The Ultimate Industrial Inkjet Printhead Comparison Chart

We are excited to share what we think is the most powerful inkjet R&D tool that you didn’t know you needed: a chart outlining all of the industrial inkjet printheads and their specs in one place. It covers the most popular printheads from major manufacturers like Epson, Fujifilm-Dimatix, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Ricoh, Toshiba Tec, Seiko, and Xaar. Each printhead lists helpful specs for comparing them so you can find the perfect candidates for your next R&D project!

Understanding the Specs Listed in the Comparison Chart

Ink Type
Whether the head is advertised by the manufacturer to handle aqueous, solvent, UV, oil, or other ink chemistries
Ink Supply
Is the printhead designed to be operated with a gravity-fed (non-recirculating) or recirculating ink supply system?
Viscosity
What fluid viscosity is the printhead designed to handle? Note that there are no hard and fast rules about using ink outside the specified ranges, this is just what the manufacturer advertises.
Drop Volume
The typical range of drop sizes that can be produced with this printhead when printing in grayscale (>1 dpd)
Print Width
Usually this is defined as the width of an image that can be printed at the maximum resolution with a single head, in case there are extra nozzles at the edges of the printhead due to how the printhead is built
Number of Rows
How many rows are the nozzles arranged into on the printhead?
Number of Nozzles
The total number of nozzles on the head
Number of Colors
The maximum number of different colors that can be printed using a single printhead
Resolution Per Color
The maximum resolution that can be printed for each color on the head. Note that you can increase the resolution of the head by using the same ink in multiple channels. For example, a head that can print 300dpi with two colors could also be used to print 600dpi with one color.
Heater
Whether the printhead has a built-in heater for adjusting the temperature of the ink
Max Temperature
Usually this is defined as the maximum temperature that the heater on the printhead can produce, not the maximum temperature of the environment that the head can operate in
Max Binary Frequency
For the smallest drop size, what is the maximum number of drops that can be produced from each nozzle per second? You can use the frequency and the resolution to determine what the maximum linespeed you can print is.