Inkjet Dictionary
Piezo inkjet
Piezo inkjet applies electrical signals to ink chambers made of
piezoelectric crystals, causes deformation of walls or a roof to eject
ink through tiny nozzle holes.
Due to its mechanical nature of jetting principle and chemical
properties of the material, various type of inks including chemically
reactive solvent or UV curable inks can be used.
Thermal inkjet
Thermal inkjet heats ink in the chamber to generate vapor bubbles
that eject ink drops out of the nozzle.
The head is made by photo-litho process, enabling cost-effective
production of many nozzles at a higher resolution than piezo heads.
Meniscus
Where a meniscus vibrates during the forcing cycle it may affect the
jetting characteristics and may change factors such as drop velocity or
directional accuracy.
Satellite Drop
A small drop or drops that accompany the main, larger ink drop
ejected by head actuation. They often cause degradation of image quality
and other problems in the printer.
Color Bleed (Bleeding)
One of the image defects typically observed in ink jet prints where
different color inks bleed into one another, usually caused by either
too muck ink or inproper absorbing characteristic of paper.
Bronzing
A visual effect observed in inkjet print using pigment inks. When
viewed at an certain angle, areas where C, M, Y inks are mixed to
generate grey tone tend to have bronze like metallic reflection.
Ames Test
This is a test to check the risk of chemical substances to cause DNA
damage, leading to cancer.
Swath-type inkjet printing
A method of inkjet printing where a head carriage travels across
media surface back and forth while the media is transported
intermittantly.
All home use inkjet printers and most large format printers adopt this
printing method.
Single-pass Inkjet Printing
A newly emerging printing method where a media-wide head array ejects
ink onto the media that travels beneath it.
More and more industrial inkjet applications have been adopting this
method becasue of its high productivity.
Purge
Ink can be purged from this nozzle either by pressurising the ink
supply or by applying a vacuum to the nozzle.The purge action can remove
air bubbles from the ink chamber and blockages from the nozzles.