Multi-color level inkjet head chip structure

Details Multi-color level inkjet head chip structure Multi-color level inkjet head chip structure

2001-08-23

2002-10-01

Nguyen, Lamson D. (Department: 2861)

Incremental printing of symbolic information

Ink jet

Ejector mechanism

C347S015000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06457808

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an inkjet head chip structure, and more particularly to a multi-color level inkjet head chip structure, which is utilized in multi-color level inkjet printing technology, to provide a higher inkjet printing speed.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
After multi-color level inkjet-printing technology was successfully developed, it provided abundant colors for printing, enabling the printing quality of an image to be significantly improved. However, the developmental direction of the present technology necessitates not only more abundant colors and higher printing resolution, but also higher printing speed.
The conventional inkjet printer normally uses methods such as decreasing the dimensions of ink drops to increase printing resolution, and then providing abundant color levels through controlling the numbers of each color ink drop in accordance with halftone control technology, so as to provide improved printing quality when printing in color (especially when printing color images). Therefore, at present, inkjet printers that claim to produce ink drops smaller than 1 pl with a resolution greater than 2400 dpi (dot per inch) are available on the market. However, for normal high quality printing matter, a resolution of 600 dpi is enough, and although the ink drop is larger than 10 pl, it is difficult to see a difference between this level of resolution and any higher resolution. Moreover, it is preferable to use inkjet nozzles with extremely tiny dimensions in order to produce such tiny ink drops. However, if the inkjet nozzle is minimized as such, it can easily become blocked.
Although presently available inkjet printers already have the ability to minimize the sprayed-out ink drop, the method they use to process multi-color level printing is still to employ many different colored inks to apply different colors onto recording media (such as normal paper, inkjet printing paper for special use or other similar materials), and the mixing of different color inks is done on the-surface of the recording media. Therefore, repeated applications must be done on the same area with different color inks in order to obtain the desired color level, and after the color mixing through the control of the ejected volumes of different color inks. So even if the effect of increasing color level change can be achieved through minimizing the ink drop dimensions, this still cannot solve the problem of insufficient printing speed when processing multi-color level printing with inkjet printers.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The main object of the invention is to provide an inkjet head chip structure for increasing the speed of multi-color level printing.
The invention mainly discloses a pre-mixing space in an inkjet head chip. Different colored ink is injected into the pre-mixing space by an ink providing element, and the different colors are mixed together. The desired ink volume is expelled into the-pre-mixing space by controlling the energy of each ink providing element according to a desired final printing color level. The ink is then pre-mixed to reach the desired color level and is ejected onto the recording media by means of an inkjet printing driver disposed at the pre-mixing space. Such an inkjet head chip structure only requires pre-mixing at one time, after which the ink is ejected onto the recording media. This achieves the same printing effect as that achieved by ejecting several ink drops of different colors (often requiring 8 drops or even 16 drops in single multi-level color) onto the recording media in the traditional art. By comparison, the present invention will greatly improve the printing speed of the traditional art.
In one preferred embodiment of the invention, we can adopt the manner in which different colored inks are injected into the pre-mixing space and mixed so as to obtain the desired color level ink. The ink is then ejected out to print by means of the inkjet printing element. In another preferred embodiment of the invention, each pre-mix principal high-density colorant and the matched solvent are put into the pre-mixing space, to dilute ink to the degree necessary. These diluted principal colorants are then ejected onto recording media to achieve the desired color level. Compared with the printing method of the traditional art, in which the volume of different colored ink drops is controlled and ejected onto recording media to achieve the desired color level, the invention controls the volume of ink to achieve the desired color level before ejecting ink onto the recording media. This will reduce the time needed for ejecting ink drops, and attain the effect of increasing printing speed.
Further scope of the applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow and the accompanying drawings which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and wherein:


REFERENCES:
patent: 4614953 (1986-09-01), Lapeyre
patent: 6062678 (2000-05-01), Ishinaga et al.

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