Induction tattoo machines. Features and key differences between tools

The mar­ket for tat­too machines these days is replete with a vari­ety of qual­i­ty tools for every taste and bud­get. All of them are divid­ed into only 2 cat­e­gories: induc­tion and rotary. For those who have exten­sive expe­ri­ence as a tat­too artist, choos­ing the right option will not cause any prob­lems, but for begin­ners it will be more dif­fi­cult. What are the fea­tures of tat­too machines and how do both options dif­fer from each oth­er? Our experts fig­ured it out.

Induction tattoo machines

Device, principle of operation

Induc­tion machines for cre­at­ing tat­toos have long become clas­sics, the stan­dard of qual­i­ty and style of work of a tat­too artist. True, there are some nuances that make this clas­sic no longer so uni­ver­sal. But first things first.

The induc­tion machine has a rather com­plex device and is rep­re­sent­ed by the fol­low­ing key ele­ments:

1. 1. The induc­tion coil is the “heart” of any induc­tion type tat­too machine, thanks to which the move­ment of the work­ing nee­dle is pos­si­ble.

       

 

1. 1. Ham­mer (strik­er) — the core of the coil attracts it, and then with a cer­tain fre­quen­cy the spring to which it is attached returns to its place. It is the inter­ac­tion of the coil and the ham­mer that ensures the func­tion­al­i­ty of the entire device.

       

 

1. 1. The frame is a kind of “back­bone” on which all the work­ing ele­ments of the machine are attached. As a rule, it is made of steel or cop­per (some­times rep­re­sent­ed by alloys).

       

 

1. 1. Capac­i­tor — the main task of this ele­ment is the accu­mu­la­tion and rapid return of ener­gy. It depends on him whether the tat­too machine will spark or not.

       

 

Each of the pre­sent­ed work­ing ele­ments of the tat­too machine makes it unique. If you replace at least one work­ing mech­a­nism, the prod­uct will work dif­fer­ent­ly. There­fore, mas­ters who are aware of all the intri­ca­cies of the rela­tion­ship of ele­ments are so valu­able, and they can fine-tune the tat­too machine for any request.

What is the work­ing prin­ci­ple of an induc­tion machine? When direct cur­rent pass­es through the turns of the induc­tion coil, the core is mag­ne­tized. He, in turn, attracts the strik­er to him­self — the spring opens. Then the core is demag­ne­tized, and the spring iner­tial­ly returns the strik­er back. This inter­ac­tion ensures the rec­i­p­ro­cat­ing move­ment of the work­ing nee­dle.

There are 2 types of induc­tion mod­els:

1. 1. Lin­ers are a sharp machine with a short, hard hit. The nee­dle instant­ly pen­e­trates and exits the skin. The result­ing pat­tern is clear and even. This is not the best option for paint­ing — you can severe­ly dam­age the skin and leave scars on it.

       

 

1. 1. Shaders are ide­al for dense, high-qual­i­ty shad­ing. The stiff­ness is less than that of the lin­er, and skin injury is also less. But at the same time, the shad­er does not have the “bite” of the lin­er, so it is not rec­om­mend­ed to use it to draw the con­tour — the lines will turn out blur­ry.

       

 

By the way, out­ward­ly lin­ers and shaders may not dif­fer at all, but their “stuff­ing” is dif­fer­ent (for exam­ple, lin­ers have small­er coils).

Impor­tant. Induc­tion machines usu­al­ly use one or two coils. The num­ber of turns in this case may be dif­fer­ent. Some mis­tak­en­ly believe that the pow­er of the device depends on them. But this is far from true. A sig­nif­i­cant role is played by the thick­ness and qual­i­ty of the wire used on the core. For exam­ple, a shad­er with 10–12 turns is con­sid­ered stan­dard, although emi­nent tat­too machine man­u­fac­tur­ers like Jim­my Whit­lock use only 6–8 turns.

Advantages and disadvantages

Induc­tion tat­too machines have 4 key advan­tages: pow­er, speed, artistry and price.

Pow­er

Com­pared to the rotary, the induc­tion beats down­right very pow­er­ful. And if the mas­ter has 2 machines at once — a shad­er and a lin­er, then in one pass you can make a con­tour and paint over a sig­nif­i­cant area.

Speed

Induc­tion mod­els cov­er large areas of a draw­ing very quick­ly. For exam­ple, an area that a slow rotor will paint over for a long time can be filled with paint 3 times faster with an induc­tion tool.

Artistry work

Induc­tion machines have no equal in cre­at­ing a sharp con­tour and dense, juicy shad­ing.

Price

Last but not least. Induc­tion mod­els of tat­too machines are cheap­er than rotary ones (even if we take into account the fact that a pair of machines is need­ed at once for high-qual­i­ty and con­ve­nient work).

But it was not with­out unpleas­ant fea­tures:

1. 1. Impres­sive weight — most induc­tion mod­els are rather bulky and, with a very long ses­sion, cre­ate con­sid­er­able dis­com­fort for the mas­ter: the hands are buzzing, the back starts to hurt.

       

 

1. 1. Strong vibra­tion — before pur­chas­ing a machine, it is rec­om­mend­ed to test it in idle. If the hand begins to lit­er­al­ly “walk” from vibra­tion, the mod­el in ques­tion is not the best option.

       

 

1. 1. Noisy — have the infa­mous hum. For begin­ner tat­too artists, work­ing with an induc­tion tool for a long time can be a real chal­lenge. Expe­ri­enced crafts­men over time sim­ply stop notic­ing this noise.

       

 

Rotary tattoo machines

Device, principle of operation

When the first rotary mod­els of tat­too machines appeared on the mar­ket, they loud­ly declared them­selves, becom­ing seri­ous com­peti­tors to induc­tion tools. And this is not sur­pris­ing, because such devices have unique advan­tages and com­fort for the mas­ter is one of them. But accord­ing to some cri­te­ria, nev­er­the­less, rotors lose to induc­tion machines.

The rotor device is quite sim­ple. If we con­sid­er it schemat­i­cal­ly, we can dis­tin­guish 3 main ele­ments: an elec­tric motor (rotor), an eccen­tric and a hous­ing. The rotor is the most impor­tant part of the prod­uct. High-speed and pow­er­ful, but at the same time quite com­pact and light­weight.

An eccen­tric (a shaft with an off­set axis of rota­tion) is installed on the rotor, the main task of which is to con­vert the rota­tion­al ener­gy of the motor into the trans­la­tion­al ener­gy of the nee­dle. Well, and, final­ly, the body. It’s a plastic/metal con­struc­tion that makes all the com­po­nents come togeth­er. Rotors-mark­ers can be dis­tin­guished as a sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry. They are made in the form of a thick han­dle — expen­sive devices that are very con­ve­nient to work with.

When should you choose a rotary option? If you need to do work with an abun­dance of shad­ows, details, col­ors, but with­out large mono­chrome areas and clear bound­aries. The rotor will cope with such a task per­fect­ly well.

Advantages and disadvantages

Rotary tat­too machines are one of the mar­ket lead­ers thanks to a num­ber of unique options:

1. 1. High effi­cien­cy — it’s all about the prin­ci­ple of oper­a­tion of the elec­tric motor built into the rotary tool. The rotor runs at a con­sid­er­able speed and boasts high speeds.

       

 

1. 1. No impact and min­i­mum vibra­tion — due to the smooth move­ment of the nee­dle, the vibra­tion of the machine is reduced, respec­tive­ly, the load on the hand in the process of cre­at­ing a tat­too is also reduced.

       

 

1. 1. Noise­less­ness — rotary mod­els prac­ti­cal­ly do not cre­ate noise (com­pared to induc­tion mod­els, this is just a god­send).

       

 

1. 1. Ver­sa­til­i­ty — one tool will help you cre­ate a shad­ow, and an out­line, and a fill.

       

 

1. 1. Ease — this makes the work (espe­cial­ly if the ses­sion is long) very con­ve­nient for the mas­ter.

       

 

1. 1. Adjust­ment of the rigid­i­ty and impact force of the nee­dle — there­by min­i­miz­ing skin trau­ma and increas­ing the com­fort of work­ing with the device.

       

 

Do not for­get about the weak­ness­es of rotary machines:

1. 1. Not enough pig­ment in one appli­ca­tion — there is no impact in the down posi­tion in the rotors, so the amount of paint applied in one pass of the nee­dle is small. This leads to the need to pass one area of ​​​​skin sev­er­al times. The rotor is absolute­ly not suit­able for paint­ing large areas.

       

 

1. 1. The inabil­i­ty to draw a con­tour — this is due to the smooth oper­a­tion of the nee­dle, which leads to a fuzzy con­tour. The clear­er and sharp­er the move­ment of the nee­dle, the bet­ter the con­tour. And here there are no equal to induc­tion mod­els.

       

 

1. 1. Insuf­fi­cient speed — although rotary prod­ucts are fast, nev­er­the­less, their speed is insuf­fi­cient — using rotors for large pat­terns is blas­phe­my.

       

 

1. 1. Rapid over­heat­ing / wear — as prac­tice shows, rotary mod­els fail more often and faster.

       

 

1. 1. Expen­sive repairs — in the event of a break­down, the repair of a rotary prod­uct will be quite expen­sive.

       

 

Comparative characteristics

 

	rotary machine	induc­tion machine
Main pur­pose	Artis­tic, high-bright­ness mul­ti-col­or work, draw­ings with­out much clar­i­ty, with an abun­dance of small details	Cre­ation of a clear con­tour, paint­ing over large areas of the skin
The weight	Minor	Sig­nif­i­cant
Vibra­tion	Weak	strong
Noise lev­el	Weak	High
Work speed	Medi­um	high
Depth of skin pen­e­tra­tion	Minor	Medi­um
Abil­i­ty to adjust set­tings	Yes (specif­i­cal­ly hard­ness and impact speed)	Yes (impact force and fre­quen­cy of nee­dle move­ment)