Printers Get a Glimpse of OLED Tech

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6049428.html' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-6049428.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Seiko Epson is bringing emerging OLED technology to one of the more staid pieces of office equipment, the printer. The Japanese company has created a print head that uses organic light-emitting diodes as a light source. To date, OLED elements have appeared primarily in displays, and rather small ones at that."</i><br /><br />From the title, I expected a printer with an OLED display, but I was wrong. Apparently, an OLED can be produced bright enough to replace the laser in a printer. This technology looks to be more precise and I would assume allow for a higher resolution image as well as being more compact.

[Felix Torres]

In this application it an OLED strip would be replacing an LED strip; Okidata has made LED-based page-printers (the long forgotten official name of what we colloquially call laser printers ;-) ) for over ten years now.

The main advantage of the light strips is that they don't require a horizontal scan on the drum so they are smaller, simpler, lighter, and hence cheaper. Even with the extra rotating prism system needed with lasers, though, those things just never break down...

Bigger news would be somebody coming up with a cheap color toner system. :twisted: