Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-29
2003-04-15
Nghiem, Michael (Department: 2863)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
active
06547379
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to head cartridges, and more particularly, the present invention provides an ink-jet head cartridge with a bubble chamber for collecting residual bubbles.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, an inkjet printing device comprises a head cartridge that can move forward and backward on a rail to eject ink on a document for printing. The head cartridge comprises a housing, an ink reservoir for storing ink, and a print head that is fluidly connected to the ink reservoir for ejecting ink. The print head further comprises a plurality of heaters for generating bubbles by heating ink. The bubbles generated by the heaters push ink into the print head and cause the ink to eject from the print head.
However, after the ink is ejected, some bubbles are left in the ink chamber of the print head. These residual bubbles may be caused by incomplete contraction of a bubble, air released from ink after a heating/vibrating process, a surface roughness of the ink chamber and ink passage, or air slipping into the print head from outside of the print head. These residual bubbles can float through the fluid passage into an ink pipe, finally being stopped by a filter and accumulating beneath the filter, which is located between the ink pipe and the ink reservoir. The accumulation of the residual bubbles stops the ink from entering the ink pipe, so that the ink in the reservoir can no longer move into the print head. Thus, printing is affected by the residual bubbles.
Please refer to FIG.
1
.
FIG. 1
is a perspective view of the head cartridge
10
according to the prior art. The head cartridge
10
is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,192, “Head cartridge assembly for ink-jet printer”, by SamSung Electronics. The ink cartridge
10
comprises an ink reservoir
12
for storing ink, a heater
14
for heating the ink, a filter
16
for filtering the ink that flows from ink reservoir
12
, and a nozzle
18
employed to eject ink through a nozzle hole
22
. The heater
14
heats the ink to generate bubbles, and the bubbles cause ink to jet from the nozzle hole
22
. After the ink is jetted from the nozzle hole
22
, residual bubbles accumulate beneath the filter
16
. Accumulation of the residual bubbles causes movement of the ink supplied by the ink reservoir
12
to be hindered, such that the printing function of the ink cartridge
10
is affected
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
It is therefore a primary objective of the claimed invention to provide a head cartridge with a bubble chamber for collecting redundant bubbles.
According to the claimed invention, the head cartridge comprises an ink reservoir, a print head, and an ink channel. The ink reservoir stores ink. The print head comprises a plurality of heaters for generating bubbles, and ink is jetted from the print head by the bubbles. The ink channel is installed below the ink reservoir for moving ink from the ink reservoir to the print head, and the ink channel comprises a bubble chamber for collecting residual bubbles. Residual bubbles float upward into the bubble chamber.
It is an advantage of the claimed invention that because the redundant bubbles are collected in the bubble chamber, the residual bubbles do not affect printing.
These and other objectives and advantages of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, which is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5659345 (1997-08-01), Altendorf
patent: 6007192 (1999-12-01), Ahn
patent: 6234622 (2001-05-01), Liu et al.
patent: 0 320 165 (1988-11-01), None
patent: 0 727 314 (1996-08-01), None
patent: 0 953 447 (1999-11-01), None
Chan Hsun-Hsien
Chen Chih-Ching
BenQ Corporation
Hsu Winston
Nghiem Michael
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