Kyocera announces new recirculating printhead

Kyocera has formally announced its KJ4B-EX 1200 printhead, the latest in its second generation heads, and which builds on the KJ4B-EX 600 that was released in April 2020.

This Kyocera KJ4B-EX1200 printhead uses the larger integrated actuator complete with recirculation.

This latest head builds on the success of the earlier KJB-1200 but with a large integrated piezo actuator, which has led to improved ink channel design with better reliability and consistency. I’ve already covered this latest generation of Kyocera heads, starting with a presentation by Shin Ishikura, manager of Kyocera’s Inkjet Design Centre, at the 2019 IJC conference and the release of the first of these second generation heads, the 600dpi KJ4B-EX 600

This new KJ4B-EX 1200 head has a number of advantages, including built in recirculation right through the printhead. It includes FPGA nozzle adjustment, which can automatically detect problems such as missing nozzles or variations in drop volume between nozzles and correct these without requiring any input from a RIP.

As a result of the new actuator, the new head is physically bigger than the older model, measuring 200 x 52 x 141.1mm against the KJB-1200’s 200 x 45 x 79.1mm. However, despite being bigger, the new head has a slightly smaller print swathe – 108.27mm – down from 112.42mm. That in turn means slightly fewer nozzles – 5116 – but with the same density of 1200 npi. The jetting frequency is up from 64 to 80kHz and it’s capable of printing at 100mpm whereas the older head maxed out at 80mpm.

However, the older head offered a greater range of drop sizes, from 1.5 to 5pl, whereas the new head produces drop volumes from 1.5 to 2.8pl. So it seems reasonable to assume that Kyocera might introduce a version with larger drop volumes to target a different range of applications and indeed Kyocera told me that “another version is in our R&D pipeline” and that this will be introduced in the near future.

It’s mainly aimed at non-porous or non-absorbable substrates, such as coated offset paper or even plastic film, that require smooth gradation with relatively small drops. This head is compatible with aqueous inks though Kyocera says that it plans to add UV-compatible versions later. Each head has a single colour channel.

Kyocera will continue to sell the older KJ4B-1200 alongside this new KJ4B-EX1200. You can find further details from kyocera.com


…with a little help from my friends

If you value independent journalism then please consider making a donation to help support Printing and Manufacturing Journal. There’s no advertising or other income attached to this site as my aim is to provide impartial and in-depth information to all readers. However, it takes time to carry out interviews and check facts so if this site is of interest to you then please support my work. You can find more information about me here.


Posted

in

,

by

Syndicate content

You can license the articles from Printing and Manufacturing Journal to reproduce in other publications. I generally charge around £150 per article but I’m open to discussing this for each title, particularly for publishers that want to use multiple stories. I can provide high res versions of images for print publications.

I’m used to working with overseas publishers and am registered for VAT with the UK’s HMRC tax authority but obviously won’t charge VAT to companies outside the UK. You can find further details and a licensing form from this page, or just contact me directly here.

Support this site

If you find the stories here useful then please consider making a donation to help fund Printing and Manufacturing Journal, either as a one-off or a repeat payment. Journalism is only really useful if it’s truly independent and this is the only such news source serving the print/ manufacturing sectors.

However, there are costs involved in travelling to cover events, as well as maintaining this site, not to mention the time that it takes to carry out research, check facts and interview people. So if you value this work, then please help to maintain it and keep it free to read.

Subscribe

Never miss a story – subscribe to Printing and Manufacturing Journal to receive an email notification every time an article is published here. It’s completely free of charge and you can cancel the subscription at any point without any hassle. There’s no need to provide any information other than an email address and subscribers details are not for sale so there’s no risk of any further marketing spam.

Related stories

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *