Mprinti Drive electronics for Kyocera KJ4A and Kyocera KJ4B inkjet print heads

KJ4A/KJ4B

The Mprinti electronic boards developed by us by order of external linkmprint GmbH, Baiersbronn, Germany drive external linkKyocera KJ4A-GD06AHG-STDC/N and Kyocera KJ4B-HD06MHG-STDV high-performance print heads with all available speed and features of the heads.

Basic concept

Board photo One Mprinti board is neccessary per KJ4A/KJ4B print head. Every Mprinti board is connected with a PC using the USB 2.0 bus.

The Mprinti board contains all the required functionality including temperatur regulation, serial communication with the print head, encoder interface and 3.3Volt DC/DC power supply.

The board needs to be machanically close to the head.

Special features

Requirements

Photo of board in test unit
Operating SystemWindows XP (32/64 Bit), Windows Vista (32 Bit), Linux-i386. (Others like MacOS X upon request)
EncoderWachendorff WDG58B or electronically compatible
Power Supply26V +/- 0.5V 3A
Maximum Number of heads16 Print heads per PC, unlimited when using several slave PCs
Cable lengthCurrently 20cm Cables to the print head
Board size160mm x 100mm x 29 mm
Weight130gr without cables

Firmware

The Mprinti boards are shipped with a set of firmware files to run on it's microcontrollers and FPGAs, a .DLL/.SO API to supply an easy-to-use application interface and driver files for Windows and Linux. Custom application development can be in C++ or C.

Firmware updates are downloaded at runtime from the PC.

Additional application software solutions are available that are based on this firmware:

Available Software solutions

Performance considerations

Typical USB controllers reach about 42 MByte/s data transfer rate per USB controller when distributing the data transfered on more than one USB device.

Printing in a continuous application with 400mm/second equals 7.2 MByte/Second when printing with all 4 drop sizes (+ No drop) as supported by the print head. This means 5 print heads can be driven per USB 2.0 controller and you may add more than one additional controller to a windows or linux PC to support higher data transfer rates.

In a non-continuous printing application (Multi-Path) the time when the carriage does not move full speed can be used to fill up the FIFOs of the Mprinti boards. The boards can trigger printing when the encoder signals reaches a certian position and automatically stop printing when a complete set of lines has been printed, without clearing the FIFO memory.

The Mprinti board optionally offer data transfers with 5 levels (white + 4 drop sizes) encoding 7 bit for 3 nozzles, thus requiring only 2.333 bit/nozzle instead of extending the data stream to 3 bit or even 4 bit per nozzles as simpler solutions would do. This allows to use the full printing quality of the KJ4A/KJ4B print head without raising the data transfer too much. The distinction between encoding Fire 6 and VDD2 for white pixels can be done on the board and does not need to be encoded by the PC.

At maximum print speed (845 mm/s), you need one USB 2.0 Host controller for every 2 print heads. Configurations with 4 host controllers and 8 print heads at maximum print speed are in use.

Success stories

Mprinti boards have been used successfully to implement a 845 mm/second label printing process as a single-path process using the lp2000i software with good printing quality. Contact external linkmprint GmbH, Baiersbronn, Germany for samples.

Another company has implemented a high-speed multi-path printer with up to 24 Mprinti boards using the Duasoft application.

Prices and avialablility

These boards are only available from external linkmprint GmbH, Baiersbronn, Germany. Prices are individually and depend on the application, the expected number of boards sold, the software used and the amount of engeneering support required.

The boards cannot be offered for printing on textiles.

Users of this technology must document external linkmprint GmbH as the source of the technology in the machine documentation and must allow for the Firmware to display the external linkmprint GmbH company logo for a few seconds during startup.

Small amounts of boards (for development) can be shipped within a few days. Bigger amounts need up to 90 days for production.

Engeneering

Hardware developmentexternal linkAUTTEC GmbH, Dipl. Ing. Uto Wolf and Dipl. Ing. Bernd Herd
Firmware and Driver developmentexternal linkAUTTEC GmbH, Dipl. Ing. Bernd Herd
lp2000i application softwareHerd Software Development Dipl. Ing. Bernd Herd and external linkPsitronic IT-Soluitions, Dipl.-Inform. Markus Sinner

Our team is able to modify hardware, firmware and application software for specific needs at reasonable prices.

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