Next-Generation Inkjet Technology
PrecisionCore white paper Table of Contents 1. Breakthrough PrecisionCore Technology (Executive Summary) 2. Meeting Customers’ Need for Speed, Economy and Flexibility 3. Epson’s $300 Million Solution: Merging Material Science with MEMS Manufacturing 4. How PrecisionCore Achieves Dramatic Speed 5. Professional Output, Quality and Durability 6. Keeping Thousands and Thousands of Nozzles Reliable and Ready 7.
PrecisionCore white paper 1. Breakthrough PrecisionCore Technology (Executive Summary) PrecisionCore, Epson’s latest advance in the 500-year-old craft of printing, promises outstanding increases in speed along with improved output quality, bringing inkjet printing to a new level.
PrecisionCore white paper 2. Meeting Customers’ Need for Speed, Economy, and Flexibility Printing has been central to global culture and economics since Gutenberg introduced moveable type to Europe around 1440. Over the past decade, growth in the value of printing has averaged 1% a year and now stands at $800 billion1. Printing takes place everywhere from home offices to gargantuan manufacturing sites. Yet, after more than 500 years of printing, the majority of office printing is still monochrome.
PrecisionCore white paper 3. Epson’s $300 Million Solution: Merging Material Science with MEMS Manufacturing Epson’s strengths lie in its culture of ‘Monozukuri’; a Japanese concept meaning ‘the art and science of manufacturing.’ From its roots in watch-making, the company has developed expertise in material selection, manufacturing and high-precision processing.
PrecisionCore white paper 4. How PrecisionCore Achieves Dramatic Speed Speed and power are two important aspects of the vehicles we depend on. Everybody loves the feeling of speeding around in a sports car, but it’s the efficient power of trucks, trains and ships that move the world’s goods to market. Both the speedy sports car and the high-capacity truck serve a purpose in the world; the choice depends on your need.
PrecisionCore white paper PrecisionCore print chip speed can apply to Epson’s moving serial printheads or fixed single-pass lineheads. Like using more than one engine to pull a large locomotive train, PrecisionCore heads can be assembled together to achieve page width coverage for higher speeds, for example, the 66 chips in the SurePress L-6034VW inkjet press.
PrecisionCore white paper 5. Professional Output Quality and Durability Epson’s PrecisionCore printheads and printing systems can hold their own in the speed wars, but let’s take a closer look at the resolution, dot precision, durability and flexibility that PrecisionCore brings to the print marketplace. Professional Quality Image quality depends on a variety of factors.
PrecisionCore white paper UV inks are notoriously difficult to use reliably in inkjet systems, but the SurePress L6034V successfully uses them to print on a wider range of label materials than competing systems. The results can exceed the gamut and Pantone coverage of established four-color commercial liquid toner systems. This is due to their more colorful pigment particles and more transparent resin coatings.
PrecisionCore white paper 6. Keeping Thousands and Thousands of Nozzles Reliable and Ready Let’s talk for a moment about reliability. Periodic printhead maintenance is an essential part of reliable print quality. PrecisionCore printhead technology is being developed to take full advantage of the characteristics of the piezo at the core to keep working reliably page after page, month after month, year after year. This technology has the potential to be used in a wide variety of Epson printers.
PrecisionCore white paper 7. PrecisionCore: A Technology for the Future Incumbent printing technologies face challenges in meeting the demands of modern printing. Today, the competition for customers’ print share is defined not only by ink and media pricing, but also by the added-value of convenience, flexibility and speed. Analog presses are fast but are built for high volume duplication, thus creating much inefficiency at lower volume.
PrecisionCore white paper Tech Focus: The Technologies behind PrecisionCore Thin Film Piezo (TFP) A piezo crystal has the property that it flexes or changes shape when an electrical voltage is applied to it. This motion is the driving force of the tiny “ink pumps” in every nozzle of Epson’s printheads. In general, the thinner the piezo element, the more it flexes. Electron microscope image of a PZT piezo crystal cross-section.
PrecisionCore white paper Tech Focus: Resolution - Not Just Dots Per Inch Discussions of print quality have long been characterized by the specification of dots per inch (dpi), but resolution and overall quality have always been more complex than counting dots. All print technologies can produce dots that are so small that they can’t easily be perceived. The rest of the print story needs to be examined alongside dpi to understand true print quality.
PrecisionCore white paper Sidebars The Office Printer Reinvented: Laser-like Text, Vibrant Color, Durability The economics of laser printers will be challenged by the emerging generation of inkjet printers that combine laser printer duty cycles and text quality with inkjet color and efficiencies at ever higher speeds. Let’s take a moment to consider how PrecisionCore specifically stacks up against the current standard for office printing, the laser printer.
PrecisionCore white paper Appendix 1 PrecisionCore Print Chip Specifications TFP print chip MicroTFP print chip Technology Thin Film Piezo inkjet technology Print chip construction MEMS (Micro electro mechanical system) All-silicon ink path and nozzle plate Compatible ink types Aqueous, solvent, resin, UV curable Operating frequency Up to 50kHz Drop size 1.5 – 32.5 picoliters (Multi drop size technology) Dimensions(L x W) 29.7 x 8 mm Nozzle line length 25.
