Understanding Ink Cartridge Terminology and Inkjet Definition

For the one who has been looking through Google for the common terminology or definition for  the ink cartridges, we hope that this blog will be helpful for you, if you got any question or concern regarding to ink cartridges in general, you can always submit your question in the comment and I would be more happy to provide you with detail information, please check the following to understand more about common ink cartridges term:

Chip for ink cartridges

The chip for the cartridges is basically a small electrical patch which attached into your ink cartridge, the purpose for having such chip is to maintain interaction between the printer to the cartridge itself, with the implementation of chip, the printer can store information such as how much ink level you have, how many pages you print or which type of ink cartridges that you are using. Generally, not all the inkjet cartridges have chips, it really depend on the printer model number, sometimes, you will find the compatible/remanufacture no chip ink cartridges, you will have to remove the chip from your OEM cartridges and replace that into your no chip ink cartridges.

Ink Cartridges Clip 

Very easy to understand, the clip simply means the plastic part that located in the front of the nozzle, the purpose for having this little plastic clip is to protect the contacts of nozzle plate, which uses to prevent ink leaking or ink damages during the process of transportation, you will have to remove that before installing into your machine.

Compatible ink cartridges

A compatible cartridges is made by the third party company, which made entirely new design and will be compatible to the OEM printer, in most of the case, the compatible ink cartridges usually support more than one printer model, and with the features which is pretty much resemble to both internal and extrernal compared to the OEM ink cartridges, for that reason, the compatible ink cartridges price is much cheaper comparing to OEM ink cartridges brand.

Ink cartridges contacts 

The contacts is a cooper circuit squares that send the signal to the printer, you should avoid directly contact to this cooper connector by your hand

Cradle (Carriage)

the ink cartridges cradle or carriage is pretty much the place where your inkjet cartridges needs to be installed, this device will hold the ink cartridges itself and moving horizontally while in the process of printing for creating the image that you would like to print

Cyan Magenta and Yellow

Both are the three main colors which needs to be installed for producing the complicated variety of color, each of the unique color means light blue, Red as well as the yellow.

Dye Based ink

This type of cartridges are mostly found in the color cartridges categories, but they are some situation where black cartridge is also made by dye based such as like photo black or photo color, this type of cartridges are not water resistant , and is easier to fade away.

Foam based

Every cartridge must contain a foam inside the cartridges cover itself, it can be only one or multiple location where the ink flew, the purpose for foam is to hold the ink storage as a sponge so the ink won’t flow everywhere, the sponge will also adequately ejecting the ink whenever that it need to make sure that the ink will be available for the printing.

Integrated Cartridge

A integrated ink cartridges usually have a print head, which is a electric flexible ribbon which connect between the printer and the cartridges itself

Non-Integrated Cartridge

A non intergrated cartridges is the one which has not have the print head, because the print head has already built in with the printer, most of the case this type of printhead will not be able to replace, I believe that this type of ink cartridges also refer to ink tank.

Print head

Also name nozzle plate, it’s the small tiny holes and stamp like feature which allow the ink to eject for printing the image or text through the connection between the chip to the printer.

OEM ink cartridges 

The OEM represents the Original Equipment Manufacture, which means mean the ink cartridges or the product are made by the main company, for example, HP will only uses its own HP OEM cartridges and so does others.

Photo black PBK ink cartridges

The type of cartridges will creat the lighter shade of black color, which will create and combine a combination of different layer-like color, which will create a vivid color, most of the photo printer will require the uses of PBK cartridges

Pigment based ink cartridges 

On the contrary to the Dye based ink cartridges, pigment base ink cartridges are water and light resistant, however, they will not have able to come out with many shades so the color matching for the OEM is not easy, and since the color can residue better and longer, pigment based ink usually have a higher cost compared to the Dye based one.

Value Pack ink cartridges

You might see this very common when you browsing the online store site, the value pack simply means a set of cartridges with different color or same color but double up the amount, for example you can have a Brother LC 61 B/C/M/Y as a value pack and it reduces your overall cost if you buy it individually.

Tri color

The tri color which means the three original color that it uses to print out the images, these colors are Cyan, Magenta and yellow, sometimes from the photo printer model, you will have the Photo Cyan, photo Magenta as well as the Photo Yellow depend on which printer model that you had.