In the past five years, a very strange situation has developed in the market for home and office printers. On the one hand, there are several large manufacturers that regularly update lineups and seriously competing with each other. On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing for an IT journalist to write about their struggle. The business press can juggle a little bit with market shares and other boring things. And our man, having looked more closely at the "new" models, immediately notices that from a technical point of view, no serious improvements are observed in them. Rather, on the contrary - in parallel with the addition of various embellishments, such as high-definition LCD screens, the actual printing part is being simplified.

First of all, of course, this applies to inkjet printers where progress stopped in the middle of this decade. I find it hard to believe it myself, but even HP, which once led the race to increase the number of ink tanks in photo printers, today considers using just four colors sufficient. Four! This is after NINE in the older models of HP Photosmart five years ago! Four inkwells in those days were considered acceptable only for very simple models, where photo printing is not the main function. Epson still has eight-color models, but they have been produced for the second five years (for example, the eight-color Epson R800 went on sale back in 2004), new products do not cross the six-color barrier. Yes, and according to the main characteristics, somehow print resolution and drop size, Epson printers and MFPs have not gone ahead over the past five years. Take a look at the characteristics of laser devices - they also have not changed for a long time, both in black and white and in color models. So why did the industry, which was developing so rapidly at the beginning of the century, pick up and “slow down”?

Blame, of course, the marketers of printer manufacturers. At the turn of the century, when digital cameras entered the mass market, they suddenly decided that this was their chance. Like, since citizens now do not have to go to the laboratories to develop the film, they themselves will prefer to print the photographs at home, and not at someone else's uncle. If so, they should ensure the quality of the minilab right on the desktop ahead of time. The market for photo printers seemed huge, and a lot of money was invested in R&D, both in inkjet and laser directions. It was planned that inkjet printers would live at home, and laser photo printers (and such were being developed) would be actively bought up by companies that use high-quality pictures in their work (ie, from real estate agencies to mail-order stores).

At first, everything went fine: people, by inertia, continued to print photographs on paper, because it seemed to be accepted that way. But then suddenly the understanding came that, it turns out, the pictures look good on the computer screen, but there are Cell phones, laptops, digital photo frames, smart players, etc. etc. And for carrying them over long distances, they are better suited optical media, flash drives and e-mail. As computer equipment mastered by pensioners, the last hope of manufacturers of photo printers, the demand for really high-quality printing at home or office environment. All that citizens really wanted was to print quickly and, most importantly, cheaper. Well, if where some shade is not accurately transferred, it’s not scary. And even those who continued to print photos on paper still rushed to minilabs, where the price of a print is one and a half to two times cheaper than that made at home, especially when it comes to large formats.

As a result, printer manufacturers have received very advanced printing technologies with no chance of recouping their development costs in the planned time frame. Resigned and realizing that the existing backlog in terms of picture quality would last for a long time, everyone switched to increasing the speed of printing and reducing the price of both the devices themselves and the prints. An equally important direction of modernization was the damage to the lives of manufacturers of so-called compatible cartridges and toner, which prevented them from recouping at least the price of the device itself. The development of new, alternative printing technologies, if not stopped, then slowed down significantly. And then there is the world financial crisis has begun…

This long introduction is written so that you understand the harsh conditions under which Xerox is trying to market solid state ink MFPs, which are radically different from both inkjet and laser printers.

Solid on the outside, liquid on the inside

The idea of ​​using solid consumables in printers has been on the minds of developers for a long time, and among the companies where it came to at least pre-prototypes are Howtek, Exxon, Dataproducts, Hitachi, Spectra and Brother. The most successful were the experiences of the American company Tektronix, which in 1986 patented the printing technology with solid ink (Solid Ink), and in 1991 began selling the world's first color printer where this technology was used.

I printed the Tektronix Phaser III on Letter-sized paper (slightly smaller than A4 we are used to), and it took about two minutes per sheet. Considering that we are talking about a full-color print of a very decent quality for those times, the speed could be called very acceptable. But the price - $ 10,000 - made many think (for comparison, black and white laser printer in those days cost around $2400). Plus, the first implementation of the technology left much to be desired. After all, the ink remained solid only until it got inside the printer. There, solid sticks, consisting of a mixture of wax, toner and vegetable oils, turn into a liquid with a temperature of more than a hundred degrees. At first, they were applied directly using a moving head weighing - attention - 1.8 kg on paper, and therefore, for users who were too lazy to take care of the correct fastening, printers jumped around offices like mad washing machines. When installing on the table, it was necessary to choose a thicker tree, and fasten the legs to the floor with self-tapping screws. In fact, the print speed, which was not high by our standards, was precisely due to the need to constantly accelerate and decelerate the heavy head. There was no way to guarantee accurate reproduction of shades even within a single print. Due to the peculiarities of the technology, it was impossible to follow the order in which drops of ink of different colors hit the paper. For example, if yellow first lay down, and then purple, the red hue turned out to be somewhat different than when yellow was applied over purple. Add to that the lingering smell of either a candle factory or an artist's workshop in the room where the printer was used, and you'll understand why Tektronix's solid-state ink business didn't do well.

Despite the difficulties, Tektronix continued to develop the technology, and the engineers achieved considerable success, which, however, did not allow the Color Printing and Imaging division to achieve acceptable financial performance. In 2000, it was sold to Xerox Corporation along with all the patents and the Phaser trademark. Today, the corporation produces devices that print on A4 and A3 paper. Despite the differences in exterior and dimensions, they are arranged very similarly, and they intricately combine jet and offset technology print.

So, today the print head is stationary, and it generally does not come into contact with the surface of the paper. Printing is carried out on a rotating drum made of anodized aluminum, which before each cycle is cleaned of ink residue and covered with a thin layer of silicone grease. The width of the head repeats the width of the drum, and has an operating temperature of 135 degrees Celsius, while the drum itself only warms up to 65 degrees. Ink, falling on the drum, instantly thickens and fixes on its surface. When the head (which, given its size, one would like to call head) finishes work, a slightly heated sheet appears in the tray, it is pressed against the drum with a special roller, and in one pass the entire image is transferred to paper. The ink layer is very thin, and the paper is almost cold, so no additional operations are required to fix the print.

Due to the relative simplicity of technology and a minimum of moving elements in the design, the print speed in the older XeroxColorQube models reaches 85 A4 color prints per minute! Yes, the younger ones give out up to 60 pages, which, you see, is also not bad at all. Considering that ink practically does not interact with paper, you can print enough high quality photos even on ordinary office papers. Moreover, thanks to the wax base, they will shine like the pages of glossy magazines. Due to the high "tenacity" of the ink and the low heating of the media, it is possible to print on films and even on foil - the main thing is to choose more or less dense samples. The engineers also managed to overcome the problem of smell: modern models are quite neutral in this parameter. If you remember that the price of a color print on a printer with solid state ink is half that of a laser one, it is worth asking the question: why hasn't Xerox-Tektronix technology conquered the entire market yet?

Little nothings of life

Briquettes of solid-state ink look nice and even appetizing - probably not in vain in the mid-nineties, the president of Tektronix bit off and ate a piece of such an "ink" at one of the presentations. To avoid confusion, each color has its own shape, and therefore it is almost impossible to set the bar in the wrong place by mistake (unless, to undermine it with a file or crumble it).

They do not melt in the hands, they treat drops during transportation with understanding, the shelf life is practically unlimited, you can load from 3 to 6 briquettes of each color at the same time, depending on the model. An important nuance: after installation in the printer, the user is left with only a small box made of recyclable plastic. For residents of the States and Western Europe, this is a very serious advantage compared to cartridges with ink or, even worse, toner. In general, such printers have few consumables: only the ink itself and the cleaning module, which also contains silicone grease. Everything else, from the head to the drum, will last at least five years (the head life is at least a million prints), and, if necessary, can also be replaced. Although, most likely, it will be easier to buy a new model by then.

But here we come to the first disharmony. Once in the tank, combined with the print head, the ink turns from solid to liquid, and should remain so until it hits paper or other media. While waiting for use, they are kept at a temperature that does not allow freezing, and as long as the printer is plugged in, everything is almost fine. Almost - because electricity is consumed to heat the ink. But if someone turns the printer off or the power goes out, the ink will dry out and become unusable. The next time you turn on the printer, they will warm up and merge them into a special waste tray. In large A3 printers, the losses will be relatively small, around 4% of the volume of one briquette, but in relatively portable models (due to design features, printers with solid-state ink cannot yet be completely compact), where the bars are much smaller, up to 20% is consumed, and this is already much more serious. Such features of the technology are very disliked by users and serve as an object of ridicule for competitors.

On the left is the waste ink tray, on the right is the cleaning module

The second disharmony lies in the slow start of printing. More precisely, if the ink is warmed up to the desired level, the first page comes out of the printer almost instantly. But keeping them constantly perfectly liquid is too expensive, so when the printer is “sleeping”, they are kept in a fairly thick state, saving energy. The “wake-up” time is up to fifteen minutes, and this, to put it mildly, is not very advantageous against the background of laser solutions . Xerox engineers figured out how to get around the problem: a freshly installed printing device carefully studies the behavior of its owners for two weeks, and determines when it is necessary to be in full readiness, and when it is possible to take a nap. I did not check it myself, but Xerox says that the system works quite efficiently, and the solid ink printer consumes no more than its laser colleague with similar characteristics per circle. So, in new models, power consumption in sleep mode does not exceed 50 W, and this is really a little against the background of general office costs.

Prints at first look very impressive: juicy shades, smooth color transitions, glossy shine. But, by running a fingernail or the back of a fountain pen across the picture, you will certainly leave a strip on it - the wax is very gentle, and is not prepared for mechanical stress. Moreover, the higher the print quality and, accordingly, the thicker the ink layer, the “softer” the print. Laminating it is also categorically not recommended: from the high temperature in the laminator, the wax will simply spread in all directions. Also, do not print blanks on a solid state printer, such as letterhead or certificates of honor, which then have to go through a laser printer: it is too hot in a laser for waxing.

The list of technology disharmony is closed by the increased sensitivity of printing devices to external influences. So, if the printer or MFP gets a strong enough push (who knows what fantasies the office workers?), or they want to move it without waiting thirty minutes from the moment of complete shutdown, splashing of ink can occur (remember the temperature of 125 degrees) with extremely unpleasant consequences for internal parts. This type of damage is easily calculable and is not covered under warranty.

Success against all odds?

The first Xerox models with solid ink printing technology were accepted by the market rather reservedly. Firstly, they lacked shortcomings, and, secondly, competitors made a fuss in time and organized a powerful campaign in the best traditions of black PR. Until now, on Youtube you can find surprisingly high-quality and funny videos (rumor ascribes their authorship to HP) about the unlucky system administrator Karl, who installed a Xerox printer in the office and daily scolds for it the full program from colleagues and superiors. Printers smell bad, turn off spontaneously, spoil the ink - in general, if you are interested, do a search for "Carl Xerox solid ink". I especially don't like Xerox white bear, whose protection Karl is so concerned about.

But in 2009, a new line of ColorQube was released, supporting the A3 format and consisting of three models, 9201, 9202 and 9203. Outwardly, they look the same, and differ only in performance. So, if in black-and-white mode the print speed for the whole trinity is the same, from 38 to 85 A4 pages per minute, then in color the peak speed is 60, 70 and 85 A4 pages per minute, respectively. Otherwise, full similarity: 512MB random access memory, hard drive 80 GB, four gradations of print quality with a resolution of 600x600 DPI, fax, scanner with automatic document feeder and a host of options, from a saddle stitch finisher to a two-line fax.

And these office MFPs, unexpectedly for many, "shot", they began to snap up like hot cakes, and there is still a certain shortage of Xerox ColorQube in the American market. Not quite the same as on the iPhone4, but still quite noticeable considering the price junior model starts at $22,500. Agree, the figure is quite impressive for spontaneous shopping.

There seem to be two reasons for the success. Firstly, the next incarnation of Xerox solid ink technology got rid of very obvious shortcomings, such as a 20 percent loss of usable ink volume when turned off and an unpleasant smell. More precisely, the same amount of ink is lost, just the bars have become larger, but purely psychologically 4% are perceived easier than 20%.

Secondly, in developed countries, devices of this class are usually not bought, but leased, and payment is often based on the number of prints, divided into color and black and white. And when companies offer to choose between several devices with similar characteristics, but on only one color printing costs almost half the price ... In general, you understand. Plus, unlike laser devices, there is no strict division into color and black-and-white prints: the area occupied by a color image is calculated, and if it is a small logo, the price of printing a particular document may practically not increase.

By the way, the appearance of compatible briquettes can serve as indirect evidence of the popularity of new MFPs. True, Xerox does not recommend using them for obvious reasons, but those who have tried them do not write terrible things on the forums. In no case do I urge you to use clones, you just need to understand that Chinese craftsmen rarely clone consumables of completely “dead” products.

Solid Answer

Despite all the limitations of solid ink technology, I sincerely want to wish her success. If players of the caliber of Xerox and HP start a serious battle, it certainly won't hurt consumers.

Just keep in mind that solid-state ink will not appear soon, if at all, in home printing devices. This is a technology for large volumes of printing, and at home, where most of the time printers and MFPs work as dust collectors, it has nothing to do. Nevertheless, if you want to be original, you can buy the cheapest of the "solid state" - Xerox Phaser 8560. It prints up to 30 A4 pages per minute (no matter black and white or color), costs from 35,000 rubles, and a set of briquettes for 1000 sheets will cost about 3300 rubles.

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Classmates

Solid ink for printer are solid-state dyes used in inkjet printing.

Solid ink was developed in 1986 by Tektronix, and in 2000 the rights to all developments in the field of solid ink printing were purchased by Xerox. Currently, solid ink printing is used in Xerox product lines such as Phaser and ColorQube.

After the user submits a job for printing, part of the ink briquettes melts and changes from a solid to a liquid state. The melted ink enters the printer's print head, then onto a rotating drum coated with silicone grease, and from there onto a heated sheet of paper. The image is transferred in a single pass, making solid ink printers print very quickly.

Some authors classify solid ink as a type of sublimation ink, but this is fundamentally not true. Sublimation ink for the printer during the printing process passes from a liquid state to a solid state, and then to a gaseous state, and solid ink from solid to liquid, and in this form is applied to paper.

The transition of solid and sublimation ink and one state to another

Solid ink cartridges are available in standard CMYK colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black).

Xerox Solid Ink Standard CMYK Colors

The table shows the most common Xerox solid ink options.

Xerox Solid Ink Options

Xerox ink sticks come in a variety of cross-sections and serial numbers from "1" to "4", which allows users to accurately determine the order in which they are inserted into the printer. The top of the cartridge is marked with an arrow ““”.

Xerox Solid Ink Sticks are uniquely shaped and labeled for easy installation into the printer.

A significant advantage of solid inks over liquid inks and toners is the fact that they can be loaded into the printer at the time of printing.

Considering that solid inks contain polymeric additives and wax, they are perfectly fixed on almost any type of media, including fabrics made of coarse fibers.

Prints made with solid inks are comparable in contrast and brightness to prints made with oil or water-based paints, and in terms of durability they are only slightly inferior to pigment inks. They are absolutely resistant to moisture, but fade under the influence of direct sunlight. Therefore, when used in an open environment, such images should be laminated with a special film. Regular film will not protect solid ink prints from fading, and they will very soon lose their brightness and attractiveness in the sun. This feature of solid ink should be taken into account when printing materials intended for outdoor placement, such as street advertising.

The figure below shows a comparison of two solid ink prints that have been exposed to the sun for 4 weeks. The print shown on the left side of the figure was protected with a special laminate, and the print shown on the right side was protected with a conventional laminate.

Comparison of solid ink prints coated with a special (left) and conventional (right) laminate

Laminating solid ink prints with a special film allows you to extend their life cycle.

The advantages and disadvantages of solid ink are listed in the table.

Advantages and disadvantages of solid ink

Solid printer ink is capable of applying high-quality images to any surface, including paper of various densities, cardboard, film, and fabrics. Wax, which is part of solid inks, gives them gloss, provides brightness and saturation of prints, uniformity of filling. The ink sticks do not melt in your hands, do not disperse in the air like dry toner, and do not spread like liquid ink. They are safe for the environment and human health, as they are made from plant materials and oils.

About which I only recently learned to my shame, then let me tell you about one "new" for me personally.

If you ask a random person about what printers are, he will immediately answer: inkjet and laser. The older generation will remember more matrix devices - but this will all end. In fact, there are a number of other technologies, and one of them has serious advantages over the others listed.

We are talking about solid ink printers. Who knew about these?

The history of solid ink printing began in the mid-1980s, when the first printers based on this principle appeared. They entered the market in 1991, but the truly unusual technology was revealed only ten years later, when Xerox engineers took up its development. They faced a non-trivial task - to make an unusual technology so inexpensive and simple as to fully reveal its benefits.

How is a solid ink printer different from the usual inkjet and laser printers? An inkjet printer forms an image from multi-colored dots, which are applied by a print head - a matrix with liquid dyes. The picture is clear, with good halftone reproduction, but the inkjet works rather slowly, and the image comes out unstable, prone to fading, blurring or erasing. The laser printer uses xerography; dry ink (toner) is distributed over the drum, which is rolled over the paper. Then the resulting print is fixed by heat treatment. "Laser" works quite quickly, but the print quality of color halftone images (such as photographs) is lower than with inkjet printing.

In addition, new laser printer cartridges are quite expensive, in some cases almost reaching the cost of the device itself. Solid ink printing combines the characteristics of known technologies, while avoiding their shortcomings. To refuel such a printer, not expensive consumable cartridges to be disposed of are used, but ... ink briquettes! That is, the consumable is such in full, leaving nothing superfluous behind. In addition, the design of the solid ink printer minimizes the number of moving parts, which reduces wear by dozens of times. How does this device work?

Drums and rollers

Simply put, the solid ink circuit includes only four elements - a fixed ink loader (the bars are melted in it), a print head, an aluminum drum on which the image is applied and from where it is transferred to a sheet of paper, and a lubricating roller designed to apply silicone lubricant to the surface drum. This scheme is, one might say, a "hybrid" of inkjet and laser, and at the same time includes some features offset printing. At the same time, solid ink printers were originally intended for color printing - unlike their "parents", who survived the evolution from monochrome to color.

Fact number 1. The first solid ink printers printed quite slowly, at a speed of about 1 page per minute. The print speed of modern devices reaches 30 ppm.

Briquettes of four colors (classic CMYK), similar in consistency to candle wax, are inserted into the receiving compartments of the printer - that is, into the ink loader. As needed, they melt, touching one end with a heating plate, and are fed into the print head reservoirs. Interestingly, the Xerox company came up with "shape coding": each bar, in addition to color, has a different shape, it cannot be inserted into someone else's "nest". You can report the bars even during printing - the head itself and the receiving windows are separated. The bars, by the way, are made of a resin-based polymer and something similar to chalk (of course, the exact formula is kept secret) - they are non-toxic and biodegradable. Meanwhile, the print head, equipped with special nozzles, delivers molten ink to a rotating drum coated with silicone oil. The drum is about twice as cool as the head (65° vs. 135°) and the ink thickens. During printing, the transfer roller is pressed against the drum - the paper falls just into the gap between the drum and the roller. The adhesion between the drum and the ink is extremely small - and the latter stick to the paper in a given sequence, where they finally solidify. It would seem that everything is perfect. But there are reasons why solid ink printers are ideal for some industries and not entirely profitable for others.

Pros and cons

In principle, we have already talked about the advantages: almost complete waste-free printing, simplicity of design and, consequently, durability, low cost of operation, high speed. There is one more plus - the print quality does not decrease with time (even for laser printers, photoconductors wear out, but here there is no such problem). In addition, the print colors are bright, like those of expensive "laser printers", and a solid ink printer can print on any paper - even on newsprint, even on cardboard, as long as the sheet sags under the drum. And due to the low temperature of the roller and drum, there are no jams due to material sticking to the shafts - the eternal disease of "laser"! - it can't be here.

Fact number 2. About 90% of municipal solid waste in Russia is not destroyed, but is disposed of. About 40 million tons of municipal solid waste are generated annually in the country, and almost all of this volume is placed in landfills, authorized and unauthorized landfills. Against this background, the use of solid ink printers with their minimal use of consumables is a significant contribution to the environmental situation in the country and the world.

Nevertheless, waste is still present in the printer, even if it is 30 times less than that of a laser competitor. The fact is that when the printer is turned off, the melted ink that enters the head solidifies again. And they do not withstand repeated melting - the consistency and color change; you have to "drain" what has already been melted and frozen. This process takes a lot of time - starting the printer from an idle state can take up to 5-10 minutes, so it is recommended to unplug it from the outlet as little as possible. This is easy to do in the office, but not always convenient at home, and with small print volumes, once a week does not make sense at all. The second point is the durability of the ink. Although the solid ink printer adopted the print speed from the "laser printer", and you can't wash off the prints with water, their mechanical strength is rather low. Simply put, the print can be scraped off or broken with a strong crease - you can’t do this with a “laser”.

Fact #3. solid ink do not get dirty, just as, for example, candle wax does not get dirty. This distinguishes solid ink technology from the use of toner cartridges.

All these factors allow solid ink printers to fit perfectly into almost any niche where you need fast and high-quality printing at a minimum of costs and consumables. For example, it is difficult to come up with something better for working with documents, graphs and tables, so the technology has found wide application in the business sector, in offices, exchanges, enterprises and, in general, among users who print a lot of documents. Today solid ink printing is the know-how of Xerox. The company is constantly improving the technology, gradually conquering an increasing segment of office printing. The technology is used, among other things, by the latest models of the company's MFPs - Xerox ColorQube 8580/8880 and ColorQube 8900. Solid ink printing is not a technology of the future in the sense that it is actively used in the present. But the segment of its use is naturally growing, because useful inventions cannot remain in the shadows for a long time.

Benefits of solid ink technology

Low equipment wear, durability and reliability;
- ease of replacement and low cost of consumables;
- almost complete absence of waste;
- high speed printing;
- resistance of prints to blurring;
- the ability to print on a wide range of materials.

Disadvantages of solid ink technology

The instability of prints to physical influences and high temperatures;
- high duration of start after disconnection from the network;
- disposal of frozen ink after disconnection from the network.

sources

The most famous printers are inkjet and laser devices. Previously, matrix varieties were also used. Technology does not stand still. Today, a number of modern technologies have appeared that are significantly superior to familiar and familiar devices.

This is a solid ink printer. What kind of device it is, what advantages and disadvantages it has, should be considered in more detail. This will allow you to accept the right decision about the feasibility of acquiring such a device.

The advent of technology

The solid ink printer (photo below) is a development of the last century. In 1986, such developments were first applied by Tektronix. new technology used in printing and publishing.

This printer became available to consumers in 1991. It was released by Phaser III. The cost of the model was high. Not every buyer could afford such a technique. The price was about 10 thousand dollars. Therefore, they began to acquire such equipment printing companies. They used it to create color proofs.

In the future, technology has improved. Relatively inexpensive solid ink printers appeared on sale. This technology was originally developed for It combines the advantages of inkjet and laser printing. Today, this technology has not yet received proper distribution. However, it is gradually gaining popularity, including in Russia.

Device and general principle of operation

The device of a solid ink printer is quite simple. This reduces the chance of breakage. The design consists of a drum, a controller and a print head. Laser varieties, in contrast, have many details. Breakdowns due to the complexity of the device happen more often. The simpler the design, the less likely the failure of its elements.

Molten dyes fly out in the form of droplets and first fall on a heated metal drum. Only then do the special pigments get onto the paper. After that, the paint quickly hardens.

This technology allows you to achieve high speed printing. At the same time, the image quality is high. It is close to offset technology. A feature of solid ink printers is undemanding to paper. The media can be paper, cardboard, film, envelope, etc. This distinguishes the device from laser and inkjet printers.

Dyes

The technology and device of a solid ink printer involve the use of special dyes. They are made in the form of small bars. They include wax, essential oils and special pigments. In this case, the bars can be 4 colors. Their combination allows you to get any shade.

Wax-like bars can be blue, yellow, purple or black. Moreover, their initial tone differs significantly from the pure print obtained on paper. So, for example, a dark blue bar, after melting by the system and dropping onto paper, gives a blue color. The purple tone on paper is obtained by melting a dark brown wax-like mass.

Bars for printers different manufacturers differ in shape. Therefore, they cannot be confused. Up to 4 bars can be placed in one color container. You can add them at any convenient time. Even during the printing process, you can add "ink" to the printer. It is important to monitor the tightness of the bars. The head block must be pressed against a ceramic plate, which melts it into a liquid state.

The process of creating media for printing

A number of unique features characterize the printing process of a solid ink printer. Wasteless production is called its action. Wax-based plates melt and flow into a heated reservoir. This keeps the ink liquid in the print head.

In the process of ink consumption, the plate turns on, melting the bars. When the tank is full, the heating stops. In this case, the required temperature is maintained only in the head reservoir. It has 1236 holes that spray ink in a certain sequence. The nozzles open and close.

With this technology, it is possible to obtain a resolution of up to 2400 dpi. This provides a slight movement of the head in the horizontal plane. The printer can emit up to 30 million ink drops per second. This provides high speed print.

The drum where the dyes are applied is less hot than the head containers. A layer of silicone-based oil is applied to it before printing. The ink becomes viscous when the temperature drops. Approximately 1/3 of the sheet image is formed on the drum. The machine then feeds the sheet onto which the ink is transferred. Here the dye completely hardens. Then the process is repeated.

Zero waste production

The technology of the presented printing is called practically waste-free. Solid ink printers have another node. It's called a waste tray. This is a mandatory node for all devices of this type.

It can be called wasteless only if the printer prints constantly without turning off. Such a process is possible only in a large printing house. In most cases, waste still appears.

When the printer is turned off, heating stops. All inks dry. When the user wants to resume the printing process again, the system will special training devices. Within 15 min. nozzles are vacuum cleaned. Some of the ink melts and drains into the waste tray. Here the mass freezes. You can simply leave the printer plugged in. In this state, some of the ink will always be liquid. Otherwise, the consumption of materials can be significant.

Advantages

The solid ink printer, whose printing technology has a lot of advantages, is used today by various printing houses. This direction is exclusively for color printing. In this case, this technology has a lot of advantages over other types of printers.

Experts call the main advantage of solid ink devices simplicity of design. This improves their reliability and image quality. The printer almost never breaks down before the deadline set by the manufacturer.

Also, these structures are easy to maintain. Much less ink is required for printing. Bars of ink do not stain hands. They are easy to fill in the appropriate compartments. Even a child can cope with this task. A maintenance kit is also supplied with the printer. It needs to be changed periodically. This procedure also takes little time.

Positive customer feedback

The printing technology of solid ink printers was appreciated by experts and customers. They note the high reliability and functionality of the devices. Buyers claim that the print quality of such devices is very high. It does not change during the operation of the device. This favorably distinguishes solid-state models from laser, inkjet printers.

Colors are vibrant and print quality is comparable to the images produced by the most expensive laser devices. Regardless of the type of paper, the ink does not spread. This expands the scope of the presented devices. The image is uniform, there are no stripes, other defects.

Also, buyers note a high per minute, the device produces up to 30 pages. Only expensive models of laser printers can boast of such results.

Positive feedback from experts

Considering the reviews about solid ink printers that are left by experts, we can note a lot of positive statements. They note that the printing speed is not only high, but also designed as correctly as possible. So, in laser printers, the print speed is ensured by the presence of 2 sheets in the path at once. This often causes problems with page jams. On solid ink models, the next sheet is not fed into the paper path until the previous page is completely printed. At the same time, the speed remains high.

Experts note the possibility of printing on different media. You can use both thin and thick paper, film, and other media that do not tolerate high temperatures. The paint is applied to the surface in a warm state. Such a temperature is incapable of harming polymer films.

Such devices consume 90% less materials than laser designs. This has a positive effect on environment and economic indicators using the printer.

Disadvantages of Solid Ink Devices

A solid ink color printer also has some disadvantages. The technology does not allow you to frequently turn off the device. The ink must be kept in a liquid state. Otherwise, preparation for printing takes a long time. Therefore, we recommend that you always leave the printer plugged in. In this case, a certain amount of electricity will be spent on heating. This raises utility bills.

It should also be said that after the printer receives a print job, it takes another 4-5 minutes to complete the procedure. In some cases, this feature is unacceptable.

Negative customer feedback

A solid-ink color printer, according to reviews from experts and customers, has a number of disadvantages. The main one is appearance images. The ink does not mix, does not spread directly on the paper. In this case, a small number of nozzles is provided in the head. Especially in bright areas, you can see the dot structure of the images.

This feature does not allow you to use the printer to print photos. Therefore, a qualitative result can be observed only when printing fonts, graphics. Also, the image fills must be solid. The drawing should also not contain thin lines.

In the last five years, a very strange situation has developed in the market for home and office printers. On the one hand, there are several large manufacturers that regularly update their product lines and seriously compete with each other. On the other hand, an IT journalist has absolutely nothing to write about their struggle. The business press can juggle a little bit with market shares and other boring things. And our man, looking more closely at the "new" models, immediately notices that from a technical point of view, no serious improvements are observed in them. Rather, on the contrary - in parallel with the addition of various embellishments, such as high-definition LCD screens, the actual printing part is being simplified.

First of all, of course, this applies to inkjet printers, where progress stopped in the middle of this decade. I find it hard to believe myself, but even HP, which once led the race to increase the number of inks in photo printers, today considers just four colors sufficient. Four! This is after NINE in the older models of HP Photosmart five years ago! Four ink tanks in those days were considered acceptable only for very simple models, where photo printing is not the main function. You can still find eight-color models from Epson, but they have been produced for the second five years already (for example, the eight-color Epson R800 went on sale back in 2004), and new items do not cross the six-color barrier. Yes, and according to the main characteristics, somehow print resolution and drop size, Epson printers and MFPs have not gone ahead over the past five years. Take a look at the characteristics of laser devices - they also have not changed for a long time, both in black and white and in color models. So why did the industry, which was developing so rapidly at the beginning of the century, pick up and “slow down”?

Blame, of course, marketers manufacturers of printing devices. At the turn of the century, when the mass market entered digital cameras they suddenly decided that this was their chance. Like, since citizens now do not have to go to the laboratory to develop the film, they themselves will prefer to print the photos themselves at home, and not with someone else's uncle. If so, they urgently need to ensure the quality of the minilab right on the desktop. The market for photo printers seemed huge, and a lot of money was invested in R&D, both in inkjet and laser directions. It was planned that inkjet printers would settle at home, and laser photo printers (such were also being developed) would be actively bought up by companies that use high-quality pictures in their work (that is, from real estate agencies to mail-order stores).

At first, everything went fine: people, by inertia, continued to print photos on paper, because it seemed to be accepted that way. But then suddenly the understanding came that, it turns out, pictures look good on a computer screen, and there are also mobile phones, laptops, digital photo frames, smart players, etc. etc. And for transporting them over long distances, optical media, flash drives and Email. As the computer technology was mastered by pensioners, the last hope of manufacturers of photo printers, the demand for really high-quality printing at home or in the office also melted. All that citizens really wanted was to print quickly and, most importantly, cheaper. Well, if where some shade is not accurately transmitted, it’s not scary. And even those who continued to print photos on paper still rushed to minilabs, where the price of a print is one and a half to two times cheaper than that made at home, especially when it comes to large formats.

As a result, printer manufacturers have received very advanced printing technologies with no chance to recoup the costs of their development in the planned time frame. Resigned and realizing that the existing reserve in terms of image quality would last for a long time, everyone switched to increasing the print speed and reducing the price of both the devices themselves and the prints. An equally important direction of modernization was the damage to the lives of manufacturers of so-called compatible cartridges and toner, which prevented them from recouping at least the price of the device itself. The development of new, alternative printing technologies, if not stopped, has slowed down significantly. And then the global financial crisis began ...

This long introduction is written so that you understand the harsh conditions under which Xerox is trying to market solid-state ink MFPs, which are radically different from both inkjet and laser printers.

⇡ Solid outside, liquid inside

The idea of ​​using solid consumables in printers has been on the minds of developers for a long time, and among the companies where it came to at least prototypes are Howtek, Exxon, Dataproducts, Hitachi, Spectra and Brother. The most successful were the experiences of the American company Tektronix, which in 1986 patented the printing technology with solid ink (Solid Ink), and in 1991 began selling the world's first color printer where this technology was used.

I printed Tektronix Phaser III on Letter-sized paper (slightly smaller than A4 we are used to), and it took about two minutes per sheet. Given that we are talking about a full-color print of a very decent quality for those times, the speed could be called very acceptable. But the price - $ 10,000 - made many think (for comparison, a black-and-white laser printer in those days cost around $ 2,400). Plus, the first implementation of the technology left much to be desired. After all, the ink remained solid only until the moment it got inside the printer. In the same place, solid bars, consisting of a mixture of wax, toner and vegetable oils, turn into a liquid with a temperature of more than a hundred degrees. At first, with the help of a movable head weighing - attention - 1.8 kg, they were applied directly to paper, and therefore, for users who were too lazy to take care of the correct fastening, the printers jumped around the offices like mad washing machines. When installing on the table, it was necessary to choose a thicker tree, and fasten the legs to the floor with self-tapping screws. In fact, the print speed, which is not high by our standards, was precisely due to the need to constantly accelerate and decelerate the heavy head. There was no way to guarantee accurate reproduction of shades even within a single print. Due to the peculiarities of the technology, it was impossible to observe the order in which ink drops of different colors hit the paper. For example, if yellow was laid down first, and then purple, the red hue turned out to be somewhat different than when yellow was applied over purple. Add to that the lingering smell of either a candle factory or an artist's studio in the room where the printer was used, and you'll understand why Tektronix's solid-state ink business didn't work out so well.

Despite the difficulties, Tektronix continued to develop the technology, and the engineers achieved considerable success, which, however, did not allow the Color Printing and Imaging division to achieve acceptable financial indicators. In 2000, it was sold to the Xerox Corporation along with all patents and the Phaser trademark. Today, the corporation produces devices that print on A4 and A3 paper. Despite the differences in exterior and dimensions, they are arranged very similarly, and they intricately combine inkjet and offset printing technologies.

So, today the print head is stationary, and it does not come into contact with the surface of the paper at all. Printing is carried out on a rotating drum made of anodized aluminum, which is cleaned of ink residues before each cycle and covered with a thin layer of silicone grease. The width of the head repeats the width of the drum, and has an operating temperature of 135 degrees Celsius, while the drum itself only warms up to 65 degrees. Ink, falling on the drum, instantly thickens and is fixed on its surface. When the head (which, given its size, one would like to call head) finishes its work, a slightly heated sheet appears in the tray, it is pressed against the drum with a special roller, and in one pass the entire image is transferred to paper. The ink layer is very thin, and the paper is almost cold, so no additional operations are required to fix the print.

Due to the relative simplicity of the technology and the minimum of moving elements in the design, the print speed in the older Xerox ColorQube models reaches 85 A4 color prints per minute! Yes, and the younger ones give out up to 60 pages, which, you see, is also not bad at all. Given that ink practically does not interact with paper, you can print high-quality photographs even on ordinary office sheets. Moreover, thanks to the wax base, they will shine like the pages of glossy magazines. Due to the high "tenacity" of the ink and the low heating of the media, it is possible to print on films and even on foil - the main thing is to choose more or less dense samples. The engineers also managed to overcome the problem of smell: modern models are quite neutral in this parameter. If we remember that the price of a color print on a solid-state ink printer is half that of a laser one, it is worth asking the question: why hasn't Xerox-Tektronix technology conquered the entire market yet?

⇡ Little things in life

Briquettes of solid-state ink look nice and even appetizing - probably not in vain in the mid-nineties, the president of Tektronix bit off and ate a piece of such an "ink" at one of the presentations. To avoid confusion, each color has its own shape, and therefore it is almost impossible to place the bar in the wrong place by mistake (unless, to undermine it with a file or crumble it).

They do not melt in the hands, they treat falls during transportation with understanding, the shelf life is practically unlimited, you can load from 3 to 6 briquettes of each color at the same time, depending on the model. An important nuance: after installation in the printer, the user is left with only a small box made of recyclable plastic. For residents of the United States and Western Europe, this is a very serious advantage compared to cartridges with ink residues or, even worse, toner. In general, such printers have few consumables: only the ink itself and the cleaning module, which also contains silicone grease. Everything else, from the head to the drum, will work for at least five years (the resource of the head is at least a million prints), and, if necessary, can also be replaced. Although, most likely, by then it will be easier to buy a new model.

But here we come to the first disharmony. Once in the reservoir, combined with the print head, the ink from solid becomes liquid, and must remain so until it hits paper or other media. They are kept at a non-freezing temperature while waiting to be used, and as long as the printer is plugged in, everything is almost fine. Almost - because electricity is consumed to heat the ink. But if someone turns off the printer, or the power goes out, the ink will dry out and become unusable. The next time you turn on the printer, they will warm up and merge them into a special waste tray. In large printers of A3 format, the losses will be relatively small, around 4% of the volume of one briquette, but in relatively portable models (due to the design features, printers with solid-state ink cannot yet be completely compact), where the bars are much smaller, up to 20%, and this is already much more serious. Such features of the technology are very disliked by users and serve as an object of ridicule for competitors.

On the left is the waste ink tray, on the right is the cleaning module

The second disharmony lies in the slow start of printing. More precisely, if the ink is warmed up to the desired level, the first page comes out of the printer almost instantly. But keeping them perfectly liquid all the time is too expensive, so when the printer is “sleeping”, they are kept in a fairly thick state, saving electricity. The wake-up time is up to fifteen minutes, and this, to put it mildly, is not very advantageous compared to laser solutions. Xerox engineers figured out how to get around the problem: a freshly installed printing device carefully studies the behavior of its owners for two weeks, and determines when it is necessary to be in full readiness, and when it is possible to take a nap. I didn’t check it myself, but Xerox says that the system works quite efficiently, and a solid ink printer consumes no more than its laser counterpart with similar characteristics per circle. So, in new models, power consumption in sleep mode does not exceed 50 W, and this is really not much against the background of general office costs.

Prints at first look very impressive: juicy shades, smooth color transitions, glossy shine. But, if you run a fingernail or the back of a pen over the picture, you will certainly leave a strip on it - the wax is very delicate, and is not prepared for mechanical stress. Moreover, the higher the print quality and, accordingly, the thicker the ink layer, the “softer” the print. Laminating it is also categorically not recommended: the high temperature in the laminator will simply spread the wax in all directions. Also, do not print blanks on a solid-state printer, such as letterhead or certificates of honor, which then have to go through a laser printer: it is too hot in a laser for waxing.

The list of technology disharmony is closed by the increased sensitivity of printing devices to external influences. So, if the printer or MFP gets a strong enough push (who knows what fantasies office workers will have?), Or if they want to move it without waiting thirty minutes from the moment it was completely turned off, ink splashing can occur (remember the temperature of 125 degrees) with extremely unpleasant consequences for internal parts. This kind of damage is easily calculated and cannot be repaired under warranty.

⇡ Success against all odds?

The first Xerox models with solid ink printing technology were accepted by the market rather reservedly. Firstly, they had enough shortcomings, and, secondly, competitors made a fuss in time and organized a powerful campaign in the best traditions of black PR. Until now, on Youtube you can find surprisingly high-quality and funny videos (rumor ascribes their authorship to HP) about the unlucky system administrator Karl, who installed a Xerox printer in the office and daily scolds for it in full from colleagues and superiors. Printers smell bad, turn off spontaneously, spoil ink - in general, if you are interested, do a search for "Carl Xerox solid ink". Xerox is especially disliked by the white bear, whose protection Karl is so concerned about.

But in 2009, a new line of ColorQube was released, supporting the A3 format and consisting of three models, 9201, 9202 and 9203. Outwardly, they look the same, and differ only in performance. So, if in black-and-white mode the print speed for the whole trinity is the same, from 38 to 85 A4 pages per minute, then in color the peak speed is 60, 70 and 85 A4 pages per minute, respectively. The rest is completely similar: 512 MB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, four gradations of print quality with a resolution of 600x600 DPI, a fax, a scanner with an automatic document feeder and a lot of options, from a booklet finisher to a two-line fax.

And these office MFPs, unexpectedly for many, "shot", they began to be snapped up like hot cakes, and there is still a certain shortage of Xerox ColorQube on the American market. Not the same as on the iPhone 4, but still quite tangible, given that the price of the younger model starts at $22,500. Agree, the figure is quite impressive for spontaneous shopping.

There seem to be two reasons for the success. Firstly, the next incarnation of Xerox solid ink technology has got rid of very obvious shortcomings, such as a 20% loss of usable ink volume when turned off and an unpleasant smell. More precisely, the same amount of ink is lost, just the bars have become larger, but purely psychologically 4% are perceived easier than 20%.

Secondly, in developed countries, devices of this class are usually not bought, but leased, and payment is often based on the number of prints, divided into color and black and white. And when companies offer to choose between several devices with similar characteristics, but only on one, color printing costs almost half as much ... In general, you understand. Plus, unlike laser devices, there is no strict division into color and black-and-white prints: the area occupied by a color image is calculated, and if we are talking about a small logo, the price of printing a specific document may hardly increase.

By the way, the appearance of compatible briquettes can serve as indirect evidence of the popularity of new MFPs. True, Xerox does not recommend using them for obvious reasons, but those who have tried do not write terrible things on the forums. In no case do I urge you to use clones, you just need to understand that Chinese craftsmen rarely clone consumables of completely “dead” products.

⇡ Solid answer

Despite all the limitations of solid ink technology, I sincerely want to wish her success. If players of the caliber of Xerox and HP start a serious battle, it certainly won't hurt consumers.

Just keep in mind that solid-state ink will not appear in home printers soon, if at all. This is a technology for high-volume printing, and at home, where most of the time printers and MFPs work as dust collectors, she has nothing to do. Nevertheless, if you want to be original, you can buy the cheapest of the "solid state" - Xerox Phaser 8560. It prints up to 30 A4 pages per minute (black and white or color), costs from 35,000 rubles, and a set of briquettes for 1000 sheets will cost about 3300 rubles.