Industry Aspect: Inkjet 2.0 era debut (on)

Editor's note: Inkjet printing finally broke out overnight after more than four decades of development. While many equipment manufacturers are actively preparing for the debut of Drupa, we should also review and summarize the history and application of this revolutionary printing technology.

    When print experts arguing about whether online media is more powerful or print media is more powerful, they may have forgotten that printing still has a multi-billion dollar market - a dying publisher. Ignore the huge market. The question now is not whether or not printing has died or is dying (indeed, this kind of thing will never happen), but rather what kind of printing technology will evoke the wind in the next ten years. Digital printing has opened up a path of its own in the market dominated by offset printing, just as offset printing technology of that year gradually replaced letterpress printing. But digital printing technology itself will change again, which may lead to further decline in offset printing. Of course, this change is mainly reflected in the competition between inkjet and toner printing technology.

    Inkjet printing is a simple form of digital printing, but it does not require the use of a fixed image carrier such as a printing plate. Each of its pages can be regenerated, even if all pages were originally the same. Digital printing can place colored particles on a substrate by a variety of methods, of which carbon powder and inkjet are the most common. Toner printing, also known as electrophotography or xerography, involves the transfer of pigment-coated pigment particles onto a substrate by means of an electrical charge. The laser image drum can convert light energy into electrical energy, so that the image on the page exists in the form of positive and negative charges, and then through these charges to attract the opposite power toner. At a heating temperature of 400 degrees Fahrenheit, the toner fuses with the paper to form a true image. Toner printing can use either wet toner (liquid toner) or dry toner (solid toner).

    All digital printing systems are suitable for short-run printing, and this is also the only way for people to print variable data and complete different versions of live jobs. The ultimate goal of digital printing is to replace conventional offset printing and flexographic printing with an unprinted printing method. If those equipment manufacturers have really developed a new generation of ink jet equipment as they said, the realization of this goal is not far off.

    So far, the printing quality of inkjet systems has been recognized by most customers of signage and industrial products ( 300-600dpi), but it is still far from the quality requirements of commercial prints or publications. Despite this, many photo labs have begun to use the inkjet system to print photos. It is understood that only a few inkjet printers can achieve high quality levels at speeds of 500 feet per minute or more.

    Last year, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Memjet, FFEI and other equipment manufacturers announced their breakthrough in inkjet technology. Some companies even claim to have developed an inkjet system with a speed of 1000 feet per minute and a resolution of up to 600 dpi. Although toner printing is still dominant in the market, inkjet technology has attracted people's attention due to its unique advantages. First of all, it is relatively simple. All the parts of the system are almost concentrated in the head. The operator only needs to adjust a limited number of electronic, heating and transmission units. In addition, inkjet systems also have the potential for spot color printing. Compared with toner printing, its only drawback is that it cannot print all Pantone (and now Goe) spot colors. As with toner printing, the inkjet system requires almost no job preparation, so it can be quickly converted without wastage. In addition, the size of the inkjet system is flexible and can adapt to a variety of production environments from the desktop to the production floor. Customers can also use this technique in their own office to produce accurate proofs.

    The power consumption of large-scale toner printing systems is generally relatively large, so the requirements for power supply units and the production environment are also relatively high. The inkjet system does not have so many requirements. It uses ink cheaper than toner, although emerging toner technology is continuously narrowing the gap between the two. Problems such as the availability of substrates, nozzle clogging, and printhead width that still exist in such systems can only be solved by improving the ink formulation. The print head must be self-healed to avoid clogging and missing dots.

    The reason why toner can become a mainstream digital printing technology is mainly because of its high quality and ability to print with variable data. In addition, it can be perfectly integrated with on-line post-processing systems and has a comparative advantage. With a high market penetration rate, more than 100 types of toner printers have been installed in print centers and in-house printing centers throughout the world , including low-end sheetfed printers and high-end sheetfed printers. Web printer. Despite this, the inkjet system will continue to challenge the dominance of toner printing with its inherent advantages and the latest products to be released on drupa.

One of the most attractive aspects of inkjet printing is that it can be a nearly perfect printing method under the premise of correct use. It does not require the use of image carriers, does not require job preparation, can be quickly dried and online postpress processing. Today, the quality and production speed of inkjet systems have been able to meet the requirements of industrial applications. To really appreciate this, we need to understand the development of inkjet technology.

Percentage of pages produced by various production systems in all digital printed pages from 2000 to 2015

At present, most digital color systems use solid or liquid toner, but high-speed inkjet systems (which currently occupy a certain market share) will start on this year's rapid development path and become Drupa 2008. One of the biggest highlights. Inkjet will pose a huge threat to toner printing and offset printing. With the continuous advancement of UV inks, continuous inkjet systems will also compete fiercely with drop-on-demand inkjet systems.

    The past of inkjet

    In the fifties of last century, Albert Blake Dick III, the grandson of ABDick's founder, believed that the copier technology - the company's core business at that time - could and should be further improved. So he spent heavily on hiring scientists Jim Stone and him. The assistants develop new printing technologies for themselves. Dick said that the goal of their company is to "print the logo on paper." A letter written by Dr. Richard D. Sweet of Stanford University at the time to ABDick's vice president described in detail a raw oscilloscope with no moving parts, and claimed that this device can produce electrical signal diagrams with ink droplets. As a result, the company's engineers began to imagine: If this oscilloscope can generate electronic text, why can't we print real text with live ink droplets?

    After years of development, ABDick's Videograph company finally launched the world's first commercial inkjet printer, the Videojet 9600, in June 1969. Since the ink jet system at that time could only maintain its normal operation under the premise of being carefully protected, it was not suitable for use in the office environment, but was more suitable for the printing of industrial labels such as packaging codes, logos, and bar codes.

    When large can makers began looking for solutions to print logos on beverage cans, Videograph (now Marconi Data Systems International) finally got the chance to show off. Over the years, the beverage industry has spent millions of dollars in research funding to print date codes on beverage cans, and the biggest difficulty they face is the inability to drink at 2000 cans (416 feet or 610 meters) per minute. Can printing.

In 1984 , Mead Paper established a special imaging department for the development of photosensitive paper for low-cost color reproduction in Dayton, USA, and expanded the company's business from non-carbon coating technology to Greater scope. In 1967, Mead began new research and development work, and in 1973 launched the Mead Dijit inkjet printer. Although the technology used in this printer is identical to the patented technology released by Sweet-Cumming, it is actually independently developed by Mead. Shortly after the release of the patented Sweet-Cumming technology, Mead purchased the technology. In other words, the Dijit inkjet printer is a successful application of the Sweet-Cumming technology. It is understood that this printer works very similar to the Sweet and Lewis-Brown printers.

    At the same time, ink technology is also continuing to mature and progress. In 1993, Kodak sold its technology to Israel's Sailing Angels. Sae Angel Digital Printing Company is a supplier of high-speed continuous inkjet systems, mainly serving the commercial and transactional printing industry. The company's products include monochrome, spot and color VersaMark page printing systems, and the Dijit family of narrow-width printers. On January 5, 2004, Eastman Kodak purchased the assets of Saturn Digital Printing for US$250 million, and the company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kodak.

    Around 1977, engineers at the Canon Product Technology Institute began researching the printing technology of a new generation of copiers. They initially organized the necessary piezoelectric data for inkjet printers, but this work prompted them to discover a completely new technology. However, during the test, the hot iron accidentally touched the needle of the ink injection system so that the ink was ejected from the top of the needle in all directions. This phenomenon made the members of the research team aware that heat can replace pressure as a trigger for ink jetting. Canon’s discovery of the inkjet principle was purely an accident: When the hot iron accidentally fell