As the term implies, solid ink printers use sticks of ink instead of liquid ink that is used in inkjet printers and toners for laser printers. The ink sticks are loaded into the printer in the same manner as you would load ink or toner cartridges. These ink sticks are then melted by the printer for the ink to be transferred to the paper.
Advantages of Solid Ink Printers
The advantages of using solid ink printers are as follows:
Solid ink printing technology was based on offset printing principles. As such, solid ink printers are able to print out text and images with high-quality and vibrant colors. Once solid ink printers are warmed up to melt the solid ink sticks, printing is extremely fast.
Less waste materials are produced by solid ink printers. Since the inks are sold in the form of ink sticks, there is no need for these to be placed inside a cartridge. Ink sticks do not leave any residue in the printer nozzles preventing any form of blockage.
Because the ink sticks are manufactured using vegetable oil, they are less prone to smearing and blurring which is the common problem in liquid inkjet printers.
Solid ink printers are less sensitive to paper thickness and paper fibers. This would allow you to print on a number of different surfaces including recycled and handmade paper.
Disadvantages of Solid Ink Printers
While solid ink printers have proven to be a good choice for printing in terms of printing quality and printing speed, these have their own disadvantages:
Printers take a very long time to warm up. At times, it would cause a user to wait as long as 15 minutes to wait for the printer to melt the solid ink sticks. This is not a good option for people who would need to print a number of pages at a short period of time.
Solid ink printers are highly sensitive to movement because it uses melted ink wax sticks.
While the printer is turned on and printing, the user must make sure that it would not be touched or moved even very slightly.
Solid ink sticks are made of vegetable oils and have a waxy texture which releases a particular odor while it is being melted.
