Epson celebrates 20th anniversary of their Micro Piezo Technology

It was 20 years ago when Epson differentiated itself from other inkjet printers with their Epson Stylus 800, the first printer to use the their proprietary “Micro Piezo” inkjet technology.

The 1993 Epson Stylus 800: The first printer to use the Epson Micro Piezo inkjet print head

Even up to their current lineup of inkjet and ink tank system printers, Epson still uses the Micro Piezo print heads which Kochi Endo developed in the early 90s.

Back in the early 70’s, Epson begun work on a quiet, high-resolution printer that did not use impact technology of the dot-matrix printers popular back then. That’s when piezoelectric print heads was born. A decade later, Epson decided to direct resources into improving the piezo system which lead to the advanced development of the Micro Piezo print head. This allowed for reduction of size of the print heads thereby reducing the driving voltage.

Inkjet printers traditionally use thermal technology but Epson’s Micro Piezo printers are advantageous in three key areas:

• Improved printing quality and precision due to their ability to eject ink droplets in varying sizes.
• Lower operating temperature that makes them more power efficient and allows for the use of a wider range of inks, and on a wider range of media.
• Higher reliability that allows Epson to build its print heads into the printers instead of cartridges. This makes the cartridges cheaper to produce, more affordable, and easier to recycle.

The high reliability of Micro Piezo technology enabled Epson to create the world’s first genuine ink tank system printer in 2010. And they’re still the only branded ink tank system printer maker in the world because of this.