Inkjet Printing and Printing (I)

Today we will report inkjet printing and printing. The earliest was the transition from ink jet printing to ink jet printing. Inkjet printing has a lot to do with textiles, so its demand in the entire market is very large. In particular, printed products are always high in textile products. Added value, the traditional printing produces a lot of pollution, consumes a lot of time, so the deadline for delivery is very long, there is no way to meet the requirements of consumers at this stage, in this case, we will change the inkjet printing to Inkjet printing, but there is a big difference between the two, which is the subject of today's report.

The earliest development of Ink-jet Printing (inkjet printing) was in 1878. By 1951, Siemens patented the technology of converting liquid ink into ink droplets. In 1964, a special machine was used to control the size of ink droplets. And the rate of ejection, which is the prototype of inkjet, until 1967, Hertz developed a continuous inkjet printer, which is currently used in the Industrial Continuous Ink-jet Printing. In 1972 Siemens introduced the Piezoelectric dro-on-Demand Ink-jet Printing. In 1979, Canon introduced Thermal's dro-on-Demand Ink-jet Printing, but it was called Bubble Ink-jet Printing. In 1984, HP also Introducing Thermal dro-on-Demand Ink-jet Printing, which is the history of the development of Ink-jet Printing.

Ink-jet Printing is broadly divided into two major categories, one is Continuous (continuous) and the other is dro-on-Demand (controllable printing); Continuous is mainly used in industry, such as labels, tickets The rough surface, metal surface, and plastic surface of cartons, etc., have the advantages of high speed, smoothness of the surface of the material is not very important, and there is a considerable distance between the nozzle and the material, so the thickness of the printed material is not affected. The disadvantage is that The resolution is not very high, and it is usually used on the surface of rough, not very resolution-oriented materials. Currently, Continuous has developed Binary Deflection and Multiple Deflection, both of which use voltage to generate skew. The principle is that the former provides ink according to the way that the ink is charged and the ink is not discharged when not energized. After the ink droplet is ejected and passes through the high pressure deflection board, the direction of the skew can be controlled, and the place where the ink is needed is more precisely reached. Uncharged ink droplets are introduced into the ink chute and can be recycled for reuse.

dro-on-Demand, in contrast to Continuous, has a slower print speed but a very good resolution of up to 2880 dpi. The distance between the print head and the object to be printed is very short, so the thickness of the printed material is limited. The surface of the printed material must be smooth, otherwise the printing effect will be compromised. dro-on-Demand is divided into four types: Thermal, Piezoelectric, Electrostatic, and Acoustic. The first two types are mainly used. The latter two cannot compete with the former two in the market. Acoustic uses the ultrasonic method to control the ink droplets. Electrostatic The electrostatic droplet is used to control the ink droplets. The ink droplets passing through the electrostatic loop will become ink mist and will not be sprayed onto the material being printed. The ink droplets that have not passed through the electrostatic loop will be charged, so they will be sprayed onto the material being printed. The disadvantage of these two types is that the resolution cannot be broken, so the development is limited. The current rapid development is Thermal and Piezoelectric. The former are developed by large plants such as Canon and HP. The latter have large plants such as Epson and Sharp, and HP's thermal inkjet system, which mainly utilizes transistor heating. 3~5μ-sec, ie instant heating up to 400°C in 3s to 5s per millionths, the ink becomes bubbles, and the bubbles are squeezed and ejected into ink droplets. This is the principle of Thermal inkjet. . Epson's Piezoelectric inkjet system uses piezoelectric elements to eject ink droplets. In the global Ink-jet Printing market, HP has the highest share, accounting for about 50%, and the highest share of the market in Taiwan is Epson, accounting for about 40%, HP ranks next, about 30%, Canon The market share in Taiwan or the world is not as high as we thought, although Canon was the first to invent Bubble Ink-jet Printing. Tektronix, a manufacturer of Piezoelectric technology, uses wax as a base material, is liquid when it is jetted, and is attached to the printed material to become a solid. Therefore, it has special effects, but it is printed on the material with a convex surface and does not feel very much. it is good.

At present, there are roughly three types of nozzles and ink cartridges for printers, namely: 1. The nozzle is separated from the ink cartridge: the nozzle is on the printer table, and Epson is the representative. When the ink cartridge is replaced, the nozzle is not replaced. Ink cartridges are cheaper. 2. The combination of nozzle and ink cartridge: represented by HP and Lexmark. 3. The combination of print head and ink holder: Canon as the representative, replace the print head together when replacing the ink cartridge. Of course, these designs are related to the design principle of the machine itself. Like Canon and HP, they are Bubble systems. The ink requires a very high temperature for heating, and the nozzles are easily depleted. Therefore, the nozzles are listed as loss components, and the Piezo technology is used. Epson, whose ink does not require heating, has a low probability of loss of the nozzle, so the nozzle is designed directly on the machine table. When replacing the ink cartridge, the inkjet head does not need to be replaced. The cost of its consumables is relatively low.