Inkjet print head manufacturer Xaar has announced the Xaar 5501, a compact and lightweight aqueous printhead.
The first product resulting from Xaar’s collaboration with Xerox, Xaar says the 5501 delivers high print quality combined with low printing costs and minimal integration costs. Jason Remnant, senior product manager at Xaar, says, “We are delighted to be bringing the Xaar 5501 to market. With this addition to our aqueous portfolio we now have a full range of solutions to meet the majority of applications which need low viscosity-compatible inkjet printheads.”
The Xaar 5501 uses bulk piezo technology in conjunction with Xaar Drive Electronics. The company says original equipment manufacturers can use this printhead to deliver cost-effective scanning digital printers with a high quality output.
Designed as a lightweight and high resolution 1200 dpi printhead, it targets a range of water-based digital printing applications, such as textiles (digital direct to garment, dye sublimation transfer and soft signage) and graphics (banners, posters, displays). It has 5544 nozzles, each producing five pL sub-drops giving a 115 mm print width. Xaar says its construction makes it compatible with a range of fluids including aqueous inks, low viscosity UV or solvent-based inks.
The Xaar 5501 uses a micro alignment system to position and align printheads via software. Xaar sayas this allows rapid and easy printer set up, streamlining printhead commissioning and reducing downtime overall. It does not require an ink recirculation system helping lower integration costs and making it suitable to use in scanning applications such as printing wide-format graphics and textiles. For high productivity applications, single-pass printing is possible.
Remnant adds, “With its simple ink supply system, the Xaar 5501 is a very cost effective solution for scanning textile and wide-format graphics printers, and will be widely available to OEMs later this year. We will make further announcements in due course.”
