Stinky Ink News

Canon Lead the way in Green Initiatives:

Canon Inc has announced a range of new green initiatives to enhance their already very high reputation for care for the environment. The new initiatives will be called ‘Generation Green’ and will be rolled out across the range of printer products including PIXMA Inkjet printers, Canon Selphy Photo Printers and the best selling Canon I-Sensys Laser printers.

The initiative includes measures to use its NatureStone™ Limestone packaging in select ink packs. NatureStone™ uses biodegradable limestone packaging, which reduces the need for paper and other raw materials, resulting in a 45% reduction in natural energy, 65% reduction in pertroleum-based plastics and 50% reduction in emissions that impact global warming.

By switching from Styrofoam packing to an Airshell packing for toners in transit which uses air cushioning and helps to reduce product sizes, improving shipping efficiency and reduces CO(2) emissions generated during transport by 23 to 49 percent.

We look forward to seeing the new packing in the warehouse and commend Canon on their progressive attitudes

From Cameras to Ink: The History of Canon

 

The company we know today as Canon was first founded in 1933, as a small streetside shop called Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. The founders, Goro Yoshida and Saburo Uchida, started the company in order to produce a 35-millimetre rangefinder camera.

 

The first camera the company developed went by the name “Kwanon,” after a Buddhist Bodhisattva. Although three versions of this camera were marketed and as many as ten were said to be in production, none were ever sold on a large commercial scale.

 

Although Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory had developed a camera, it had failed to develop a lens. The company decided to partner with Japan Optical Industries—the company we now know as Nikon. This company had developed a camera lens under the name “Nikkor.” In 1936, Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory released its first camera to the commercial market: the Hansa Canon.

 

The Hansa Canon was only the beginning. In 1939, the company began producing its own lenses in-house. A year later, the Japanese army approached several manufacturing companies with a request to produce an X-ray camera. These companies in turn came to Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory with the request. Toward the end of the year, the company produced the first X-ray cameras.

 

In 1945, the company was disbanded briefly after the end of World War II, after part of its facilities were destroyed by fire. When Allied forces came to occupy Japan, the company’s president, Takeshi Mitarai, noticed they showed an interest in Japanese cameras. He made the decision to reopen the company to cater to these interests, inviting back workers who had been let go when the plant closed.

 

In 1947, Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory changed its name to Canon Camera Company. The name was more appealing than the previous one had been to the occupying allied forces, and the script used in Japanese to write the new name was a style that other companies of the time never used—so the name stood out among its competitors and in the Japanese stock exchange.

 

Canon’s company may have begun with cameras, but it eventually expanded into other markets. In 1982, the company introduced its first personal copying machines to the market. Later, in 1987, the company introduced color copying machines. Technology improved further over the years as the company developed inkjet and laser printers and the world’s first ferroelectric liquid crystal display (FLCD).

 

Today, Canon is well known for its line of cameras, computer printers, and other electronics for home use. However, the company also offers business products such as analog and digital copiers, scanners, and all-in-one machines—and these make a significant amount of the company’s revenue. Canon has also developed a line of flat-panel televisions in partnership with Toshiba, under the name SED, Inc.

 

Among Canon’s product lines, the ImageRUNNER series is worth mentioning. This office-sized copier is designed to be environmentally conscious. It warms up in just sixteen seconds, saving energy as well as time. The products in this line also conform to European laws that demand the reduction of lead and other environmentally damaging substances used in manufacturing.

 

Canon’s ImageDirect printer series was also groundbreaking. These Inkjet printers allow users to print directly from their cameras without going through a computer. The printers use photo-quality paper and ink to produce prints that look like snapshots.

 

Canon’s printers are primarily Inkjet, and the company produces a wide range of models from compact desktop printers to all-in-one printers, scanners and copiers. Canon is generally known to sell a high-quality product. However, the print head in a Canon printer is often mounted directly onto the ink cartridge—meaning users must change the ink cartridges if they need to change the print head. In addition, many of Canon’s printers use ink cartridge configurations that are not compatible with other Canon printers; some machines use all-in-one ink cartridges, while others require separate black, cyan, blue and magenta cartridges.

 

Canon is one of the groundbreaking companies that can be credited with the development and improvement of printer technology throughout the years. The company has come a long way since its beginning, and it’s one of the oldest printer and electronics companies still in business today.

Canon to Build New Ink Factory

Canon Inc, have announced that they are investing 80 Billion Yen to build a new factory in Japan to produce printer ink cartridges for their printers and copiers market.

Canon, which expects an eighth year of record earnings, plans to slash costs by about ¥100 billion each year. Robots will allow Canon to operate the new factory with about 1,000 workers, half the workforce at an existing factory with the same production capacity, a spokesman said.

Canon is Japan’s most profitable office equipment maker. Sales of multifunction photocopiers and printers accounted for 63 percent of its total revenue in the second quarter ended June 30.

Thinking of buying a new inkjet printer?

Recently my trusty old Epson R300 started to play up, so I thought it was time for a new printer. Obviously I wanted a printer that did everything that my R300 did as I had got used to its functionality. I looked around and was a little bemused by the choice on offer. However, working in the ink industry I knew to steer clear of certain manufacturers due to the running costs, as my kids are quite happy to print anything and everything that appears on the screen without any thought for the cost of the ink!

This in mind, I whittled down the choice to Epson, Canon or Brother as I know the ink is fairly reasonable for these manufacturers, also that third party ink is readily available. From my knowledge I also decided to keep away from tri-colour cartridges. This is because once you have used up one of the colours, the other two are wasted.

Before the R300 I had an older Canon, the Pixma IP1500 and was always very pleased with the results it gave, in fact I had given it to my father and it is still printing superbly years later! My mind was made up then I was going with Canon, the only issue was which one?

The are many to choose from but the Pixma range is by far the best for home use, as they are reasonably priced, have lots of features and print superb colour photos quickly.

I settled on the Pixma IP4300, I wanted to get IP4200 but found out that it is now obsolete. I had heard a lot of good things about the IP4200, but the IP4300 is an upgraded version.

I am so impressed with the printer I wanted to share my findings.

The printer is neat looking and was slightly smaller than the Epson R300. The Canon Pixma IP4300 takes individual ink cartridges, CLI8-BK, CLI8-C, CLI8-M, CLI8-Y and PGI-5BK which is a pigmented ink cartridge, so when one colour runs out you can simply replace it. There are also alternative cartridges for this printer, the first require you to take out the chip from your old cartridge and put it in the replacement versions or if that puts you off, there is a new system from Armor. This system comprises of an adaptor which sits inside the print head and then you put in the replacement cartridges into the adaptor. Both these options can save you a considerable amount of money.

I picked it up for around £50.00 which I think is good value, especially when you see what it can do. I had not really read all the information on this printer but when I did I was surprised to see that it can print a 6×4 full colour photo in 36 seconds, my old R300 took 2 minutes for the same picture. The Canon can also print a full colour A4 picture in under 2minutes wow! On top of this it is whisper quiet and the output is superb, this is mainly down to the 1 picoltire droplet size (picolitre’s are basically the measurement used for the size of the droplets, the smaller the droplet size the sharper the image with no obvious dots when you look closely) as opposed to the R300 droplet size of 3 picolitre’s. There is clear difference in image clarity when put side by side. The smaller droplet size also means that the printer uses less ink when printing therefore being more economical to run

I then tried out the text quality, again I was very impressed. In draft mode the pages literally fly out of the printer at high speed but although it was in draft mode the text was still clear and sharp. In normal mode the quality was comparable to laser output and would be more than acceptable for office use.

The Canon also comes with two paper trays, which is very useful. I keep A4 plain paper in one and use the other for photo paper, the printer also has a built in duplex unit which basically prints on both side of the paper without the need to take the sheet out and reinsert, amazing! Duplexing is normally saved for much more expensive laser printers.

If all this was not enough the Canon Pixma IP4300 also prints onto printable CD’s and DVD’s by using the special tray, one good thing here is that when printing CD’s and DVD’s the tray does not come out of the back of the machine like the R300, meaning it needs less space.

One thing I can say is that I found that using the Canon software that comes with the printer produced better results when printing photos than using the windows default option as the output was not as vivid, this was also the case for the R300.

To summarise I cannot fault this printer, it was reasonably priced, it is fast, quiet, gives excellent quality prints on plain white paper, photo paper or disc, it is cheap to run, easy to use and there is the built in duplex function.

If you are thinking of buying a new multipurpose inkjet printer for home or small office, I recommend you consider the Canon Pixma IP4300 printer, you won’t be disappointed.

Canon release a raft of new products for the Autumn, including:

2 new Photo printers, using Dye Sublimation printing techniques, these printers will render perfect 6×4 prints equivalent in quality to traditional Silver Halide printing. These printers are the Selphy CP750 and CP740

6 new Multi Funciton machines, adding the the very competent Pixma MP range the MP210, MP220, MP600R and MP970 are complemented by the MX300 and MX310 and finally

Enhancing their printer range the Pixma IP3500 and IP4500 complete this line up