Solid inks emerge in Oregon
December 13, 2007
Xerox Corporation this week opened a state-of-the art automated ink manufacturing plant to serve growing demand for its proprietary solid ink color printers as more businesses convert from black-and-white to color printing. The factory is the fruit of two decades of solid ink R&D by multiple companies.
The $24 million factory fills 929 m2 of previously unused space on the company's campus outside of Portland, Ore., and expands Xerox's production of solid ink by 10 times. Over time, as the plant reaches full capacity, Xerox expects to add 20 employees; about 75 employees work at the factory now.
The new plant will produce Xerox's latest generation of solid ink, which first became available in September when Xerox launched its Phaser printers. These products, the company claims, will deliver color printing as affordable as black and white. Nearly five years in development, the new crayon-like ink sticks have been developed to last for thousands of printings. By increasing the total number of color pages the ink sticks produce, Xerox says it has reduced the price of color printing by two times over laser printing methods.
The ink sticks also produce 90% less waste than comparable color laser products and were designed to melt at a lower temperature, reducing energy consumption by 14%.
"Known for its exceptional image quality and ability to print vibrant colors, solid ink was initially the preferred technology for graphic artists,” says Jim Rise, vice president and general manager of the Solid Ink Business Unit.
Solid technology
Solid ink technology relies on the ability to change the ink phase quickly. After loading the solid block into the ink-jet printer, the ink is melted, converting it into a liquid that can be jetted like other liquid ink in a piezoelectrically-driven printer.
The convenience factor in the loading process is an advantage, but the real benefit over aqueous ink is that the molten “solid” ink does not have to dry. Rather, it solidifies almost instantaneously on the printing surface, which is much cooler than the ink itself. This process results in better reliability of the printer, as the nozzles of the ink-jet do not get clogged by drying liquid inks. The “solid” ink remains on the printed paper, producing better, wider range of water-fast colors. Each solid ink cartridge lasts for 1,000 to 2,300 prints.
R&D results
Solid ink technology has been pursued by a variety of companies over the years. Surprisingly, Xerox is a more recent arrival to the segment. Howtek, Exxon, Dataproducts, Hitachi, Spectra, and Brother all made early attempts at developing a solid ink printer, but only the electronics company Tektronix successfully produced one. The first example, appearing in 1991, printed a conventional page in two minutes.
Xerox’s latest printers can exceed 24 pages per minute with ink resolution more than four times that first printer. The increased speed is partly because of a change in printer design strategy: the first printers relied on incremental advances of the paper while the shuttlehead swept back and forth across the page, printing stripes 16 pixels wide.
Unfortunately, a solid ink printhead weighs nearly 2 kg, causing obvious problems for a fast-moving shuttlehead. Ink alignment problems and energy waste prompted Tektronix to create indirect printing in 1995. The oscillating motion of the printhead was replaced by an ink-jet device that spray-painted a complete image on a spinning drum, much like a cutting tool acts on a lathe. The ink-jets are arranged in a series of columns, and about eight revolutions of the drum are required to deposit the ink. The “printed” drum image is then transferred to the paper, creating a simple paper path.
This process works because of the robustness of the solid ink chemistry. It must quickly be converted from a solid to a liquid, then transfer easily from the drum to the paper with the help of silicone release oil which is sprayed onto the aluminum drum prior to printing.
The beauty of the method is that although it requires various printer parts to be quite hot, it requires no solvents or drying time, and the prints are water-fast. The only disadvantage is the warm-up time, which can be up to 15 minutes.
In 2000, Xerox acquired the Color Printing and Imaging Division of Tektronix and began developing a new line of printers. Rise says that Xerox’s future in solid ink is just getting started, but toner development will continue. The Oregon factory follows Xerox's opening in September of a $60 million emulsion aggregation (EA) toner plant near Rochester, N.Y. EA toner produces sharper images than traditional laser printer toner, and uses less toner per page. Xerox has 1,600 employees on its Wilsonville campus, which is the center of development for solid ink technology.
SOURCES: Xerox Corp., The Society for Imaging Science and Technology
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