The D

Describe and evaluate the on-going developments in these printing/output techniques

1.   Vinyl cutters – a vinyl cutter is a computer controlled machine. This can be used for a range of things such as signs, cutting out text and other such tasks. Over the years, vinyl cutters have developed massively as at first, if wanting to use blue vinyl or red vinyl, that specific colour would have to be used and changed every time someone would want to use a different colour. This would have been very costly indeed. However, in more recent years, you are now able to print onto vinyl, meaning now you can just use white vinyl and print onto it in any colour you wish. They were also quite slow machines, however, now if you were to buy a more affluent vinyl cutter, it tends to cut at quite a fast pace in comparison to a cheaper machine and will cut at a slower speed. A vinyl cutter to which has a high speed when cutting is craftROBO silhouette - with a cutting speed of 600 mm/s in all directions. There are now also different cutter heads for different types of vinyl – this is because the cutter heads wear down quickly so now they use different materials cutters.

Laser cutters – a laser cutter is piece of technology that uses a light grade laser to cut out materials. They tend to be used for industrial manufacturing applications such as wood and plastics but now are starting to be used in schools and small businesses.  Over the years, laser cutters have developed a huge amount as they can be used for a lot of different materials now such as rubber, foam, plastic, leather, paper, stone, wood and glass – this broadens the uses of this machine. Also, new laser cutters have a positioning accuracy of 10 micrometres and repeatability of 5 micrometres. An example of this would be Speedy 300 - as this is ideal due to its high standard of quality, performance and reliability; it is able to etch to photographic detail at speeds of 3.5 metres a second – the fastest Bench top engraving computing system in the world. It is capable of working at speed and immensely accurate cutting over various sized working fields. The ‘S300’ is also available with laser powers from 30 Watts to 120 Watts.  It can also cut onto several different materials.

2.   Inkjet printing – inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that will create a digital image by dropping small amounts of ink onto paper, plastic or other materials. This printer is the most commonly used. A typical inkjet printer which is more basic than the modern up to date versions will provide a resolution of around 300 dots per inch. Since its creation, inkjet printers have developed as some of newer models offer higher resolutions rather than the standard 300 dots per inch. Inkjet printers originally, could only print onto paper, but now they are able to print onto different types and sizes of paper, plastics, card, t-shirts and many more materials.

Wide format printing – wide format printing is generally accepted to be any printer with a print width between 1 inches and 100 inches.  This is used to print banners, posters and general signage. Over the years, wide format printing has significantly developed as the quality and quantity of image production has improved drastically – one of the serious improvements being the decrease in printing time. An example of this would be Roland SolJet Pro 4 XR/XF as this has a printing speed up to 102 meters squares per hour. It delivers what is expected at high standard and great speed. It also features 16 pinch rollers and redesigned grit rollers which holds media in place to prevent any distortion of the image. The heating unit ensures that an even temperature is distributed across the width of the image so that it dries quickly and minimizes risk of ink running and spoiling the image.

3.   Laser printers – laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics by passing a laser beam over a charged drum to define a differentially charged image, the drum will then collect charged toner and transfers the image to the paper which is then heated to permanently fix the image. A laser printer doesn’t require any ink as it uses toner. However, laser printers are better for printing text so this would be well suited for printing leaflets and flyers. Over the years, laser printers have changed as they are able to print onto various materials and various sizes.  The printing speed has changed massively over the years as a monochrome laser printer (print in one colour) use to print 8  pages per minute - to which, now is 30-35 pages per minute. A colour laser printer previously printed 12-25 pages per minute, to which now has a speed of 25-35 pages per minute. An example of this would be the Lexmark X864de Multifunction Printer as it supports up to A3 and delivers a print/copy speed of 55 pages per minute to which can print the first page out as fast as 6.5 seconds. It also has an automatic duplex printing and copying and has two 500 sheet trays. It also offers a high print resolution at 1200x1200 dpi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_printing