Commitment to Manufacturing Excellence
that Began from Watchmaking
Learning Printer Accuracy from Watchmaking.
Epson has preserved and passed down the efficient, compact, and precise technologies it first cultivated through watchmaking. This technology and approach to manufacturing are still seen in our printers today. Epson’s printers are loaded with precision technologies, some of which are introduced here.
1Commitment to Reliability
For printers to deliver high-quality output, their components must work together with extreme precision and harmony. We must ensure that both the paper and the printheads that eject the ink move correctly. The skill with which parts are moved with such exacting precision is a legacy from our decades-long history in watchmaking.
For example, to precisely and uniformly feed paper through a printer, the roller, which serves as the core of the paper feeding system, must be as on-center and perfectly circular as possible, so we worked on this until we achieved micron-order precision. Similarly, the system we use for ejecting paper after printing has pressed metal gears with tips that are as sharp as possible to ensure that the paper is reliably gripped as it is ejected while simultaneously minimizing damage to the print surface. These technologies are one result of the precision machining technologies Epson has cultivated through decades in watchmaking. They are also emblematic of our ongoing commitment to performance.
Our commitment to reliability also extends to ink development.
We have taken steps to ensure that our ink does not solidify inside the tanks. These steps include developing ink that offers outstanding preservability as well as ensuring that the ink does not stick to the ink-tank windows that allow customers to see at a glance the remaining ink level. Such care is a direct result of the customer-first mindset we cultivated as a watchmaker and handed down over the years.
The piezoelectric printheads used in Epson printers offer outstanding durability and, in combination with our EcoTank system, support high-volume printing. On top of that, our high-capacity ink bottles require only infrequent replacement. This means that ink tanks consume fewer resources during high-volume printing than do ink cartridges.
Epson’s hope is that customers will be able to enjoy worry-free use of our printers for many years thanks to their cost effectiveness and environmental performance.
2Commitment to Making Products Ever Smaller
Epson has continued to refine its efficient, compact, and precise technologies over decades in watchmaking and has always worked to make its products smaller. This commitment to compactness has naturally led to our commitment to reducing the size of our printers.
To help ensure that our home-use printers are suitable for living rooms, we set a target of developing products that are no wider than 410 mm and can fit in the compact storage shelves that are often used in Japanese homes. To reduce the size of printers, we had to minimize the distance that the printheads move laterally. By precisely controlling printhead movement, we succeeded in making our printers more compact without compromising print quality, ultimately achieving our size goal for home-use printers.
Epson’s commitment to compactness has also helped the company shrink its environmental footprint. Reducing the size of our products reduced their weight and the amount of plastic used in them while also increasing the efficiency with which they can be transported, thus reducing the CO2 emissions associated with their manufacture and shipping.