Buying guide
Ricoh, Epson or Konica — choosing a printhead
The printhead is the most expensive replaceable part in any of these machines, and the specification that decides both what the output looks like and what the machine costs to keep running. Three families cover the whole range. The figures below are the head manufacturers’ own.
Ricoh
Ricoh Gen5 and Gen6
Industrial UV work. The widest head of the three and built for grey-scale droplet control, which is what puts fine gradients on rigid material. Ricoh quotes head life as a number of ink discharges rather than as months, because how long it lasts depends on ink quality and daily cleaning far more than on hours run.
| Nozzles | 1,280 (4 rows × 320) |
|---|---|
| Native resolution | 600 dpi |
| Print width | 54.1 mm (2.1 in) |
| Droplet | Gen5 7–35 pl adjustable · Gen6 from 5 pl |
| Rated life | Quoted as a duty cycle, not a calendar period |
Epson
Epson i3200
The highest nozzle count of the three, in the narrowest head. That combination is what makes it the standard fit on smaller and mid-width machines: dense output without the cost of an industrial head. The E1 / U1 suffix is the ink family it is built for — a head is not interchangeable across them.
Fitted on 9 of our machines
| Nozzles | 3,200 (8 rows × 400) |
|---|---|
| Native resolution | 600 dpi |
| Print width | 33.8 mm (1.33 in) |
| Frequency | Up to 43.2 kHz |
| Variants | E1 eco-solvent · U1 UV |
Konica Minolta
Konica 512i, 1024i and 9888H
The volume answer. These are the heads on the wide solvent and hybrid machines, where the job is square metres per shift on flex and hoarding media rather than photographic detail on a panel. Speed on these machines scales with how many heads are fitted, which is why the same model is quoted at very different outputs.
| Built for | High-volume solvent and UV production |
|---|---|
| Configuration | Fitted in banks — 4, 8, 12, up to 24 heads |
| Trade-off | Throughput over the finest droplet |
What actually matters
Head count moves the number more than head brand
The same machine is sold with different numbers of heads, and that is usually the biggest single difference between two quotes for what looks like the same model. More heads means more square metres per hour and a higher price — the head brand rarely moves it as much as the count does.
The second thing that matters is not on any datasheet: how the head is looked after. Ink quality, filtration and the daily cleaning routine decide head life far more than hours run, which is why operator training is part of the purchase rather than an extra.
Every machine page states the head options and the head count for that machine, transcribed from the specification sheet. Compare any two on the compare page, or see how configuration drives price in what decides a UV printer price.
Next step
Ask which head fits your work
Tell us what you print and the detail it needs. We will say which head configuration is right — and where paying for more of them stops being worth it.
Machines are sold in configurations, so the specification decides the price. Tell us the material and the volume and we will quote the exact build.