarly, water-based highlighter markers can blur inkjet-printed
documents and discolor the highlighter's tip.
- The very narrow inkjet nozzles are prone to clogging.
The ink consumed cleaning them—either during cleaning invoked by the user,
or in many cases, performed automatically by the printer on a routine
schedule—can account for a significant proportion of the ink used in the
machine.
These disadvantages have been
addressed in a variety of ways:
- Third-party ink suppliers sell ink cartridges at
significant discounts (at least 10%−30% off OEM cartridge prices,
sometimes up to 95%), and also bulk ink and cartridge self-refill kits at
even lower prices.
- Many vendors' "intelligent" ink cartridges
have been reverse-engineered.
It is now possible to buy inexpensive devices to reliably reset such
cartridges to report themselves as full, so that they may be refilled many
times.
- Print lifetime is highly dependent on the quality and
formulation of the ink as well as the paper chosen. The earliest inkjet
printers, intended for home and small office applications, used dye-based
inks. Even the best dye-based inks are not as durable as pigment-based
inks, which are now available for many inkjet printers.
- Many inkjet printers now utilize pigment based ink
which are highly water resistant: at least black ink is pigment-based.
Resin or silicon protected photopaper is widely available at low cost,
introducing complete water and rub resistance for dye and pigment inks,
although it should be noted that the photopaper itself must be designed
for pigment or for dye inks, as pigment particles are too large to be able
to penetrate through dye-only photopaper protection layer.
- Inkjet printing head nozzles can be cleaned using
specialized solvents; or by soaking in warm distilled water for short
periods of time.
Third-party
ink and cartridges
The high cost of OEM ink cartridges
and the intentional obstacles to refilling them have been addressed by the
growth of third-party ink suppliers. Many printer manufacturers discourage
customers from using third-party inks, stating that they can damage the print
heads due to not being the same formulation as the OEM inks, cause leaks, and
produce inferior-quality output (e.g. of incorrect color gamut). Consumer Reports has noted that some
third-party cartridges may contain less ink than OEM cartridges, and thus yield
no cost savings,[9] while Wilhelm Imaging
Research claims that with third-party inks the lifetime of prints may
be considerably reduced.[citation needed]
However, an April 2007 review showed that, in a double-blind test, reviewers generally preferred
the output produced using third-party ink over OEM ink.[10] In general, OEM inks have undergone
significant system reliability testing with the cartridge and print-head
materials, whereas R&D efforts on third-party ink material compatibility is
likely to be significantly less. Some inkjet manufacturers have tried to
prevent cartridges being refilled using various schemes including fitting smart
chips to the cartridges that can detect when the cartridge has run out of ink
and prevent the operation of a refilled cartridge.
The warranty on a printer may not
apply if the printer is damaged by the use of non-approved supplies. In the US
the Magnuson–Moss
Warranty Act is a federal law which states that warrantors cannot
require that only brand name parts and supplies be used with their products, as
some printer manufacturers imply. However, this would not apply if non-approved
items cause damage. In the UK, a printer manufacturer can impose such
conditions as part of its warranty (but this may not apply to the implied
warranty from the retailer). By contrast a retailer is liable for any damage
caused by a non approved supply that he has provided.[11]
Operating
cost tradeoffs
Many inkjet printers have lower
initial purchase prices than laser printers, but the cost per page when using
original ink is usually significantly higher compared to a laser printer. The
use of third-party compatible inks and toners may lower operating costs with
either technology.
Inkjets use solvent-based inks which
have much shorter expiration dates compared to laser toner, which has an
indefinite shelf life. Inkjet printers tend to clog if not used regularly,
whereas laser printers are much more tolerant of intermittent use. Inkjet
printers require periodical head cleaning, which consumes a considerable amount
of ink, and will drive printing costs higher especially if the printer is
unused for long periods.
If an inkjet head becomes clogged,
third-party ink solvents/head cleaners and replacement heads are available in
some cases. The cost of such items may be less expensive compared to a transfer
unit for a laser printer, but the laser printer unit has a much longer lifetime
between required maintenance. Many inkjet printer models now have permanently
installed heads, which cannot be economically replaced if they become
irreversibly clogged, resulting in scrapping of the entire printer. On the
other hand, inkjet printer designs which use a disposable printhead usually
cost significantly more per page than printers using permanent heads. By
contrast, laser printers do not have printheads to clog or replace frequently,
and usually can produce many more pages between maintenance intervals.
Inkjet printers have traditionally
produced better quality output than color laser printers when printing
photographic material. Both technologies have improved dramatically over time,
although the best quality giclee prints favored by
artists use what is essentially a high-quality specialized type of inkjet
printer.
Laser printers are usually preferred
in an office environment, since inkjet printers are generally much slower and
may require more maintenance on a less-predictable basis. Specialized
aftermarket continuous ink systems (CISS) for inkjets are available which allow
higher volume inkjet printing without pausing for ink refilling, but these
systems cannot increase the speed of the basic mechanism.
Business
model
A common business model for inkjet
printers involves selling the actual printer at or below production cost,[12] while dramatically marking up the
price of the (proprietary) ink cartridges (a profit model called "Freebie marketing"). Most current inkjet
printers attempt to enforce this product tying using microchips in
the cartridges to hinder the use of third-party or refilled ink cartridges. The
microchips monitor usage and report the ink remaining to the printer. Some
manufacturers also impose "expiration dates". When the chip reports
that the cartridge is empty (or out of date) the printer stops printing. Even
if the cartridge is refilled, the microchip will indicate to the printer that
the cartridge is depleted. For many models (especially from Canon), the 'empty'
status can be overridden by entering a 'service code' (or sometimes simply by
pressing the 'start' button again). For some printers, special circuit
"flashers" are available that reset the quantity of remaining ink to the
maximum. Some manufacturers, most notably Epson
and Hewlett Packard,
have been accused of indicating that a cartridge is depleted while a
substantial amount of ink remains.[13][14] A 2007 study found that most printers
waste a significant quantity of ink when they declare a cartridge to be empty.
Single-ink cartridges were found to have on average 20% of their ink remaining,
though actual figures range from 9% to 64% of the cartridge's total ink
capacity, depending on the brand and model of printer.[15][16] This problem is further compounded
with the use of one-piece multi-ink cartridges, which are declared empty as
soon as one color runs low. Of great annoyance to many users are those printers
that will refuse to print documents requiring only black ink, just because one
or more of the color ink cartridges is depleted.
In recent years, many consumers have
begun to challenge the business practices of printer manufacturers, such as
charging up to $8,000 per gallon for printer ink.[17] Alternatives for consumers are cheaper
copies of cartridges, produced by third parties, and the refilling of
cartridges, using refill kits. Due to the large differences in price caused by
OEM markups, there are many companies selling third-party ink cartridges. Most
printer manufacturers discourage refilling disposable cartridges or using
aftermarket copy cartridges, and say that use of incorrect inks may cause poor
image quality due to differences in viscosity, which can affect the amount of
ink ejected in a drop, and color consistency, and can damage the printhead.
Nonetheless, the use of alternative cartridges and inks has been gaining in
popularity, threatening the business model of printer manufacturers. Printer
companies such as HP, Lexmark, and Epson
have used patents and the DMCA to launch lawsuits against
third-party vendors.[18][19] An anti-trust class-action lawsuit was launched in
the US against HP and office supply chain Staples Inc, alleging that HP paid Staples $100
million to keep inexpensive third-party ink cartridges off the shelves.[20][21]
In Lexmark
Int'l v. Static Control Components, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
ruled that circumvention of this technique does not violate the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act.[22] The European Commission[citation needed]
also ruled this practice anticompetitive: it will disappear in newer models
sold in the European Union. [23] While the DMCA case dealt with
copyright protection, companies also rely on patent protection to prevent
copying and refilling of cartridges. For example, if a company devises all of
the ways in which their microchips can be manipulated and cartridges can be
refilled and patents these methods, they can prevent anyone else from refilling
their cartridges[citation needed].
Patents protecting the structure of their cartridges prevent the sale of
cheaper copies of the cartridges. For some printer models (notably those from
Canon) the manufacturer's own microchip can be removed and fitted to a
compatible cartridge thereby avoiding the need to replicate the microchip (and
risk prosecution). Other manufacturers embed their microchips deep within the
cartridge in an effort to prevent this approach.
In 2007 Eastman Kodak entered the inkjet market with its
own line of All-In-One printers based on a marketing model that differed from
the prevailing practice of selling the printer at a loss while making large
profits on replacement ink cartridges. Kodak claimed that consumers could save
up to 50 percent on printing by using its lower cost cartridges filled with the
company’s proprietary pigmented colorants while avoiding the potential problems
associated with off-brand inks.[24]
Professional
inkjet printers
In addition to the widely used small
inkjet printers for home and office, there are professional inkjet printers,
some for "page-width" format printing and many for wide format
printing. Page-width format means that the print width ranges from about
8.5" to 37" (about 20 cm to 100 cm). "Wide
format" means print width ranging from 24" up to 15' (about
75 cm to 5 m). The most common application of page-width printers is
in printing high-volume business communications that do not need high-quality
layout and color. Particularly with the addition of variable data
technologies, the page-width printers are important in billing, tagging, and
individualized catalogs and newspapers. The application of most wide format
printers is in printing advertising graphics; a lower-volume application is
printing of design documents by architects or engineers.
Another specialty application for
inkjets is producing prepress color proofs for printing jobs created digitally. Such printers
are designed to give accurate color rendition of how the final image will look
(a "proof") when the job is finally produced on a large volume press
such as a four-colour offset lithography press. An example is an Iris printer, whose output is what the French
term Giclée was coined after.
The largest-volume supplier is Hewlett-Packard, which supply over 90 percent of
the market for printers for printing technical drawings. The major products in
their Designjet series are the Designjet 500/800, the
Designjet T Printer series (including the T1100 & T610), the Designjet 1050
and the Designjet 4000/4500. They also have the HP
Designjet 5500, a six-color printer that is used especially for
printing graphics as well as the new Designjet Z6100 which sits at the top of
the HP Designjet range and features an eight colour pigment ink system .
Epson,
Kodak and Canon also manufacture wide-format printers, sold
in much smaller numbers than standard printers. Epson has a group of 3 Japanese
companies around it that predominantly use Epson piezo printheads and inks: Mimaki,
Roland, and Mutoh.
Scitex Digital Printing developed high-speed, variable-data,
inkjet printers for production printing, but sold its profitable assets
associated with the technology to Kodak in 2005 who now market
the printers as Kodak Versamark™ VJ1000, VT3000, and VX5000 printing systems.
These roll-fed printers can print at up to 1000 feet per minute.
Professional high-volume inkjet
printers are made by a range of companies. These printers can range in price
from US$35,000 to $2 million. Carriage widths on these
units can range from 54" to 192" (about 1.4 to 5 m), and ink
technologies tend toward solvent, eco-solvent and UV-curing as opposed to
water-based (aqueous) ink sets. Major applications where these printers are
used are for outdoor settings for billboards, truck sides and truck curtains,
building graphics and banners, while indoor displays include point-of-sales
displays, backlit displays, exhibition graphics and museum graphics.
The major suppliers for professional
wide- and grand-format printers include: Agfa Graphics, LexJet, Grapo, Inca, Durst, Océ,
NUR (now part of Hewlett-Packard),
Lüscher, VUTEk, Zünd, Scitex Vision (now
part of Hewlett-Packard), Mutoh, Mimaki, Roland DG], Seiko I Infotech, Sun
Innovations,[25] Leggett and Platt, Agfa, Raster
Printers, DGI and MacDermid ColorSpan (now part of Hewlett-Packard)
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