Solid ink jet printers typically dispense or jet molten ink onto either a print substrate directly or onto an intermediate transfer surface. In the case where the printer uses an intermediate transfer surface, the transfer surface typically consists of an aluminum drum made of a specific grade of aluminum, sometimes manufactured under the trade name ‘3003 A1.’ The particular grade of aluminum has appropriate ink-accepting and transfer properties to enable reliable operation of the print systems. The drum may be referred to as a transfix drum. The designation of 3000 means that the aluminum is alloyed with manganese. The particular alloy of 3003 typically has a range of 1.0 to 1.5% weight of manganese and a range of 97 to 98% by weight of aluminum.
Currently, the entire transfix drum consists of the particular grade of aluminum. This contributes to a large portion of the cost of the transfix drum subsystem, in some estimates up to 5/6th of the subsystem cost. However, the print system only needs the particular characteristics of the aluminum on the surface of the transfix drum, the entire drum need not be manufactured of that grade of aluminum.
One such approach would use inexpensive stainless steel tubing or other inexpensive material used in a variety of industries. These materials may have the desired diameter and thickness to ensure correct stiffness of the final drum. This drum would then receive a coating of the desired grade of aluminum such as electroplating.
However, metal deposition methods are inherently complicated when it comes to precisely controlling the presence of certain impurities that may be desirable. For example, the presence of manganese as an impurity with the grain structure of the aluminum imparts beneficial properties to the current transfix drum surface that play a critical role in the reliable operation of the print process. This would require process controls and precision that may result in the transfix drum costing more than if it were manufactured entirely out of the proper grade of aluminum.