Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-29
2001-06-19
Le, N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
active
06247802
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS IF ANY
None.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
The present invention relates to the art of computer driven printers, particularly, large format color ink jet printers. Printers of this type have a printhead carriage which is mounted for reciprocal movement on the printer in a direction orthogonal to the direction of movement of the paper or other medium on which printing is to take place through the printer. The printer carriage of a color printer typically has four removable electric or thermal ink jet pinheads mounted thereon. Each of the printheads contains a supply of ink which, for large scale printers, is generally inadequate due to the large volumes of ink which are required as compared with the ink supply requirements of desk top printers. Consequently, various means have been proposed for continuously or periodically refilling the carriage-borne printheads with ink. These systems fall into two categories. The first comprises offboard or off-axis ink reservoirs which are continuously connected to the carriage-borne or onboard printheads by flexible tubes. The second comprises a “take a gulp” system in which the printhead carriage is periodically moved to one end of its path of travel where it is then connected with off-axis ink reservoirs to fill the onboard printheads. This “take a gulp” system is disclosed in Hewlett-Packard's Designjet 2000 printer referred to in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/805,861 filed Mar. 3, 1997 and published in European Patent Publication No. 0863016 on Sept. 9, 1998.
Large format printers are expensive pieces of equipment which preferably should be capable of using different types of ink without significant modification of the printer. The different ink types may for convenience be broadly referred to as indoor ink and outdoor ink, meaning ink intended to be used for production of drawings, posters, and other printed material which may be displayed outdoors or indoors. Outdoor ink is pigment based, i.e. containing a plurality of discrete undissolved pigment particles suspended in a fluid carrier. Dye-based ink has a lower degree of optical density and permanence but is less expensive. Since pigment based inks and dye-based inks are incompatible with each other, a system is desired which enables the use of either type of ink in a printer without crosscontamination of the printer inks by each other.
Further, in color printers four separate colors of ink are usually employed composing black and three primary or mid-primary colors such as cyan, magenta and yellow. In color ink printers provision must also be made to ensure that neither incorrect types of ink nor incorrect colors of ink can inadvertently be used in the system.
Since the ink delivery tubes connected from offboard reservoirs to onboard printheads continually flex, leakage and breakage of the ink supply tubes is experienced. A reliable ink delivery system and guides for routing the ink delivery tubes to minimize flexing and breakage is desired.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides an ink supply tube guiding system for a large format printer comprising:
a) a front tube guide having a generally vertically extending tube guide surface and a generally horizontally extending tube support surface;
b) a rear tube guide having a generally vertically extending tube guide surface and a generally horizontally extending tube support surface, said vertically extending surfaces of said guides being horizontally spaced and generally parallel to define a tube support and guide area therebetween, said tube support surfaces being aligned in a horizontal plane; and
c) support structure for supporting said guides on a printer.
The present invention further provides a printer having a frame, a transversely moveable printhead carriage mounted for reciprocating movement on said frame, ink supply reservoir means mounted on said frame and an ink supply tube guiding system for delivering ink from said ink reservoir means to said printhead carriage, said guiding system comprising:
a) a front tube guide having a generally vertically extending tube guide surface and a generally horizontally extending tube support surface;
b) a rear tube guide having a generally vertically extending tube guide surface and a generally horizontally extending tube support surface, said vertically extending surfaces of said guides being horizontally spaced and generally parallel to define a tube support and guide area therebetween, said tube support surfaces being aligned in a horizontal plane;
c) support structure supporting said guides on said printer; and
d) flexible ink guide tube means in fluid communication with said reservoir means and said printhead carriage, said guide tube means positioned on said support surfaces and confined for sliding movement between said guides and having a reverse bend located between said guides.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3102770 (1963-09-01), McKeegan
patent: 4831389 (1989-05-01), Chan
patent: 5369429 (1994-11-01), Erickson
patent: 5469201 (1995-11-01), Erickson et al.
patent: 5489931 (1996-02-01), Shibata et al.
patent: 5650811 (1997-07-01), Seccombe et al.
patent: 5686947 (1997-11-01), Murray et al.
patent: 6003981 (1999-12-01), Cameron et al.
patent: 97306158 (1998-03-01), None
Hewlett--Packard Company
Le N.
Roth & Goldman
Vo Anh T. N.
LandOfFree
Ink supply tube guiding system for large format printer 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 supply tube guiding system for large format printer, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ink supply tube guiding system for large format printer will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2494294