Canon laser printer

Laser printer from Canon:



Source: www.canon.com

Canon inkjet technology

Here it is a detailed exlanation of the structure of a Canon Pixma printer...



Source: www.canon.com

Epson gives a pack of paper into the bargain...

If you buy an Epson A3 inkjet printer in Russia or CIS between May 1 and June 30, 2007, a pack of A3 paper is given as a bonus.

Source: www.epson.ru

Xerox Launches a New Desktop Multifunction Printer for Small Business

Xerox introduced its most affordable black-and-white multifunction printer, starting at $399 and designed for small businesses.

The Xerox Phaser™ 3200MFP packs print, copy, fax and color-scanning features into a compact device that is inexpensive and easy to use.

Starting at $399, Phaser 3200MFP prints/copies up to 24 ppm. It has true 1200 dpi resolution for crisp text and fine detail. Including 64MB of memory, the device has a 300MHz processor and print and copy speeds up to 24 pages per minute. It has a 4MB of fax memory and a monthly duty cycle of 10,000 prints.



To help offices become more environmentally friendly, the Phaser 3200MFP comes with features designed to cut down on paper use. PC Fax Send lets users send a fax right from their computer, eliminating the need to print out a hard copy for faxing. The Phaser 3200MFP is Microsoft Vista compatible, ENERGY STAR® compliant and part of Xerox's Green World Alliance supplies recycling program.

Source: www.xerox.com

Xerox improves the properties of its paper

Xerox Russia informed it would start distributing printing paper with improved properties supposed for monochrome prints.

The representatives of Xerox point out the change of the raw material for the paper allowed to change the whiteness of the paper from 150 to 164 CIE and thickness from 97 to 100 microns. Xerox says the improvements will not affect the price of the Xerox paper.

Source: www.xerox.ru

3D printer for $4,995 USD!

3D printers have been around for industrial use roughly a decade, but they have been matched with outrageous price tags. The first models to hit the market were priced at about the same as a fully loaded Mercedes S-Class, while models today can be bought for about the price of a Honda Civic. The price erosion is expected to continue in the next few years with prices dropping below $5,000 USD by the end of 2007.



Desktop Factory is aiming to bring to market a consumer-oriented 3D printer this year for $4,995 USD while the cost of materials is expected to be $0.50 per cubic inch.

Details are available here.

HP and waterproof printing paper

HP Russia announced that HP is going to start selling a new type of printing paper for its inkjet printers.

Until now, HP paper was of lower quality and the paper offered by Epson and compatible manufacturers like Skyhorse and Lomond formed no smears when printed on HP inkjets. The HP paper would form smears if a water drop fell on it.

The HP authorities promised in June the paper thing will be corected and new paper will be in sale from July'07.

PRINT & COPY CONTROL MODULES FROM RICOH

Ricoh introduced a new version of its Print & Copy Control (PCC v3) software solution embedded in its multifunction products (MFPs). Print & Copy Control creates a secure environment where only authenticated users can release their documents through a PIN code, user ID/password or an identification card. As Ricoh says, by allowing the user to manage all account information and reporting from one central location, Print & Copy Control saves both time and money by eliminating the need to install, configure and service external copy control terminals. All transactions are processed for centralized accounting and reporting, helping organizations define a document output. The software is simply installed on the hard drive of the MFP and is controlled on the built-in front panel touch-screen display.

In my opinion, the drawback of such software is that it is only compatible with Ricoh devices...

HP 4300 Wiper Blade Replacement

Below you can see the replacement procedure for HP 4300 Wiper Blade.



The instructions were elaborated by Oasis Imaging.

Static Control vs. Lexmark

Interesting news came from the US today:
Lexmark lost a court battle against the aftermarket leader: Static Control Components...

...Lexmark International lost a court battle on Friday, June 22, when a jury ruled that it failed to prove that Static Control Components induced toner-cartridge remanufacturers to violate Lexmark patents.

Lexmark had alleged that Static Control, by making a chip that bypassed a Lexmark patent-enforcement mechanism, had encouraged some of its customers to directly infringe on Lexmark’s patents.

And while Friday’s verdict in U.S. District Court was decidedly in Static Control’s favor, it does not nullify the Lexmark program at the center of the case. The judge in the case earlier ruled the program is valid, as well as ruling in Lexmark’s favor on several key issues before and during the trial...

Continuation here

Flat printer...Why not?

Flat printer? Why not? :)



Here is the full information:
http://www.theyshoulddothat.com/printers/

New inkjet printers from HP

HP released three new inkjet printers within its "summer collection" of printers. These printers come along with the new 9 photo cameras from HP.


HP Photosmart C5280

HP Photosmart C5280:

Supports: A4, A5, A6, B5, C6, DL;
Tray: 125 sheets;
Monochrome printing: 32 ppm;
Color printing: 24 ppm;
Inks used: HP Vivera (HP 74 and 75);
Dimensions: 452 x 385 x 216 mm
Weight: 7,13 kg.
Recommended price: 150 USD

Photosmart D7260 & Photosmart D7460

Monochrome printing: 34 ppm;
Color printing: 33 ppm;
Inks used: HP Vivera (HP 02);
Dimensions: 459 x 391 x 238 mm
Weight: 7,98 kg.
Recommended price: 149 USD and 179 USD respectively


Photosmart D7260

The above printers are available in Eastern Europe from June, 2007.

Source: www.hp.com

HP’s investments in imaging supplies

Some interesting facts:

Every year HP invests over 1 billion USD in R&D of imaging and printing technologies. HP registers over 12000 patents yearly in the world. Over 4000 patents are registered in the area of consumables.

To develop a new formula for inks HP needs over 12000 working hours and around 22000 liters of inks for testing and optimization purposes.

Source: www.hp.com

A Real Warranty? - Part 3

PRICES:

The price of the printer itself varies from 500USD to 650 USD in Moscow, Kiev and Minsk. The included cartridges have the resource of 1500 pages/each (again if the coverage is 5%!). So, after 1 week of ownership we will already need to buy new cartridges.

Here we go:

Cartridges: With 5% coverage we will need to change all 4 cartridges (in average) once in 6 weeks, or 8,5 times per year.


Cyan cartridge for Aculaser 1100.

OPC: With the above number of prints per month, we will have to change the OPC two times yearly.





ORIGINAL SUPPLIES:

CARTRIDGES:
Moscow/Kiev for June 20, 2007:

Epson Aculaser C1100 - black ~ USD80
Epson Aculaser C1100 - color ~ USD150

OPC:
Moscow/Kiev for June 20, 2007:

Epson Aculaser C1100 OPC drum: USD200-220

The total price for the supplies during one year is:

Cartridges=(80+3*150)*8.5= USD3655
Drum: 200*2= USD400

Total price: USD 4055

COMPATIBLE SUPPLIES:

CARTRIDGES:
Moscow/Kiev for June 20, 2007:

Epson Aculaser C1100 - black ~ USD55
Epson Aculaser C1100 - color ~ USD70

OPC:
Moscow/Kiev for June 20, 2007:

Epson Aculaser C1100 OPC drum: USD50

The total price for the supplies during one year is:

Cartridges=(55+3*70)*8.5= USD2250
Drum: 50*2= USD100 + chips (~USD50) = USD150

Total price: USD 2400

The difference is USD1655!!! Quite a fortune for a small company!!!

The replacement of a laser unit costs maximally 150 USD! Besides, the laser unit is the device, which fall out of function very very rarely...

These calculations, which do not pretend to be extremely exact, show again why it is worth having a war against the aftermarket. If the corporate customer dips deep enough in the figures they will see how much money is wasted down the drain under the umbrella of good marketing moves performed by OEMs.

A nice day to you all!

A real warranty? - Part 2

In order to have a look at the new Epson's warranty for free replacement the laser unit in all its printers for life, let us take a look at one of Epson's old and working well color laser printer: the popular Aculaser C1100. This very popular color printer, extensively used in the CIS countries, can serve as a perfect example and will allow to see whether the new warranty seems as attractive as it is described in the IT news sources.


Aculaser C1100

I will take into consideration just one single criteria: the overall price of ownership. For such a price-driven market as the CIS is, this is the best and most reliable criteria.

I will have a look at the price of ownership during one year beginning with the buy of the printer.

Aculaser 1100 profile:

The printer (Aculaser 1100) was first released in 2004.

The printer uses 4 cartridges: black and CMY
The printer can use 4 black cartridges to increase the output.


Cartridges

The print speed is 25 b/w ppm and 5 color ppm.

Here come the most interesting details:

Recommended monthly volume: under 45000 pages
Black cartridge resource: 4000 pages (5% coverage)
CMY cartridges: 4000 pages/each (5% coverage)

Lifespan of the drum: 42 000 pages/black ; 10 500 page/color printing.

Here it is necessary to make a paranthesis: the above specifications are given for the famous 5% coverage of the page. But who prints with BIG LETTERS with the size "24" or even bigger without graphics just to cover only 5%? Therefore, the resource should be reduced by around 10-15% to reflect the true state of matters. So, the actual coverage should be around 8% in average. But let us not be too
picky! :) Let us not consider the fact that in an office the staff might print photos and other stuff with even over 50% coverage, either.

The premise is that we print 7000 b/w pages and 3500 color pages per month on our Aculaser 1100.


The "guts" of an Aculaser 1000, Aculaser1100's elder brother.

A real warranty? - Part 1

Epson announced life warranty for the laser elements/laser unit in all its printers and multifunctional devices from April 1, 2007, on the territory of Russia and CIS countries. The represetative of the CIS office said the warranty is supposed to reinforce the company's position on the market. Epson pointed out the laser unit is one of the most expensive elements in a pritner and the company is ready to replace it for free disregarding the age of the printer.

Epson wants to be closer to its customers and to build mutually beneficial relations with them. The managers from the Moscow-based representative office said they place reliability of Epson's printers and MFPs before everything else and, that's why, they've announced live warranty for the laser unit in all Epson's laser products in CIS.

The warranty is valid only in case original cartridges were used. In the opposite case the warranty is void.

Hm...a new marketing approach! Let's anatomize this new offer from Epson and see whether everything looks so exceptional as mentioned above :)

A la guerre comme à la guerre! - PART 5

SOME REVELATIONS ABOUT THE AFTERMARKET IN EUROPE AND ESPECIALLY IN EASTERN EUROPE:

Part 5:

END CUSTOMER

As anyone of us well knows, a war induces a lot of victims within the civil population. In our war end users are the civil population. They suffer most of all because of these conflicts. For example, in the case of the British recycler that was made to stop selling compatible consumables end users suffered immensely since the company was well known in the UK and had a lot of customers that preferred buying cheaper consumables with the same quality.

End users are deprived of the choice: OEMs drum into their heads the idea of buying only original consumables as the best ones. But the real competitive market is a market where clients are free to choose and are well informed about the advantages of different options and alternatives. In my mind, the problem in the “war” between the OEM sector and re-industry is that everyone tries to earn as much as possible. It is very often that the end user is simply forgotten or is treated like a money giver. To me it is a mistake that can incur fatal errors both on the marketing and sales level: the customer today is very picky and fragile. Once he is deceived: he was told that only original consumables are the best, but he sees that compatible ones are not less qualitative, he will muse over why he was not told that there is a cheaper alternative and, after all, switch to the competitor’s products.

A short conclusion
All companies fight for surviving on the market. For many of them survival means to set up a war and win it. But no one survives a war without losses. Sometimes, the wars that were won can be equal to losses, namely, in funds, resources and power.

In the case of the printing industry it should not be that important who wins, but how to attract and satisfy the “civil population”.

A la guerre comme à la guerre! - PART 4

SOME REVELATIONS ABOUT THE AFTERMARKET IN EUROPE AND ESPECIALLY IN EASTERN EUROPE:

Part 4:

Guerrilla war

A war without guerrilla actions is not a war. In the present conditions OEMs have also thought of how to undermine any success of re-industry in the public opinion and how to advance their interest on the state and law levels. As I told earlier, mass media campaigns, attraction of popular people and other PR actions are made use of to build a certain opinion as to the Re-Industry. But it is not enough in the eyes of OEMs. They go further. They lobby local governments and employ funds to promulgate the laws that stand for their interests. Unfortunately, these actions are successful, because in the majority of European and Asian countries there is no solid law base as to the issues of Re-industry. For OEMs it is easy to establish a law stipulating that their claims can be considered as the only true ones and, then, initiate new trials in order to eliminate competitors.

The guerrilla actions are not limited to lobbying. OEMs also control suppliers. If a supplier works for several companies: OEM being usually the main partner, the supplier is asked to cease collaboration with any other company whose interests are in the same field as the OEM’s. To its regret, the supplier must give in and break all relations with this company.

A la guerre comme à la guerre! - PART 3

SOME REVELATIONS ABOUT THE AFTERMARKET IN EUROPE AND ESPECIALLY IN EASTERN EUROPE:

Part 3:

We came with peace

The war occurs not only on the battle fields (court rooms, mass media, TV), but also in peaceful conditions. OEMs have made it a habit to inform users (SMEs, individual users) that they do not have to throw away empties, but return them to the OEM after the use. In the USA, for instance, OEMs even stick the return address with the paid mailing fee on the box of cartridges with a request to return the empty to the address, thus, helping to the environment. The strategy is partially true: the user does not have to throw the material and harm the nature, but s/he sends it back to the company that “re-uses” it. A certain % of users that are not familiar with the particularity of the business do so. They send the empty and an OEM’s representative hurries to supply the customer with another brand-new OEM product. But the user is not informed that empties have already become a “currency”. Companies sell and buy empties. Lots of them earn fortunes by trading with empties that had been “gratefully” sent back by users.

Another winning strategy to tell the customer that compatible and recycled products are not good (in fact, nobody would say “not good”, OEMs use stronger words “forbidden, banned, not advised, etc) is to openly state it in the manual for use. If you look through the manuals that go with Epson, Lexmark and HP printers, you will find a clause that the company does not have any responsibility and will not repair the equipment in their service centers, if non-compatible (recycled, non-OEM compatible products) consumables are used. And I am sure their service centers would not repair the equipment if there is a suspicion that non-compatible materials were utilized. Thank God there are other service centers.

OEMs initiate campaigns against the use of “not our” consumables. For example, a couple of weeks ago I came across a long article of a renowned professor on a website of a European university. This article named “Why I do not use compatible and recycled cartridges in my printers” pointed how a recycled cartridge could harm the printing device. The reasons were too general to be true: low printing quality, loss in time and number of printed pages, deterioration of the printer, frequent repairs. The professor aimed the general public and not specialists, since any specialist would cry out loud: but OEMs use recycled cartridges too, the empties that they collect are not always sold away, but restored and sold as new. I do not intend to go deeper into argumentation; I just want to show that OEMs initiate similar campaigns to build up a strong perception of how good OEM consumables are in the minds of unsophisticated users and incite the users against other alternatives for consumables.

A la guerre comme à la guerre! - PART 2

SOME REVELATIONS ABOUT THE AFTERMARKET IN EUROPE AND ESPECIALLY IN EASTERN EUROPE:

Part 2:

On-ground battles

OEMs took a dramatic turn in trying to win the war. They do not mind investing in new projects that would stop recyclers and compatible equipment manufacturers from imitating their products and launching fully compatible consumables on the market, thus depriving the OEMS of the long-desired fabulous profits.

As it was described earlier in the article, the OEMs file suits against the companies that bite too much from the pie! In some cases trials turned out to be success, but sometimes, and the number of such cases grows, trials are ended by recyclers’ victory. The truth is that in the majority of countries the activity of OEMs, recyclers and compatible consumables manufacturers is judged from the standpoint of loyal competition. Therefore, if the recycler does succeed in persuading the court that the whole argument is nothing, but a pure competition, the recycler wins. It is not the battle between two companies, but it is the lawyers’ competences of being able to tackle the competition aspect correctly.

Another front that OEMs are active on is that great efforts are employed to technically exclude any possibility to restore or produce compatible consumables. OEMs are currently investing huge funds in creating “smart” printing equipment that recognizes only “own” consumables. In other word, the companies start producing printers and copiers with chips that recognize only OEM-made consumables and do not work when the consumable does not come from the “mother” factory. Another idea that came into the minds of the OEMs is that it would be great to use laser technology to be able to read invisible information on the consumable material: an invisible barcode. The third idea that is becoming popular is to follow the example of software companies and equal consumables to software. That would mean that consumables will become products with intellectual property rights and will be sold with serial numbers and other license-for-use information. These attacks could make the position of certain re-industry companies rather shaky and unsteady. The soothing aspect is that such technologies are a way too expensive and will be the realm of threat in a decade or two.

A la guerre comme à la guerre! - PART 1

SOME REVELATIONS ABOUT THE AFTERMARKET IN EUROPE AND ESPECIALLY IN EASTERN EUROPE:

PART 1:

INTRO

If you keep up with the contemporary business literature, you might be aware of the fact that there are so many resources that deal with hot business issues like competition, successful management, optimization, decision management. It is physically impossible to read all the books through and the only thing we do is we choose the books according to the title, references, cover, etc. For many of us the title should catch the eye so that we buy the book and plunge into it. The authors compete in choosing the “right” title: “Marketing Guru Guide”, “100 ways to sell better”, “Guerrilla War with Competitors” and a lot of others “eye-catchers”. What is really amazing is that there are a huge number of books that treat business like a war, a conflict of interests, a fight-or-die process. I grew extremely interested to find out whether it is true, whether the modern business limits itself to the old Latin proverb “Homo homi lupus est” (Man behaves like a wolf to a man). Probably, the updated version of the proverb would sound “a business is a wolf to competing businesses”.

What does this introduction serve for? It is a little example of showing how tough it is to be in business. Everyone doing business is convinced that it is a fight, a fight for customers, a fight for the market share, a fight for new technologies, a fight for any $, etc. and I agree that it is so if you want to succeed in business of nowadays. Our industry is not an exception. What is more, printing consumables market is a scene for outstanding events and unheard-of plots. But let us base our thought on concrete facts and solid analysis.

Not much time ago (actually, one-two years ago) a lot of internet news portals covered a hot issue: an OEM (I will not use names, as everyone concerned is quite aware of what the word goes about) won a court trial with a known recycler in Great Britain. The reason for filing a suit against the recycler was that the OEM found presumably that the recycler was importing empties from China, refilling them with high-quality toner, repairing certain parts and selling as absolutely compatible consumables to the OEM’s printers. The “evil” tongues said that the quality of these compatible cartridges was not in the least inferior to the quality of the OEM ones (around 95%). But the price was 30% lower. That was the main “hidden” reason why the OEM filed a suit, made the company close the importing channel of empties and stop selling compatible cartridges for their OEM printers. The trial went on under the main accusation: infringement upon the trade mark and deterioration of the product image on the market. This time the OEM won, the recycler had to surrender.

A couple of months ago another well known OEM initiated a suit against an American recycler for the same reason: sales of compatibles consumables at half the price of the OEM. I do not cite the reasons that were evocated as the principal ones, but they are similar to the case above. But in this situation, the American court did not recognize the OEM’s claims. The court just announced that the recycler and the OEM act on a market, which respects loyal competition. So, the recycler went on working “unscarred”.

The third case occurred 3-4 months ago now. You might have heard about the German office of a South Korean company that was brought to court by a well known vendor.

Such trials occur rather often lately. OEMs stand their ground and do their best to push recyclers off the market. There is no secret that OEMs follow their strategy: the equipment they sell is usually sold at 50-60% of their real cost, the main bulk of profit coming namely from consumables. Now any user without special knowledge in the sphere of printing equipment realizes that to buy a printing machine is one thing, but to supply it with necessary consumables is quite another much more expensive thing. Consumables are the profit for OEMs. At the beginning this strategy: “we sell cheap equipment and consumables will cover the loss” seemed unbeatable, OEMs were the kings of the hill. They only had to compete amongst themselves and, believe me, it is easier to compete on a market, where just 5-6 companies are really strong. Once you reduce the price and increase the quality of the products, you are ahead of the competitors for a period of time. Once you launch an aggressive advertisement campaign you grab another share of the market. But this paradise lasted until the moment recyclers “cockroached” on to the market. Yes, this is the word that OEMs use regarding this segment of companies: in their eyes recyclers are “cockroaches” that eat up quite a large piece of the pie called “market of consumables”. That was the beginning of the war that has been started a decade ago and turned out to be a real battle in present.

RechargEast Trade Show 2007, Part 2

Here are some more interesting moments from RechargEast Trade Show 2007 organized in Moscow.



The music on the background belongs to the Ukrainian band "Okean Elizy" :)

RechargEast Trade Show 2007, Part 1.

Here is the first video about the Moscow show, which took place between May 22 and 24, 2007.



There will be some more videos from Moscow and also from Prague.
Enjoy!

Mailing list at www.subscribe.ru

If you speak Russian and you want to receive news about the market of imaging supplies in Eastern Europe, CIS and Russian in the Russian language, feel free to get a subscription for the weekly newsletters here:

http://subscribe.ru/archive/industry.soft.1979/

HP comes in with a new idea!

To me, the market of imaging supplies looks more like a battle field than a competitive market. Large vendors do their best to push smaller competitors off the market and enjoy the fruits on their own only. A fresh example comes from HP. HP turned to be one of the most creative “military man” in this unannounced “war”. While the other vendors make up lots of “horror” stories of how end users’ printers get damaged and fall out of function because of remanufactured or recycled cartridges, stop warranties and refuse any maintenance if the use of an alien supply is suspected to have caused the problem, HP comes up with an absolutely new approach to the problem, especially in the markets, where it is more difficult to bring “infringers” to court.

From May 2007 HP starts selling SIMPLE cartridges for text printing (recommended only for text prints – b/w printing) in CIS and Russia. The idea for this move is as SIMPLE as the cartridge is. HP hopes to grab a large part of the market of the supplies used in old HP printers. In CIS and Russia HP inkjets sold in 2002-2003 are still in use and their users prefer refilling empty cartridges at small refill shops or companies, which is around 50-60% cheaper than buying a brand-new HP ink cartridge.

Still, if compared to the laser segment, the inkjet segment is not that large. But why lose this small tidbit? This is probably how they motivated the release of the SIMPLE cartridge. The SIMPLE cartridge is recommended for text prints only. Thus, the cartridge is black and its price is just 10-15% more expensive than similar compatible cartridges from China (retail price in Russia).

Until now, HP announced it would sell only two models of such simple cartridges:
These are:

>> cartridge HP27b to be used in HP Deskjet 3320 / 3325 / 3420 / 3425 / 3520 / 3535 / 3550 / 3645 / 3650 / 3745 / 3845, Officejet 4215 / 4219 / 4255 / 4355, PSC 1215 / 1315;

>> cartridge HP56b for HP Deskjet 450c / 51xx / 56xx / 5550series / 5850 / 96xx, Officejet 4105 / 4110 / 4215 / 4219 / 4255 / 5505 / 5510 / 5515 / 5550series / 6110, PSC 1110 / 1210 / 1215 / 1315 / 1340 / 1350 / 1355 / 21xx / 22xx / 2410 / 2510, PhotoSmart 7150.

The compatibility lists shows the two cartridges cover the great majority of old HP inkjets.
To me, this move is extremely successful. I regret to tell this, but with this product and good marketing campaign, refilling shops may lose a rather big share of the market for these models since the price of a new “simple” cartridge will not be much higher than an aftermarket product.

At the same time, I would not suggest we should cross all the entries for HP inkjets in our price and products lists. Because of the expenses HP has, the price of a simple black cartridge will be maximally by 40% cheaper, which leaves enough space for refillers to have their prices lower. On a price-driven market like Eastern Europe is, this fact is of utmost importance.

And I also hope HP will find a way to inform end users that there are now two similar cartridges at two different prices and the packaging will be different for the end user not to be handed a cheaper cartridge at the price of the more expensive one!

HP 2600 - more detailed remanufacturing

PART 1:



PART 2:



PART 3:

Remanufacturing HP 2600 cartridge.

Here is a video with remanufacturing instructions for HP2600 cartridge.
The video was made in the technical laboratory of Uninet Imaging /USA/.

Impressions from Moscow, RechargEast Trade Show 2007

Interesting video from Moscow.
Matthias, thanks!

Memjet: Is ink printing industry enjoying its last days?

Once I was sitting late at night in front of my computer and couldn’t believe my eyes. Lyra Research organized its regular webcast program and it was a new inkjet printer that was the highlight of the presentation. It’s hard to believe but it was producing a color page every second! HM...The inscription under the video screen said – “inkjet printer with Memjet technology”.

According to the researchers, Memjet technology is a revolution in the industry. They also promised to offer the technology worldwide till the end of 2007. Besides, the price for a printer will be rather small: an A4-format printer will cost no more than $200.

An inside look at the Memjet technology

First of all it is the printhead that allows such great speed, the size of which coincides with the width of A4 paper. So, while printing the printhead is not supposed to move either to the left or to the right, it works steadily, without any unnecessary movements. The width of the printhead is 21,3 cm and it comprises 70,400 nozzles. In the picture below you can see the structure of the printhead under the microscope.

You can see this printer in work with your own eyes:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996259363769507120&hl=en

And it means more than 1600 nozzles per 1'' (inch)! As you can see from the picture the nozzles are set in a line. Within only one path through the nozzles of 1'' of the printhead there appear 2,5 million tiny ink dots on the paper. In other words, these small apertures are as if “shooting” ink drops the size of which is less than 1 picolitre (a picolitre equals to one millionth of a litre). Such technology allows high quality printing with everything that should come with it: contrast, consistency and so on. Such tiny size of an ink drop is surely an advantage as it takes ink less than 1 second to get dry. And this is one of the key factors for quick printing because there is no risk to smear the edges.

The printhead consists of the 4"-size parts. Each of them is built into a 20 mm block produced with the help of the technology used in production of the ordinary graphic CPUs and chips.

Can it be a hoax?

An inkjet specialist may already be rubbing his hands eager to prove the incapacity of the technology, ready to reveal the whole mystification. Let us try to find the grain of truth in it.

To begin with, the authoritative Lyra Research’s support brings about the idea that this technology is extremely interesting to manufacturers of the ink printing industry. Its appearance on the market can be followed by radical changes in the market structure.

Secondly, Silverbrook Research Company is known in the industry circles as an established and recognized private research center. For the last 10 years the company patented more than 3000 innovations and inventions. In the influential PatentBoard rating [www.patentboard.com] Silverbrook Research occupies the 8th honorable place in the list of the companies that introduced a lot of innovations in the information sphere in 2006. In this list Silverbrook Research is accompanied by such brands as IBM, HP, Canon, Microsoft Corp. The very idea of proving the company a liar will be perceived by others as an insult.

Input of the information

According to the manufacturers, they produce prints with the resolution of 1600 dpi at the speed of 60 pages per minute. But specialists are well aware of the fact that the printing speed is not the key technological parameter. For quick printing it is necessary to feed the printer with a huge amount of image data. To keep up to the above mentioned speed and resolution the Memjet printers have to absorb more than 200 Megabits per second for an A4 or letter-size page. If the data flow is lower the printer cannot be that quick as it will have to wait for the data to proceed. What is the way to solve this problem?

The solution has found its shape in the SoPEC chip (Small office home office Print Engine Controller). By its nature it is a small computer on a chip with 32 bit Leon Spark CPU core, 2,5 megabytes DRAM and USB 2.0 controllers. According to specialists, the SoPEC chip may be produced for the company somewhere in South Korea or Taiwan basing on a special design. According to the company’s site www.memjet.com, this chip can control up to 900 million ink drops per second. Besides, the chip is characterized by a few interesting qualities: it decompresses .jpg images, more than that two or more chips can be linked together to work on the same print job. The smart chip also finds the way to decompress each part of the document to print in accordance with its type – whether it is a text or an image.

Clogged ink nozzles

Any specialist that has ever worked with the modern inkjet printheads will exclaim: “Whatever! As soon as the nozzles are clogged - your printing wonder will be gone like a soap bubble.” And it makes sense – clogged ink nozzles are by far the most widespread disease of current inkjets. If the printer doesn’t get used often enough, the ink dries and sets hard inside the nozzles making them “dead”. Such dead nozzles can usually be traced in the prints, this lowering the quality of the image and cannot but irritate the user. If you try to clean up the nozzles yourself you may just spoil the whole cartridge.

Memjet creation finds solutions for all the troubles. It goes without saying that that sophisticated SoPEC chip plays its role perfectly but it is not only the chip that contributes to the achievement of the common goal. The printhead structure itself is dealing with the problem.

To avoid the situation when ink dries in nozzles the manufacture suggests using all them. In other words when you print a color image there will be red and yellow drops in every blue one. But at the resolution of 1600 dpi a human eye cannot perceive them. Why? I will finish this sentence with a dot that will comprise 100 drops (100 picoliters) from the Memjet printhead. I think the answer suggests itself. It is no wastefulness since the size of the drop is extremely small. According to the manufacturer, it will take you to print 15,000 pages to spend just 1 milliliter of inks.

Besides the all above mentioned, the manufacturer has patented the nozzle clearing system for its printhead. So, it makes us think that such risk does exist! To do it justice, Silverbrook Research doesn’t deny that it is impossible. The idea of the system is to use compressed air. This pump can be also used to push moistened air into ink caps to prevent them from drying.

To make sure that everything works all right the ubiquitous SoPEC chip contributes to it, too. This smart hardware can discover dead nozzles and regulate the work making its “neighbors” stand the racket. Thus, they have to work twice as much compensating for the dead one. Let’s revise this figure again – there are 1600 nozzles on one square inch of the printhead. The SoPEC chip is able to guarantee the prints of excellent quality even if 5% of all the nozzles are dead.
Thirst for a prize

No sooner had the Memjet technology appeared than they started guessing who will finally be the lucky one to get it. HP and Dell are said to be extremely interested to acquire it. Others on the contrary stake on Apple that will not lose the opportunity to grab its piece of the pie, i.e. to get its market share of the ink printing industry that is undoubtedly much easier to do when you have the Memjet technology patent in your pocket.

I think that Memjet technology is completely real and can work all right. But it is only the beginning – you can never know if world famous vendors will let it enter the market.

How about reman?

The printers work on 5 monochrome cartridges. Each of them possesses 50 ml ink. There is a 160 bit chip on every cartridge that makes it impossible to refill it. This is the official information. All experts say remanufacturing is impossible because of the sophisticated chip.

In addition, since there are only a few prototypes for photo printing, A4/letter size printing and label printing, it excludes the possibility to recycle Memjet cartridges for now.