Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Medium and processing means
Reexamination Certificate
1997-11-05
2001-01-30
Moses, Richard (Department: 2852)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Medium and processing means
C347S105000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06179418
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus, in particular, to an electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus with an ink of which toner particles dispersed in a carrier solution and sprayed by electrostatic electricity so as to record data.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of ink jet recording systems have been proposed because of their advantages such as direct recording on plain paper and low noise. As one of such systems, an ink recording head has been disclosed as Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 56-167473. With reference to
FIG. 5
, the structure of the related art reference will be described.
In an ink jet recorder, a large number of electrodes
42
are placed at an inner side of an ink jet port
41
of a recording head. An ink in the ink jet port
41
is selectively jetted through the selective by selectively applying a high voltage pulse between the electrodes
42
and a grounded conductor
49
at the side of record paper
50
corresponding to a picture signal. In the ink jet recorder, the ink jet port
41
is divided into an upper part
41
a
and a lower part
41
b
with a partition
45
in the slit-form jet port
41
, which is formed with an upper plate
46
and a lower plate
47
. A large number of electrodes
42
are disposed at the inside of divided jet ports
41
a
and
41
b
(upper plate and lower plate surfaces and/or the surfaces of the divided plates). By applying a high voltage to some electrodes and a low voltage to an electrode positioned on the right or left of the electrode, jetted ink dot moves to the high voltage side.
An ink placed in an ink chamber
44
reaches an ink ejection port
41
. The ink at the ink jet port
41
forms a linear meniscus. When a high voltage of around 2 kV is applied from a terminal
48
to a selected electrode
42
, the ink is jetted from the position of the electrode at which such a high voltage is applied. The ink is accelerated by an electric field with a conductive roller
49
and then adhered to record paper
50
. Thus, by selecting a plurality of electrodes and applying a high voltage thereto at the same time, a pattern of one line can be recorded. With the record paper
50
moved, characters, figures, and so forth can be recorded as dots of the ink.
Another related art reference that has been disclosed as PCT Laid-Open Publication NO. WO 93/11866 is an electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus. The apparatus comprises an electrostatic ink jet recording head and a counter electrode. The counter electrode causes an electric field to be formed with a counter electrode against the ink jet recording head disposed on the rear surface of the record paper. The ink jet recording head has an ink chamber and an ejection electrode. The ink chamber temporarily stores an ink solution supplied from an ink tank or the like. The ejection electrode is disposed at an edge portion of the ink chamber. The ink jet recording head is disposed opposite to the counter electrode. The ink solution in the ink chamber is supplied to the edge of the ejection electrode due to the surface tension. Thus, an ink meniscus is formed at the edge of the ejection electrode. The ink solution used for the ink jet recording head contains a coloring charge particles. The charge particles are positively charged with a zeta voltage. When a positive voltage is applied to the discharge electrode, the voltage of the positive electrode of the ink solution increases. When Coulomb force that works between the charge particles at the edge of the ejection electrode and the counter electrode largely exceeds the surface tension of the ink solution, agglomeration of the charge particles with a small amount of ink solution is jetted from the edge position of the ejection electrode to the counter electrode. The charge particles adhere to the front surface of the record medium. In such a manner, with the voltage to the ejection electrode, agglomeration of the charge particles is successively jetted from the edge of the election electrode to the front surface of the record medium and thereby data is recorded.
The diameter of the toner particles is on the order of several microns. Thus, jetted toner particles stably adhere in fibers of plain paper that is normally used as a record medium. Consequently, a heat fixing process for heating and pressuring toner particles on the record medium is not required unlike with a fixing means used in a dry electrophotographic apparatus. In the related art reference, the toner can be fixed with only hot air. This is one advantage over the conventional electrophotographic apparatus with a dry toner.
In the conventional electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus, when the front surface of a record medium is smooth as with coated paper or when the front surface of the record medium is very smooth and the toner particles do not adhere in fibers of the record medium as with an OHP film, the toner particles that adhere on the record medium are easily removed and thereby a fixing failure takes place.
As a means for solving such a problem, a heat fixing unit may be used as with the conventional electrophotographic apparatus with a dry toner.
However, as was described above, with the electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus, the toner can be easily fixed by blowing a small amount of hot air. In addition, the power consumption of the electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus is much smaller than that of the conventional electrophotographic apparatus. Thus, as with the electrophotographic apparatus with a dry toner, the method using the heat fixing unit that requires hot air deteriorates the advantage of the electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus front a view point of the power consumption.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus that can properly fix a toner corresponding to the surface condition of a record medium and that does not excessively consume the electric power.
An electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention comprises a surface condition detecting means for detecting the surface condition of the record medium, a surface condition determining means for determining the detected surface condition, a heat amount controlling means for controlling the amount of heat radiated to the front surface of the record medium corresponding to the determined result, and a heater driving portion controlled by controlling means.
In the electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention, the surface condition detecting means may have one light emitting portion and a total of two light receiving portions as a first light receiving portion and a second light receiving portion, the first light receiving portion being disposed on the same side as the light emitting portion against the record medium, the second light receiving portion being disposed opposite side to the first light receiving portion through the record medium.
The electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention may further comprise a heater radiated to the front surface of the record medium, the heater having a plurality of heating elements, wherein the heat amount controlling means controls the number of the heating elements so as to control the amount of heat radiated to the front surface of the record medium.
In the electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention, the heat amount controlling means may control the amount of heat radiated to the front surface of the record medium by turning on/off the heater.
The electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention may further comprise a fixing means for fixing the toner particles on the record medium corresponding to the determined result of the surface condition determining means.
The electrostatic ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention may further comprise an ambient temperature detecting means for de
Hagiwara Yoshihiro
Minemoto Hitoshi
Mizoguchi Tadashi
Shima Kazuo
Suetsugu Junichi
Moses Richard
NEC Corporation
Ngo Hoang
LandOfFree
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