Although it is quite possibly the most common type of printer on the market many people do not know/appreciate how an inkjet printer differs from a laser printer. Today I decided to write a quick article covering the main characteristics of the humble inkjet printer.
The Inkjet Business Model
The reason that many inkjet printers are so cheap to buy is that a common business model involves selling the actual printer at or even below the production cost and then marking up the cost of the replacement inkjet cartridges. This is why replacement cartridges are often so expensive whereas compatible manufacturers (who don’t have the same original investment to recover) can offer their products at a much lower cost.
There is a large amount printer manufacturers are doing at the moment to protect these margins by using several methods. For example, microchips in the cartridges are often used to prevent or discourage the use of third-party or refilled ink cartridges. Additionally many cartridges with included print heads are designed to be particularly difficult to physically refill or remanufacture.
Different Types of Inkjet Inks
Conventionally printer cartridge inks have been dye based which consists of de-ionized water as the solvent, isopropyl alcohol or glycol as the drying agent, and dye base to provide the colour.
Pigmented inks use small particles suspended in the base solution to provide the colour and then to keep the particles from setting out of the solution the pigment particles are coated with a polymer material to generate a static charge around the particle which then keeps the particles from clumping.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Inkjet Printers
Advantages
There are a number of advantages of inkjet printing for the home user. When compared with earlier technologies such as dot matrix of daisywheel printers they can produce finer details with superior colour reproduction.
When compared to more expensive technologies on the market such as laser printing inkjet printers have virtually no warm up time.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of inkjets include print heads which can be prone to clogging and often expensive inkjet cartridges. Of course money can be saved by using lower cost compatible or remanufactured cartridges.
Another disadvantage is ink bleeding which results in the ink being carried sideways away from the desired location by the capillary effect.
Because the ink used in most inkjets is water-soluble, care must be taken with inkjet-printed documents to avoid even the smallest drop of water, which can result in the smudging of documents. The exception to this is when using pigment based inks which are a lot more water resistant.
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