Is Inkjet in Your Future?

Piezo heads can accommodate a wider variety of inks than TIJ or CIJ heads, and although piezo heads are more expensive, they tend to be substantially more durable, capable of thousands (rather than hundreds) of hours of use.

InfoPrint, Océ and Screen all use piezo heads in their high-speed inkjet presses, as does Kodak in its VL series. In each, the print quality is perfectly acceptable for many transactional/transpromo jobs, as well as direct mail and publishing applications like textbooks, cookbooks and others requiring color photos and illustrations. In reviewing the samples available, Océ's JetStream family—the widest range of piezoelectric inkjet systems available—seems to have a slight edge on quality at the moment, on a par with HP's T-300. Systems from all these companies are available now, with new models likely to continue raising the bar on quality and productivity. Both InfoPrint and Océ offer MICR inks for security and check printing.