Digital BW, The Print

That the reason for the delay in coming out with pigmented inks on the
thermal printers was finding a solution to the lower viscosity.

Also that HP has waited until now for a pigmented printer--they have
had thermal pigmented printers for a long time.

John Nollendorfs

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Tom Baker
<tbaker1328@...> wrote:
>
> 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
> >
> 
> 
> 
>          
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>