Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
1994-08-12
2001-01-30
Le, N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Fluid or fluid source handling means
C347S049000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06179415
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exchangeable, composite and integrated ink-tank cartridge which is connected to an ink-jet head and storing an ink to be supplied thereto, and an ink-jet recording apparatus employing the ink-tank cartridge. The present invention further relates to an ink-tank cartridge having a specific internal structure, provides an ink jet head and a printer which use the ink-tank cartridge, and is applicable for recording apparatuses such as copy machine, facsimile and so forth, communication apparatuses, office work apparatuses, composite apparatuses, printer and so forth, employing an ink-jet technologies.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the recent years, ink-jet recording apparatus have been progressively made compact and have been proposed in variety of configurations adapting to manner of use in personal basis. In particular, in the case of the recording apparatus for personal use, such a type of apparatus employing an integrated exchangeable cartridge, in which a recording head portion and an ink tank portion are integrated as a single unit, is becoming a preferred configuration for compact construction and low cost. In such apparatus, monochrome recording (principally recording characters) type apparatus employing only black ink have been majority. However, even in such apparatus for personal use, variety of manners of use have been developed to raise demand for color recording (including multi-tone recording) or full-color recording.
Most easy construction for performing such color recording is to prepare necessary number of carriage mounting head-tank integration type cartridge, and to mount the head-tank integration type cartridges filled with necessary color inks on the carriages. In such construction, the carriage is, however, required for each of the head-tank integration type cartridge to be mounted to make the entire apparatus bulky.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laying-open No. 198861/1990 proposes an ink tank cartridge, in which the recording head portion and the ink tank portion can be separated in order to effectively use a recording head which has much longer life than ink contained in an ink tank. Also, in the above-identified publication, there is proposed an integrated construction of an ink tank cartridge portion for four colors (yellow, magenta, cyan and black) for performing color recording.
However, in such four colors integrated type ink tank cartridge, frequencies of use of the colors are differentiated depending upon an image for color recording. Typically, consuming rate of black ink in formation of the image is higher than those of other color inks, it is inherent to exchange the ink tank cartridge while inks other than black are remained in significant amount.
On the other hand, such exchangeable type ink tank, increased frequency of exchanging of the ink tank should cause increasing of amount of bubble externally penetrating into the ink-jet recording head and a joint portion of the ink tank. Such bubble tends to increase of instability of jetting in the ink-jet recording head.
Also, greater frequency of exchanging of the ink-jet recording head increases possibility of damaging a filter provided in the joint portion between the ink-jet recording head and the ink tank.
Furthermore, in the case of multi-density recording, inks having different densities are employed for image recording to realize multiple gray scale. In this case, frequency of pale ink for forming a highlight portion of the image becomes high to cause similar problem to the color recording.
On the other hand, in consideration of more customization in personal use, use of special color should be taken into account. In such case, the preliminarily packaged ink tank cartridge should not satisfy the demand for use of the special color.
Through study of internal construction of the ink tank cartridge with respect to the overall structure, there is no effective prior art documents in viewpoint of exchanging ability or down-sizing of the apparatus. As a prior art document, Japanese Patent Application Laying-open No. 522/1990 discloses a cartridge employing a construction, in which the ink cartridge is substantially adapted to only store the ink, in relation to the overall construction. The document discloses an integrated ink cartridge which has a primary ink storage portion positioned at upper side and only storing a large amount of ink, an ink-jet recording head positioned at lower side, and a little porous member positioned between the ink-jet recording head and the ink storage portion. The disclosed invention features in that since the porous member is not enclosed within the ink storage portion and arranged only in the ink flow path, use efficiency of the ink is improved. In addition, by defining a secondary ink storage portion as a space for storing the ink at the side of the porous member, a negative pressure exerted to the recording head during recording can be maintained substantially constant by storing the ink flowing from the primary ink storage portion due to expansion of air within the primary ink storage portion upon rising of the temperature (lowering of the pressure).
However, in the invention disclosed in the above-identified document, the porous member is excessively wetted by the ink from the primary ink storage portion positioned at the upper side and storing a large amount of ink, the porous member per se have substantially no negative pressure. Therefore, the ink may spills through an orifice of the ink-jet recording head even at small impact. Therefor, the disclosed ink cartridge is not suitable for practical use. In addition, when the exchangeable ink cartridge, in which the ink container is installed to the ink recording head, is applied to the disclosed construction, it may cause spill out of the ink through the porous member and thus cannot be applicable in practical use.
On the other hand, an ink cartridge, in which the ink is enclosed in a bag and the bag is associated with a spring construction for maintaining the negative pressure in the bag constant, has been knows. However, such construction is expensive. Furthermore, it is difficult to manufacture the spring construction with maintaining the performance thereof.
In any case, as the ink cartridge of prior art for the ink-jet (non-contact recording type) recording apparatus which is reasonable in price and satisfactory in technical level, have not been available.
The applicant had made study for the following items in addition to the problems in the exchanging of the ink tank in the prior art. As an ink container suitable for application in a technical field of the ink jet printer, is required to smoothly supply the ink in corresponding amount to that ejected from the recording head during printing, and not to cause leakage of the ink while not in use. Study has been made in the viewpoint for satisfying both requirement. As a result of study, it has been found that it is important premise for the characteristics of the ink-jet to have a construction including a first storage portion housing a negative pressure generating member and having an atmosphere communicating portion communicated to the atmosphere, and a second storage portion communicated with the first storage portion and directly storing the ink for supplying to the first storage portion in substantially enclosed condition, as a basic construction.
On the other hand, the applicant has made review about technical uniqueness of the ink jet printer field by studying contact type recording technology different from the technical field, in which the present invention is involved. Typically, a pen for a recording equipment for performing recording by contacting with a recording medium, supplies the ink for a recording core having ink absorbing ability and ink holding ability. Therefore, this type of recording core is premised to be exposed to the atmosphere and thus inherently requires an ink impregnating body held in saturated condition with the ink
Abe Tsutomu
Higuma Masahiko
Ikeda Masami
Ishinaga Hiroyuki
Kashino Toshio
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Le N.
Nguyen Judy
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