Inkjet

Overview

An inkjet printer produces high quality images and text by spraying precise quantities of ink onto the media through a nozzle. Magnetic fields in the ink's path direct the ink in the desired shape and location. There is some dispute as to when inkjet technology was invented. The first widespread commercial product was the PT-80 introduced by Siemens in 1977. Inkjet printers did not become ubiquitous until the 90's when the price dropped low enough and they accompanied the personal computer into consumer homes. The major competitors today are Hewlett Packard, Canon, and Epson.

IBM initially championed the continuous inkjet technology, where a continuous stream of ink from the nozzle was either directed to the paper or sent to a gutter for reuse. The market quickly shifted to drop-on-demand technologies which only release ink when needed from the nozzles. Inkjet printers can be serial-printers where they print from left to right, or line-printers in which they print from top to bottom a whole row of pixels at a time. Typical speeds of inkjet printers range from 4-8 ppm. The main advantage of inkjet printers is that they can produce color images very cheaply. A common business strategy in the market is to subsidize the sale of the printer and make profits on the sale of the cartridges.

picture from: wce.wwu.edu

Two main sub-classifications of dot matrix printers by the mechanism used are the piezoelectric inkjet and the thermal inkjet.