Advantages:
- Speed!
- You don't have to worry about head alignment, since all the heads are fused together.
- The actual print heads wouldn't be disposable, so they would be much better made.
- Along the same lines, you wouldn't have to buy heads with the ink every time, so the ink would be cheaper to buy at retail.
- The printer could be very small. Just room for the ink and head assembly, and a paper-feed mechanism.
- The 14" print mechanism ties up a lot of ink. The ink has to travel from the reservoir to the top and bottom of each page, so you'd always have a lot of ink sitting in the device that you couldn't use. I think you could use a really long reservoir that integrates more directly with the print heads, but if it's not sealed properly, the ink will dry up and make a massive mess.
- The price of the printer will have to include the price of a really big print head. This can be amortized by making it a really reliable print head that needs to be replaced only after years of use. Over time, the cost of the printer will be less than the cost of all the cheaper printers you would have gone through. Also, the speed of this printer will save you a lot of time over the years, and time is money.
Further notes: I recommend putting a bunch of print heads on there. Many people won't use all of them, but it will be useful for advanced and experimental pigmentation, or you can just use the extras for more black ink storage.
