Inkjet Printer -- Operation Principle

Inkjet Printer - Operation PrincipleToday's inkjet printers are almost as widely used as the laser ones. They are most often found at homes, but also in the office and in places, where it is the inkjet filter that is most fitted for specialized applications. For example, for inexpensive color printing.So, how does the inkjet printer work? The operation principle is to a certain extent similar to that of the dot-matrix filter, because the image is also built using dots. But, unlike printing using needles that hit through the cartridge ribbon, which is the case with the dot-matrix filter, in the inkjet printer dots are applied by small ink drops produced by the type head.Generally this type head is one of the main components in such printer. It can be built into a removable cartridge that contains ink. But sometimes ink can be fed separately from the side container.There exist two kinds of ink feed itself.There is continuous ink feed, when the ink is fed through the print head uninterruptedly, but the moment of application of such ink to paper is defined by a so-called modulator. The drops are distributed based on an electrostatic process. However, the on-demand ink feed is more wide-spread. In this case ink is supplied to the jet, when the latter is located above the required surface point at the required point of time. Under this method, ink is discharged in one of the following ways. There can be a piezo crystal located above the jet. When subjected to electrical current such crystal affects the ink, which leads to generation of a drop. The size of such drop can be adjusted by alternating the supplied current. The second method is referred to as a bubble method. In this case miniature heating elements are installed in the jets. At a certain point these elements are subjected to current, which forces them to heat up. This, in its turn, leads to ink also heating up, its volume therefore increases with small gas bubbles forming inside. These bubbles then discharge the ink onto the paper at the required point of time. The drop's diameter is about 2 hundredths of a millimeter, which is even more than the printing step, so such microdrops overlay. Today's printers apply an image onto the paper using millions of drops, which results in a very high printing quality.So, in this way, by discharging drop after drop, the printer forms printed lines, and the lines combined then form the required image.Color printing requires not one black cartridge, as for monochrome printing, but several cartridges of different colors. Such colors are then mixed to produce the required shade. The color printing quality of inkjet printers is very good. Besides, color inkjet printers cost a lot less than their laser counterparts. This is their first advantage. Any inexpensive inkjet printer, when supplied with color cartridges, can produce quality surpassing that of the majority of laser devices. It should be noted though, that, when printing photos, for example, one will quickly run out of ink. And a new cartridge or filling of the old one might turn out rather expensive. And this is now the first disadvantage of inkjet printing.The second disadvantage is low printing speed. It takes an inkjet printer a lot longer to print even a simple text page.In general, inkjet printing is more fitted for specialized applications, associated with color printing, or for home use, when the cost of equipment is important, and the printing volumes are rather small. It is also good for printing photos. But for office applications, which require large text printing volumes and monochrome graphics, the laser printing is still your best bet.And finally, we should also mention that the ink itself can come in two different types - soluble and pigment. The first type saturates the paper, while the second one is applied to its surface. That's why pigment ink is better in terms of printing quality, but worse in terms of the printing durability.We should take care that the ink doesn't dry out in jets. If the printer is not used for a long period of time, the cartridge should be stored in a special container. Otherwise, after such drying of ink, the print head would have to be restored at home or at a repair shop, which could lead to a significant decrease in the quality of printing or to complete damage of the cartridge.

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