Cambridge - Xaar plc has announced a collaboration with leading industrial printhead solution provider Meteor Inkjet Ltd to produce an inkjet development kit and commercial drive electronics set for the Xaar 1201 printhead. The specially developed ecosystem from Meteor enables OEMs who use the Xaar 1201 to develop printers for the graphics and textiles market to maximize the printhead performance.

In addition, the collaboration means that OEMs can rely on a best-in-class solution from initial printhead development right through to full commercialization of their printer. This shortens OEMs’ time-to-market as well as ensuring the best printhead performance possible for their own customers.

“We chose to work with Meteor Inkjet because its electronics – which are designed to be power-efficient, compact and flexible – are the perfect way to get the maximum performance from the Xaar 1201,” says Simon Kirk, Senior Product Manager at Xaar.

“While the printhead is a key part of any print system, there are a number of components that make up the printhead ecosystem, and these play a critical part in the overall printhead performance. It’s therefore essential that we are able to provide our customers not just with a superb printhead, but also with a high quality suite of electronics and software which can be used in printhead evaluation and commercial printer production. Meteor has delivered this, and together we now offer our customers the complete printhead package.”

“We're delighted to have developed a printhead driver solution that will get the best out of the Xaar 1201 for graphics and textiles,” comments Clive Ayling, Managing Director at Meteor Inkjet Ltd.  “We have worked on several Xaar printheads before, and once again, by working closely with the Xaar team, we have produced a drive electronics solution that will truly enhance the performance of the printhead for OEMs.” 

The Xaar 1201 printhead, a rising star in the textiles and graphics printing markets in Asia and Europe, is a versatile and compact greyscale printhead. It prints one, two or four colors, delivers a high level of quality and performance, and is capable of handling aqueous, UV, hard-solvent and eco-solvent inks. Designed for easy integration by printer manufacturers, the Xaar 1201 features 1280 nozzles that jet variable drop sizes; these produce high quality graphics and textiles on a wide range of substrates at an apparent resolution of up to 1440 dpi.