About Inkjet Printers

Inkjet printers are printers that propel drops of ink onto paper to form characters. Epson, Hewlett Packard, Canon and Lexmark have all contributed to the progress and development of contemporary inkjet printers. Since their introduction, these printers have increased in popularity, productivity and performance. Today, they are used almost exclusively with personal computers.

History

Inkjet printers were invented in 1976 but did not appear in consumer markets until the late 1980s. In 1988, Hewlett Packard released the DeskJet Printer, which cost around $1,000. Soon after, other companies joined the market with their own designs. Color capability was introduced in 1991 with the release of Hewlett Packard's 500C DeskJet Printer. Today, inkjet printers have the ability to print, fax, copy and scan.

Function

Inkjet printers are the most common type of consumer printers. They are used primarily with personal computers in homes and offices. They produce images and text by spraying streams of ionized ink onto paper at high speeds through nozzles in the printer head.

Features

Inkjet printers are equipped with either a fixed head or disposable head. Fixed heads are built in and intended to last the printer's entire lifetime. Disposable heads are replaced along with the ink cartridge. They also feature some type of cleaning mechanism used to reapply moisture to the head and prevent clogging. All inkjet printers use disposable ink cartridges, though with the proper equipment they can be refilled and reused.

Types

There are three primary types of inkjet printers: thermal, piezoelectric and continuous. Most consumer printers are thermal and use heat to propel ink through the nozzle and onto the page. Piezoelectric inkjet printers are generally used in commercial settings and use piezoelectric material instead of heat to move the ink. Continuous inkjet printers are used commercially to mark and code packaging material by employing high-pressure pumps to dispense ink through the nozzles.

Benefits

Inkjet printers have many advantages. They are quiet, fast and inexpensive. Inkjet printers also have a high resolution, which results in smoother details, and some even offer photo-quality resolution. All inkjets provide consumers with low cost per page compared to other technologies and high quality prints.

Warning

Many modern inkjet printer cartridges have a microchip installed that communicates with the computer. This can result in error messages and the display of incorrect information regarding ink levels. The narrow nozzles used by inkjet printers are easily clogged and this leads to large amounts of ink being consumed during cleaning. However, this problem can be overcome with routine maintenance.

Resources

• UC Berkeley did a case study on inkjet printers.