The Wider Picture: The author looks at the current state of the wide format colour inkjet market

摘要

There are two basic technologies in use in inkjet wide format printers (if you ignore the specialised continuous inkjet printers); thermal, as pioneered and developed by Hewlett-Packard and Canon, and piezo-ceramic, the product of Epson's R&D labs, Each has its own distinct advantages, and both are capable of producing photographic quality images at high resolutions in bright colours - or fine lines and solid colour fills of the quality that CAD and GIS professionals require, Thermal inkjet technology, used by other manufacturers besides the two already mentioned, relies on the expansion of ink in a heated chamber to force the ink through multi-nozzle print-heads onto the media in a pattern of droplets, Piezo-ceramic technology uses an electric impulse to shock a ceramic crystal to eject the ink from its chamber at similar speeds.