How Do Inkjet Printers Operate

Each printer which works on inkjet technology places extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create a text or an image. In the personal and small business computer market, inkjet printers currently predominate. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers account for the majority of sales: Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Lexmark.The typical inkjet printer usually includes inkjet printhead assembly, paper feed assembly, power supply, control circuitry and interface ports.The inkjet printhead assembly contains several components. The cartridges of some inkjet printers include the print head itself. One of the paper feed assembly components is the paper tray or/and paper feeder. Most inkjet printers have a tray that the paper is loaded into. Different types of inkjet printers exist based on the method they use to deliver the droplets of ink. There are three main inkjet technologies currently used by printer manufacturers. In a thermal inkjet printer, tiny resistors create heat, and this heat vaporizes ink to create a bubble. This pulls more ink into the print head from the cartridge. Thermal inkjet technology is used almost exclusively in the consumer inkjet printer market. In continuous inkjet technology, a high-pressure pump directs liquid ink from a reservoir through a microscopic nozzle, creating a continuous stream of ink droplets. Continuous inkjet is one of the oldest inkjet technologies in use and is fairly mature. The printer receives the data from the computer. The control circuitry activates the paper feed stepper motor. This engages the rollers, which feed a sheet of paper from the paper tray / feeder into the printer. Once the paper is fed into the inkjet printer and positioned at the start of the page, the print head stepper motor uses the belt to move the print head assembly across the page. The time it takes to print a page can vary widely from printer to printer. Compared to earlier consumer-oriented printers, inkjet printers have a number of advantages. In comparison to more expensive technologies like thermal wax, dye sublimations, and laser printers, the inkjet printers have the advantage of practically no warm-up time and lower cost per page (except when compared to laser printers).The disadvantages of the inkjet printers include flimsy print heads (prone to clogging) and expensive inkjet cartridges. Most inkjet printer manufacturers also sell special clay-treated paper designed to reduce bleeding. Besides the well known small inkjet printers for home and office, there is a market for professional inkjet printers; some being for page-width format printing, and most being for wide format printing. "Wide format" means that these are inkjet printers ranging in print width from 24" up to 15'. The application of the page-width inkjet printers is for printing high-volume business communications that have a lesser need for flashy layout and color.