Micro Piezo™ technology

Epson inkjet printers use Micro Piezo print heads, which help our printers achieve amazing results. Micro Piezo print heads use piezoelectric pulses to propel the ink into the page instead of heating it like other printers. This unique piezo system has also been designed to last the lifetime of your printer.

The piezo element inside Micro Piezo print heads ensures precise control over ink, which helps our printers achieve Ultra Micro DotTM ink droplets as small as 1.5 picolitres (much finer than a human hair) These ensure great results on Epson papers because they give virtually grain free text and images

The heat applied in a bubble system exerts a heavy load on the heater, ink, and ink head, causing them to deteriorate rather rapidly. The Micro Piezo design, on the other hand, relies on mechanical force to achieve firing. This requires a highly sophisticated structure that demands high level processing precision in manufacturing. The Micro Piezo system is the design of choice for Epson's series of inkjet printers. The reason is simple: Epson is confident that it is piezo technology that will enable the company to push the limits of photo-quality imaging. 

 

A piezo element is arranged on the back of each of the hundreds of nozzles in an Epson print head. When an electric current is applied to the piezo elements, they distort in a warping fashion. This distortion creates a difference in pressure within the print head, and forces ink droplets to fly from the head. The degree of distortion can be regulated by minutely controlling the voltage applied to the piezo elements. The amount of ink pulled into and expelled out of the nozzles can thus be tightly controlled, so the print head can eject ink droplets in a range of sizes. Varying the size of the droplets is one of the keys to creating photo-quality prints.

 

Variable droplet technology

Large ink droplets enable faster print speeds but lower print quality because the larger ink droplets are like wide paint paintbrushes.

Very small ink droplets increase the detail in the print, but slow down the printing time because the print head must deliver many ink droplets to cover a small area. Epson has developed a Variable Size Dot technology (VSDT) that enables the print head to deliver a drop size that is optimised for the detail in the print.

Using Variable Sized Dot technology the Epson print head delivers very small droplets when printing in fine detail in the image and larger droplets when printing smooth gradations and large areas of solid colour. The Variable Sized Dot technology is an exclusive feature of Epson Micro Piezo print heads that allows a high resolution printing and fast print speeds.