Toner and Catridge Sales

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.

All Epson printers use a piezoelectric crystal in each nozzle instead of a heating element. When current is applied, the crystal changes shape or size, increasing the pressure in the ink channel and thus forcing a droplet of ink from the nozzle. There are two types of crystals used: those that elongate when subjected to electricity or bi-morphs which bend. The ink channels in a piezoelectric ink jet print head can be formed using a variety of techniques, but one common method is lamination of a stack of metal plates, each of which includes precision micro-fabricated features of various shapes (i.e. containing an ink channel, orifice, reservoir and crystal).