Stinky Ink News

The History of Epson Printers

 

Today, we know Epson as a company that makes printers, computers, scanners, televisions, and other home and office electronics. But the company started as a subsidiary of Seiko, a watch manufacturer.

 

Seiko itself was opened only about thirty years after Commodore Perry, a diplomat from the U.S. Navy, was sent to Japan on a mission to negotiate with the country to open its doors to Western trade. Prior to Perry’s visit, Japan had been ruled for 250 years by a Shogun family who did not allow the country to participate in foreign trade.

 

After Perry successfully opened Japan to Western trade, many Japanese companies were founded—including Seiko, originally established as a wall clock manufacturer in 1892. The founder, Kintaro Hattori, was a Japanese entrepreneur who started his company with only ten employees.

 

The company we know as Epson was founded in 1961 under the name Shinshu Seiki—or Seiki Precision Manufacturing Company, in English. Its role was to provide precision parts for Seiko watches.

 

In 1964, Epson won a contract to make precision timers for the Olympic Games. The timers required electronic printers in order to print out the results of their timekeeping during the games. The company started development of the EP-101, a small printer that was built into calculators.

 

In 1975, the company introduced a new version of the EP printer to the market. According to company lore, the printer was nicknamed “Son of EP” after the first version of the printer, which had hit the market in 1968. “Son of EP” became “Epson.” Later that year, the company opened a branch in America under the name Epson America, Inc.

 

Epson began developing and selling dot-matrix printers to the American market soon after. One of their earliest printers, the TX-80, served as a printer for the Commodore PET, one of the world’s first personal computers. A later version, the MX-80, was released in 1980 and quickly became one of the country’s best-selling printers.

 

In 1982, Epson began to expand into manufacturing personal computers. It produced what is now recognized as the first laptop, the Epson HX-20. This computer included a built-in printer and a microcassette drive for data storage. It was around this time that the company changed its name to Epson Corporation.

 

In 1993, the company released its first Inkjet printer. Their printer, the Epson MJ-500, included piezoelectric crystal technology. In these printers, piezoelectric material is located within a chamber that also includes ink. Piezoelectric material is a substance—usually a ceramic or crystal—that generates an electric potential when physical stress is applied to it. Within an Inkjet printer, a voltage is applied to the piezoelectric material within the ink cartridge, causing it to change shape or size. This forces some of the ink in the chamber out of the nozzle.

 

Epson didn’t go public on the Japanese stock exchange until June of 2003. When it did, the Hattori family—the founders of Epson, as well as Seiko Holdings and Seiko Instruments—retained a major share of the company. As of 2007, the family still retains the majority of control over Epson.

 

Throughout its existence, Epson has achieved many “firsts,” as well as receiving other recognitions in its industry. In addition to manufacturing the first laptop computer, Epson’s MX-80 printer established the industry standard for dot-matrix printers in the American market during the 80’s. The company was the first to produce low-energy liquid-crystal displays, which are now used in everything from watch displays to computer screens.

 

In 1988, Epson was the first company to manufacture a printer completely by automation. Ten years later, Epson’s Stylus Color 800 Inkjet printer was chosen by NASA to be used during their STS-95 research mission, with astronauts in orbit around the earth aboard the space shuttle Discovery. In 1999, the Epson Stylus Color 900 won recognition as the world’s fastest Inkjet printer in its class.

 

From a small clock and watchmaker over a hundred years ago to a worldwide company that employs thousands today, Epson has grown to be one of its industry’s primary innovators. With its strong track record, it’s likely that the company will continue to be an important influence on its industry well into the 21^st century.

Why do Photo Prints fade so quickly?

Faded phots – we’ve all seen them. The colours begin to fade after a relatively brief time under an assault from the atmosphere. Three major contributors to fading of prints are Ozone in the air, Fluorescent light and water all of which are abundantly available in the atmosphere.

We typically think of Ozone existing in the upper atmosphere and are all aware of the hole in the Ozone layer, but the truth is that it is also present in the air we breathe and is generated extensively in offices where laser printers and copiers pump it out by the ton!. Opening the windows in your home to invite a cooling breeze elevates the indoor ozone density. Ozone is an oxidizing gas that attacks and degrades the ink in photo prints left exposed to air, causing fading. If prints are kept sealed in a photo album s that they are protected from direct light and air, fading can be forestalled for 100 years or more, but if a photo printed on either glossy or matte photo paper with a conventional inkjet printer is hung exposed to the elements, colours can lose their vibrancy before even a single year has passed. In fact in trials in our labs here we have seen the colours fading in days not weeks.

Fluorescent light also triggers gradual fading of photo prints, while moisture is a real enemy. Many a print has been ruined by spilled drinks or wet hands.

All of the major Printer manufacturers have taken this on board and offer inks with extended life. Some Epson inks now offer up to 200 years life in their Ultrachrome range.

There are two types of inks; Pigment ink and Dye Based ink.

Pigment ink: Pigment ink is composed of particles of colouring, which make the ink inherently resistant to attack from ozone and light. However, larger pigment particles can cause unevenness on the surface of the paper and therefore uneven light reflection, which in turn can lead to poor colour reproduction and reduced glossiness. Modern pigmented inks have overcome these problems and now provide vibrant long lasting colours and sharp laser like black text which is dry to the touch as soon as it is printed and smudge and waterproof.

Dye based ink: Traditionally dye based inks have given brighter more vibrant prints, the disadvantages were that they were liable to smudge, were definitely not waterproof were more likely to fade and needed decent quality paper to print on. Again over the past few years these disadvantages have been overcome and the output achieved by all of the major printer manufacturers in many cases is absolutley breathtaking.

The basic rule still applies though, if you want to preserve your memories then store your pictures in a photo album, safe from direct sunlight and protected from contact with the air around us

Epson Ink – UltraChrome Ink

Epson’s new UltraChrome ink is an improved version of Epson’s archival Colourfast ink and has been developed for the latest generation in inkjet professional printers, Epson UltraChrome ink is one of the most important advances made in desktop printing. Achieving superb colour expression on a variety of media is made possible by an increas of the density of pigment content in the ink, which also provides for a much wider range of media support. Even with greater pigment density, each particle has an extremely smoorth and uniform resin coating, enusring superbly sharp image reproduction on both speciality media and plain paper along with marked improvements in light and water resistance.

Durability

The pigmented colourant improves light and gas resistance, Since the pigment colourant exists in its particle form, only the surface is affected by light and gas, and the colour inside remains vivid. Epson UltraChrome ink utilises this property of pigment ink effectively achieving superior light and gas resistance.

Some Secrets behind long life;

Photo-quality glossiness is largely determined by printing surface flatness. The flatter the surface, the more glossy the output. Pigment inks do not penetrate the surface of the paper. Instead, the colourant particles remain on the paper surface, forming a microscopically fine terrain of hills and valleys that sap prints of some of their lustre and brightness.

The flattening of this pigment terrain thus became the subject of intensive research. The problem for the development engineers was in getting these colourant particles to cling tightly and consistently to the paper. Without any preparatory processing, particles of pigment sprinkled on the surface of a piece of paper soon lose their grip and fall off so some way had to be found to make these colourants dissolve in water and stick to the page after they dried.

The researchers efforts culminated in the development of pigment inks in which colour particles are dispersed evenly within water, that bond tightly to the paper even after drying, and which offer a dramaticall wider colour gamut. The inks also create a flat and smooth surface on the paper.

Gloss optimiser, known as the “eighth ink,” is produced from these same particles of high-density resin. The resin particles are microscopic and have no colour themselves, They fill in tiny gaps between inks and also cover white ares on a print as well as areas that ordinary ink rarely covers. The Gloss optimiser thus has the efffect of virtually eliminating print surface roughness, thus minimising complex reflections of light and creating a rich gorgeous gloss finish.

Every colour under the rainbow is naturally produced by a complex mixture of the three primary colours; Yellow, Magenta and Cyan. For printing Black is added for four basic colours. However, expressing subtle colour differences with the three primary colours makes for some very complex mixing and layering of colours. With the addition of new Red and Blue cartridges, the levels of layering needed are reduced which means that the print surface is less apt to become bumpy giving a smoother glossier finish.

The new inks help professional photographers to create perfect photographs in both colour and black and white, in which grey inks help to perfectly reproduce subtle tone variations.

Though water resistant, pigment ink has had a reputation for being inferior to dye inks in terms of glossiness and colouration. By adding new colours of ink, and by developing Gloss Optimiser, Epson has succeeded in producing prints whose quality transcends that of even traditional photographs.

Epson ink Cartridge – Epson DURAbrite™ Ultra ink

Epson’s DURAbrite™ Ultra ink are pigmented inks and is the latest formulation in their long running development of pigmented inks. The products offer a superb solution for the SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) user enabling users to print high quality output on low cost plain paper, but also have the opportunity of utilising higher quality media for photographic quaity prints. Along with Epsons multi-cartridge design which enables users to only replace the colour that has run out meaning minimal running costs for the printer owner.

The Benefits of Pigmented inks:

1. Sharp text and graphics on plain paper
2. Brighter colours
3. Smudge resistant prints
4. Fade Resistant prints
5. Touch Dry instantly

Epson DURAbrite™ Ulta inks are now widely used across the full range of printers which include:

    Epson Stylus DX4000 series

    Epson Stylus DX5000 series

    Epson Stylus DX6000 series

    Epson Stylus DX7000F

    Epson Stylus D78

    Epson Stylus D92

And    Epson Stylus D120

Epson DURAbrite™ Ultra ink uses a microencapsulation technology which means that each pigment particle is encased in a resin. A unique polymer pulls the particles apart so that they are suspended in the solution and never coagulate. The ink base then helps the ink pigment particles penetrate into the paper. Traditionally pigmented ink particles rest on the top of the paper and so do not wet the paper fibres which enables ‘bleeding’ across a page. Epson’s DURAbrite™ Ultra ink uses an innovative technology which means that the ink particles ‘rest’ near the surface of the paper and are not absorbed by the fibres. It produces much smaller ink droplets than dye based products, resulting in sharper output on plain paper and this applies to both text and graphics.

DURAbrite™ Ultra ink also benefits from a technology that controls the penetration level of the ink and keeps the colourant near the surface, so you don’t get prints bleeding through to the backside of the paper. Additionally, output on palin and matte papers is optimised with a higher optical density which offers darker black printing

 

Epson Ink – Claria™ Photographic Ink.

With the advent of digital photography in the early 2000’s the holy grail of the printer manufacturers has been to keep up with the incredible advances in camera and memory technology and allow users to output prints that are worthy of their subject. Only a couple of years ago if you wanted professinal quality prints you had to visit a shop or pop them in the post for developing.

Nowadays however, with the advances in ink, printer and paper technology you are able to produce photo labe quality results at home which also means that you are able to manipulate the pictures via your PC before printing them.

Epson’s Photographic ink is branded as Claria™ ink and combined with Epson photographic papers which are optimised for the printer and ink will give outstanding output, with long lasting prints. Printers that are available with this technology are the:

    Epson Stylus Photo RX560

    Epson Stylus Photo R265

And    Epson Stylus Photo R360

Claria™ ink also produces great results on other types of documents from letters to web pages.

The Benefits of using Claria™ ink are:

1. Premium quality photo printing. Photographs printed with ™ photographic inks are rich, deep and the highest quality – even better than traditional photolab prints,
2. Superior Glossiness. ™ photogrpahic ink provides superior glossiness to the photos, especially when priting on Epson Ultra Glossy Photo Paper
3. Long Lasting photos. In combination with genuine Epson photo paper, up to 200 Years (if kept in an album)
4. Fade Resistant. Prints made with ™ inks are comparable to photo lab prints. This is thanks to a stronger dye molecule structure, making ™ photographic ink much more resistant to light and ozone than conventional dye ink
5. Water Resistant. If you combine ™ photographic ink and Epson Photo paper your photos won’t be damaged by spilt water or wet hands

Finally ™ inks are available in 6 individual ink cartridges, so you only replace the colour that you have used, saving you time, hassle and money