Issue #0524/1 - Viscous ink lands on our pages as Ricoh joins the low-budget colour printing market with its first inkjet devices targeted at small business and small workgroup environments.
Once in while there is an event in the industry that really takes us by surprise. Ricoh entering the inkjet arena is just one of those occasions. Who would have thought that the company known for its multi-branded copiers and laser MFPs would ever entertain launching a colour inkjet printer?
However, reality is that the company has launched two inkjet printers in the US and parts of Europe, designed to tackle the burgeoning colour office printing environment head on. UK launch and availability is not until August.
Designated GelSprinter, the new devices are a new inkjet variant based on a radical new viscous ink technology rather than traditional liquid ink or the solid ink associated with Tektronix/Xerox. Essentially a cross between the two, viscous ink is not a solid block of ink that has to be melted before use but it sits on the surface of the paper in the way that solid ink does. It does not have the liquid characteristics of liquid ink but it does sink into the media – to a degree.
Ricoh AficioGelSprinter G500
One of Ricoh’s marketing claims is that the Aficio GelSprinter G500 and G700 offer laser like quality with images that are crisper and more vibrant on plain paper than liquid ink and without the show-through so typified by liquid ink on plain paper. This is particularly relevant to duplex prints.
While dye-based inks soak into the paper and spread, producing blurred edges and low contrast images and pigment inks take longer to dry, making it more susceptible to smearing, because viscous ink sits on the surface, it doesn’t spread or blur and, because it dries as soon as it is in contact with the paper, it will not smear.
Some of the ink penetrates the paper, aiding the fixing process, but the majority of the ink remains on the surface as a thin layer.
Many will remember the thick layer of ink placed on paper by early iterations of the Tektronix solid ink printers. Prints from these printers were certainly very vibrant and many users preferred them to prints from any other technology for that reason. However, fold a sheet in half and there was a problem! The ink cracked, leaving a very visible and unsightly line across the page.
Xerox’s newest models have been so refined that the layer of ink is very much thinner while retaining the vibrancy of the image. This naturally reduces the danger of cracking when the paper is folded but it is still evident.
How well the GelSprinter viscous ink printers will perform in this area will depend on the thickness of that ink layer that remains on the surface. Fast drying is obviously a benefit; vibrant images are obviously a benefit; ink sitting on the surface could prove to be the opposite.
Ricoh also claims that the viscous ink resists light fade and, like solid ink, is waterproof. Ricoh says that one of the advantages of this characteristic is that the resulting prints do not smudge when a highlighter pen is used on them.
Equally revolutionary to an inkjet printer is the use of an electrostatic transfer belt system similar to that used in many colour laser printers. Ricoh claims that the traditional roller feed system leaves the media susceptible to rippling and crinkling with the danger of the media catching and being torn or damaged. On the other hand, its belt system holds the paper firmly in place, meaning that successful and faster printing can be achieved closer to the edges of the media.
Certainly in comparison to the disastrous paper feeding in some Lexmark printers, supposedly ‘Acufeed’, the belt system is probably a very attractive option! There is no chasm to be bridged by the paper; there is no second roller potentially pulling the paper at a different speed to the roller that is pushing the paper from behind; the paper is guided across its whole width; the paper is supported and held firmly in place throughout the printing process.
One further revolutionary feature of this system is the presence of the largest printhead fitted to a desktop printer, at 1.27 inches (32mm). The printhead technology used by Ricoh is a mechanical Piezo system, meaning that the head is life-long part, and ink is transported from the static ink tanks to the printhead via continuous feed tubes.
Maximum resolution of this printhead is claimed to be 1200×3600dpi but it is not clear what the native resolution is. Without a doubt the native resolution is not as high as 1200dpi, partly because a Piezo printhead cannot contain as high a density of nozzles as a thermal printhead and partly because a 1.27 inch printhead would be capable of producing a much higher print speed than the 19ppm quoted here for the G500 and 20ppm quoted for the G700 if it had a native resolution of 1200dpi.
Ricoh AficioGelSprinter G700
Ricoh has designed the configuration of these new printers to be appropriate to the office environment. There is an additional paper tray for the G700, taking capacity to 700 sheets, while this machine is also duplex-ready. Although there is no additional paper feed for the G500, there is an optional duplex unit.
Both machines have a healthy duty cycle, rated at 5,000 pages per month for the G500 and 10,000 pages per month for the G700.
Ricoh has, however, made a big mistake in not having any form of internal network interface, but only an external unit that is optional on both versions of the GelSprinter. In an office environment, almost the first consideration for a printer is to be sharable. Standard interface is restricted to USB.
In terms of Cost of Printing, Ricoh claims low running costs for these machines. The reality of this claim lies entirely in the size of the budget for research and development, combined with the company’s desire to make large profits from the new machines, against the desire to build an installed base and gain a recognisable market share against Hewlett-Packard.
Bearing in mind the absolutely horrible design of the G500 and G700, it is clear that at least one portion of the R&D budget has been kept as small as physically possible! From the technology point of view, the machine is very novel and Ricoh has done well to incorporate laser printer elements into an inkjet device – i.e. transfer belt.
So, when Ricoh includes a print mode that it calls ‘Level Colour’ to help reduce print costs, we have to consider the means of achieving the savings. In this instance, the savings are made by reducing the amount of ink placed on the paper by 50% for images only, while ink density for text remains unchanged.
As long as image quality is not the be-all-and-end-all of the page printed, this is probably a very effective means of achieving savings. I would suspect though, that the 50% ink placement could have been applied to text as well without too drastic a reduction in print quality – after all, if users are prepared to accept lower image quality, they are probably prepared to accept a lower text quality as well.
Unfortunately, adequate pricing information has not been forthcoming to allow a good CPP and long term usage comparison to be made. However, the printers are on the market for $329 and $449 in the US.
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