Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
1998-02-18
2001-09-04
Barlow, John (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
C347S035000, C347S030000, C347S086000, C347S087000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06283573
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
The present application relates to and incorporates herein by reference Japanese Patent Application No. 9-95163 filed on Mar. 28, 1997.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet-type printer apparatus which jets ink droplet onto a print medium and, more particularly, to an ink jet-type printer control having an ink purging function for evacuating vaporized ink and dried ink from nozzles of a printer head to restore desired ink jetting operation of the nozzles.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known in a conventional ink jet-type printer apparatus to use an ink purging device which covers the nozzle forming surface of a printer head by an evacuation cap and evacuates the undesired or degraded ink from nozzles by vacuuming the inside space of the evacuation cap by a pump.
When a used ink cartridge coupled with the printer head are exchanged for a new one, it occurs that air enters into an ink supply passage connecting the ink cartridge and the printer head. This air is likely to admix with the ink in the ink supply passage and become bubbles. Further, gas produced in the ink through adhesives between manifold members providing the ink supply passage becomes bubbles in the ink. The bubbles in the ink grow bigger as time passes. As the bubbles are bigger and the number increases more, more ink must be evacuated to eliminate such bubbles.
The printer head may be covered by a capping device to restrict drying of the ink when the printer apparatus is not in use. Even in this instance, the ink will become dried gradually as time passes resulting in degradation of ink.
The conventional ink purging device is designed to perform the evacuation operation a fixed number of times irrespective of the time period for which the printer apparatus is not used. Therefore, the bubbles in the ink and the dried ink may not be evacuated unless the evacuation is performed timely. As a result, there will occur that the required ink jetting operation cannot be restored by the fixed number of evacuation operations or that the ink may be wastefully evacuated if the purging is performed too frequently.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an ink jet-type printer control which obviates the conventional drawbacks.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an ink jet-type printer control which varies an ink purging operation in accordance with a time period elapsed from the previous ink purging for assuring a quality printing without wasting ink.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an ink jet-type printer control which varies an ink purging operation in accordance with whether the previous purging is the initial one after an exchange of cartridges for assuring a quality printing without wasting ink.
According to the present invention, an improved ink purging control is provided for an ink jet-type printer apparatus having a printer head including an ink cartridge for storing ink therein and nozzles for jetting the ink stored in the ink cartridge. In the purging control, a purging operation is variably controlled in response to the relation of the purging relative to the previous purging. The relation is defined by a time period of non-use of the nozzles to a present use of the nozzles, i.e., the time period between the previous ink purging operation of the ink jet nozzles and the present ink jetting operation of the ink jet nozzles. Alternatively, the relation is defined as whether the previous ink purging operation is the initial one after an exchange of the ink cartridge.
The amount of ink to be purged before the printing operation is increased in response to an increase in the measured time period and/or the amount of ink to be purged in response to the determination of the previous purging operation being the initial one is set to more than that to be purged in response the determination of the previous purging operation being a noninitial one even if the measured time period is the same. Alternatively, the ink purging operation is enabled to occur in a shorter period from the previous purging in response to the determination of the previous purging being the initial one than in response to the determination of the previous purging being the non-initial one.
Preferably, the amount of the ink to be purged in the initial purging operation is set to the largest amount of any other amounts of the ink to be purged.
Preferably, the ink purging operation is performed by a purging device which vacuums the nozzles. The amount of ink to be purged is determined by a number of times of vacuuming the nozzles.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5140429 (1992-08-01), Ebinuma et al.
patent: 5170186 (1992-12-01), Shimamura et al.
patent: 5475404 (1995-12-01), Takahashi et al.
patent: 5572242 (1996-11-01), Fujii et al.
patent: 5596354 (1997-01-01), Murphy
patent: 5625384 (1997-04-01), Numata et al.
patent: 6042214 (2000-03-01), Minowa et al.
Barlow John
Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
Stewart Jr. Charles W.
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