Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-01
2003-03-25
Vo, Anh T. N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
active
06536885
ABSTRACT:
This application is based on Patent Application Nos. 2000-26110, 2000-26111 and 2000-26116 filed Feb. 3, 2000 in Japan, the content of which is incorporated hereinto by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-transport system to be used in an ink-jet printing apparatus, an ink-replacement method, an ink-supply system, and an ink-jet printing apparatus. Especially, the present invention relates to a technology suitable for frequently changing various kinds of inks depending on the type of printing media, printing characteristics of the printing apparatus, and so on.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The ink-jet printing system is carried out by causing fine droplets of inks to fly and adhere to a printing medium such as paper based on various operational principles, to print images, characters, or the like, thereby enabling printing with low noise at a high speed. The ink-jet printing system has advantages such as facilitation of multicolor printing and is characterized by a high degree of freedom for recordable patterns, elimination of the necessity of development or fixation, and others. Thus, printing apparatuses based on this system method have been rapidly spread in various fields including that of data processing to accommodate various images and print media.
In addition, images formed by means of the multicolor ink-jet printing system can easily stand comparison with multicolor printing based on the plate making system or photographic printing based on the color photographing system. The multicolor ink-jet printing system enables images to be produced more inexpensively than normal multicolor printing or photographic printing if a small number of copies are particularly to be printed and is thus widely used in the field of full-color image printing. There are two types of the conventional ink-jet printing apparatuses. One is that an ink tank portion and an printing head portion are integrally formed together so that they cannot be removed from each other. The other is that an ink tank portion and a printing head portion are integrally are independently formed so that they can be removed from each other. In the former (i.e., the integral type printing apparatuses), they can be further grouped into additional types to cope with a shortage of ink. That is, one is that both the ink tank and the printing head are replaced with the new ones, respectively; and the other is that a shortage of ink is compensated by refilling the ink tank with ink from the outside. In the latter (i.e., the printing apparatus with the ink tank to be detached from the printing head), the ink tank can be replaced with the new one filled with ink when the ink tank becomes almost empty.
For the both cases, however, the ink tank is refilled with the same type of ink as one used before in the printing apparatus.
To accommodate wider applications of the ink-jet printing system and enable the recent improvement of printing characteristics such as an increased printing speed, an improved definition, and full color printing, efforts are being made to improve the printing apparatus and method. Characteristics required to achieve wider applications of the ink-jet printing system and improve the printing characteristics include, for example, a high density of printed ink dots, bright and clear color tones, fast ink absorption, prevention of outflow or bleeding of inks despite overlapping ink dots, and spread of ink dots with appropriate bleeding.
It is known that these characteristics are realized not only by the printing apparatus and method but also by improving inks or printing media used for printing.
For example, it is known that a coated paper is used as a printing medium due to ink absorptivity and fixability achieved thereby. The coated paper comprises, for example, a silicon pigment such as silica, or an absorbing polymer including a resin such as colloidal silica, polyvinyl pyrrolidone, polyvinyl alcohol, polyethylene oxide-isocyanate crosslinked material, or an acrylic polymer having a carboxyl group, or an aluminum-based pigment such as alumina hydrated compound or aluminum oxide, which is each coated on a paper, a film, a cloth, or the like together with an aqueous binder or the like. On the other hand, inks have their permeability adjusted by means of a surface-active agent or the like contained therein.
To accommodate the improvement of the printing characteristics, however, an optimal combination of printing media and inks which can realize these characteristics is more preferably selected by individually selecting printing media or inks depending on each of the characteristics. This is because the inks and the printing media show each of the characteristics through their mutual relationship.
In this case, to specifically realize the optical combination of the printing media and the inks in an ink-jet printing apparatus, configurations and operations are required which replace or install the printing media or the inks depending on a combination of printing media and inks. Additionally, an operation is required for setting printing conditions on, for example, a host computer; for example, a printing mode must be set depending on such a combination. That is, it is cumbersome to carry out the above operations or setting operations each time the combination is switched. It is also difficult for a user to obtain the optimal combination.
In this respect, an official gazette of Japanese Patent Application Laying-open No. 11-254700 (1999) discloses a media cartridge to be removably mounted on a printing apparatus. The media cartridge has a single-piece construction provided as a combination of: a cassette member on which sheets of printing media are mounted; and an ink tank or a waste ink tank for holding waste ink. The printing apparatus recognizes the presence of the media cartridge removably mounted thereon and automatically defines its printing mode with reference to the types of the printing medium and the ink. Therefore, it allows an appropriate printing control that depends on the above combination of the printing medium and the ink.
The printing apparatus using the media cartridge such as one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying-open No. 11-254700 (1999) is suitable for forming an image of high quality on a sheet of high-priced printing medium. In other words, the configuration of the printing apparatus avoids a mismatched combination of printing medium and ink, so that an image formation can be performed simply and easily without making any mistakes. Therefore, the above printing apparatus has been valued as being extremely useful for forming various kinds of images in low volume.
In the above printing apparatus, however, ink has been frequently changed from one kind to another in accordance with the replacement of the media cartridge with the new one. In this case, there is a necessity that ink in the printing head is also changed from one kind to another, so that the printing apparatus can be expensive as a whole if the printing heads are prepared to correspond with various kinds of inks.
For replacing the media cartridge with the new one, there is a need to drain ink out of both the ink tank and the head and to refill them with ink from a new media pack to be replaced. In this case, an insufficient drain of ink may be caused if the ink is drained from ink ejection ports of the head by applying pressure to the inside of the ink tank. If the ink to be supplied by the media cartridge after the replacement has a color different from that of the prior cartridge, ink to be ejected from the printing head may be of a color mixture with the prior ink. It causes a problem that the printing head ejects ink having a color different from the desired one.
If the printing head and the ink tank are filled with acid ink even though they had been filled with ink of an alkali-soluble dye, it facilitates coagulation or precipitation of the dye out of the ink. If so-called pigment ink prepared by dispersing pigment particles into a colori
Inamoto Tadayoshi
Kaburagi Yoshiaki
Kuribayashi Akira
Saito Hiroyuki
Suzuki Mariko
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