Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:
On Mon, 28 May 2018 08:14:23 +0100, rp wrote:

On Sun, 27 May 2018 22:03:42 +0100, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:

Why are inkjet printers faster in black than in colour? Surely black
is just one of the inks, like cyan, magenta, and yellow. Since the
heads are independant, why would black only be faster? Is there a
****ty processor in the printers that's slower than the 4 heads
combined?

If you check the specs for your printer you will find;


Nozzle Configuration
90 Nozzles Black, 29 Nozzles per Color

now work it out for yourself.

Odd it's not 30 per colour, exactly a third of the black, so three passes.


That's going to vary from printer to printer.

I could find a photo printer, running 8 colors at 768 nozzles
per color and only 1 picoliter drop size. The nozzle count
in that case was the same for each color. They bump up the
number of colors, to compensate for the color range they
can accomplish with a given ink (which isn't all that impressive).
The last time I checked, I think I found one running 6 colors,
and I guess like razor blade designs, "you can never have
too many".

On some printers, the "height" of the active surface on the
black, is different than the color, which means the "swath"
per pass is different, and it takes more passes back and
forth to process a sheet.

I couldn't remember the word yesterday, but you can also
print in "Draft" mode to make it go faster. They have
other words for modes, such as "Eco" mode, which you might
use for a first-pass print of some new work.

Paul