Printing – Inkers – Fountains
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-30
2002-01-22
Asher, Kimberly L. (Department: 2854)
Printing
Inkers
Fountains
C101S365000, C101S350100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06339989
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink supplying apparatus for use in a printing press such as a rotary press or a sheet-fed printing press, and more particularly to an ink supplying apparatus equipped with an ink tray attachable/detachable to an ink fountain.
2) Description of the Related Art
As
FIGS. 12 and 13
show, a printing press such as a rotary press or a sheet-fed printing press is provided with an ink supplying apparatus
100
in which an ink fountain
102
is placed in front of an ink fountain roller
101
. The ink fountain
102
is composed of a circumferential surface of the ink fountain roller
101
, a plurality of ink keys (blades)
103
constituting a bottom section of the ink fountain
102
, and two side plates
104
(only one on the interior side is shown in
FIG. 12
) provided at both side surfaces of each of the ink keys
103
so that their front edges come into contact with the circumferential surface of the ink fountain roller
101
to slide thereon. In this construction, an ink lying within the ink fountain
102
is supplied through a gap between the ink fountain roller
101
and the tip portion of each of the ink keys
103
to the ink fountain roller
101
and then transferred through a non-shown calling roller to a group of ink rollers lying on the downstream side.
The plurality of ink keys
103
are, as shown in
FIG. 13
, arranged in parallel with each other in a lateral direction of the apparatus so that the ink keys
103
,
103
adjacent to each other are brought into sliding contact with each other while both the end ink keys
103
and the side plates
104
are brought into sliding contact with each other. In addition, the ink keys are made to be driven independently of each other to rock or swing about a supporting shaft
105
, and an ink quantity control device
106
is situated under the respective ink keys
103
.
The ink quantity control device
106
is provided with a adjusting cam
106
b
engaging with a lower surface of the tip portion of each of the ink keys
103
and a pusher
106
a
brought into contact with the adjusting cam
106
b
to rock the adjusting cam
106
b
by its telescopic motion, namely, protruding/retracting movements. Additionally, the tip portion of each of the ink keys
103
is driven to rock in a manner that the pusher
106
a
is operated appropriately to protrude/retract for rocking the adjusting cam
106
b
so that its engaging portion of the adjusting cam
106
b
with the ink key
103
lifts/lowers, thereby controlling the gap between the ink key
103
and the ink fountain roller
101
to adjust the thickness of the ink film to be supplied.
Meanwhile, in the aforesaid conventional ink supplying apparatus, a microscopic gap is secured between the adjacent ink keys
103
,
103
and between both the end ink keys
103
and the side plates
104
in order to permit the mutual sliding motion. Accordingly, there is a possibility that the ink permeates through the very small gap, for example, between the ink keys
103
,
103
by the capillary phenomenon or the like. If the ink is hardened after permeating through the gap between the ink keys
103
,
103
, the operation of the ink keys
103
becomes unstable and the worst case reaches the difficulty of movement thereof, so that a problem exists in that the high-accuracy control of the ink film becomes impossible.
In addition, after the completion of printing or in the ink replacement, although there is a need to clean the interior of the ink fountain
102
by wiping off the ink remaining in the interior of the ink fountain
102
with a waste or the like, or by washing it off with a cleaning solvent, the removal of the ink is difficult because the ink shows a high viscosity. Particularly, difficulty is experienced in removing the ink permeating into the gap between the ink keys
103
,
103
so that a severe burden falls on the cleaning worker.
Still additionally, although, for improving the productivity, there is a need to shorten the preparation for the order change for enhancing the availability fact of the apparatus, if the load on the cleaning in the ink replacement is severe as mentioned above, the cleaning takes time largely. For this reason, it has been desired strongly to relieve the burden to be imposed on the worker through the labor-saving in the cleaning operation and further to enhance the availability factor of the apparatus through the shortening of the cleaning time.
Accordingly, this applicant has developed a construction in which an interior-placed container (which is referred to as an ink tray) for covering the upper surfaces of the ink keys or the inner surfaces of the side plates is detachably installed in the interior of the ink fountain for less direct adhesion of the ink to the ink keys or the side plates. In the case of the installation of such an ink tray, there exists one problem in a method for easy attachment/detachment of the ink tray.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the prevent invention to provide an ink supplying apparatus equipped with an ink tray capable of achieving the labor-saving of the cleaning operation and the shortening of the working time at ink replacement or the like in a printing press to improve the productivity, and designed to accomplish satisfactory attachment/detachment of the ink tray to improve the operational performance thereof.
For these purposes, an ink supplying apparatus according to this invention involves the following features.
First, for achieving the foregoing object, in accordance with this invention, an ink supplying apparatus which supplies an ink from an ink fountain to an ink fountain roller is characterized by comprising an ink tray set detachably in the interior of the ink fountain in a manner that brackets provided at its left- and right-hand end portions are mounted on side plates constituting left- and right-hand side walls of the ink fountain, a stopping section provided in the ink fountain to come into contact with a front end portion of the ink tray for stopping the ink tray, and a fixing device provided in front of the ink fountain for pressing each of the brackets against the stopping section to fix the ink tray in the ink fountain, wherein the fixing device includes a supporting member placed under a mounting plane of the bracket, a rotating member made to be rotatable in a plane substantially perpendicular to a cross direction of the apparatus in a state where its one end is supported by the supporting member, pressing means provided on the rotating member for pressing the brackets in a state where the rotating member rotates upwardly so that the ink tray is fixed in the ink fountain, and arresting means for arresting the rotation of the rotating member when the pressing means presses the brackets.
With this construction, when the ink tray is mounted in the ink fountain, the fixing device fixes the mounting position of the ink tray surely in the ink fountain to prevent the adhesion of the ink to the ink fountain certainly.
In addition, since the pressing means, coming into contact with the brackets to press it, is made to rotate together with the rotating member, at the removal/mounting of the ink tray from/into the ink fountain, the ink tray does not interfere with the pressing means and the rotating member so that the attachment/detachment of the ink tray from/to the ink fountain is facilitated to improve the operating efficiency.
Preferably, the arresting means is made up of a hooking member placed on the rotating member and a hooked member placed on an upward engaging locus of the rotating member, and the rotation of the rotating member is arrested in a manner that the hooking member catches the hooked member at the upward rotation of the rotating member.
In this case, since it is possible to arrest the rotation of the rotating member only by engaging the hooking member with the hooked member at the upward rotation of the rotating member, the fixing operation of the ink tray becomes easy.
More preferably, an elongat
Fujimoto Shin-ichi
Kihara Teruaki
Asher Kimberly L.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.
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