Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-22
2004-08-31
Meier, Stephen D. (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
C347S029000, C347S030000, C347S035000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06783205
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus and a handling method thereof, and more particularly, it relates to an ink jet recording apparatus which is forwarded or shipped from a manufacturing factory in a condition that transporting ink different from recording ink is filled in a recording head, and a method for handling such an ink jet recording apparatus.
2. Related Background Art
As recording apparatuses having a printer, copier or facsimile function or recording apparatuses (printing apparatuses) used as a composite electronic equipment including a computer or a word processor or as an output equipment such as a work station, there has widely been proposed an ink jet recording apparatus in which recording is executed by discharging ink toward a recording medium (recording paper and the like) such as paper, cloth, plastic sheet, OHP sheet and the like in response to image information (recording information). Further, there are various requirements for material of the recording medium, and, recently, development for such requirements has been advanced, with the result that an ink jet recording apparatus, in which cloth, leather, non-woven fabric or metal, as well as paper (including thin paper and treated paper) as a normal recording medium or a resin film (OHP sheet and the like) is used as the recording medium, has been utilized.
The ink jet recording apparatus has widely been applied to printers, copiers and facsimile devices since it has low noise and low running cost and it can easily be made compact and forms colored images. A discharge port (normally, plural discharge ports) for discharging an ink droplet is formed in a front surface of an ink discharge head (ink jet recording head as ink jet recording means) of the ink jet recording apparatus. Although a dimension of the discharge port has been in the range of several tens of &mgr;ms, recently, the dimension of the discharge port has been reduced more and more as a higher quality image has been requested. On the basis of a discharge signal processed in the apparatus in response to liquid droplet discharge information (recording data and the like) sent from a host machine, the ink droplet is discharged from the discharge port to form an image (including characters and symbols) on the recording medium.
In the ink jet recording apparatus in which the recording is effected by discharging the ink from the ink jet recording head as the recording means toward the recording medium, since the recording is effected by discharging the ink from the fine discharge port, the discharge port may be clogged to cause poor discharge (including non-discharge), thereby deteriorating the quality of the recorded image. To avoid this, recovery means for recovering and maintaining ink discharge performance of the recording head has been used. As such recovery means, for example, there has been used suction means for recovering and maintaining the ink discharge performance by refreshing the ink in the discharge port by suction-removing foreign matters such as viscosity-increased ink and a bubble from the discharge port by generating negative pressure within capping means by driving a capping mechanism for capping the discharge port of the recording head and a pump connected to the capping mechanism in a capping condition, or recovery means including a wiper (wiping means) for wiping (cleaning) foreign matters such as ink adhered to the discharge port face of the recording head.
On the other hand, in the ink jet recording apparatus, in consideration of user's convenience and saving, there has been proposed a so-called tank exchanging type in which an ink tank containing ink jet recording ink can be mounted on the recording head independently and can be exchanged into a new one when the ink is used up. Further, in the past, the recording head could easily be dismounted from a main body of the recording apparatus so that it can be exchanged by a new one by the user if the head is damaged.
However, in consideration of reliability and endurance of the recording head itself, there is an aspect in which the recording apparatus is forwarded from a recording apparatus manufacturing factory in a condition that the recording head was previously mounted on the main body of the recording apparatus. In this case, the recording apparatus is forwarded in an arrangement (condition) that the recording head itself is fixed to the recording apparatus so that mounting and dismounting of the recording head cannot be effected by the user. In such a case, it is more preferable to adopt an aspect in which the recording apparatus is forwarded from the manufacturing factory in a condition that the ink tank detachable with respect to the recording head is mounted on the ink jet recording head, as well as the ink jet recording head mounted on the recording apparatus, since a user's setting-up operation upon usage of the apparatus can be reduced.
However, in such a case, the recording apparatus is forwarded from the manufacturing factory and transported to the user in a condition that the ink jet recording head is always filled with the recording ink. During the transportation, if the apparatus is exposed to a high temperature or is subjected to thermal shock due to so-called heat cycle from a high temperature to a low temperature, the ink may be solidified in the recording head due to evaporation of moisture from the recording ink within the recording head or change in condition may occur on an inner surface of the recording head, with the result that good recording performance of the ink jet recording head cannot be maintained.
To avoid this, it was considered to provide an arrangement in which the ink jet recording head is mounted on the main body of the apparatus in a condition that the head is filled with transporting ink and, on the other hand, the ink tank containing the recording ink is not mounted on the recording head but is packed separately and is housed together with the recording apparatus in a package for the entire apparatus. In this case, as the transporting ink, ink in which components in the recording ink that easily adhere are reduced as much as possible in comparison with the recording ink, the water ratio is reduced to suppress water evaporation and solvent component is increased, is used. By filling or loading such transporting ink within the recording head, at any time during the transportation and storage of the entire recording apparatus, the ink jet recording head can be maintained in a condition in which good recording performance can be achieved.
However, also in the recording apparatus in which such transporting ink is used, when the user initially uses the recording apparatus, an inconvenience, such as the recording performance is not completely normal, may occur. Occurrence of such inconvenience is based on a process for exchanging the transporting ink into the recording ink in the recording head by means of the recovery means of the recording apparatus when the user initially uses the recording apparatus and is based on non-smooth execution of such exchanging process. Namely, since the transporting ink has high viscosity for the purpose of suppression of water evaporation, flow of ink during suction is worsened in comparison with the recording ink, with the result that exchange from the transporting ink to the recording ink in the recording head is not effected smoothly or, if the exchange itself is effected smoothly, residual transporting ink adhered to the wiping means or the suction means is transferred to the recording head again to be adhered thereto. For these reasons, the inconvenience occurs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an ink jet recording apparatus in which transporting ink is positively exchanged into recording ink when the user initially uses the recording apparatus, and removal of residual transporting ink within recovery means can be promoted, and re-transferring of the residual transporting ink
Hamasaki Yuji
Saijo Yasutsugu
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Meier Stephen D.
Tran Ly T
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