Kyocera Takes The Wraps Off 'World's Fastest' Inkjet Printhead

The much-ballyhooed Kyocera KJ4, the fastest printhead in the world according to Kyocera, made its debut Wednesday at the 2009 Japan Graphic Arts Show. While the company announced specs for the printhead in September, this is the first time the public had a chance to see the device, which sprays ink onto a sheet of paper, in action.





The newly developed printhead has super fast print speeds in any of three resolutions: 600 - 360 dpi (330 meters/minute at 40KHz), 600 - 600 dpi (200 m/min. at 40KHz) and 1,200 - 1,200 dpi (150 m/min. at 60KHz). Each nozzle in the new KJ4 Series printhead ejects ink at up to 60,000 dots per second (at 60KHz drive frequency). With 2,656 nozzles per head, the device can print approximately 150 million dots per second.



Kyocera first introduced the KJ4 series in 2008, and at the time it was the fastest printhead on the market, with 150 m/min. at 600 - 600 dpi resolution, using a drive frequency of 30KHz.

Not content to stop at setting speed records, the KJ4 printhead also provides the high resolution that's needed in the commercial printing market, Kyocera said, with a 50 percent improvement in ink-drop placement accuracy over the older KJ4 model. And like the original, the new printhead has the world's broadest single-unit print width, at 4.25 inches.

The KJ4 is able to operate at warp speed because Kyocera boosted the drive frequency with its proprietary elemental technology. This makes the interior ink channels more compact and improves the water-repellent coating on the printhead nozzle surface to prevent clogging, so ink ejecting is more accurate.

Speaking of speedy, although it was overshadowed by the KJ4 news, Kyocera also unveiled the SLH Series LED printhead at the Japan Graphic Arts Show. The company said the SLH is the world's fastest electrophotographic printhead at 180 m/min. in 1,200 dpi high resolution.



The printhead uses a newly developed high-intensity 1,200 dpi LED chip and produces four times more light than Kyocera's conventional models. The company said that theoretically this means it is capable of printing more than 1,000 sheets of standard A4 size paper per minute. In addition, it also consumes a quarter of the power of its predecessors operating at the same printing speed.



The product is scheduled to launch in April 2010. A package with the amorphous silicon photoreceptor drum for high-speed printing will be released at the same time.