BACKGROUND
Desktop digital printing technology has only been developed over the last 30 years, almost paralell to the raise of PCs. The hardware based on existing technology is still very complex and consist of a lot of electro-mechanical components. The size and weight of the hardware are substantial and the overall manufacturing costs are high and currently subventioned by the widely used aftermarket business model based on sales of ink cartridges at a high pricing
The complexity of the hardware of printer equipment, sets a high pressure on the environment during the entire product cycle of the printer products. Let/'s have a closer look on the details
SAVING RAW MATERIALS
Direct savings
An ordinary desktop printer weighs 3600 grams1. Printers based on our technology weigh less than 350 grams as a starting point. WIth roughly over 100 million units printers shipped around the world every year2, the potential raw materials savings reach over 325 thousand tonnes. In order to understand the magnitude of these numbers, let/'s imagine a top modern cruise passenger ship. Such giant ship utilizes 80 thousand tonnes of raw materials. The saving would allow to build over 4 ships of such dimensions.
Indirect savings
An ordinary desktop printer has more than 300 mechanical parts4 that all require their specific manufacturing tooling.
Take a look at a dissasembled desktop printer:
There are more than 300 mechanical parts that all require their manufacturing tooling and raw material to be built upon. All in all its about 3 to 4 kg of raw material and lots of energy for parts manufacturing and assembly. For one single unit, it is not much; but multiplied by the hundreds of millions of units being manufactured, it sums up to an outrageous amount.
The usage of raw materials and energy during manufacturing, transport, product utilization and disposal are far higher compared to what products based upon RMPT™ would achieve.
Manufacturers of existing desktop printers have found a way to achieve large spreadning of their hardware by tweaking the business model behind. The high manufacturing cost is been subventioned and recovered with profits on the aftermarket by selling consumables at a very high price.
The RMPT™ Technology might change this status-quo.
