Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Patent
1997-10-29
2000-03-21
Le, N.
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
347 31, B41J 2165
Patent
active
060394315
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a cleaning device for cleaning the printer head of the ink jet printer, and more particularly to a device for cleaning the injection or jet nozzle of the printer head.
2. Background Art
Hitherto, there have been used ink jet printers of the on demand system adapted for injecting ink for printing from the injection or jet nozzle of the printer head to record, as visible information, recording information onto a recording medium such as paper or film, etc. The ink jet printer of the on demand system is adapted to print recording information sent from the computer in accordance with a request from the computer.
Meanwhile, at office, etc., preparation of documents using computer called desk top publishing is carried out. In this preparation of documents, it is required to print not only characters or graphics, but also color natural pictures (picture images) such as photograph, etc. along with characters or graphics.
In this case, in order to print the natural picture (picture image) at high grade, it is necessary to faithfully reproduce intermediate color in accordance with recording information.
The ink jet printer is adapted to apply pressure onto ink, e.g., by deformation of piezo element to inject the ink as ink droplet from the injection or jet nozzle of the printer head. Quality of picture (picture image) printed by this printer depends upon the number of dots per unit area formed by ink droplet injected or blown out from the injection or jet nozzle. In order to obtain high quality picture, it is necessary to thin the diameter of the injecting holes of the injection nozzle down to the size of several 10 .mu.m. When the injecting holes are caused to be small, ink clogging is caused to easily take place at the injection nozzle.
In order to eliminate such ink clogging in the injection nozzle, it is necessary at the ink jet printer of this kind to regularly carry out cleaning to conduct elimination of ink clogged within the injection or jet nozzle. In addition, it is necessary to regularly fill ink necessary for print.
In view of the above, in the ink jet printer of this kind, there is provided a mechanism for carrying out cleaning of the injection nozzle and for carrying out filling of ink.
In the conventional ink jet printer, since the space that the mechanism for carrying out cleaning of the injection or jet nozzle or filling of ink occupies is large, the printer itself is caused to be large. Moreover, since there is such a necessity to carry out regular cleaning of the injection nozzle and/or control of filling of ink, the operation in printing recording information sent from the computer becomes complicated.
Further, since ink used in the ink jet printer is in liquid state, it is necessary for maintaining ink in the liquid state at all times without solidifying ink to allow the injection nozzle of the printer head to be in wet state at all times. In order to allow the injection nozzle to be in wet state as stated above, it is necessary to detach the printer head from the printer when the printer is not used to store it within a storage vessel adapted so that drying is prevented.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
An object of this invention is to provide a printer head cleaning device capable of eliminating the problems that the conventional ink jet printer has.
Another object of this invention is to provide a printer head cleaning device capable of easily cleaning the injection or jet nozzle of the printer head.
A further object of this invention is to provide a printer head cleaning device capable of preventing drying of the injection or jet nozzle of the printer head without allowing the printer itself to be large.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a printer head cleaning device which can be used as a vessel for storage of the printer head independent of the printer.
A printer head cleaning device for an ink jet printer according to this invention proposed in order to attain objects as described above comprises, at a case bod
REFERENCES:
patent: 5373936 (1994-12-01), Kawai et al.
Kagami Toshiki
Yui Yasuji
Kananen Ronald P.
Le N.
Nguyen Judy
Sony Corporation
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