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Print 11 comment(s) - last by YashBudini.. on Jul 19 at 6:44 PM
Development could mean no more wasted ink

Anyone that owns an inkjet printer has experienced the frustration that comes from clogs that lead to illegible prints. When that happens, we all know fixing it may take ink wasting “clean heads” maintenance that is performed by the printer itself, new cartridges, or a new print head before the problem is fully sorted. Thankfully, a researcher from the University of Missouri named Jae Wan Kwon has invented a new clog-free inkjet printer that was inspired by the human eye.
 
Kwon and his team of researchers used a droplet of silicone oil to cover the opening of the nozzle when the printer is not in use. This is similar to the film of oil that keeps a thin layer of tears from evaporating off the surface of the human eye. In the human eye, the eyelid spreads the film of oil evenly over the surface of the eye.
 
The tiny inkjet nozzle can't use mechanical shutters to mimic our eyelids because the little shutters would be stuck in place due to surface tension. In the tiny jet nozzle, a drop of oil is moved in and out of place using an electric field.
 
“The nozzle cover we invented was inspired by the human eye,” said Jae Wan Kwon, associate professor in the College of Engineering. “The eye and an ink jet nozzle have a common problem: they must not be allowed to dry while, simultaneously, they must open. We used biomimicry, the imitation of nature, to solve human problems.”
 
The new system the researchers developed will help extend the life of inkjet cartridges and save the user money by eliminating ink-wasting cleaning operations that force ink through the nozzle to break through a clog.
 
“Other printing devices use similar mechanisms to ink jet printers,” Kwon said. “Adapting the clog-free nozzle to these machines could save businesses and researchers thousands of dollars in wasted materials. For example, biological tissue printers, which may someday be capable of fabricating replacement organs, squirt out living cells to form biological structures. Those cells are so expensive that researchers often find it cheaper to replace the nozzles rather than waste the cells. Clog-free nozzles would eliminate the costly replacements.”

Source: University of Missouri


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GOOD
By Dr of crap on 7/17/2012 10:14:23 AM , Rating: 3
But way to go. Will the printers now be $10 while the ink is $100 or will the printers price increase?

While I have had printers with this problem, my Cannon so far has had very few of these episodes.

I have also found ink for my Cannon printer for $2.50 each cartridge. Yep $2.50 and no issues, prints great.
Stay away from Epson!!!!!




RE: GOOD
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 7/17/2012 10:30:43 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, I love Canon printers -- they have the cheapest ink around (generics). I can get a 12-pack (PGI-225/CLI-226) from eBay for a little under $17 with the chips installed.

I'm thinking of getting one of those continuous ink systems to lower my costs even further.

And I agree with your assessment of Epson. I tried going with an Epson Workforce 545 because it had AirPrint support, and it was nothing but trouble. Even with the original ink cartridges, photos would come out looking bad with major streaking and lost color output due to clogs. I kept it for about 2 months before getting fed up and throwing it up on eBay for someone else to deal with.

That's when I ended up crawling back to Canon :)


RE: GOOD
By Souka on 7/17/2012 3:34:34 PM , Rating: 2
I have a Canon Pixma 4000 printer... beautiful prints.
8.5x11 top feed
lower cassette tray (had photo 4x6 or 5x7 in it curently)
and I can print directly to CDs in full color... nice!

Oh... yes... $2.00 generic inks run great in it...


RE: GOOD
By YashBudini on 7/19/2012 6:39:58 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
That's when I ended up crawling back to Canon :)


Eh, my iP4700 uses ink like crazy. After printing about 20 greyscale resumes, one at a time over a period of a few weeks, the cyan and magenta are half empty. And that's without printing a single photo. My B&W only resumes are costing close to a $1 a page. So this round (of cartridges) I decided to go with Ink Owl. Chemically identical inks.

The digital age has made the requirement for inks that last 100+ years rather moot. The value is now in the file, which can be reprinted with pretty much the same color fidelity whenever you want. Canon used to sell both Chromalife inks and regular inks (a dollar or 2 less) for my printer. Now you can't the regular inks.


RE: GOOD
By DiscoWade on 7/17/2012 10:52:10 AM , Rating: 2
Epson printers drink the ink and do clog a lot, especially as they age. But an expensive Epson photo printer using Epson paper has the best quality photos of all printers. I believe Epson still uses piezo crystals to print. I would only buy an Epson if you wanted photos, otherwise I would save my money and get a laser instead. I prefer Brother lasers.


RE: GOOD
By Solandri on 7/18/2012 2:05:31 PM , Rating: 2
Folks, the only reason to get a photo printer is for convenience. The digital photo printing services at Costco and Walmart use big $20,000 Fuji and Noritsu photo printers based on chemical printing like the old photo prints you got from negatives. In fact shortly before film was phased out, all they were doing was scanning your negatives, digitally adjusting the exposure and contrast, and printing them as digital photos. If you paid a few bucks extra, you'd get a CD of the digital scans of your negatives.

They typically cost a lot less than an inkjet photo printer (10-13 cents per 4x6 at my local Costco). About the only other printing technology which can compare to their quality and longevity is dye sublimation (though newer inkjets can have a resolution advantage). Many of them have even been color calibrated by volunteers.
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/

I stopped buying and maintaining inkjet photo printers and just "rent" the $20,000 one at my local Costo.


RE: GOOD
By YashBudini on 7/19/2012 6:44:18 PM , Rating: 2
I'll never buy a glorified inkjet photo printer. They often accept large format papers but the cartridges are no bigger.


RE: GOOD
By kmmatney on 7/17/2012 12:26:57 PM , Rating: 4
I had a Cannon printer and while it was cheap to get replacement ink, it still went through them real fast, so I finally gave up on ink jets.

I bought a Samsung color laser for $69 shipped from "hot deals" a while back and it's been awesome. I liked it so much that I bought another one, just for the spare toner (and a spare printer, just in case). I'm still on the original toners after more than a year. I don't think laser printers print photos as nice as ink jets, but it's such a waste to print photos yourself when you can get them printed online through Walmart for cheap.


Razor blade business model
By WinstonSmith on 7/17/2012 11:20:17 AM , Rating: 2
"The new system the researchers developed will help extend the life of inkjet cartridges and save the user money by eliminating ink-wasting cleaning operations that force ink through the nozzle to break through a clog."

Considering that printer manufacturer business models make their money from cartridge sales, is this what they actually want? Won't they simply raise the price for such cartridges to compensate?




RE: Razor blade business model
By MrBlastman on 7/17/2012 11:34:26 AM , Rating: 2
Nah, they'll secretly make them hold less ink. Either way, you lose. :)


Not on my BJC-8200
By YashBudini on 7/19/2012 6:25:50 PM , Rating: 2
It could sit for months and never clog. It had something that looked like a windshield wiper blade that did the cleaning. It never waste ink in the cleaning process. Alas, it eventually just decided to stop printing. I miss unchipped inkjet cartridges.




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