Stephen Withers
Monday, 16 April 2007 21:31
IT Industry -
Market
Page 2 of 3
In HP testing, the CM8000s have
proven two to three times more reliable than the best previously
available MFPs. While the print heads can be replaced, they will last
as long as long as the rest of the engine, said Cutler.
The devices use multiple Edgeline printheads with in excess of 50,000
nozzles between them. Even if individual nozzles fail, a head can
continue to deliver full quality thanks to built-in redundancy. As many
as 20 percent of the nozzles can fail across the entire head without
affecting the quality, although speed may suffer slightly.
Despite producing millions of test pages, "we've never seen any kind of failure like that," said Cutler.
Furthermore, a built-in densitometer monitors the output for consistent
quality - the CM8000s "will self-heal," said Paul Lim, business
category manager for Edgeline, Hewlett-Packard Asia/Pacific and Japan.
The durability of the output - pages emerge dry, resist smudging, and
are highlighter-proof - is achieved in part through the use of a
bonding agent deposited on the paper ahead of the ink drops. This agent
catalyses the bond between the cellulose in the paper and the ink
pigments. The resulting hydrophilic bond is the source of the
smudge-resistance.
Another benefit is increased resistance to curling and wrinkling due to
humidity. "One of the fundamental issues [with inkjet technology] was
putting too much water into paper," said Cutler, adding that the
bonding agent helps avoid doing that.
What about the user interface?
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