What is an Inkjet Printer?
An inkjet printer is one of the most common types of printers in existence. The printer works by a method of reproducing digital images by putting drops of ink onto paper. These types of printers, while utilizing a relatively complicated technology, can vary greatly across the spectrum of complexity, type, utilization and price.
The inkjet printer of today uses a technology loosely based on one that was developed in the 1800s. The first real inkjet printers as we know them were created around the second half of the 20th century. There are two main types of technologies associated with inkjet printing the continuous inkjet technology and the thermal Drop-on-Demand technology.
Early leaders in the modern printing methods developed the continuous inkjet method early on in the 1850s. This type of printing, also abbreviated as CIJ, calls for liquid ink to be propelled through a pump using pneumatic pressure from an inkwell onto the page. A nozzle is used, spraying the ink as fast as 150,000 drops in one second, depending on how finely tuned the technology of the components are.
DOD, or Drop-on-Demand types of inkjet printing, was first utilized a bit later in the 1970s. The technology works by using a heater and a pulse of electronic current to pass through the ink, thereby causing it to vaporize and pressurize, which thereby pushes the ink onto the page. This is known to be one of the cheaper methods of producing text, since the costs of material is lower than with continuous inkjet. Nowadays, there are even newer technologies that use piezoelectric components, which is a way to push the ink instead of heating the ink as in the thermal Drop-on-Demand printing methods. The costs associated with this style of printing are slightly more, since the piezoelectric components use a specialized compound called lead zirconium titanate.