Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
1996-10-24
2001-02-06
Le, N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
active
06183076
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to inkjet printers and more particularly to an ink delivery system for an inkjet printer which supplies ink from an ink source to a printhead.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Inkjet printers are well-known. In these types of printers, droplets of ink are ejected from orifices in a printhead as the printhead scans across a medium. In certain types of inkjet printers, disposable print cartridges, each containing a printhead and a supply of ink, are installed in a scanning carriage. When the supply of ink is depleted, the print cartridge is disposed of. This results in a fairly expensive cost per sheet of printing.
Another type of inkjet printer allows the user to replace the ink supply in the scanning carriage without disposing of the printhead itself. In both of the cases described above, the scanning carriage supports the ink supply for the printhead. Since the capacity of the ink container must be fairly large to avoid changing ink supplies frequently, the carriage must be fairly large. This large carriage places a limit on reducing the size of the inkjet printer.
To overcome the disadvantages of the “on-axis” ink supplies, printers with off-axis ink supplies have been developed which use an ink supply not carried on the scanning carriage. A flexible tube connects the off-axis ink supply to the scanning printhead. One problem with these off-axis ink delivery systems is that the height difference between the printhead and the ink supply is directly related to the ink pressure to the printhead. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that ink will drool out of the printhead nozzles if the printer is tilted or tipped over. Further, the momentum of the ink in the flexible tube as the carriage scans causes fluctuations in the pressure of the ink applied to the printhead.
What is needed is an ink delivery system for an inkjet printer which does not suffer from the various drawbacks of the existing inkjet printers described above.
SUMMARY
In the preferred embodiment of an inkjet printer, an ink delivery system includes a scanning carriage having an ink interconnect coupled, via a flexible tube, to an ink output of a stationary pressure regulator. An ink input of the pressure regulator is connected, via a tube, to a stationary ink supply having replaceable ink cartridges. A relatively small semi-permanent, but replaceable, or permanent print cartridge contains one or more printheads and one or more ink interconnects, one interconnect for each color ink which is printable by the print cartridge. The print cartridge is inserted in the scanning carriage so as to create a fluid coupling between the printhead and the flexible tube leading to the scanning carriage. Since the printhead receives ink from the stationary ink supply, the print cartridge does not need a large internal ink chamber and the print cartridge and carriage can be made small.
In the preferred embodiment, the ink pressure regulator is located proximate to the rest position of the carriage. This prevents drooling from the printhead should the printer be tipped to a non-level orientation. To avoid ink pressure spikes due to the momentum of the ink in the flexible ink tube as the carriage scans across the medium, a flexible diaphragm is incorporated in the ink chamber of the print cartridge.
A variety of pressure regulators are described, and a variety of print cartridges are described. In a preferred embodiment, since it is desirable to reduce the size of the carriage, each print cartridge has a dual chamber for containing two different colors of ink, so that only two print cartridges are needed for a full color printer printing black, cyan, magenta, and yellow inks.
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Childers Winthrop D.
Pawlowski, Jr. Norman E.
Timm, Jr. Dale D.
Trueba Kenneth E.
Hewlett--Packard Company
Le N.
Nghiem Michael
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