Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-24
2002-05-14
Barlow, John (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
C347S065000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06386686
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manufacturing method of a liquid discharge head which discharges a desired liquid by using the production of bubbles caused by making thermal energy act on the liquid, a liquid discharge head, a head cartridge using the liquid discharge head, and a liquid discharge device.
Furthermore, the present invention is an invention which can be applied to a device such as a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile with a communication system, or a word processor with a printer portion, and further, an industrial recording apparatus compositely combined with various kinds of processors, which performs recording to a record medium such as paper, thread, fiber, fabric, leather, metal, plastic, glass, wood, ceramics.
By the way, “record” in the present invention means not only to give a meaningful image such as a character or a figure to a record medium but also to give a meaningless image such as a pattern.
2. Related Background Art
The ink jet recording method, the so-called bubble jet recording method has previously been known, in which a change of state accompanying a rapid change of volume (generation of bubbles) is caused in ink by giving energy of heat or the like to the ink, and the ink is discharged from an outlet by the acting force based on this change of state, and this is adhered onto a record medium, so that an image formation may be performed. A recording apparatus using this bubble jet recording method generally has an outlet for discharging ink, an ink flow passage connected to this outlet, and a heating element (electrothermal energy converting substance) which is arranged in the ink flow passage as an energy generating means for discharging the ink, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-59911 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 61-59914.
By using the above recording method, an image with a high quality image can be recorded at a high speed and at a low noise level, and in the meantime, since outlets for discharging ink can be arranged with a high density, a head performing this recording method has a lot of advantages such as the advantage that a record image with a high resolution can easily be obtained, and further, a color image can also easily be obtained by a small sized device. Therefore, recently, this bubble jet recording method has been used in a lot of office machines such as a printer, a copying machine, or a facsimile, and further, it is also used in an industrial system such as a printing device.
On the other hand, in a conventional bubble jet recording method, the heating is repeated in the state where the heating element is in contact with ink, and therefore, there have been some cases where deposits caused by the scorching of ink is produced on the surface of the heating element. Furthermore, in the case where the liquid to be discharged is a liquid which may easily be degraded by heat, or in the case where the liquid to be discharged is a liquid in which it is difficult to sufficiently obtain the bubbling, there are some cases where a preferable discharge cannot be performed by the direct heating bubble formation using the above heating element.
In contrast with this, the applicant of the present application has proposed a method in which the bubbling liquid is bubbled by thermal energy to discharge the discharge liquid, through a flexible film separating the bubbling liquid and the discharge liquid in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 55-81172. The configuration of the flexible film and the bubbling liquid in this method is a constitution in which the flexible film is provided at a part of a nozzle, but in contrast with that, a constitution using a large film for separating the total of a head into an upper part and a lower part is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-26270. This large film is provided with a purpose of preventing the liquids in 2 liquid flow passages from being mutually mixed, by being held between 2 sheet members forming the liquid flow passage.
On the other hand, as a constitution in which the bubbling liquid itself has characteristics and bubbling characteristics are considered, there is a constitution which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-229122 and uses a liquid with a boiling point lower than that of the discharge liquid, or a constitution which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-329148 and uses a conductive liquid as bubbling liquid.
However, when the present inventor and others examined to actually manufacture a liquid discharge head using such a separation film, the following problems were found.
That is, since the separation film is positioned between a base board having a plurality of heating elements and a top board for forming a common liquid chamber, there is an anxiety that a mounting device of the film is complicated or that the film is damaged when mounting the film, in the case of independently handling a deformable separation film.
Furthermore, it is difficult to adhere the film at desired positions of the ink flow passage provided in a head and the heater, and to surely fix the area other than the movable portion of the film, and it is considered that the dispersion in discharge performance depending on products may increase. Furthermore, since the liquid discharge caused by the bubble formation by the thermal energy is performed through the displacement of the separation film, there is an anxiety that the discharge efficiency may be lowered at that rate. Accordingly, in case of using the structure of a film applied for a patent by the present inventor and others for attaining a liquid discharge with a higher level while keeping the effect created by the separating function of a separation film, it is necessary to solve this problem by a simple method.
Furthermore, from another view point, the present inventor and others have found a new technological problem which has not existed previously, in the case of performing a liquid discharge based on the bubble formation caused by film boiling using an organic film and using a heating element. That is, it is a technological problem found by considering the thermal factor in the displacement of a separation film accompanied with a series of changes of generation of bubbles—growth—deforming, or by considering the practically probable situation of improving the durability for a separation film simple substance or an ink jet head.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is a first object of the present invention to provide a liquid discharge head which solves the above problems, and which has a small dispersion in discharge performance depending on products and has a high reliability, and which can record a highly detailed image.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a liquid discharge head which solves the above problems, and which further improves the discharge efficiency of liquid by a simple constitution while keeping the effect based on the separating function of a separation film.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a manufacturing method of a liquid discharge head which solves the above problems, and which has a small dispersion in discharge performance depending on products and has a high reliability.
It is a fourth object of the present invention to provide a manufacturing method of a liquid discharge head in which a damage of a movable film in the manufacturing step or the like is prevented by eliminating the step of independently handling a movable film.
It is a residual object of the present invention to provide various related inventions to be described later of a manufacturing method of a liquid discharge head, a liquid discharge head, a head cartridge, a liquid discharge device or the like which have been created by the present inventor and others in the course of solving the above problems.
A liquid discharge head of the present invention for solving the above problems is a liquid discharge head comprising: a plurality of first liquid flow passages w
Kubota Masahiko
Kudo Kiyomitsu
Yoshihira Aya
Barlow John
Stephen Juanita
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