First, the market According to CCID Consulting's long-term follow-up survey of the market, in 2000 the domestic printer market sold a total of 3.077 million printers, sales of 8.8 billion. Among them, the sales of inkjet printers were 1.81 million units, the sales of laser printers were 5.15 million units, the sales of needle-type general-purpose printers were 400,000 units, and the sales of pin-type printers were 320,000 units. In terms of the overall structure of the printer market, dot matrix printers will give way to inkjet printers and laser printers that are already irreversible. Needle printers have begun to fully play the role of supporting roles, inkjet printers have become mainstream, and laser printers have become more widely used. In particular, inkjet printers have maintained a strong momentum of development.
In 2000, the year-on-year growth rate of the dot matrix printer market was -0.6%. The share of the 24-pin general-purpose printer in the overall market dropped from 22.3% in 1999 to 13.0%; the share of the flat-push printer in the overall market dropped from 11.9% in 1999 to 10.4%. The industrial characteristics of the dot matrix printer application ensure that it will continue to maintain its position in the domestic market for a long period of time, but its market share will continue to decline. Judging from the market share of the dot matrix printers, it has shown a declining trend year by year, especially since 1996. It has dropped sharply from 60% of the platforms. This decline is still continuing. In other words, dot matrix printers will maintain a certain size in China for a long time, but their proportion in the overall printer market is getting smaller and smaller. From the market share of inkjet printers, it has been rising. Especially in 2000, the inkjet printer market accounted for over 50% of the total printer market for the first time, and it was in the absolute mainstream.
The market share of laser printers has been relatively stable. Only a slight decrease in 2000 compared with 1999, mainly due to the rapid development of the inkjet printer market, to a certain extent, restricted the development of the laser printer market. Inkjet printers have squeezed the market of laser printers to a certain extent with the advantages of price and color. It is expected that with the decline in the price of laser printers, the limelight of inkjet printers will allow them to be located on laser printers until they become the unmovable market mainstream products.
Sooner or later, the market position of inkjet printers will give way to laser printers, which is by no means an alarmist. We can compare the cost, speed, quality, and functionality. The first is the cost. The cost of the printer includes both the initial purchase cost and the use cost. The initial purchase cost of color inkjet printers is relatively low, only a dozen or even a few tenth of the color laser printers. However, the use of color inkjet printers is relatively expensive. From the consumables point of view, the color inkjet printer requires the use of special paper, but the price of paper is only a few yuan to tens of dollars. Almost all laser printers do not have any requirements for paper, and color laser printers do the same. They can also print very good results on ordinary paper, and they can be applied to various specialty papers such as: business card paper, greeting card paper, and ultra-thin paper. , Extra-thick paper, thermal transfer paper, special application paper with embossing or coating, etc. Such as Minolta QMS series color laser printer, it will spray a layer of special oil on the paper, and make the picture color become saturated and beautiful. In addition, the inkjet printer nozzle is a fragile part, the number of prints is limited, and in the use of special care to print products (not wet, etc.), and its ink cartridges are generally three-color ink cartridges, if a certain color is used More, and when you use up any of these colors, the entire cartridge needs to be replaced. The cost is bigger and it also causes unnecessary waste.
Compared with this, color laser printers adopt the toner adsorption printing method, which overcomes these defects of color inkjet printing and undoubtedly have a strong cost advantage.
Followed by the print speed and print quality. Print speed is an important factor affecting office productivity. The print speed of inkjet printers is inherently slower than laser printers, and it is greatly reduced when printing high-quality image files. The color laser printer has a built-in print processor, and has several times the print memory of the inkjet printer, which can more effectively process data uploaded from a PC or a local area network. Therefore, color laser printers can print speeds up to several times that of color inkjet printers. At present, the color image printing speed of mainstream color laser printers has reached 4PPM, which is several times higher than that of color inkjet printers. In addition, color laser printers can achieve the same effect as color printing on any print media, and the print quality of ink jet printers is greatly affected by the print media, and is much more affected by the environment than a color laser printer. This is undoubtedly the best choice for users who have a very high accuracy of color performance.
Third, in terms of function, color laser printers are also stronger. Its carton capacity is not only larger than the inkjet printer, but it can also realize the double-sided printing function that cannot be realized by the inkjet printer. Color laser printers such as Minolta QMS MAgiCOlOr 2 DESkLASEr have automatic paper jam recovery, auto-replay and jamming, and color copying. By connecting the QMS SCAN COpiEr 200 color scanner to the printer's parallel port, the MAgiCCOlOr 2 DESkLASEr can realize color copying, and is functionally and operationally similar to a color copying machine. This saves high-end office users the opportunity to purchase a color copier. Office expenses. It should be pointed out that this color copying system can realize multi-page document copying. It is also worth noting that inkjet printers generally have no network support because of structural limitations. Even if it is shared in the LAN, the printing speed is low because it is not optimized for the printing tasks in the LAN, and the speed of the entire network is affected. In contrast, color laser printers have strong network characteristics and can be shared as a separate network device on the company's local area network.
Second, technical articles Laser printer cartridge structure is generally composed of photosensitive drums, toner cartridges, waste powder collection bins, waste powder scraper, various cover and other components. The working principle is as follows: The laser beam emitted by the laser is injected into the acousto-optic deflection modulator through the mirror, and at the same time, the binary graphics information sent by the computer is sent from the interface to the font generator. Forms the binary pulse information of the desired glyph. The signal generated by the synchronizer controls nine high-frequency oscillators, which are then added to the acousto-optic modulator via a frequency synthesizer and power amplifier. The laser beam injected by the mirror is modulated, and the modulated beam is injected into the multi-faceted turn. The mirror then focuses the beam through the wide-angle focusing lens and strikes the surface of the photoconductive drum. The surface of the photoconductive drum is first charged by the charging electrode to obtain a certain potential. After exposure of the laser beam carrying the image and image information, an electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of the photoconductive drum, which is developed by the magnetic brush developer and the surface of the toner cartridge is developed. The latent image is sucked onto the toner, and the latent image is converted into a visible toner image. When passing through the transfer area, the toner is transferred onto the plain paper under the effect of the electric field of the transfer electrode. Finally, the preheated plate and high temperature heat roll fixing, that is, text and images fused on the paper.
Quality assurance of printing functions, in addition to the number of dots per inch (Dpi), resolution increase technology (RET), halftone processing (including dot size and number of lines per inch), and electronic photocopying processing of the print engine, as with conventional laser printers, There are five basic technologies such as page description language used, print speed, monthly print output, print paper handling capacity, and printer management capabilities, and even some software technologies that facilitate users to engage in network business.
Here are some new technologies for laser printers:
1.HP LASEr JEt UltrA PrECiSE Toner Cartridge Technology This technology includes the cartridge technology and toner formula (HP C4129X) technology. The perfect combination of the two can provide high quality print quality, so that the output of the HP LASEr JEt UltrA PrECiSE toner cartridge is always kept very high. Clear and bright print effect. HP UltrA PrECiSE DuAlPOlymEr toner particles are extremely small, ensuring that each cartridge can print 10,000 sheets of standard paper at 5% coverage; the UltrA PrECiSE cartridge uses a screw-roller drive that can provide an anomaly when used with a printer. Excellent graphics quality, ink cartridges also use a magnetic package, to ensure that the printing environment is clean and tidy, and can make the toner stored in the ink cartridge leaks, ensuring the printer's high reliability.
2. Ultra-long-life ceramic cartridge technology The important part of the laser printer cartridge is made of silicon ceramic material. Due to the physical properties of silicon ceramics, the cartridges can operate normally between extremely low temperatures of 60° C. to 200° C. and very high temperatures, in high humidity, and in harsh environments containing chemical gases. In particular, the wear resistance of ceramic cartridges is 12 times higher than that of toner cartridges, which is 70 times that of OPC drums, making it possible to use different print media widely and have a longer life. At the same time, the photosensitivity of the ceramic cartridge is also more than 50 times higher than the SE drum and the OPC drum, and the output image and text are clearer and more realistic. The life of the ceramic cartridge has already approached or surpassed the entire life, and the user often only needs to replace the toner during work, and does not need to replace the entire developing assembly, which can reduce the cost of consumables.
3. Color grading technology and intelligent color second-generation technology The color grading technology developed by HP means that the system integrates four kinds of color toners to the maximum at a single point, and renews the color toner in a specified area. Assigning to achieve precise control of colors, resulting in a new printing technology with millions of soft color levels. The color grading technology uses ultra-fine toner of UltrA PrECiSE with a particle diameter as small as 5μm on the basis of the standard engine's physical resolution, performing multi-layer coloring on each physical pixel and super-high resolution printing at four times physical resolution. effect.
4. Color Scale Expansion Technology The color scale expansion technology researched by EpSON Inc. includes ACulASEr COlOr 2400 and MiCrO GrAy 1200 technologies, among which ACulASEr COlOr 2400 technology can be based on the physical resolution of 600Dpi, and the ink dot size can be further improved. Fine 53-level adjustment, further subdividing each pixel, after adopting EpSON's advanced color description, processing, and restoration technology, it can realize the performance of 1.67 million colors of 24 full-color at the same time with high precision of 2861 Dpi. The ability to make the color more delicate and rich levels, truly achieved the color of the high-definition photo quality. The EpSON's unique grayscale adjustment technology MiCrOGrAy 1200, in the black and white text printing, can provide 127 tone tone grayscale adjustment function, can also give black and white pictures and images 1200Dpi-level real effect.
5. Color resolution enhancement technology Color resolution enhancement technology refers to the application and adjustment technology of a variety of printing modes with different resolutions for color laser printers, such as PrO RES 1200 mode, which can achieve 1200Dpi high resolution in both horizontal and vertical directions. The rate is 1200 x 1200 Dpi. The color resolution enhancement technology can accurately describe and restore the data of small words and fine curves, ensuring the high precision of graphics and text output. In the same way, the automatic image refinement technology pioneered by CANON Corporation can also be used to achieve the equivalent color quality of 1200Dpi on the basis of the standard physical resolution of 600Dpi.
6. Dedicated printer memory The DIMM memory module as a dedicated printer memory module is replacing the SIMM memory module and may be promoted as an industry standard. Because laser printer adopts the principle of laser photocopying, it is a kind of page description printing, making the memory capacity and the memory operating speed as the important resources within the network laser printer can directly determine the quality and speed of the system network printing. Printer-specific memory modules can be categorized by the number of bytes transferred each time. The dedicated printer memory module is the most suitable for 32-bit systems, and only transmits 4-bit, 72-line SIMM and 100-line DIMMs at a time. In particular, 100-line DIMMs adopt SDRAM technology and support the new 3.3V industry standard. Not only is it more energy efficient, it also runs faster.
7. Fast Infrared Interface Fast Infrared (FIR) is a high-speed extension of the industry-standard infrared protocol released by Infrared Data. The FIR processing speed is up to 4MBpS, which is 35 times that of the original IrDA standard SIR and 4 times that of the MIR high-speed interface. Some network printers have SIR, MIR and FIR interfaces at the same time.