Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Medium and processing means
Reexamination Certificate
2003-03-24
2004-11-09
Pham, Hai (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Medium and processing means
C347S101000, C347S016000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06814436
ABSTRACT:
This patent application claims priority from Japanese patent applications Nos. 2002-82990 filed on Mar. 25, 2002 and 2003-60688 filed on Mar. 6, 2003, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus for performing recording for recording medium or paper by emitting ink on the recording medium, such as an ink-jet type recording apparatus, and a liquid emitting apparatus for emitting liquid onto a medium to make the liquid adhere to the medium.
The term “liquid emitting apparatus” is used for referring not only to a recording apparatus, having an ink-jet type recording head for emitting ink from the recording head so as to perform recording for a recording medium, such as a printer, a copier and a facsimile machine, but also to an apparatus that causes liquid to adhere to a medium, corresponding to the recording medium in the above recording apparatus, by emitting the liquid selected depending on the use of the apparatus in place of the ink toward the medium from a liquid emitting head corresponding to the recording head in the above recording apparatus.
As the liquid emitting head, the following heads can be considered other than the above recording head: a color-material emitting head used for fabrication of a color filter for a liquid crystal display or the like, an electrode-material (conductive paste) emitting head used for forming an electrode in an organic EL display or a field-emission display (FED), a bioorganic compound emitting head used for fabrication of a bio-chip and a sample spraying head as a precision pipette.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an exemplary recording apparatus or liquid emitting apparatus is known an ink-jet type printer (hereinafter, referred to as a “printer”). A typical printer is shown in
FIGS. 10A and 10B
. The printer
200
includes a medium feeder
2
provided in the upstream of a transfer path for medium, as shown in
FIGS. 10A and 10B
. The medium feeder
2
holds one or more units of a medium, such as cut sheet or paper, that are stacked thereon to be at a certain angle with respect to the body of the printer and feeds one or more units of the medium one by one to the downstream of the feeding path. The printer
200
also includes: a carriage (not shown), arranged in the downstream of the feeder
2
, for carrying a recording head mounted thereon that performs recording for the medium; and a transfer roller (not shown) for transferring the medium by rotating, which includes a transfer-driving roller and a transfer-driven roller.
The printer
200
is arranged to have the first and second transfer paths. On the first transfer path, one of more units of the medium, for example, one or more sheets of paper, that are stacked on the feeder
2
to be at a certain angle with respect to the body of the printer, are transferred toward the front side of the printer
200
one by one while being bent, so as to be discharged from the front side of the printer
200
in a substantially horizontal direction. On the second transfer path, a rigid medium that cannot be transferred on the above-mentioned first transfer path is substantially horizontally fed from the front side of the body
3
of the printer
200
so as to be discharged from the front side of the printer
200
.
The second transfer path is used, for example, for performing recording for a rigid medium such as a CD-R (recordable compact disc). In this case, it is necessary to attach an exclusive discharge tray
202
that serves as a feeder tray used for manually feeding the rigid medium from the front side of the printer
200
toward the recording head and also serves as a discharge tray for receiving the rigid medium discharged after the recording, on the upper side of a discharge tray
201
that receives paper discharged after the recording.
Moreover, in order to perform recording for the rigid medium, it is necessary to adjust a distance between the rigid medium and the recording head by displacing the carriage for mounting the recording head thereon upward, thereby ensuring that the recording head is not in contact with the rigid medium. For achieving this object, the printer
200
includes a PG operation lever
203
for displacing a carriage guide axis to adjust a gap between the recording head and the recording medium. The PG operation lever
203
has to be operated by a user depending on the type of the medium, thus causing a trouble. In addition, even during a recording operation for the rigid medium, the PG operation lever
203
is operative. Thus, the PG operation lever
203
may be operated by an unexpected force so as to bring the carriage down, thereby bringing the recording head into contact with the rigid medium. In this case, the recording head may be damaged, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open 2002-192782, for example.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a recording apparatus and a liquid emitting apparatus, which are capable of overcoming the above drawbacks accompanying the conventional art. The above and other objects can be achieved by combinations described in the independent claims. More specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide a recording apparatus and a liquid emitting apparatus that can ensures a distance between a recording head and a medium for which recording is performed in an appropriate manner and can perform high-quality printing. The dependent claims define further advantageous and exemplary combinations of the present invention.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, a recording apparatus comprises: a feeder, provided in an upstream in a transfer path for transferring a medium, operable to feed the medium to a downstream in the transfer path one by one, the medium being stacked at an angle; a recording head, provided in the downstream of the feeder, operable to perform recording for the medium; a carriage, on which the recording head is mounted, operable to reciprocate in a main scanning direction along a carriage guide axis; a transfer roller operable to transfer the medium by rotating, the transfer roller including a transfer-driving roller and a transfer-driven roller; a stacker having a medium-placed surface, the stacker being positioned at a first position allowing the medium to be substantially horizontally fed from the medium-placed surface to a position under the recording head and be substantially horizontally discharged from the position under the recording head onto the medium-placed surface, or a second position operable to receive and stack the medium fed by the feeder, the second position being on a lower level than the first position, the medium-placed surface being arranged substantially horizontally when the stacker is positioned at the first position and is arranged at an angle when the stacker is positioned at the second position; and a first link mechanism operable to displace the stacker to cause the carriage guide axis to displace, wherein the carriage guide axis is arranged to be displaced upward when the stacker is positioned at the first position, and is prevented from moving downward as long as the stacker is positioned at the first position.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, a recording apparatus for performing recording for a first type of medium and a second type of medium comprises: a feeder, provided in an upstream in a transfer path for transferring the first type of medium, operable to feed the first type of medium to a downstream in the transfer path one by one, the first type of medium being stacked at an angle; a recording head, provided in the downstream of the feeder, operable to perform recording for the first type of medium and the second type of medium; a carriage, on which the recording head is mounted, operable to reciprocate in a main scanning direction along a carriage guide axis; a transfer roller operable to transfer the first type of medium by rotating,
Anami Akira
Oki Narihiro
Otsuka Kazuo
Shiota Takayuki
Edwards & Angell LLP
Nguyen Lam
Penny, Jr. John J.
Pham Hai
Seiko Epson Corporation
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