Ink cartridge

An ink cartridge or inkjet cartridge is a component of an inkjet printer that contains the ink that is deposited onto paper during printing.

Each ink cartridge contains one or more ink reservoirs; certain producers also add electronic contacts and a chip that communicates with the printer.

Design

Thermal

Most consumer inkjet printers, such as those made by Canon, HP, and Lexmark (but not Epson) use a thermal inkjet; inside each partition of the ink reservoir is a heating element with a tiny metal plate or resistor. In response to a signal given by the printer, a tiny current flows through the metal or resistor making it warm, and the ink in contact with the heated resistor is vaporized into a tiny steam bubble inside the nozzle. As a consequence, an ink droplet is forced out of the cartridge nozzle onto the paper. This process takes a fraction of a millisecond.

The printing depends on the smooth flow of ink, which can be hindered if the ink begins to dry at the print head, as can happen when an ink level becomes low. Dried ink can be cleaned from a cartridge print head using isopropyl alcohol or water. Isopropyl alcohol will damage the printing head, melting the plastic at the connections and rubber gaskets. Tap water contains contaminants that may clog the print head, so distilled water and a lint-free cloth is recommended.

AIO

AIO, Aio or AiO may refer to:

Computing

Media

Telecommunications

Organizations

Amazon

The Amazons are a nation of female warriors in Greek myth.

Amazon or Amazone may also refer to:

Geography

People

Commerce

Amazon.com

HP Deskjet

Deskjet is a brand name for inkjet printers manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. These printers range from small domestic to large industrial models, although the largest models in the range have generally been dubbed DesignJet. The Macintosh-compatible equivalent was branded as the Deskwriter and competed with Apple's StyleWriter, and the all-in-one equivalent is called OfficeJet.

History

HP began making inkjet printers with the Thinkjet in 1984. In 1988, HP introduced the first DeskJet. It included a built-in cut sheet feeder, 2 ppm, and 300 dpi. This was followed by the DeskJet Plus in 1989. It offered a landscape printing ability. The DeskJet 500 was introduced in 1990, offering a faster printing speed of 3 ppm. Meanwhile, HP introduced the DeskWriter for the Macintosh in 1989, based on the DeskJet 500.

By 1987, the world's first full-color inkjet printer, the PaintJet, was introduced. It was successful that HP introduced a version of the DeskJet capable of color printing, the DeskJet 500C, in October 1991, which is also HP's first 300 dpi color printer, offering 4 minutes per page in color. It was replaced by the DeskJet 550C in October 1992, HP's first two-pen color DeskJet, offering a faster black and white speed of 4 ppm and print quality at 600 dpi in B&W, and then the DeskJet 560C in March 1994, which introduced HP ColorSmart to intelligently analyze documents for the best color output.

Inkjet printing

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper, plastic, or other substrates. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer, and range from small inexpensive consumer models to expensive professional machines.

The concept of inkjet printing originated in the 20th century, and the technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s. Starting in the late 1970s inkjet printers that could reproduce digital images generated by computers were developed, mainly by Epson, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Canon. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers account for the majority of inkjet printer sales: Canon, HP, Epson, and Lexmark, a 1991 spin-off from IBM.

The emerging ink jet material deposition market also uses inkjet technologies, typically printheads using piezoelectric crystals, to deposit materials directly on substrates.

There are two main technologies in use in contemporary inkjet printers: continuous (CIJ) and Drop-on-demand (DOD).