Vince Cahill’s report on new Piezo Printheads

The major printhead manufacturers continue to improve the capabilities of drop-on-demand inkjet heads. Epson, Fujifilm Dimatix, Konica Minolta, Kyocera and Ricoh have all released new-generation printheads, which manufacturers are incorporating into faster and more robust print systems.
Epson, at Drupa, is showing its new Epson SurePress L-4033AW printheads for LED/UV-cure inks that carry the same format as the Epson SurePress L-4033A, which uses heat to stimulate the curing of its air-dry inks.
Fujifilm Dimatix’s new, StarFireTM SG-1024/M-C piezo, sheer-mode printhead configures 1,024 independent, fluid channels with eight rows of 128 nozzles per row. Each head has a 0.0025mm nozzle pitch and can produce a 2.55-in.-wide print swath at 400 dpi single-pass resolution. The SG-1024/M-C will generate fluid-dependent, variable-drop volumes that range from 20 to 70 pl in its VersaDropTM binary mode, or 20 to 30 pl in grayscale. Dimatix designed the StarFire with RediJetTM ink-recirculation technology, for easy cleaning, particularly in dusty and linty environments.
Konica Minolta recently announced its KM-1024i printhead for both aqueous-based and UV-cure inks. It features four rows of 256 nozzles that print grayscale with a primary drop of 14 pl. The head features a 2.8-in. print width and a driving frequency of about 23 kHz. Konica says it prints almost three times faster than its standard KM1024.
Kyocera recently introduced its KJ4B-Z piezo printhead that features 5,120 nozzles that single-pass print 1,200 x 1,200 dpi native. It operates at 64 kHz and is designed to fire aqueous ink drops as small as 2 pl. Designed for commercial and textile print applications, the effective print width is 4.25 in.
Ricoh has placed its Gen4 and Gen4L printheads with numerous OEMs. Durst, for example, adopted the Gen4 for its Omega printer and Kappa 180 textile production printer. Agfa (Jeti), Anajet (M-power), Gandi Digital (Pred8tor & Domin8tor), Gunsjet (R4 series), Lawson (Express Jet) and Mimaki (CJV 3042 & TX400) have also equipped sundry printers with Ricoh Gen4 heads.
Mimaki Engineering recently recently introduced its JV400 latex printer and new JFX-500-2131 2-meter by 3-meter LED/UV-cure flatbed with Ricoh’s new, Gen5 printheads that feature a recirculation system. The new head images grayscale with a primary 4-pl drop volume in three drop sizes.
— Vince Cahill