Printing technology

Printer is one of the best inventions by human being in the field of electronics. Without the printer we cannot imagine printing loads of pages from our computer. Without the printer the computer is not complete.

The journey of printer started from the always famous Dot Matrix Impact printer. If you would have bought your computer in the 1980s then the Dot Matrix would have been the only option in the printer category. There was no cartridge changes. The only thing that needs change was the ribbon which was also not expensive. The rare repairs like the printer motor burning out or the print head worn out seldom used to occur.

But today there are lots of models and options to choose from. There are different options in the inkjet category and also equally same number of models in the laserjet category. But in the present day printers the print head and the cartridge are combined and hence if you need to change the cartridge you should also change the print head which comes with the cartridge. This has decreased the cost of the printer but also increased the cost of maintanance.

How fine or sharp the image produced looks, depends on the size of the nozzeles. Entry level printers have standar sized nozzeles that deliver drops sized at just under 5 picoliteres. But if one wanted a good photo quality he can go in for the phot printers that release 1.5 picolitres
per second.

Research in print technology

The HP engineers have successfully come with a new technology called the "Dual Drop Technology". Briefly explaining in this technology the researchers have combined both the normal nozzles and fine sized nozzeles. If one has to print normal documents then he can go in for the normal sized nozzeles. If the user needs fine photo quality then he can use the fine nozzeles option and get a better photo quality. The small or fine nozzeles just have a comparatively smaller diameter.

Almost all new generation printers are manufactured with the "Duak Drop Technology". This has been a boon to the low cost printers as they can be used for both draft document printouts and also as photo printers. This new technology has enabled the users to get high quality printouts. Previously it was 18,000 drops per second and now it has increased to 24,000 drops per second. Thanks a lot for this "Dual Drop Technology". But still the innovation in the field of printers is not complete. The continuing challenge is to achieve uniform size of toner particles, and smaller size which would of course increase the quality of printouts further.

Krish .