Meteor Inkjet has announced support for two Epson printheads, inadvertently also pre-empting the launch of one of them, the S800, which is not officially available yet.
The S-series heads have been designed for industrial applications and are named for their shape, which usually have two rows of PrecisionCore chips in a staggered s-shaped configuration. Each of these chips has two rows of 400 nozzles tightly packed together on a 33.8mm line, which gives an effective density of 600 nozzles per inch. The S3200 has four of these chips while the smaller S1600 has two chips, both of which I’ve already covered here.
The new S800 has a single PrecisionCore chip so that it’s relatively compact and has a straightforward rectangle shape able to print a 33.8mm print swathe.
Duncan Ferguson, vice president Epson Europe, says that even though it doesn’t have the s-shape it’s still in an industrial mount, adding: “It’s designed for industrial use and designed for stacking in a line of heads.” He continues: “The obvious use for it would be direct to shape for cylindrical objects because you have two jets 1mm apart and you can design it with just that.”
He says that the S800 has been in development for a while and will be available later this year. This also neatly underlines the strength of the collaboration between Epson and Meteor and does mean that when the head is available, there will also immediately be third party support for it.
Meteor itself has already introduced a driver card for the S3200 at the end of last year and has now announced support for both the S1600 and S800 heads, which is not really surprising given that the S-series heads all have the same basic architecture.
Ferguson commented: “Epson and Meteor are collaborating closely to ensure Epson’s unique PrecisionCore printhead technology can be integrated easily into industrial printing engines for multiple applications. The role of Meteor in providing high quality, reliable electronics to drive Epson’s industrial inkjet printheads is paramount to this effort, and we welcome this broadening of the available drivers from Meteor.”
I’ve written several stories previously on Epson’s printheads here and further background here. You can find further details on Epson’s PrecisionCore heads from epson.com and on Meteor from meteorinkjet.com.
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