Digital
Other: Memjet looks to broaden its reach heading into Drupa 2012
San Diego-based inkjet manufacturer Memjet is targeting Drupa to showcase the versatility of its core waterfall printheads, which can jet more than 700m drops of ink a second, across a broad range of OEM partners and applications.
Memjet has already gained some initial traction in the office printer and label printing space and has some 3,000 units currently installed through various label printing OEMs, according to Robert Doll, VP of Software and Systems for Memjet's labels division.
"The engine is ours and the UI and integration into the box are done by our OEMS," Doll told PrintWeek during a tour of the company's San Diego R&D facility. "We have a lot of customers that still haven't released products yet," he added.
Memjet, which has a global staff of more than 400, is currently building out a host of different engines based on its core technology, including some that use an array of five of its printheads to apply 3.5bn drops of inks per second - allowing it to print five color, CMYK+1 or five different spot colours, in a single pass.
Jeff Bean, Memjet's director of communications and branding, said Memjet Formula Ink is the only ink that works with the firm's printheads. "The ink is a water-based ink and proprietary to our technology and components," he added. "OEMs with Memjet-powered printers and printing systems - and/or their resellers - sell ink in their respective markets."
Bean added that media/substrate compatibility in general is the same across all out target segments and includes any porous uncoated substrates, including corrugated or bond, coated inkjet media or micro porous photo paper and films.
Memjet has lined up a host of partners, including Colordyne, Xante, Own-X, Lenovo and LG Electronics, but the company's goal for the coming year is to showcase to the industry the versatility of printhead, controller chips and software and ink technology, which features more than 70,000 nozzles, each 1/10th the diameter of a human hair. The company has already created 42in wide-format engines using five overlapping printheads and Shimamoto said the company has the ability to theoretically go to 56" presses.
