Digital BW, The Print

John  -
   
  Which of Pauls's 'assumptions' was wrong?  Looks like you were agreeing with him.
   
  Tom Baker

sinar001 <jnolly@...> wrote:
          Paul:
Some of your assumptions regarding pigmented inks for Thermal printers
are just plain wrong!

HP has been using pigmented black ink in most of their desktop
printers for a long time!HP also had pigmented ink available for their
old classic HP5000 printer 8 years ago, but as a friend who had the
5000 commented, who wants to print with "prefaded" inks? Back then,
the pigmented inks with wider gammut were not available.

Yes, the thermal head technology requires less viscous ink to work
properly, but that is not the reason the other manufacturers have not
switched previously. (and yes, thermal heads are much more sensity to
viscosity/surface tension mismatches) Probably the main reason has
been the lack of pigments with sufficient gammut.

Also, pigmented inks don't run nearly as "cleanly" as dye inks,
requiring much more maintaince. It could be that HP and Canon have
been resolving these issues.

From what I've read about the new HP "Z" series printers, sounds like
they will consume much less ink in cleaning cycles compared to the
Epsons. They also have non-printing nozzle detection, and built-in
auto-profiling of papers using a colorimeter device. 

All-in-all, it's great when printer manufacturers compete for our
market. Keeps everyone on their toes!

John Nollendorfs

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Roark"
<paul.roark@...> wrote:
>
> 
> >Can these inksets ... be used with the new wide-format
> >printer offerings from Canon or HP? ...
> 
> I would not risk one of these new machines on such an experiment. 
Let the
> ink sellers clearly take a position first.
> 
> The thermal heads have historically been much more sensitive to
viscosity.
> The reason HP and Canon did not have desktop pigment printers in the
past
> was, I'm told, due to the thermal head being unable to pump high
viscosity
> inks through small holes. They'd overheat. Pigment inks must be higher
> viscosity to hold the pigments in suspension.
> 
> It appears someone made a major advance in the thermal head
technology. The
> fact that Canon and HP announce their desktop pigment printers at
the same
> time suggests this was a third party -- luckily for us consumers. 
However,
> there are still suggestions that the thermal heads are more sensitive to
> viscosity than the Epson piezo head. As such, existing inks may exceed
> their limits and cause overheating.
> 
> There is also the possibility that part of the advance is in the
ability of
> pigment inks to be made with lower viscosity. If the advance is, in
part,
> due to lower viscosity pigment inks, it raises the question of
whether they
> are achieving this through smaller size particles. If so, the longevity
> will be affected.
> 
> Yesterday I received some Canon test patches for fade testing. I'll
make
> some equivalent patches with MIS inks ASAP and get a fade test going.
> 
> I assume in a few months the third party ink sellers will announce
inks for
> the new machines, but they may require different viscosities than
the inks
> made for the Epson printers.
> 
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com
>



         


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