Suggestions Piezoelectric vs. Thermal Printheads - looking for pros and cons

[KellyP12]

Hi all,

We're in the market for new printers. Trying to upgrade our current fleet after looking at some things at ISA this year. One thing I did not love is that when you're at shows like that, of course each vendor is trying to convince you that their technology is superior to the other guy's. Hence I feel like I got only biased comparisons of both of these technologies.

I'm looking for YOUR opinions based on experience of the pros and cons of a piezo printhead (a la those found in Mimaki, Epson, Canon, etc. printers), and thermal (to my knowledge only HP).

We have a Mimaki and have had really no problems with the piezo-style delivery itself. Our many many problems with that machine, I feel, stemmed from our third-party bulk ink system, not the printhead. Everyone and their mother talks up piezoelectric printheads as the greatest thing since sliced bread. We as a shop are used to being able to dispose our thermal printheads and do a little bit of troubleshooting on the machines, whereas with piezo heads, if it goes bad, well crap, you're out 2 days for a service tech to come replace it, and also $3,000.

We ALSO run, day in and day out, three HP DesignJets which have thermal heads, and have been pretty pleased with them for years and years. While they are more consumable and do have to be cleaned, disposed when they go bad, can cause banding issues, etc., we as the user have much more control over daily maintenance and print quality.

Basically - what are your thoughts? Is one really objectively a better type of printhead? We are considering the following printers: HP DesignJet z6800s, Epson P20000, and perhaps a Canon iPRO6000. Anything that's wide-format and has aqueous inks.

Thanks.

 

[Solventinkjet]

Piezo heads are the more refined technology. They print higher resolution and usually at higher speeds. Thermal heads are much more of a consumable and if you do the math, a lot of the time the cost of running each head comes out to about the same over time. Also, the Epson based Piezo heads were originally designed for aqueous inks and run much better with those inks rather than solvent based ones. I have recovered heads that uses aqueous inks that sat for over a year and they came back 100% after 1 flush. The down side obviously is the piezo heads are more expensive but as stated above, over time you end up spending just about the same amount of money replacing the thermal heads every 6 months rather than changing the piezo head every 5 years.

 

[ColorCrest]

If you were to make a short leap to the mindset of "these machines are disposable" it might ease your decision. I know of shops who have no worries when purchasing any brand or model because of the way they do business. Their purchases are sometimes based purely from what the accounting department says they can make. I can tell you many believe these machines are well worn at 18 months and retired or sold at 36 months.

 

[ColorCrest]

Also, the Epson based Piezo heads were originally designed for aqueous inks and run much better with those inks rather than solvent based ones.

I disagree, as I've put in a lot of miles with this brand using both aqueous and solvent and I would say they perform the same over a time span of years. Just my experience.

 

[KellyP12]

Piezo heads are the more refined technology. They print higher resolution and usually at higher speeds. Thermal heads are much more of a consumable and if you do the math, a lot of the time the cost of running each head comes out to about the same over time. Also, the Epson based Piezo heads were originally designed for aqueous inks and run much better with those inks rather than solvent based ones. I have recovered heads that uses aqueous inks that sat for over a year and they came back 100% after 1 flush. The down side obviously is the piezo heads are more expensive but as stated above, over time you end up spending just about the same amount of money replacing the thermal heads every 6 months rather than changing the piezo head every 5 years.

That's really good to know about the Epson, thanks VanderJ. We will not be purchasing another solvent printer, no way no how. It does not play nice with our final manufacturing process, hence why we're looking for an aqueous next-step. And I get that about the disposability, we spend quite a lot on our thermal printheads right now. It definitely has cost more in the same span of time than replacing one printhead.

If you were to make a short leap to the mindset of "these machines are disposable" it might ease your decision. I know of shops who have no worries when purchasing any brand or model because of the way they do business. Their purchases are sometimes based purely from what the accounting department says they can make. I can tell you many believe these machines are well worn at 18 months and retired or sold at 36 months.

Not sure I understand - are you saying that piezo-based machines are more disposable/they are all out of juice after 3 years? That is kind of the impression I got from speaking with all sorts of people at ISA. Most people who run piezo-based machines run their machines for 3-4 years and then get another one. Cheaper printer, etc. We have had our HPs for 10 years now and would run 'em for another 10 were they not obsolete machines. No use in getting rid of them if they still work.

A major concern for us is longevity of both the printer and the run itself. We print a lot of volume orders and need to know that when we leave on a Friday that our prints are going to be fine when we come in on Monday. Is piezo technology more geared to consistent print quality over a long time? I'm not getting that taste in my mouth when I hear that those sorts of printers are basically throwaways in 3 years.

 

[AKwrapguy]

Hi all,

We're in the market for new printers. Trying to upgrade our current fleet after looking at some things at ISA this year. One thing I did not love is that when you're at shows like that, of course each vendor is trying to convince you that their technology is superior to the other guy's. Hence I feel like I got only biased comparisons of both of these technologies.

I'm looking for YOUR opinions based on experience of the pros and cons of a piezo printhead (a la those found in Mimaki, Epson, Canon, etc. printers), and thermal (to my knowledge only HP).

We have a Mimaki and have had really no problems with the piezo-style delivery itself. Our many many problems with that machine, I feel, stemmed from our third-party bulk ink system, not the printhead. Everyone and their mother talks up piezoelectric printheads as the greatest thing since sliced bread. We as a shop are used to being able to dispose our thermal printheads and do a little bit of troubleshooting on the machines, whereas with piezo heads, if it goes bad, well crap, you're out 2 days for a service tech to come replace it, and also $3,000.

We ALSO run, day in and day out, three HP DesignJets which have thermal heads, and have been pretty pleased with them for years and years. While they are more consumable and do have to be cleaned, disposed when they go bad, can cause banding issues, etc., we as the user have much more control over daily maintenance and print quality.

Basically - what are your thoughts? Is one really objectively a better type of printhead? We are considering the following printers: HP DesignJet z6800s, Epson P20000, and perhaps a Canon iPRO6000. Anything that's wide-format and has aqueous inks.

Thanks.

So you say that you like having the bulk ink system, why not look at something like the HP570. We picked up 2 of them last year and have not turned back. The bulk ink system is awesome. The on board spectrophotometer helps with keeping consistent color. Profiling new material is easy and the machine is set up to print over night and do large rolls.

Other benefits is that you don't have to wait to let stuff gas out. Not waste ink, no fumes, more materials options, and you can print, lam and cut getting stuff out the door in the same day.

 

[ColorCrest]

Not sure I understand - are you saying that piezo-based machines are more disposable/they are all out of juice after 3 years?

I'm guessing you're rather a high volume mfr because you used the word "fleet" meaning you have an array of printers. The machine-makers seem to deliver a better, faster, cheaper technology every 3 years anyway. Even if you had decided after a year or two you have a favorite machine model, you might be hard-pressed to find the same model as a new, unused machine. Only a newer model would be available. I use to visit shops which would have a few machines of the same exact model but recently, not so much. A machine from their setup would be replaced with a single, newer model. Then the same would happen again, and again to where now they have many of the same brand but different, newer, so-called improved models. Previously the shop looked like a new car show room and now the shops look like used car lots. You get the picture.

The only reason the machines get replaced so often is because of the high volume they're printing. Like you, printing all day and then leaving a full roll to print during the evening.

 

[KellyP12]

So you say that you like having the bulk ink system, why not look at something like the HP570. We picked up 2 of them last year and have not turned back. The bulk ink system is awesome. The on board spectrophotometer helps with keeping consistent color. Profiling new material is easy and the machine is set up to print over night and do large rolls.

Other benefits is that you don't have to wait to let stuff gas out. Not waste ink, no fumes, more materials options, and you can print, lam and cut getting stuff out the door in the same day.

I didn't mention this in my original thread but we actually also have an HP 370. For our normal business where we do high-quality graphics, we need something with a more precise printhead, so we only do one specific job on the 370 that is just a one-color sign with white text. We are finding that we are very disappointed with the latex machine because we're getting a lot of dot gain. The drop size is big and cannot deliver the fineness of text quality we need on our regular prints.

Sorry if I confused anyone about bulk inks; I actually said the exact opposite, that we do NOT like bulk ink systems (but that's just on our solvent printer which has given us a lot of hell over months and months). I'm not opposed to it though on a new machine. It's not bad on the 370 and I like how you go way longer without having to change inks. I'm more interested in hearing what the effects of each printhead technology are though. Just seems like piezo sounds like the way to go in terms of ensuring long runs and color consistency, even if you don't keep the printers they are in for quite as long.

 

[AKwrapguy]

I didn't mention this in my original thread but we actually also have an HP 370. For our normal business where we do high-quality graphics, we need something with a more precise printhead, so we only do one specific job on the 370 that is just a one-color sign with white text. We are finding that we are very disappointed with the latex machine because we're getting a lot of dot gain. The drop size is big and cannot deliver the fineness of text quality we need on our regular prints.

Sorry if I confused anyone about bulk inks; I actually said the exact opposite, that we do NOT like bulk ink systems (but that's just on our solvent printer which has given us a lot of hell over months and months). I'm not opposed to it though on a new machine. It's not bad on the 370 and I like how you go way longer without having to change inks. I'm more interested in hearing what the effects of each printhead technology are though. Just seems like piezo sounds like the way to go in terms of ensuring long runs and color consistency, even if you don't keep the printers they are in for quite as long.

Thats odd, with my 570's we have great resolution, quality, detail and consistency on everything we've put through the machine. What type of material are you printing on? What type of projects are you guys doing where this is an issue?

 

[KellyP12]

Thats odd, with my 570's we have great resolution, quality, detail and consistency on everything we've put through the machine. What type of material are you printing on? What type of projects are you guys doing where this is an issue?

We print almost exclusively outdoor signage with high-quality photos and fine text that are at a very close reading distance, so we need to preserve as much detail as we can. We print on a custom-coated bond paper that's particular to our manufacturing process. I have built lots of custom profiles and they always get us pretty close, but not quite as fine quality as we'd like for photographic-quality images. It could be a limitation of our paper perhaps too, but we print on almost an identical stock on our DesignJets and those have been our bread and butter for 10 years.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I disagree, as I've put in a lot of miles with this brand using both aqueous and solvent and I would say they perform the same over a time span of years. Just my experience.

Interesting. The only water based ink that I see kill heads fast is Dye sub but the pigment based water inks seem to let the head last forever. It just goes to show how finicky these heads can be. Everyone has a different experience.

 

[ColorCrest]

We print almost exclusively outdoor signage with high-quality photos and fine text that are at a very close reading distance, so we need to preserve as much detail as we can.

To me and my concerns, outdoor high-quality photos always demanded Vutek UV or Epson (eco)solvent. However, I can understand how you and other shops can satisfy your clients with aqueous. Now I have an idea of how you're using these, I would invest in a more robust (expensive) machine, the Epson S-Series, to provide more product options and print speed being at least twice as fast if not much more. I would keep using what I already have but I would use the opportunity to grow with newer technology. I would not bother myself with 3rd party inks.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Canon imagePROGRAF (possibly also the new Pro series) also use thermal heads. In 10 years we only had to replace the heads once in our iPF8100.

 

[KellyP12]

Canon imagePROGRAF (possibly also the new Pro series) also use thermal heads. In 10 years we only had to replace the heads once in our iPF8100.

Interesting, I thought they had a piezo head! We are getting some benchmark testing done soon, hopefully, on the P6000.

Even with thermal you've only replaced the heads once?? In how long of a time span?

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

As stated above... in 10 years we replaced both heads once, so we are only on our second set of heads in total.
Mind you, this is an aqueous machine, so it's probably not as hard on the heads as a solvent machine.