The Xplor View - July 2008 - (Page 10)

with a variable drop size from 4 to 21 picoliters. The printer from Miyakoshi was also shown at drupa running with UV curable aqueous inks and this potentially opens up new applications for high-speed continuous feed inkjet printing. Epson and Toshiba Tec Both of these companies are supplying printheads to a range of printer and press manufacturers. (Toshiba Tec licenses technology designs from Xaar but develops its own range of printheads.) The main user of these two suppliers’ heads at drupa was Dainippon Screen. The Epson printheads are used in the Truepress Jet520 continuous feed colour press and in the new Truepress JetSX B2 format sheet-fed press. Screen was showing how different resolutions could be used with Epson heads. They introduced a highspeed version of the Truepress Jet520 running at double speed (1,680 A4 pages/minute) with a resolution of 720x360 dpi. The Truepress JetSX runs the printheads at 1440x720 dpi to achieve higher quality. The change in resolution is in the direction of paper travel allowing a smaller or larger number of ink drops to be deployed. In the wide format UV printing area where Screen now has its Truepress Jet2500UV and Truepress Jet650UV, they also exhibited their prototype UV single pass printhead for special applications. It is believed Screen is using the latest Toshiba Tec CA4 printhead for these applications. The quality of imaging on the Truepress Jet650UV was outstanding and this is targeted at special applications like automotive displays that currently are screen-printed. Another user of the Toshiba Tec CA4 printheads is Olympus who showed single pass printers at drupa. This was the OP-1cd Full Color Printer that prints a 12.4-inch width at 300 dpi with eight grey levels at 33 meters/minute. Two print engines can be linked together for full duplex printing. (This is basically the same print engine that Olympus developed for the RISO HC5500 that surprisingly was not at drupa.) Hewlett Packard Much has been said about HP and their Scalable Printing Technology (SPT) using thermal inkjet. We are now seeing this technology being rolled out in a range of products. We first saw it in desktop products like the OfficeJet Pro K550. Then it appeared in the CM8060 MFP for enterprise printing. At drupa we saw SPT move aggressively into the graphic arts space with two new products—the HP Inkjet Web Press and the HP Designjet L65500 wide format printer. These showed how the power of the scalable printing architecture printheads can be utilized in building either very wide format arrays for single pass printing, or can be used in scanning print arrays for wide format printing. We can expect many more developments of this technology in both higher quality and higher speed in the future. This printer uses aqueous inks with a special formulation that allows them to print on nonabsorbent substrates such as vinyl and also for printing for exterior applications. Latex ink will allow a range of printers to be built, possibly under the HP Scitex brand, which use these new ecologically friendly inks. The other new ink developments came in an announcement from Océ and a technological briefing from Xerox. Océ announced Crystal Point inks. Crystal Point is where the ink is held as a solid called Océ TonerPearls that are stated to be internally similar to toner particles. They are converted to a gel inside the printer, which is then imaged as a gel onto the substrate when an agent crystallizes them onto a wide range of substrates without the necessity of heat. The first implementation of this technology is in the Océ ColorWave 600 printer. Xerox also has a technology in the market today using solid ink. This is the well-established technology used in many of the Xerox Phaser printers. In a technology preview at drupa, Xerox spoke about the future Gel inks. This is where ink is held as a gel and then converted to a liquid in the printer; and then when imaged on any substrate, would convert to a solid state without any heat being involved. Xerox sees this technology as a key for its future inkjet products. New inkjet ink developments The above reference to the HP Designjet L65500 printer is an example of how ink developments can change the use of inkjet. HP introduced its new Latex inks at drupa for use with this Designjet. For more information on Andy’s reviews of drupa 2008, visit www.attributes.co.uk Andrew Tribute Managing Partner Attribute Associates tribute@atrributes.co.uk “Most activity in inkjet was in DOD technology, with many of the new printers and presses using relatively new DOD printhead developments.” 10 The VIEW Journal Xplor European Edition Issue 5 July 2008 http://www.attributes.co.uk

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Xplor View - July 2008

The Xplor View - July 2008 Contents Cover Story: Drupa 2008: The Highlights Review New Technology: Inkjet Technologies Moving Forward New Technology: QR Codes: Leading Edge but not Bleeding Edge A Fresh Look at Electronic Document Delivery Management: Growing Your Business Through Tendering The Experts Versus the Amateurs News: Xplor UK & Ireland Supports Total Print! Expo� Part Two: The Latest Developments in Knowledge Management Xplor Europe News: Short News Items for the Xplor UK Programme and Europe News

The Xplor View - July 2008

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