Printhead cartridge with wiper cleaning station

Details Printhead cartridge with wiper cleaning station Printhead cartridge with wiper cleaning station

1999-12-23

2001-12-04

Yockey, David F. (Department: 2861)

Incremental printing of symbolic information

Ink jet

Ejector mechanism

C347S087000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06325485

ABSTRACT:

TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to an inkjet printing system and method of printing. More particularly, the present invention relates to an inkjet transaction printing device and a method of printing transaction receipts.
BACKGROUND
A typical inkjet printing device generally include a traveling carriage unit for supporting one or more printheads in a desired orientation relative to a ink receiving surface. In this regard, as the carriage unit travels along a rectilinear path of travel adjacent to the ink-receiving surface, the printheads eject ink on to the ink-receiving surface to form desired indicia.
Such printheads typically have an orifice plate with a plurality of small nozzles for ejecting the ink toward the ink-receiving surface. Because of residue build up on and around these small nozzles or opening, many inkjet printing devices include a service station module that caps, wipes and catches spit ink droplets that facilitates keeping the printhead clean. A necessary operation in servicing such a printhead is to make certain that the wiper utilized to remove residue is also cleaned periodically.
A prior solution for cleaning such a wiper included providing a wiper cleaning station within the service station module. In this regard, not only is a wiper cleaning station required but also special wiper cleaning fluids are necessary to clean the wiper. Thus, while such wiper cleaning stations are satisfactory for their intended purpose, the wiper cleaning station parts are nevertheless expected to last for the life of the printing device and adds to the cost of operating the printer because of the special cleaning fluids that must be provided. Therefore it would be highly desirable to have a new and improved inkjet printing device that does not require a wiper cleaning station that is expected to last the life of the printing device nor require special cleaning fluids.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a transaction printing device having a base with a width dimension of no greater than about 6.5 inches and a printhead cartridge stall coupled to the base and mounted for rectilinear movement along a path of travel along the width dimension of the printing device. The stall is dimensioned to support from below a printhead cartridge to facilitate the ejecting of ink onto a transaction receipt having a width dimension of about 3 inches. The printhead cartridge includes a cartridge body having a generally box like shape with front, side, top and bottom wall members for holding a supply of ink therein, a printhead in fluid communication with the supply of ink ejects the ink carried within the cartridge body and an outwardly projecting boss integrally connected to the front wall member spaces the printhead away from the front wall member and defines a pair of printhead linear translation reversing spaces adjacent the front wall member to facilitate reversing the linear translation of the printhead cartridge to print the transaction receipt. The method of printing the transaction receipt includes moving the printhead cartridge and a printhead wiper relative to one another in one direction along a rectilinear path of travel of substantially less than 6.5 inches to eject ink onto a portion of roll paper to facilitate the forming of the transaction receipt and to clean the printhead with the wiper. The printhead cartridge and the printhead wiper are then moved relative to one another in an opposite direction along the rectilinear path of travel to eject ink onto another portion of the roll paper to further facilitate the forming of the transaction receipt and to cleaning the printhead with the wiper. The moving of the printhead cartridge is repeated a sufficient number of times until the transaction receipt is printed.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4709247 (1987-11-01), Piatt et al.
patent: 5025271 (1991-06-01), Baker et al.
patent: 5202702 (1993-04-01), Terasawa et al.
patent: 5905513 (1999-05-01), Brandon et al.
patent: 0494693A (1992-07-01), None
patent: 03240554 (1991-10-01), None
patent: 07205438 (1995-08-01), None

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Printhead cartridge with wiper cleaning station does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Printhead cartridge with wiper cleaning station, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Printhead cartridge with wiper cleaning station will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2566085