Ricoh GH2220 Printhead

The Ricoh GH2220 Printhead

The Ricoh GH2220 is an industrial piezo printhead that Ricoh rolled out after more than ten years of development work. Unlike the older stainless-steel MH series, this one uses a silicon-based chamber structure paired with piezo dicing technology, so it can run fast and still lay down clean, detailed images. As for where it’s used, it’s mainly aimed at industries like sign graphics, textile printing, and coding and marking.

When it comes to build and specs, the GH2220 is pretty compact. It measures about 61.8 mm long, 40.5 mm wide, and 23.3 mm tall, and weighs only around 36 grams, which makes it easy to fit into all kinds of equipment. The printhead has 384 nozzles in a single row, with an effective print width of 32.4 mm. The nozzle spacing within a row is about 0.1693 mm, and the gap between rows is around 0.931 mm.

One of the standout features is its droplet control. It supports multi-level grayscale jetting, with droplet sizes that can range anywhere from 3 to 21 picoliters. To break it down, in binary mode the droplets are about 3 to 5 picoliters, while in grayscale mode they can go up to around 21 picoliters (the actual number depends on the ink you use). For jetting frequency, binary mode tops out at 30 kHz, and grayscale mode runs at about 24 kHz. As for lifespan, each nozzle can fire roughly 30 billion times, so durability is solid under normal use. It also works with a wide range of inks—water-based, solvent, and UV are all compatible. The product is made in Japan.

On the technical side, the GH2220 uses a multi-drop merging method to produce grayscale. After the ink shoots out of the nozzle at high speed, the droplets merge together before they hit the surface, and with precise control over droplet size—from small to large—you get smooth, rich tonal transitions. Thanks to the minimum 3-picoliter droplet, it really shines when it comes to fine lines and small text, and it can print extremely tiny fonts clearly.

In terms of compatible machines, the GH2220 is already used in a number of UV and direct-to-garment printers. These include Ricoh’s DTG models Ri1000x and Ri2000, the Oric TS1519-GH-6H, several WER models like the RF1808, R3208, R1808, R3T, and RD3T, the Winjet W2-GH2220, as well as Yuxunda models such as the SGH0606, SGH0609, SGH1013, and SGH2513, plus the Xante X32 and others.

One thing worth pointing out: even though the GH2220 and Ricoh’s GEN4 MH2420 are both piezo printheads, they’re built for completely different printer architectures and aren’t interchangeable. Before you buy or replace one, it’s a good idea to double-check exactly which printhead model your equipment takes, so you don’t end up with the wrong part.

Printer models that use the Ricoh GH2220 printhead, organized by brand:

Ricoh DTG Series

• Ri1000x
• Ri2000

Oric

• TS1519-GH-6H

WER

• RF1808
• R3208
• R1808
• R3T
• RD3T

Winjet

• W2-GH2220

Yuxunda SGH Series

• SGH0606
• SGH0609
• SGH1013
• SGH2513

Xante

• X32