Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
2001-09-21
2003-12-16
Nguyen, Judy (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
C347S032000, C347S031000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06663217
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus that performs a recording operation by discharging recording liquid, such as ink, from the discharge ports for the formation of liquid droplets.
The present invention is applicable to such an apparatus as a printer for recording on paper, thread, fiber, cloth, leather, plastics, glass, woods, ceramics, and other recording mediums, a copying machine, a facsimile equipment provided with communication systems, and a word processor having printing unit. Further, the invention is applicable to an industrial recording system combined complexly with various kinds of processing apparatuses. Here, the term “recording” referred to in the specification hereof not only means the provision of meaningful images for a recording medium, such as characters and graphics, but also, it means the provision of such meaningless images as patterns, among some others.
2. Related Background Art
The ink jet recording apparatus is a recording apparatus of the so-called non-impact recording type capable of recording on various kinds of recording mediums at high speed, which is characterized in that the apparatus generates almost no noises during the recording operation. With such advantages, the ink jet recording apparatus is widely adopted as the one that bears recording mechanism for a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile equipment, a word process, or the like.
As the typical ink discharge method for the recording head mounted on an ink jet recording apparatus of the kind, there has been known the one which uses electromechanical converting devices, such as piezoelectric elements, the one that uses the irradiation of laser or some other electromagnetic waves to generate heat for discharging ink droplets by the action of heat thus generated, or the one that uses the electrothermal converting devices having heat generating resistive elements to give heat to ink for discharging ink droplets by the action of film boiling. The ink jet recording head that uses the electrothermal converting devices provides each electrothermal converting device for the interior of each recording liquid chamber, and then, supplies electric pulses serving as recording signals to each of them, respectively, in order to generate heat for the provision of thermal energy for ink. Thus, with the utilization of bubbling pressure exerted when recording liquid is bubbled (at the time of film boiling), which creates the phasic changes of the recording liquid then. In this way, recording is made on a recording medium. The apparatus is generally provided with ink jet recording nozzles for discharging ink droplets, and the supply system that supplies ink to the nozzles.
The recording apparatus which is provided with an ink jet recording head of the kind is capable of outputting characters and images in high quality at low costs.
With such advantages as to output color prints at lower costs, this recording apparatus of the so-called BJ type has conventionally been in wide use. The recording apparatus is based on the discharge principle of bubble jet type proposed by Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, the applicant hereof, where liquid droplets are discharged along the formation of each bubble (generation, growth, defoaming (debubling), and extinction). This recording apparatus uses the bubble jet method adopted commonly for each of the recording element substrates that discharges black ink as black liquid, and cyan, magenta, and yellow ink as liquid of respective colors.
Here, it is required more, in general, to provide images in a higher quality, and to need such requirement, the number of discharge ports for each recording element substrate tends to increase from 64 ports to 128 ports, 256 ports, and so on, and arranged in a higher density in terms of the “dpi.” which stands for the number of discharge ports per inch, such as 300 dpi, 600 dpi, and so on. The heat generating element, which serves as the electrothermal converting device to be arranged for the discharge ports, responds to the pulse driving of several psec order to 10 &mgr;sec order, and forms bubbles by means of film boiling. Then, this element can be driven at high frequency to enable the high speed printing and the formation of high quality images to be attained. In recent years, therefore, the number of heat generating elements, which should be driven per unit time, tends to be increased.
For the conventional ink jet recording head, a plurality of ink discharge ports are incorporated on the same flat plane of one silicon substrate by use of the semiconductor manufacturing technology and technique. As a result, the front face (discharge port surface) of the discharge formation member is formed almost flat uniformly on the silicon substrate. With the formation of such discharge port formation member on the flat surface of the silicon substrate, a chip, which serves as the recording element substrate, is completed. The chip is adhesively bonded or bonded to the structural member under pressure for fixation. At the same time, a member provided with ink flow paths is bonded in order to supply ink. Further, the wiring member that supplies electric signals is arranged in a specific direction around the recording element substrate.
When a color recording is made by this ink jet recording head, color ink (usually, three kinds of cyan, magenta, and yellow) and black ink are discharged, but it is sometimes preferable to make the discharge amounts and other conditions different for color ink and black ink. In other words, in order to attain recording in colors in a high quality at the same level as that of a silver salt photography, it is necessary to make dots small enough so as not to be seen on a recording sheet (in a granular sense). Thus, it is preferable to make the liquid droplet of color ink extremely fine. As to black ink, too, it is preferable to form small dots on the recording sheet by the provision of fine liquid droplets in consideration of the enhancement of resolution and sharpness of characters. However, there are often the cases where a designated area should be solidly painted in addition to characters and the like to be recorded, that is, the so-called solid printing is made often. If the solid printing should be made by discharges of finer liquid droplets, the discharge frequency becomes higher inevitably, requiring a longer recording time. It is therefore preferable to make arrangement so that black ink can be discharged in larger liquid droplets than those of the other color ink.
When the discharge amounts of black ink and other color ink are made different like this, it is conceivable that the recording heads should be structured separately each individually for use of black ink and that of other color ink. However, when a recording apparatus is completed by installing a plurality of individual recording heads on the recording apparatus, the distance between the element substrates becomes greater in the main scanning direction inevitably, leading to a problem that the width of the carriage main scan becomes larger to the extent that the entire width of the separated recording element substrates becomes greater. In this respect, if the recording element substrate for use of color ink and the recording element substrate for use of black ink are arranged closely to make them a single recording head instead of structuring plural recording heads to be separated each individually, it presents new and effective means. In this case, the recording element substrate for use of color ink and the recording element substrate for use of black ink should be produced by use of different recording element substrates. Particularly, when the discharge amounts must be made different for color ink and black ink, it is inevitable to produce the substrates separately, because the diameter of each discharge port is often made different per recording element substrate, and the distance between the discharge heater (electrothermal converting device) and the discharge port becom
Otsuka Naoji
Sugimoto Hitoshi
Yazawa Takeshi
Dudding Alfred E
Nguyen Judy
LandOfFree
Ink jet recording apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Ink jet recording apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ink jet recording apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3177920