Investigation of the Effects of Ink Pigmentation on Substrate Profiling for E-Textile Dispenser Printing

Dispenser printing is a useful technique in the development of e-textile devices. However it is limited by the requirement to maintain a gap of less than 200 µm below the printer’s nozzle, making it impractical on uneven substrates. Using a laser displacement meter to record and compensate for changes in substrate height can overcome this problem. However, the binders and inks used in e-textile primer layers are typically translucent or arbitrarily pigmented. This work investigates adding specific pigments to interface paste and shows that it can improve the laser measurements’ accuracy and reduce the percentage of printing errors by 80%.