Third Generation HP Latex Printing Technologies

HP Latex Printing Technologies (Booth 1241) were introduced in 2008 as a water-based alternative to solvent ink technologies. Since then, more than 15,000 HP Latex printers have been shipped worldwide and more than 100 million square meters have been printed with HP Latex Inks. HP expects the number of HP Latex printed pages to triple by 2016, while the number of solvent-printed pages simultaneously declines by as much as 33 percent.

Featuring third generation HP 881 Latex Inks and an advanced writing system, the new HP Latex 3000 Printer will help drive this growth, allowing a broader range of sign and display customers to shift pages from traditional solvent and UV-curable technologies to HP Latex Printing Technologies.

HP 881 Latex Inks

“Latex” is simply a term that describes a stable, aqueous dispersion of microscopic polymer particles that form a durable film on the surface of a media to protect the pigments.

HP 881 Latex Inks optimize the performance of HP 881 Latex Printheads, working with the new HP 881 Latex Optimizer to provide high print quality at high productivity. These new inks contain both liquid and solid components, including an anti-scratch agent that lubricates the print surface to resist penetration by sharp objects.

The HP Latex Optimizer is a new component consisting of positively-charged polymers suspended in a colorless, water-based ink vehicle. Applied proportional to local ink coverage by an HP 881 Latex Printhead, the amount of HP Latex Optimizer used can be adjusted for specific materials. Once on the print, the positively-charged polymers coat the negatively-charged pigments, neutralizing the surface charge of the pigments and causing them to become immobilized on the print surface. This produces sharp text and image detail by suppressing feathering and color bleed, especially at high productivity levels.

New Writing System

The writing system of the HP Latex 3000 Printer employs major innovations in printheads, drying and curing, and media advance to achieve high print quality at industrial productivity.

HP 881 Latex Printheads feature a new design with a bi-color configuration and two columns of 5,280 nozzles per color. The new design also incorporates changes to the drop generator for cooler operation, improving productivity and reducing drop weight variation for better color consistency.

Built-in drying and curing systems produce a print that is immediately dry and ready-to-use. Third-generation technologies on the HP Latex 3000 Printer reduce the temperatures and energy requirements of drying and curing the inks by up to 50 percent compared to the HP Latex 850 Printer.

HP also introduced Dynamic Swath Alignment (DSA) with the HP Latex 3000 Printer to suppress banding from even small media advance errors. The HP Optical Media Advance Sensor precisely measures media advance and then and dynamically aligns the print swaths by selecting which nozzles print on each scan, aligning successive swaths to within a half dot row—10.6 um at 1,200 dpi.

Summary

Third-generation HP Latex Printing Technologies found in the HP Latex 3000 Printer include a number of innovations that take the benefits of water-based HP Latex Inks to industrial speeds and efficiencies. HP 881 Latex Inks with the HP Latex Optimizer provide durable prints with a wide color gamut and expand media versatility using high-efficiency curing. Compared to previous HP Latex Printing Technologies, the HP Latex 3000 Printer consumes less energy and precisely places each print swath to suppress banding.