OCE flew in eight editors to their North American head office in Chicago to show off their new ColorWave printer with its CrystalPoint toner-pearls. Most of the other editors are experts on the printing business, so jokes like "They still run some 650s" abound to appreciative chuckles.
Above: The OCE Corporate Solution Studio in Chicago.
OCE developed the pearls to better compete with HP, which has a tonne of patents protecting its printing business.
The pearls are blueberry-size waxy spheres that are melted at 300F then squirted at paper.
Above: The CrystalPoint toner-pearls are gravity-fed with an auger inside the cartridge.
The exciting part: anything from CAD wireframes to photographs can be printed on the same plain paper, and there is no waiting for drying.
Above: Randall Newton examines ColorWave output closely.
The ColorWave printer is $60,000 - $70,000, but can be leased for $2,249 a month. The toner cartridges are $400 each.
You can read full coverage of this event in upFront.eZine issue #569.
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[Disclosure: Oce provided airfare, ground transportation, hotel, meals, and some corporate gifts to all attendees.]
In Europe printer manufacturers do not have the right to require that customers of their printers buy replacement ink from the same manufacturer. The pellets are something that competing ink cartridge manufacturers cannot easily reproduce.
Posted by: Scott Sheppard | Jul 20, 2008 at 07:54
"They still run some 650s": The 650 was HP's first color inkjet. Very very old, as these things go.
Re: Xerox's solid ink printers: Yes, rather similar. It's known as "phase-change" inkjet. Been around a long time. The "toner pearls" are easier to feed than the chunky blocks used on the Xerox.
Posted by: Evan Yares | Jul 17, 2008 at 01:02
Hmmm, other than the pellets, it sounds a bit like Xerox's (formerly Tektronix) solid ink printers.
Posted by: Tony | Jul 16, 2008 at 14:39