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In the eighth article of this series, David looks at Memjet inkjet technology, as well as some OEM implementations and products to solve specific production printing applications.
So far, each article in this series has focused on the technology and products of a specific printer manufacturer. Although many of them share complete component partners, even equipment manufacturers in the same situation as Ricoh InfoPrint and Screen, the Memjet OEM relationship is a bit different.
Memjet is a color printing technology company based in San Diego, California, and a partner of Silverbrook Research. Silverbrook Research is an Australian research and development company co-founded by Kia Silverbrook in 1994. He is an inventor (one of the largest individual patent holders in the United States). ), scientists and serial entrepreneurs. It is Australia's largest non-governmental research company. Silverbrook co-founded Memjet as a spin-off company in 2002, and its labor results began to be marketed and widely praised.
Silverbrook has established a business partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to manufacture this technology using the MEMS design and manufacturing techniques we discussed in the previous article. The technology was demonstrated in March 2007, and the system was provided to various printer manufacturers two years later. These include desktop printers, production printers, label printers, photo/retail manufacturers, and I believe there will be other uses over time.
Memjet's unique position is to provide a complete OEM core inkjet solution. This includes the print head, controller chip, software and ink. In addition, Memjet has also developed a variety of reference printers and print engine platforms, which can not only prove its technology, but also provide OEMs with products integrated into their respective products as core differentiated products within the brand, or only used as a benchmark for product development experience All of these have significantly lowered the barriers to entry for printer manufacturers, allowing more manufacturers to consider and provide inkjet solutions. When I interviewed every OEM partner, they all have one thing in common. They are very excited about their relationship with Memjet and the opportunities this relationship provides them. In each case, they seem to be less concerned about finding potential customers, but more concerned about their ability to keep up with demand. Currently, Memjet has OEMs in multiple printer markets around the world. These include desktop, office, production printing, wide format and label production. We can also expect more exhibitions to appear at Drupa.
In this article, I will introduce the core Memjet technology and their three OEMs: Xanté, with wide-format solutions; Colordyne with label production solutions; and Delphax, with high-speed production printing solutions.
Getting started with Memjet inkjet technology
Although Memjet sells its printing system as a whole, the print head design is what differentiates the company from other print head manufacturers. At its basic level, it is a drop-on-demand (DoD) system. However, Memjet provides a complete inkjet solution for its original equipment manufacturers, integrated into the front end and transport system at a relatively low cost. The basic solution includes print head, control chip, software and ink, and provides optional components according to individual OEM needs.
"Waterfall" inkjet technology is currently centered on an 8.77-inch wide print head, which can provide up to 700 million 1-2 picoliters of ink droplets per second. It prints with 70,400 nozzles at 6 inches per second at 1600 x 1600 dpi or 12 inches per second at 1600 x 800 dpi, making it one of the fastest inkjet systems available. The print head includes 11 integrated circuit chips (IC) and 5 ink channels that can print CMYK 1 or 5 different spot colors. The fixed print head requires minimal warm-up time and can be printed in one printing without the need to move back and forth on the paper like some other print heads.
The controller chip is optimized for the system to support transfer speeds up to 12 inches per second, or 60 consecutive pages per minute. The "holistic" solution comes with a software development kit that minimizes the work required for OEM development and integration into transmission and front-end systems.
The basic consumables for all OEM equipment are ink and print head. Currently Memjet inks are water-based dye inks, specially designed for Memjet print heads. Ink and droplet sizes allow for significant ink deposition and rapid drying on inkjet compatible paper. The ink density and the resulting print contrast provide an impressive production printed product. The expected life of the print head for production printing is estimated to be as high as 4 liters of ink, with a coverage rate of 70%. The approximate cost of replacing the head is determined by each OEM, but according to our research, it is approximately US$300.
The head maintenance is carried out through a cleaning system, which sucks in the head according to instructions and cleans and fills it. A quick cleaning takes about 30 seconds, and a complete cleaning may take several minutes. The cleaning frequency largely depends on the type and cleanliness of the substrate, but it is recommended that you clean it at least once per shift.
Printing costs will obviously vary from application to application, but here are some benchmarks from the field. Memjet estimates that the cost of monochrome printing for office printers is between $0.01-0.02 per page, and the cost of color printing is between $0.05-0.06 per page. Colordyne estimates that the cost of a 4 x 6 label with 40% coverage and a full-color image is about $0.026, including the print head and ink. This level of pricing makes operating costs very competitive compared to other products on the market.
Memjet OEM offers a wide range of printing solutions, and there will be more. In the long run, we expect that many new OEM products will surface on drupa, as well as many new developments and improvements in Memjet.
Three Memjet OEM examples
Xanté was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Mobile AL. It initially developed upgrade boards for Apple and HP laser printers, thereby increasing the speed and resolution of the printer. Through subsequent years of development and acquisitions, Xanté has been able to provide a wide range of products and solutions, including a variety of electrophotographic printers, including small-size color digital printers, sheet-fed envelope printers, CTP and CTF equipment, and workflows The system includes color management functions.
Excelagraphix 4200 is Xanté's first product with Memjet technology. This wide-format production inkjet printer was first shown as a concept at Graph Expo in Chicago in September 2011, which caused great excitement. This is a 42-inch sheet-fed system that can print CMYKK up to 12 inches per second. 1600 x 800 dpi, making it one of the fastest wide format production printers on the market.
Excelagraphix 4200 uses five 8.77" print heads in the width of the printer, and can print on inkjet-friendly substrates up to 1/2" thick from a minimum width of 8.27" to a maximum width of 42". Xanté tested a variety of media. In addition to the traditional wide-format display work, it also found a huge demand for corrugated materials, which has been successfully proven. It is currently a manual-feed sheet-fed device that can support almost any length of substrate; however, Xanté found that material handling, not the printer, is the real limiting factor. Although Xanté printed 42" x 27-foot banners, it did require a lot of operator coordination. Due to the variety of wide media requirements and Xanté's focus on keeping the machine cost reasonable, Xanté did not add an automatic paper feeder. I Hopefully there will be a roll feeder in the future. However, Xanté does have a print catcher on the output side for supported print lengths.
Xanté uses its iQueue 6 software to drive this printer. iQueue is a Postscript 3 pre-press workflow solution based on Adobe. It supports job management, imposition, spot color matching, job cost estimation, screening options, etc. iQueue 6 is available in 2 versions, Pro and Ultimate, depending on your requirements and features you are looking for.
Xanté believes that this printer can successfully meet the needs of commercial print quality wide-format production applications at a relatively high speed. In terms of proofing or photography applications, it does not really compete with high-end photography wide format equipment (such as Epson or HP). However, it is more than 10 times faster than many production wide format printers on the market. In addition, due to the development and production cost efficiency of the Memjet OEM relationship, Xanté can provide Excelagraphix at a fraction of the cost of other wide-format printers. Xanté plans to start shipping Excelagraphix 4200 in June 2012.
Colordyne Technologies is a relatively new company founded by industry veterans in the label and labeling field, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, focusing on the color label, label and sign market. Colordyne began using Memjet inkjet as an alternative to thermal, electrophotographic and flexographic label solutions. Its full range of products use Memjet inkjet technology. Currently, Colordyne offers three different color printing solutions, each of which can support variable data requirements.
The first printer is CDT-1600C. This desktop printer has two types of roll paper and folding paper, and is positioned as a high-speed label printer. It can handle media with a minimum width of 2 inches to a maximum of 9.5 inches, and a maximum printing width of 8.77 inches (the current Memjet print head width). It supports 0.003 to 0.0012 inch thick media. In order to accurately control printing, it has the function of detecting media through gaps, notches or scale lines. It prints CMYKK variable data at a speed of 6 to 12 inches per second at 1600 x 1600 dpi or 1600 x 800 dpi. With the maximum resolution of Memjet technology.
Colordyne's second product is the CDT-1600S, which is a desktop sheet-fed printer designed for forms, labels, labels and envelopes. It supports labels, tags, paper and envelope media with a minimum media width of 3 inches and a maximum width of 9.5 inches. The minimum printing length is 4.2 inches, the maximum printing length is 17 inches, and the thickness is 0.004 to 0.020 inches. It uses the same print control media sensor as the CDT-1600C, and can provide 1600 x 1600 dpi or 1600 x 800 dpi at a CMYKK print speed of 6 to 12 inches/sec.
The third product is CDT-1600PC, which is a continuous web production printing system. This narrow web solution can print at up to 32 inches per second (160 feet per minute) at 1600x1200 dpi. It can be configured with up to 5 print heads, with a minimum print width of 2" and a maximum printable width of 8.69". It supports CMYK 1 and other 5 color printing, or up to 5 different spot colors. It supports transmissive and reflective media sensing to achieve strict tolerance printing control.
The web processing of this printing system is manufactured by AzTech Converting, a 28-year-old converter system manufacturer. The 24 inch cantilever unwinding and rewinding system supports dual servo drive web control, with ultrasonic web guide rails, which can achieve precise cross web control.
In order to provide a very competitive short-term flexo alternative solution, Colordyne has just launched a new finishing station option, which can include varnish, lamination, die cutting and perforation. This addition enables the printer to compete with short-run flexo printing.
The front-end software of Colordyne printers consists of Wasatch RIP and Niceware label design and workflow solutions that support various functions. These can be upgraded and configured according to individual requirements.
Colordyne has been shipping its printers since October 2011, and its desktop solutions are seeking a short-term, low-cost solution to produce full-color labels, labels and envelopes on demand. Product manufacturers and retailers business, in-location . Colordyne's production-level printer is a low-cost, high-quality printer tailored to meet the high-speed, high-volume needs of the market.
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Delphax has been an industry leader in digital printing for more than 30 years and is one of the pioneers in the development and manufacture of production-grade electrophotographic printers. The company produces single-sheet and continuous web solutions for transactions, books, legal and financial, direct mail, security, and packaging insert applications. Therefore, Delphax understands what high-speed printers need to meet the demanding requirements of the production printing environment. In addition to developing and manufacturing printers, Delphax also has a software development team that creates process solutions to support the application of its printers in different market applications. Delphax has branches all over the world, and its products and supporting infrastructure are distributed in more than 50 countries/regions.
Delphax recently released a new elantm series of high-speed production inkjet printers based on Memjet technology. Although the official release plan will not cause a sensation at the Drupa Conference in May until April, the company has strategically released some product specifications to the public before the release. However, at the time of writing, no specific pricing and configuration information has been officially provided.
At this point, we believe that Delphax will launch the single-sheet elantm 250, which can print up to 250 times per minute, while the elantm 500 can print up to 500 times per minute. These 2 new elantm printers target many of Delphax's existing core business applications.
As part of the product introduction, Delphax created a front-end workflow and RIP based on Adobe's core technology. It uses a very open standards-based architecture for development to promote the flexibility required by the workflow and integration with existing systems.
We look forward to the official release of Delphax in April, when we will conduct a comprehensive review of the new product line based on further public information provided by the company.
In the next article, I will continue this pre-drupa education series to understand the meaning of all this information we have provided so far and how to use it to help yourself understand today’s production inkjet technology, how people are using it, you How can you use it in your business and what you can see on drupa 2012.
David Zwang travels around the world to help companies increase productivity, profit margins and market influence. He specializes in providing production optimization, strategic business planning, market analysis and related services to companies in the vertical media communication market. Customers include printers, manufacturers, retailers, publishers, media, and US government agencies. You can reach him at [email protected].
Joel Salus on March 9, 2012
Excellent, very detailed article, David. Thank you. I mentioned your article-Reprographics 101-on my blog because many replicators are following the development of Memjet. David, my question is this. So far, we have not seen Memjet issue any announcements about "mainstream" printing/imaging equipment manufacturers that license Memjet technology. People would think that HP, Canon, OCE, Xerox, Ricoh, KIP, K/M, to name a few, might be interested in making Memjet-based devices... Of course, unless they are unwilling to do so from them Don't want to build a Memjet-enabled device that might make their current imaging technology obsolete. What do you think? Will "mainstream" and "big coffee" eventually board the Memjet trend? Joel
Written by David L. Zwang on March 9, 2012
Thank you for your compliment. In my opinion, "mainstream" manufacturers are looking for other print head partners for a variety of reasons. You must remember that all print head technologies have many similarities, but there are also many differences. Memjet's real advantage lies in the almost turnkey solutions they provide. For companies that already have extensive experience in imaging and transmission technology, this advantage is not important. I will discuss more in the next article... Stay tuned!
By Peter Crean on March 9, 2012
David, thank you for the very useful article. I have been following Memjet for about ten years and want to know where it fits the options offered to the printer. For me, the answer is clear. The key figure in your article is that a $300 print head can print 4 liters of ink. This means that the cost of the print head is several times the lifetime ink supply. For web and sheet-fed systems introduced since drupa 2008, replacement/refurbishment of the print head accounts for 10-15% of the ink life cost. In inkjet printing technology, Memjet is a disposable camera and a disposable razor. It is an effective but very different product from my Canon or Braun. The applications you listed are a good fit for this model. The number of life cycles may assume that printing is balanced between all printheads (space and color), which is obviously the case for photos, but not for transactional printing with low area coverage.
Written by David L. Zwang on March 9, 2012
Interesting point...Although it is 4 liters at 70% coverage. The analogy of a disposable razor is also not appropriate, because the only replacement is the print head. No transportation. In addition, although the magnetic heads on some current reel-type production machines can be used for a year or more, the cost of replacing the magnetic heads is much higher.
Written by: Jonathan Dyson February 11, 2013
"The key figure in your work is that a $300 print head can print 4 liters of ink." Interesting comment. I have been running one of these machines in a commercial printing plant for two years, and this is the first time I have seen or realized such a ratio. We have always believed that the print head can print more than 30,000 sheets of A4 (12-inch repeat), and our experience is close to 2,000-3,000 sheets of A4 (12-inch repeat). Please remember that we have a dedicated room to run this machine and are very careful about the working environment. I would love to know other people's experiences with printhead life, because I got nothing for my problem.
Written by David L. Zwang on February 12, 2013
These numbers are a combination of user feedback. Obviously, the actual number of each user will vary depending on the application (media) and coverage. The argument on the street is that the new generation of magnetic heads being developed should have a longer service life. Time and experience will tell everything.
Written by: Peter Crean, February 12, 2013
Jonathan, the number of your 3000 A4 print heads is 10 cents per page, which is much more than ink. This is my opinion. Matching it to 4 liters per print head will be close to 100% area coverage with 25 colors per color-just like photo printing? To get 30,000 A4 will require 10% coverage, but will get a penny (for the print head), and high-end inkjets usually beat with higher coverage. I find that mapping everything to a penny/page (or fraction of it) is very useful for comparing technologies and products-but you have to put in the paper machine, replace parts, toner/ink, maintenance, etc. It will soon become clear what is important and where the product/technology is suitable. Pete Crean
Written by David Spencer on February 12, 2013
Peter, thank you for your clarification-I am about to make a similar comment. Jonathan, can you estimate your average coverage? Very interesting data, even if it is anecdotal rather than statistical data-thanks for sharing.
Written by Jonathan Dyson February 14, 2013
Usually, we run between 60 mm width and 210 mm width. Therefore, everything is in linear meters. I would say that the average ink saturation (different from the ink coverage) is about 40%. We run ours on uncut inventory and then finish it. We acknowledge that the technology is relatively new and "best practices" are constantly evolving. Basic material cost and availability have always been real stumbling blocks. It is difficult to apply statistical data, even if we have accurate costs and data for each job produced, because this is the experience of a printing factory, we may not be able to do everything right :)
Written by Jonathan Dyson February 14, 2013
Just a quick point. I am willing to pay only $300 per person!
Written by David L. Zwang on February 14, 2013
About a year ago, when I was researching this work, I found that the range was between US$300 and US$500. As far as I know, the retail price is controlled by the OEM supplier.
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