Today, when a print cartridge runs dry, consumers just buy more ink, not an entire new print head.
Engineers also developed a new engine and increased the size of the print head to help increase print speeds.
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Think of an inkjet printer with a print head that rises and continually prints on top of the last image it printed.
That means the print head can move faster across a page, as well as turn out documents with more colors and higher image quality.
The new manufacturing process allows HP to fit 3, 900 or more microscopic ink nozzles on a single print head, compared to 1, 266 nozzles on past designs.
Obviously an eyelid-like shutter mechanism would be too large and complicated for something as small as a print head, so an electrical field is applied instead to keep the film spread thin.
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The various pieces would then be lined up and laminated together to form a working print head, a process which required HP to have two different manufacturing lines and product designs for low-end and high-end print heads.
That type of design uses three parallel arms to control the print head, enabling a device that's not only "fun to watch, " according to the group, but that can also quickly print high resolution objects with a large 9-inch by 11-inch build envelope.
The research team uses a RepRap 3D printer and a custom extruder head to print a filament network composed of sucrose, glucose and dextran which is later encased in a bio-gel containing living cells.
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An American firm, 3D Systems, used one of its 3D printers to print a hammer for your correspondent, complete with a natty wood-effect handle and a metallised head.
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