The inkjet printer has come a long way from a supplementary project inside a hi-tech corporation to most popular computer printing device.

If you own a printer at home, the chances are good it’s an inkjet printer. Nowadays, inkjet printers are the most popular printing device for home and small office use, but it has not always been like that.

From the 1960s into the 1980s computer printing was dominated by dot-matrix printers. Some of them can still found around. Unfortunately, dot-matrix still used an impact method for printing (pretty much like typewriters), so the problem of noise and speed limitations remained. With word processing getting more and more important, a fast, quiet, high-quality printer became required.

In the early 1980s, introduction of the laser printer met that need. By eliminating the need for physical impact against a ribbon, laser printers achieved much higher speeds and were able to work in almost silence. As personal computers grew popular during the 1980s, laser printers became the only acceptable choice for “letter-quality” printing, regardless the cost of several thousand dollars.

However, the laser printer’s reign was eventually overtaken by a technology developed at the Hewlett-Packard. HP, along with Epson and Canon, can claim a substantial share of credit for the development of the modern inkjet, and we will consider the history of inkjets from the HP’s point of view.

Funny thing is, HP’s invention was not originally intended for personal computers, since when the project began in the late 1970s, there were no such things. Instead, HP was looking for a new printing mechanism for portable, battery-powered calculators, its most profitable consumer product.

One of the company’s main goals in its printer project was to reduce the power consumption of its printing calculators. At the time, some calculators output their results by striking a type bar against an inked ribbon. Others had thermal print heads, consisting of a small column of resistors that could be electrically heated and pressed against a thermally sensitive paper or ribbon. Thermal printers required a special kind of paper and had problems with the type fading over time. They also used a lot of battery power.

Printer research had been a part of HP’s calculator development work since the beginning. In the early 1970s, the engineers at HP’s advanced research laboratory in Palo Alto, California designed the HP-35 also built a prototype “pocket plotter” to output graphs. Later HP engineers in San Diego and in Andover, Massachusetts, developed this prototype into a practical device they called a “grit wheel” plotter, which was used with computers and graphing instruments.

Building on this success, in 1978 managers of HP’s Corvallis, Oregon, facility started a project to apply the grit-wheel idea to calculator plotters and later, in the fall of 1979, the very inkjet project started.

In HP’s central advanced-research laboratory in Palo Alto, an engineer named John Vaught demonstrated the use of thermal heating to eject droplets of ink through a tiny orifice to print text. The idea of inkjet printing was not new in itself, but Vaught’s mechanism was the first to look suitable for use in a mass-produced consumer product.

The inkjet project got a big boost when its research staff hires Niels Nielsen, a very free-spirited mechanical engineer with less than a year’s experience. Nielsen began by examining the existing technologies. A key goal was to find a simpler way to spray the ink out. In 1979, Siemens introduced the printer that used a piezo-electric device to spit the ink out.
In the Siemens printer, an electric current was applied to piezoelectric crystals, causing them to exert a force on the ink in a tube and eject it through a hole onto the paper. This method was smart and reliable, but it was not suited for a low-cost, disposable item, while the idea of using thermal heating looked promising for mass production.

Tonejet, a developer of digital printing process, has announced its revolutionary extra-wide printhead. The 172mm-wide head, claimed to be the world’s widest integral printhead has been developed in cooperation with a number of partners.

The system is based on electrostatic drop-on-demand deposition technology that doesn’t have nozzles, but uses a very fine jet of concentrated ink to create a robust, thin and flexible layer that renders unnecessary the labels on curved or uneven surfaces. The new printhead allos to create high-quality designs onto virtually any type of absorbing or non-absorbing substrate at high speed.

Here is an example of a image printed on a feather!

The technology is going to find its first application in packaging, with printed products due to hit the market in the course of the coming year. Tonejet said that the main reason they chose packaging is because it’s a large market and many packaging companies want to apply digital technology.

HP claimed it’s giving up its camera manufacturing business. Instead the company plans to focus more resources on Print 2.0 – the new web-centered printing concept.

However, the company is going to maintain the brand and now is looking for an OEM partner that will design, build and distribute digital cameras under HP label.

HP wants to accelerate its investment in Print 2.0 initiative, which the company unveiled in May at its Imaging and Printing Conference in New York. According to HP, 53 trillion pages will be printed in 2010, creating a market valued at more than $296 billion. Most part of those pages is to be printed from the Web. HP’s Print 2.0 strategy is focused on using Web-based services to get a significant share of the growing number of digital pages printed each year.

This move of HP seems very logical, I mean who ever bought HP digital cameras?

Purchasing future revenues, HP also keeps up with current developments. Researchers from Palo Alto have created toner particles that are chemically grown. Usually toner powder is produced by mechanically grounding carbon block, but HP’s spherical monochrome toner is vat-grown.

Such chemical origination of toner has some advantages over regular toner. HP claims chemical growth of toner results in a consistently round toner particle. Even round particles allows for a more efficient printing process leading to a smaller cartridge. HP also claims that printer toner would be applied on paper more precisely because of the evenness of this new toner particle.

Let’s turn from Goliath to David. A start-up company from Cambridge, Inkski, has developed a very fast printing method. The new technology called “Lilo”, Light Initiated Liquid Offset, can deliver up to 400,000 drops per second from each channel. This is about 20 times faster than a general inkjet print head can produce.

Lilo works like this. Drops of ink are formed in a regular array on a rapidly rotating cylinder, using a photonic trigger to eject drops. The tiny drops can be held on the cylinder by surface tension balanced against the centrifugal force tending to throw them off. A laser beam releases drops from the cylinder.

The Lilo technology uses conventional inks and offers nearly similar per page costs as standard methods of digital printing, except pages can be printer much faster. The technology employs no nozzles, so there should be no clogging and smudging.

Hope to see new printer built using this technology.

The Epson’s five includes two multifunctions, a compact photo printer, a regular-sized printer and another multifunction with faxing capabilities.

Of the first two multifunctions, Stylus Photo RX690 is the new flagship consumer photo MFP that features Epson’s new Realoid printer engine chip. Epson Stylus Photo RX690 prints and copies 40 pages of both black text and color documents per minute.

Additionally, Photo RX690 features dual paper trays for a combined paper holding capacity of up to 300 (150 for front feed and 150 for rear feed) A4 sheets. This model also has the option of an auto-duplexer.

Stylus Photo RX610 is a new entry level multifunctional photo printer. Epson Stylus Photo RX610, in turn, can print as fast as up to 37 pages per minute for A4 sized black text document and 38 ppm for color documents; A4 copy speeds are almost equivalent at 37 copies per minute.

Both multifunctions are equipped with a 2.5-inch tiltable LCD screen for pre-print preview and editing, offer full variety of memory card options and PictBridge for PC-less connections. Users also have the option of a Bluetooth adaptor for wireless printing.

Epson Stylus Photo R290 is a single function inkjet photo printer. Rated at 37 ppm (pages per minute) for A4-sized black text document and 38 ppm for color documents, the printer pushes current inkjet print speeds to the limits. As post-photography touch-up becomes more pervasive, enthusiasts will be pleased to learn that draft 4×6-inches photos can be printed in just 12 seconds in draft mode.

Another feature of Epson Stylus Photo R290 that makes it different from other new devices is a direct printing onto the surface of CD/DVDs. The printer comes with the bundled EPSON PhotoEnhance software that allows for automatic corrections of common photography flaws such as poor color balance and contrast. And the new EPSON PortraitEnhance will help boost face definition and skin radiance in photos.

These three printers implement a six INKdividual cartridge configuration great for the cost conscious, since only depleted ink cartridges need to be replaced. The pride of photographers is in their printed works. The new printers use Epson Claria Photographic Inks that provide a stunning photo quality printouts lasting up to 200 years (in dark album storage conditions). The inks are capable of replicating a wide range of colors and offer incredible brilliance and gloss.

Epson PictureMate 270 is a compact printer churns out a lab-quality photo in just 37 seconds. The compact printer comes complete with a comfortable carry handle and folds neatly into a box with no protruding parts when not in use. It is the perfect companion with its small form and stylish exterior, especially for users who require printing on the go. With the optional battery pack, the EPSON PictureMate allows users to print 4×6-inch lab-quality photos anytime anywhere. A big tiltable 3.6” color LCD screen allows users to experience PC-less printing effortlessly.

Epson Stylus CX9300F is a multifunction inkjet printer with a print speed of up to 32 pages per minute for black text and color documents. Unlike other device described above, this model is equipped with high-speed fax that transmits monochrome and colour faxes at 33.6k kilobits per second and stores up to 60 speed dials. The MFP also has a built-in 30-sheets automatic document feeder (ADF) and a 2.5” LCD screen.

Stylus CX9300F utilizes four-cartridge system with improved DURABrite Ultra inks. Black cartridge is available in high or standard capacity versions.

All five printers are powered by the Micro-Piezo printhead and Advanced Variable Sized Droplet Technology resulting in up to 5760 dots per inch resolution. The printers support the most common type of memory cards as well as PictBridge devices for direct photo printing. With optional Bluetooth toggle you can go wireless and to receive images from any Bluetooth-enabled devices including mobile phones and notebooks.