What Makes An Inkjet Printer Work?

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An inkjet printer works through fairly simple process- tiny droplets of ink are forced through a cartridge onto a page. While that is easy to understand, there is a little more to the process than that- after all, an inkjet printer can produce photo quality images in seconds, right? So what makes an inkjet printer work?

An inkjet printer is the most common type of printer in a home office or many small businesses. They are affordable, simple to set up and maintained through the easy replacement of simple, pre-filled ink cartridge. Most printers have both a black and a color ink cartridge, which are replaced through a quick, snap-in process. Printer technology has evolved greatly over the years. One of the most notable changes was the switch from impact printing, such as that used by striking an ink ribbon on a typewriter, to the non-impact technology used in an inkjet printer. Instead of impact, an inkjet printer uses either heat or vibration to transfer the ink from the printer to the page.

Heat, or thermal, ink transfer happens with what is known as a bubble jet. Thermal ink transfer uses tiny resistors which ...
... heat up the ink until it forms a microscopic bubble. The bubble explodes, forcing the ink from the cartridges to the print head. The print head is filled with tiny nozzles that spray the ink onto the page. The print head also uses a stabilizer bar to keep it in the proper place and control the placement of the ink. Some inkjet printers use vibration in place of heat to transfer the ink to the page. This technology is called piezoelectric and uses tiny crystals at the back of the ink reservoir on the nozzles in the print head. An electrical charge causes the crystal to vibrate, first inward to draw the ink out of the nozzle and then outward to force more ink back into the nozzle.

When the print button on a computer attached to an inkjet printer is clicked, the computer sends electronic data to the printer, causing the paper to move into place and the print head and nozzles to disperse the ink onto the page, according to the pattern contained in the digital data. Although the print head actually stops for every single dot of ink sprayed, it happens so quickly the action appears to be continuous. An inkjet printer can project as many as 1440x720 dots per inch on the page. The combination of dots and the different colored inks result in photo-quality images on the printed page.

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