Thread: Inkjet Printing Operation

An inkiet printer either uses heating technology or pressure technology to spray ink onto the paper. Under the heating technology, each nozzle in cartridge is attached to a small ink chamber that is fixed to a large ink reservoir. When the printer receives the command, a small amount of ink is passed in the ink chamber. Then the ink is heated up to its boiling temperature. Once the ink is boiled, a bubble forms. which when gets hotter, expands and goes out through the print cartridge's nozzle on to the paper and bursts. As a result, ink droplet appears on the paper.

The size of the ink droplet is approximately two ten-thousandths of an inch, smaller than the cross sectional area of human hair. As the small ink chamber cools down, a vacuum force is created, which pulls more ink into the ink chamber for the production of next ink droplet. This process takes place at a very fast rate and continues until printer finishes printing the document.

An alternate for producing the ink dots is pressure technology (also known as piezo-electric technology). In this technology, pressure, not heat, is used to eiect ink on the paper. Now, most of the inkiet printers use piezo-electric technology.



Some inkiet printers can produce color outputs. Color inkiet printers usually have a black cartridge for normal printing and a separate color cartridge for the colored ink or even separate cartridges for each color. Buying an inkiet printer that 'uses a single cartridge for colors is cheaper on the initial printer purchase but more expensive in the 'long run. The black ink usually runs out much quicker than the colored ink. User should buy an inkiet printer model with separate cartridges for black ink and other colored inks.

Inkiet printers are ideal for small businesses, home computers and individual computer office. For higher printing quality, the laser printer is better option. A drawback in inkiet printer is that it sometimes spread ink on the paper. If the paper gets too much wet with ink, the printout will be good for nothing. The ink also spreads on the paper if someone touches the printed page before the ink dries. The ink can also soak into the paper and bleed down the paper.Different ink manufactures differ greatly in how to respond to this problem. But the easiest way to avoid this problem is use of good quality paper for printing, specially the one coated with small amount of greasy layer like wax.