1. Printer working environment
To a certain extent, the environmental temperature is too high or too low, and the humidity is too high or too low, which will cause some changes in the physical and chemical parameters of the ink, which in turn affects the viscosity, fluidity, surface tension, etc. of the ink, and then affects the print output effect. The influence on inks such as solvents, weak solvents and UV is particularly obvious. The normal working environment is as described above. For example, in northern China, it is recommended that customers install humidifiers and heating equipment in autumn and winter, and in southern China, it is recommended that customers install air-conditioning and other cooling equipment in summer and autumn. In addition: For most printers that use the siphon principle to supply ink, the atmospheric pressure of the working environment has a great influence on the fluidity of the ink. In general, it is recommended to work under standard atmospheric pressure.
2. The environment where the image is hung
According to the environment where the picture is hung, choose to use some inks with special properties. For example, in high-temperature countries such as Thailand and India, the ink must have high temperature resistance and UV resistance, otherwise it will affect the printing effect and accelerate the fading of the picture.
3. The medium used
a. Effect of static electricity: all inks have a certain degree of conductivity (dye inks are more obvious), and the media, especially the poor quality media, are electrostatically charged. During the printing process, these static electricity will affect the ink droplets. The movement trajectory causes the ink droplets to deviate from the predetermined landing point, which in turn causes the image to be blurred and the edges of the image to be blurred. This phenomenon is more obvious in autumn and winter when the humidity is relatively low, and it will make many ink users think that it is an ink quality problem.
b. Non-ink absorption: Poor quality media has poor ink absorption performance, and some have a large amount of oil and other impurities, which will cause abnormal phenomena such as no ink absorption during printing, white spots on the screen, and easy color fading on the screen. Especially in some areas/seasons with high or low temperature, this phenomenon is more common, so many people think that this is an ink problem. (Of course, it is undeniable that poor quality ink can also cause this phenomenon, and specific problems can be analyzed in detail). Nowadays, under the pressure of low price competition, most of the end customers who use ink choose to reduce the cost as a condition for survival, and reducing the cost of the media is the most direct and obvious means, so a large number of low-priced, poor-quality The media is flooding the consumables market, and these consumables have largely affected the printing effect and the life of the print head, which has led to customers being picky about ink. However, when customers use low-quality media, they increase the scrap rate of the screen and accelerate the loss of the machine. In fact, it also indirectly increases the operating cost, and it also potentially affects the customer's own credibility. Therefore, when possible Next, try to guide customers to use high-quality media.
4. Print head condition
The print head is the direct carrier of the ink, and the effect of the ink can be expressed through the print head. However, the poor working condition of the print head will greatly reduce the expressive power of the ink, such as: blocked holes, partial holes, and the print head tends to age ( Piezoelectric crystals and heating crystals tend to age), the ink in the ink bag of the print head is low (such as HP series print heads, etc.), there are impurities in the ink cavity of the print head (such as NOVAJET print heads, etc.), the print head is in poor contact, and is unqualified. The print head, the surface of the print head is attached with other colors of ink or impurities, etc., which directly affect the use of the ink, thereby affecting the printing effect. Using the same bottle of ink, the output effect of a new qualified print head is definitely better than that of a print head that has been used for a period of time; a print head that is frequently maintained and maintained must have a longer service life than a print head that is not maintained. Therefore: no matter how good the ink is, if there is no qualified print head to match it, it is impossible to have a good performance effect.
Therefore, when judging the printing effect of the printer, firstly judge the working condition of the print head from the test strip of the print head and the usage information of the print head (test strips of different printers are different), and then judge other factors.
5. The condition of the ink supply system
The ink supply system is a prerequisite for ensuring the fluency and timeliness of ink supply. Whether the ink supply system is normal or not affects the use of ink to a large extent, which in turn affects the quality and continuity of print output. For example, the air leakage of the ink tube will cause the discontinuity of the ink, making the ink supply of the print head insufficient, and there will be white lines, wire drawing, printing blanks, etc., and some will cause the internal and external pressure of the print head to be imbalanced, and it will not be used for a long time. When it comes to ink replenishment, the print head will even burn. This is more common for bubble print heads (because the heating crystals of bubble print heads rely on ink to cool down, and the crystals are in a dry and high temperature state for a long time, which is easy to age and burn. (Coke) Another example: the level of the ink cartridge liquid level is particularly critical for printers that use the siphon principle, because a liquid level that is too high or too low will destroy the siphon ink supply mode, causing sticky heads, white lines, ink shortages, etc., of course , Good-quality ink (that is, moderate viscosity, surface tension, etc.) is less affected by the liquid level than poor-quality ink. For example, many customers now decrypt the ink cartridges of indoor photo printers. When reforming the ink supply system, the ink cartridges are not placed randomly, but are placed according to the needs of the liquid level. Therefore, in the printing output process, the ink cartridge (bucket) should be filled with ink in time to ensure the normal working liquid level of the printer.
6. The working condition of the machine
Including print head, ink supply system (see above), print head trolley, heating and drying system, media transmission system, etc. The printer is an organic combination of software and hardware. Only when the systems cooperate properly can there be good printing results. , In order to make the ink have better performance. For example, if the print head trolley is too high, it is easy to cause flying ink, because when the trolley is moving at a high speed, the ink droplet's trajectory is too long, which will easily cause the ink droplet to deviate from its intended landing point, resulting in blurred images and imaginary edges. Therefore, the height of the trolley of most wide-format printers can be adjusted. Without affecting other factors, if you want a finer print output effect, lower the print head trolley as much as possible. Another example: the heating and drying system does not work properly, which will affect the fast-drying and adhesion of the ink. Now many printers have pre-heating (medium heating), post-heating (image heating), drying and other devices, especially for Solvent and eco-solvent printers are more important. The purpose of pre-heating is to accelerate the movement of media molecules, so that ink molecules can penetrate better and have better adhesion; then heating is to accelerate the drying of the screen and improve the productivity of the printer (for For printers with relatively fast output speed, the effect is obvious). Also: For most piezoelectric print head printers, the print head has a working voltage. The voltage is too high, the ink output is large, and the output image is darker, but it will accelerate the aging of the print head; It is low, the ink output is small, it is prone to smearing, the edge of the picture is virtual, the image is relatively fuzzy, and the color is relatively light.
7. Operation and maintenance status
The above factors are the objective conditions of the printout, and the operation process is the subjective factor of the printout:
A. After shutting down and restarting, before printing, check the working conditions of the printer and print head, clean and process the print head in time to make it in the best working condition. If it is shut down for a long time, it is best to shake the ink artificially. Homogenize, or even clean the pipes (especially important for printers that use solvents, weak solvents, and UV inks)
B. During the printing process, it is necessary to deal with it in time according to the actual results and conditions of the printing, such as: adding ink, cleaning the print head, etc.; no matter how good quality ink is used, the printing process needs to be in different lengths of time. Clean the print head inside, and add ink to the ink bottle (bucket) in time.
If the print head car wipes the paper during the printing process, it is necessary to stop the machine for inspection in time, because the surface of the print head may be stained with other colors of ink or impurities due to the paper wiping, resulting in plugging, partial holes, etc., for water-based This is especially obvious for printers, because relatively speaking, the print head nozzles of water-based printers are relatively small and easily clogged.
C. When replacing a new brand or a new batch of ink, the ink circuit must be cleaned. If any two different brands of ink are mixed together, the physical and chemical parameters of the ink will be greatly changed. When cleaning, you must strictly follow the specifications in the random "Operation Manual/User Guide". Generally, the original ink in the ink path is sucked up first, then the ink path is flushed with a cleaning fluid, and then the cleaning fluid is pumped. Suck it clean, then replace with new ink. At this time, you can suck more new ink, flush the ink tube with new ink, and drain the cleaning fluid as much as possible, because too much cleaning fluid mixed in the ink will change the ink. The basic parameters affect the use effect of ink.
Remarks:
(1) When the ink is replaced with a new ink, if there are some abnormal phenomena such as white spots, pastes, etc., it means that there is still a lot of residual cleaning fluid in the ink tube, which has not been completely removed. Continue printing to make it follow. Ink removal, if abnormal phenomena such as white spots, sticking, wire drawing, etc. occur for a long time, the quality of the ink should be considered. (The specific length of time depends on the structure of the machine itself, such as: the length of the ink path, whether the print head has ink sacs, etc.)
(2) For some bubble print heads, they have a larger ink sac. When changing the ink, the print head needs to be exchanged separately (for specific operations, please refer to the accompanying <<Operation Manual/User Guide>>, Or by professionals), if the print head is not changed ink, the original ink will be consumed for a long period of time after changing the ink.
To sum up, in the process of printer printing, ink is not a separate entity, it needs an organic combination of various factors in order to give full play to its expressive power. Of course, under the same conditions, high-quality ink must have better fluency and adhesion than low-quality ink; it will reduce the number of processing in the printing process; ensure the continuity of the picture; reduce the amount of waste ink and save output Cost; at the same time, it is conducive to the maintenance and maintenance of the print head (poor quality ink will cause the print head to block, frequent and excessive cleaning and soaking of the print head will reduce the service life of the print head); and, the color is bright and durable High-temperature, UV-resistant inks will definitely attract more customers' attention. Ink is a kind of consumable. For end users, what they need is cheap and good-quality ink. In the case where both "inexpensive" and "good in quality" cannot be achieved, the customer's first choice is "good in quality", so , Good quality ink will always have more market and development potential than poor quality ink.