The Project
Enbi’s customer in Asia was attempting to diversify their printer product line moving from a low-end to mid-range offering to the market. In order to do this, the customer needed to improve their product life cycle, image quality and reduce the overall costs per page to print. The target was to improve the life of the fuser (heat) roller from 100,000 to 200,000 pages with no reduction in image quality. Â
The History
Fuser (heat) rollers are critical components in the fusing system in most modern printers. Because of the harsh environment in which they operate, the life can be drastically reduced if the correct combination of polymer, bonding agent and coating materials are not carefully selected. The customer provided full insight into the operating conditions and any chemicals that the fuser rollers could be exposed to. In addition, information about life cycles, running times and temperatures allowed Enbi to model the optimal combination of materials to meet the customers’ needs. Enbi was able to redesign the entire printer fuser roller to provide reduced energy consumption and increased life cycle.
Our Approach
Enbi’s Engineering Team worked closely with the customer to gain a deep understanding of their needs. Through a series of meetings, tests and co-development with the customer, Enbi identified and proposed optimum specifications with best fit for coating materials. The engineering models were followed up closely by rapid prototypes which allowed the customer to do print test at customer’s laboratory to prove the concept.
Benefits
With professional technical input from Enbi, the Asian customer greatly reduced development cycle, and successfully launched a new product line to market with longer product life span and a lower cost per print than previous models.
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