Xaar celebrates groundbreaking technology of its 5601 printhead

IndPrint

Xaar has celebrated the groundbreaking technologies of its high performance 5601 printhead in a special event for over 300 of its UK staff. The 5601, based on the company’s silicon MEMS thin film platform, is the culmination of over eight years of research and development. The technology platform represents a major step forward in digital inkjet printing and has created a foundation for Xaar’s thin film printheads of the future.

‘Understanding customer and market requirements was key to the development of the Xaar 5601,’ commented Ramon Borrell, chief technology officer. ‘We wanted to create a new platform with capabilities that we didn’t have at the time. Specifically, we wanted to develop an aqueous printhead, with higher resolution, higher printing speed and higher print quality.

‘This meant we needed to start our development with a blank piece of paper; designing every part from the ground up and not being limited by the previous technologies.’

With over 5600 active nozzles, the Xaar 5601 printhead is the first printhead from this new platform, providing an exceptionally high quality print resolution which is capable of jetting up to nine litres of fluid per hour at a frequency in excess of 100 kHz. In addition, the 5601 printhead incorporates the company’s TF Technology to maximise production uptime, print quality and printhead lifetime, while its Z profile makes fitting multiple printheads closely together possible, ensuring an exceptionally compact print zone and reduced cost of ownership.

‘Critical to success was the time and effort we put into visiting customers throughout the development programme to ensure we captured and delivered solutions to the key OEM and end user pain points,’ said Jason Remnant, product line manager at Xaar.

Feedback since the release of the 5601 has been overwhelmingly positive. Customers have been impressed by the performance of the 5601 in terms of the outstanding print quality, its unparalleled usability and the print speeds that it can achieve – up to two metres per second.

‘The Xaar 5601 is the culmination of all the R&D teams’ hard work on the new technology platform” continues Jason. “We’ve invested in a platform that will produce not just one printhead, but a family of printheads and we wanted to recognise the hard work that has gone into the programme.”

Commenting on the day, Doug Edwards, CEO of Xaar, said: ‘We are immensely proud of what has been achieved in terms of delivering a completely new technology platform, which we expect to deliver a step change in inkjet printing. Today was about recognising this and reinforcing how each person had a role to play. It is a fantastic achievement by everyone at Xaar and demonstrates our leadership in inkjet technology.’