HP ANNOUNCES NEW SOLVENT INK; FAST DRYING, AND MADE FOR SEMI AND NON POROUS SURFACES

HP is introducing new fast drying ink cartridges for printing on semi and non-porous substrates. For now, these are used mainly for industrial purposes including product identification and marking as well as mail addressing and data imprinting.Non porous substrates are especially difficult to print on because of the obvious difficulties of getting the ink formulations to properly bind with such ultra-smooth surfaces, and while there are many substrates that are still stubborn to direct printing, advancements such as these announced by HP continue to increase the number of surfaces which make good candidates for these new non porous inks.

Among other things, the new formulations will perform the following functions as compared with other formulations already on the market:

• Increased productivity with fast dry times
• Long decap times which reduces maintenance costs by reducing the frequency of maintenance required between jobs
• Smaller drop volume compared to aqueous based inks, resulting in more prints from the same volume of ink

These benefits are especially useful in commercial and industrial printing, and in the case of the smaller drop volume can mean big savings.
LONGER LASTING DECAP AND SHELF LIFE

The decap time, or the ability of the inks to remain uncapped for extended periods of time is especially beneficial to intermittent commercial printing, and helps increase efficiency in immediate startup times and less printhead maintenance. This will also be very useful for the consumer market, which will be integrating these new formulations. As any home user can verify, many printers in the home often see limited usage, resulting in the need to buy cartridges not because they run dry but because the cartridges are simply not used completely before the ink dries and degrades in quality.

This is especially useful for small and home-based businesses which print their own material and labels as it reduces valuable maintenance and downtime. It is much less expensive for such companies to print their own labels and literature as well as promotional materials. The new formulations will be expanding into color inks as well as the current lineup of black inks, and as always HP as well as other ink developers are making their products capable of printing on a wide variety of media.

image source: fedex

Faster decap times as well as quicker dry times and lower drop rates are among the best ways to increase efficiency, ecological soundness and lower costs - the ability to print more product from the same volume of ink formulation means that your ink cartridges and toner cartridges will last for longer periods of time if you do not print very often, and that in either case the ink itself will produce more printed material because you will be able to get the same high quality results needed with less ink used.

Printer ink cartridges and laser toner cartridges are continuing to expand in usefulness, efficiency and capability - all these benefits will help keep rising costs at bay as the raw materials needed for the inks themselves and for the cartridges continue to increase in costs. They may not keep up with the rising costs of the raw materials at first, but over time will help sublimate the increased costs of the basic materials needed for the manufacture of commercial and consumer grade inks and toners.