Inkjet Printing Techniques Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Inkjet Printing Techniques - Essay Example This nozzle is connected to an ink reservoir, and places a singly drop of ink at a definite location on the substrate. A commercial inkjet printer’s head has approximately 300 nozzles per inch in the single column variety, and 600 nozzles per inch in the print head with two columns. All these nozzles can release a droplet of ink simultaneously (Madou 165). A few of the inkjet printer manufacturing companies have been able to produce printers that contain 600 nozzles per inch, in a single column. The inkjet print head is controlled by the software that is supplied by the printer manufacturing company. This software controls a number of parameters, such as ink temperature, ejection speed, print speed and the volume of the ejected drop (Madou 165). Out of the several types of inkjet technologies that are available, Thermal inkjet and Piezo-electric printers are used in mechatronics fabrication. The difference between these is the driving force behind the ink ejection. The principles, upon which these two technologies are based on, are described in the sequel (Madou 165). This method is commonly referred to as a bubble jet. In a thermal inkjet printer, small resistors are utilised to heat a thin ink layer, around 0.1ÃŽ ¼m, at a heating rate of around 100Â ° C/ÃŽ ¼sec to achieve of about 340Â °C. At this temperature, the ink layer is transformed into superheated vapour, which explodes and creates a bubble. This process takes less than 3 ÃŽ ¼ sec. Thereafter, this bubble grows, within 3 to 10 ÃŽ ¼sec, to form an ink drop at the tip of the nozzle. Afterwards, this bubble collapses and the drop descends from the nozzle, within 10 to 20ÃŽ ¼sec, to deposit on the substrate. The collapsed bubble creates a partial vacuum, which causes fresh ink to be drawn into the resistors, in order to form the next bubble at the nozzle. The time taken for a bubble to form at the nozzle is less than 80Â µsec at the operating frequency of 12 kHz. It is to