Highest resolution printer

[bob prohaska's usenet account]

Hi all,

What's the highest resolution printer commercially
available today? 2440 dpi seemed to be the standard
for platemakers in years past, has that been improved
much? I see claims of 1200 by 600 or sometimes 2400
by 600 for some inkjets. Are those numbers real, or
salespeak?

Thanks for any insight,

bob prohaska

 

[Chuck]

The actual answer to your question is somewhere in between <G>
Most of the inkjet printers have the very high resolutions available only if
you use the mfrs driver. And they are not directly accessible by the user.
The way things work is that a print head has x number of nozzles with some
arrangement and spacing vertically and horizontally.
With multiple overlapping passes of the head, different nozzles can be fired
when the head passes over a point or area.
Typically, you cannot fire all the nozzles of one color at the same time,
and there are also limits on nozzle patterns that can be fired at one time.
Naturally, the vertical position of the head vs. the paper can be changed by
the paper feed, and the horizontal by the head movement mechanism.
When you combine all the variables, you get the advertised resolution. The
driver has some fairly complex algorithms that are used to figure out how to
print a specific color
at given point or area using the various ink nozzles and colors.
The printer mfrs usually want software developers to sign a non disclosure
agreement, preferably in blood, before they release any meaningful details
concerning the printer drivers.

 

[bob prohaska's usenet account]

The actual answer to your question is somewhere in between <G>

[sigh, it's usually thus]

When you combine all the variables, you get the advertised resolution. The
driver has some fairly complex algorithms that are used to figure out how to
print a specific color
at given point or area using the various ink nozzles and colors.

I'm thinking in terms of black and white, smallest addressable area.

The printer mfrs usually want software developers to sign a non disclosure
agreement, preferably in blood, before they release any meaningful details
concerning the printer drivers.

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to write software.
I wish I had that skill!

The motive behind the question is fairly simple: It's convenient
to fabricate a variety of useful small gadgets using a combination
of optical lithography and chemical etching. The semiconductor
industry has pushed this approach to extraordinary degrees,
but the equipment is too expensive for smaller, less sophisticated
operations and basically not necessary. Legacy equipment remains
in service, but the folks who understand it are retiring and
will soon dissapear.

I was hopeful that the printing industry might have improved
its performance to the point it can fill the gap. That would
call for a monochome printer of about 5-10,000 dpi at a cost
under $100k. Speed isn't a big issue in this situation, if
it takes a day to print a folio-size page that's perfectly
acceptable, the old pattern generators from the microelectronics
industry were (and are) no better.

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska

 

[Gary Tait]

The motive behind the question is fairly simple: It's convenient
to fabricate a variety of useful small gadgets using a combination
of optical lithography and chemical etching. The semiconductor
industry has pushed this approach to extraordinary degrees,
but the equipment is too expensive for smaller, less sophisticated
operations and basically not necessary. Legacy equipment remains
in service, but the folks who understand it are retiring and
will soon dissapear.

I was hopeful that the printing industry might have improved
its performance to the point it can fill the gap. That would
call for a monochome printer of about 5-10,000 dpi at a cost
under $100k. Speed isn't a big issue in this situation, if
it takes a day to print a folio-size page that's perfectly
acceptable, the old pattern generators from the microelectronics
industry were (and are) no better.

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska

So print the finest you can with current technology, to a larger scale.
Then optically reduce it.

 

[bob prohaska's usenet account]

So print the finest you can with current technology, to a larger scale.
Then optically reduce it.

It's being done now, but the optical reducers are from a
35-40 year old generation of hardware, whose designers
and maintainers are now pushing 80. There's not enough
demand for the application my interests represent to make
a viable marketplace. I'm looking for a new application,
in this case high resolution typesetting, which shares
enough of the technical requirements and has a big enough
market to be viable. Looks like I'm barking up the wrong
tree

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska