Thermal inkjet and textile printing

1.5 Thermal inkjet and textile printing

In 1977, Canon's Endo discovered the principle of thermal inkjet when placing a

flame on the side of a pipette containing liquid that then emitted a drop of that

liquid. Soon after, researchers at Hewlett-Packard encountered a similar

phenomenon. Canon and HP applied these discoveries to the development of

thermal inkjet print heads. Canon called its version `Bubble Jet'. In 1984, HP

introduced the first commercial desktop inkjet, the HP Thinkjet. Canon's Bubble

Jet office printer followed in 1985 with the introduction of the BJ-80. Canon and

HP licensed their inventions to each other and to other manufacturers, including

IBM, Siemens, and others. Lexmark took over the IBM license when it

purchased IBM's printer division. Canon developed a Bubble Jet textile printer

in the mid-1990s that printed fabric up to 1.6 meters in width at a throughput

speed of a square meter per minute. The unit did not gain market acceptance due

to its high sticker price and limited production capability, but it demonstrated a

model for designing, printing, and processing textiles digitally that others have

followed. Canon used a material transport system from Ichinose, which later

introduced its own twelve-colour inkjet textile printer using HP thermal inkjet

print heads that it exhibited at ITMA 1999 in Paris. This device also did not gain

market adoption. Ichinose later partnered with DuPont to produce the Artistri

2020 printer using modified Seiko Instruments piezoelectric print heads. This

device has won significant market adoption with about 160 printers installed by

February 2006.

Perfecta, in conjunction with Zund, debuted a textile flatbed printer using

Hewlett-Packard thermal inkjet print heads at FESPA 1996 at Lyon, France.

Encad offered an inkjet textile printing system using Lexmark thermal inkjet

print heads for proofing and short-run production in 1997. Despite a strong

marketing effort, market adoption did not match company expectations and

Encad eliminated its textile division.

4 Digital printing of textiles

In 1984, Canon introduced a digital laser copying system, the NP-9030,

following its 1979 development of its LBP-10 laser beam printer. Canon con-

tinued to develop laser technology, resulting in the release of its CLC1 colour laser

copier in 1987. This technology provided a means for producing four-colour

process heat transfers for garment, accessory, and promotional product printing.