Talk:Inkjet printer

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This entire article deals with on-demand inkjet printers only. We need to include content on the continuous inkjet printers like Iris printers, the ones used to produce the giclées.

-- Tooki 07:41, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Usage in ATMs and Cash Registers 2 History: the HP ThinkJet 3 Better explaination required? 4 Article organization 5 Continuous Ink Jet 6 Dye sublimation 7 Piezo vs. fixed 8 Commercial Links

[edit] Usage in ATMs and Cash Registers

I'm not a huge contributer to Wikipedia so I didn't want to make this edit myself. However, in the "General" heading under this article, it is stated that Inkjet printers find common usage in ATMs and Cash Registers. On the contrary, these devices do not use inkjet printers, but a technology that incorporates thermal paper. The print head is similar to a daisy wheel setup which is heated and "burns" the information onto special paper. You can verify this fact by comparing the feel of most receipts you get, they are slightly smoother and more plastic. You can then hold a heat source (such as a lighter flame) underneath them and they will quickly turn black in response.

--Pianist.envy 02:12, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I will likely change this tonight. Mscudder 00:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History: the HP ThinkJet

How about a bit more on the history, in particular the HP ThinkJet that started the "revolution" away from dot matrix printers once users of microcomputers got their hands on the parallel and serial interface versions? The original ThinkJet had the HPIB (IEEE-488) interface, and was used primarily with test and monitoring equipment.

Print "quality" of the ThinkJet was about as good as draft mode on a 9 pin dot matrix, but the small size (not much wider than a sheet of paper) and lack of noise made it very desirable for low noise environments like hospital rooms.

Canon has used both disposable head and seperate ink tanks and replaceable head technology, sometimes in the same printer where either a high capacity black cartridge with integrated printhead or a replaceable printhead with one tricolor and one black ink tank could be used. Some early Canon inkjets used a fixed head with a hose leading to a very large, black ink tank. (Fixed tanks with hoses to the printheads have been used off and on throughout the history of inkjets.)

Xerox had a short foray into inkjet printers in the early 21st century, marketing a series of low cost printers and multifunction machines with mechanicals made by Sharp. Xerox designed their own outer casings and even customized the firmware to have any instance of "Sharp" replaced with "Xerox". They were decent printers but the advertised 1200DPI printing was only available in Windows 98 and Me. Windows 2000 drivers are available to download but they and the severely limited drivers included with Windows XP limit printing to a maximum of 600DPI. The Xerox inkjets have a bad reliability problem where the color printhead quits printing one of the three colors. (Three out of three for me, one each failing on cyan, magenta and yellow. See also many postings on Usenet.) Otherwise they have good print quality and the ink tanks are very easy to refill by carefully pushing a curved syringe needle through the outlet, past the soft foam.

Epson printers have had a bit of a checkered history with reliability, specifically a tendency for the fixed printheads to clog if the printer wasn't used on a regular basis. Some people have always used Epsons and never had a single head clog, some have gone through several Epsons and had clogs on every one. Epson has also tried to block refilling of their ink tanks through use of microchips.

Hewlett Packard has very recently introduced inkjets that use seperate ink tanks and printheads, some with individual tanks for each color. An older line of HP's used four tanks with integrated printheads and had MIO slots for network interfaces and slots for large amounts of RAM as well as the Adobe PostScript printer control language.

[edit] Better explaination required?

I think a small drawing of how the print head works woulnd't do any harm. In fact it would be nice.

[edit] Article organization

Being an engineer in the ink jet industry, I'd like to organize this article a bit better, and add information about industrial uses of ink jet. (Much of the information is in the article already, but its organization leaves a bit to be desired.) I'd like to end up with several articles about ink jet in general, ink jet for personal use, ink jet for commercial use, and ink jet for industrial use.

I'm going to start with the Technology section, and create a small page for industrial ink jet applications, specifically material deposition.

Jaeger10 21:56, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Continuous Ink Jet

The Swedish scientist Prof. Carl Hellmuth Hertz of the University of Lund in Sweden is also named as the inventor of the continous inkjet technology. Is there any sources for the claim from Stanford? Source: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE1D7173AF93BA25756C0A9669C8B63

References to my edits: Tech Quarterly: Spitting image, The Economist. London: Sep 21, 2002.Vol.364, Iss. 8291; pg. 24 and http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/19/1/4 and "Digital Spin, Green with Envy", John C. Dvorak, Forbes; January 22, 2001

[edit] Dye sublimation

I'm a little confused, because in the section on the types of ink, sublimation dyes are mentioned as a type of inkjet. But then in the discussion on advantages, it mentions dye-sublimation printers as a different thing entirely. Or is this a different type of sublimation than the one mentioned in the inks section? I had added the dye sublimation link, but now I'm second guessing it. --W0lfie 18:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Piezo vs. fixed

Why is "piezo" used parenthetically as if it were a synonym of "fixed"? It seems a little misleading/confusing. If I'm missing something, please let me know. Also, 8 companies are listed as using them. Is that really "very few" as stated earlier in the same sentence? --W0lfie 18:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Probably because the companies that use piezo (principally Epson) are also the companies that use a fixed (semipermanantly mounted) print head rather than an in-ink-cartridge print head. But if it's not clear to you, this is Wikipedia so please feel free to be bold and make it better!

Atlant 18:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Atlant, for your ever-present encouragement. It sounds like this might be a jargon issue. If I find a good solution, I'll put it in. --W0lfie 17:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Piezo heads are usually "fixed", because piezo heads are too expensive to treat as disposable with an ink cartridge. Conversely, fixed heads are usually piezo, because piezo heads have better long-term reliability and faster firing rates. -- DavidHopwood 18:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commercial Links

I don't understand why the link to http://www.cheap-ink-now.com got removed, its a site full with resources and articles about ink jet printing. please explain —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.143.139.113 (talk • contribs).

It seems to be a pruely commercial site which adds no new value to the article. --Pmkpmk 18:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)