When does having white ink effect speed? Why does it effect speed? For example I know that on the CET printers if you have white in the same row as your color heads it creates a bottleneck and you can only print at half the speed. Is the same thing true of an OCE 1200 machine for example?
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White Ink / Speed
- Thread starter D3D
- Start date
Superior_Adam
New Member
If the print heads are in a straight line it is slowing it down to close to half speed as your only using half the head. Your white will use the top half of the head and the CMYK channels will use the bottom half of the head.
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
There are two main reasons white slows printers down.
1. It takes usable channels away from the head. Say you have an 8 channel Epson head, although this works on any head it's just easier for me to explain with an Epson. Each channel has 180 nozzles. You could set it up CMYKx2 which prints each color at 360dpi per pass. Now add white to this setup which usually takes two channels. In this case you have to set it up CMYKLcLmWW. Now each color only prints 180dpi per pass. You just cut your speed in half.
2. As Superior_Adam said, depending on your head configuration, the printer has to print white either before the color or after. With in line print heads it divides the head by essentially not printing half the nozzles. You just cut your speed in half. For staggered heads it goes faster but you have to have two heads. If you don't use white with staggered heads, you can have CMYK in each head and double your speed. So at the end of the day, a staggered head white setup will always be faster than in line.
1. It takes usable channels away from the head. Say you have an 8 channel Epson head, although this works on any head it's just easier for me to explain with an Epson. Each channel has 180 nozzles. You could set it up CMYKx2 which prints each color at 360dpi per pass. Now add white to this setup which usually takes two channels. In this case you have to set it up CMYKLcLmWW. Now each color only prints 180dpi per pass. You just cut your speed in half.
2. As Superior_Adam said, depending on your head configuration, the printer has to print white either before the color or after. With in line print heads it divides the head by essentially not printing half the nozzles. You just cut your speed in half. For staggered heads it goes faster but you have to have two heads. If you don't use white with staggered heads, you can have CMYK in each head and double your speed. So at the end of the day, a staggered head white setup will always be faster than in line.
Solventinkjet
DIY Printer Fixing Guide
They split because there needs to be two layers. You are either printing white first and then color or vice versa. You can't print both at the same time. The only way to do that with a single or in line head setup is to only print half the nozzles for white and color. So in the case of a white bacse layer, the top half of the white prints and the bottom half of the color prints.
Ok, so how then does an OCE machine with a single row of heads achieve the same speed whether you have just CMYK or CMYK +W installed? At least that is what I seem to be seeing people say, would like to have someone confirm that.
SignMeUpGraphics
Super Active Member
For a Arizona 1280 with CMYK +LC + LM+2x WHITE I am seeing no information on a difference in speed for white. Not saying you are wrong but I just don't find it broken out the way you are showing with the 360.
SignMeUpGraphics
Super Active Member
Right here:
https://www.canon-europe.com/for_wo...aphics/oce_arizona_1280_gt/specification.html
Quality mode - 14.2 sq.m/h
Quality (2 layer) - 7.3 sq.m/h
99% of the time the additional layer is white. You can do multi CMYK layering if you're doing light boxes though.
https://www.canon-europe.com/for_wo...aphics/oce_arizona_1280_gt/specification.html
Quality mode - 14.2 sq.m/h
Quality (2 layer) - 7.3 sq.m/h
99% of the time the additional layer is white. You can do multi CMYK layering if you're doing light boxes though.
I see, 2 layer is the term. Thanks
Troy Lesher
Merchant Member
White ink is made up of a Pigment called Titanium Dioxide (Ti02). its a much heavier pigments that others used in CMYK . in todays small picolitre size the White ink creates several problems, 1.) if the particle size of the (Ti02) is too small, you will not get the opacity and density so it will appear Gray and will require many passes(layers of white) only to get the desired effect, and if your using technology that uses a split head for white and are using only a portion of the head to do so your looking at a terrible compromise of speed. even if your using a technology with separate heads for white, you still need to run several (pass) layers for the white to achieve the desired opacity for the application. 2. todays electropiezo heads require ink to be at a certain viscosity and temperature in order to fire correctly and reliably. if the (Ti02) particle size is too large, then it will have a tendency to clog and settle creating reliability issues and still need multi layers to achive bright white opacity. AS with any inket there a good white inks, and there are not so good white inks. equally important are the printers trying to share heads for white and those that have dedicated heads for white. and also the design of the printer to effectively handle white from and ink delivery, circulation and periods of non use.
Troy Lesher
Merchant Member
There are a couple of things , we use Kyocera Heads, which can be split into two channels which we do for colors for a mirrored bi directional symmetry. the white heads are exclusively white, so you have two rows of nozzles per head so by utilizing the entire head (vs. segmenting it) you are optimizing the laying down of white., the second thing we do is for instance acrylic, we would run second surface CMYK at full operating speeds, then bring the carriage back to run the white portions of the image or flood whichever is needed, then if it is a two sided image the we would run again the image in CMYK. O course depending upon the application there could also be layers of grey or black for block out purposes . And this process is automated so you line up the image files in a group and the printer automatically re-homes and prints the layers without operator interference. here is what it looks like
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2uj452xcr9jkqwm/3 Layer Color White Color.mov?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2uj452xcr9jkqwm/3 Layer Color White Color.mov?dl=0
peterprintingparty
New Member
What's the purpose of the third cmyk layer? I know it's an application in day/night printing, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves here. Can you enlighten me?
SignMeUpGraphics
Super Active Member
When the backlight is turned on, the additional CMYK layer allows for a richer image, instead of being washed out by the light.
peterprintingparty
New Member
Good to know! Thanks for the info!
Troy, how many rows does this machine have? Is it always necessary to put down, cure and COME BACK to apply the white? Could you, for example, if you had a single row of color heads and a separate row of just white put down color, cure, and CHASE it with white? I am not even asking if would be a time saving really just wondering about the mechanics of the process.
SignMeUpGraphics
Super Active Member
Oce Arizona can do this in a single pass... we do it all the time. It staggers the print zone over 2 inches where it lays down any combination of CMYK or White per layer (1, 2 or 3 layers at once).
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Christian @ 2CT Media
Active Member