Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Controller
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-08
2002-08-27
Barlow, John (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Controller
C347S011000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06439680
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording head for recording desired images on a recording medium, a substrate for use of a recording head, and a recording apparatus. The present invention is applicable to an apparatus, such as a printer that records on paper, thread, fiber, cloth, leather, metal, plastics, glass, wood, ceramics, or the like, a copying machine, a facsimile equipment with communication systems, a word processor with a printing unit. Further, the invention is applicable to the recording system for industrial use, which is arranged by combining various processing devices complexly. Here, the term “recording” used for the present invention is not only applied to the provision of meaningful images, such as characters and graphics, for a recording medium, but also, applied to the provision of the images which are not meaningful, such as patterns, for the recording medium.
2. Related Background Art
For the conventional recording head, there are a thermal head that records by transferring heat to an ink ribbon or a thermosensitive paper using heat generating elements, an ink jet head that records by discharging ink using piezoelectric elements. Hereunder, the description will be made of an ink jet head by exemplifying the one that records by discharge ink using heat generating elements.
With heat and other energy given to ink, change of states is created in ink, which is accompanied by abrupt voluminal changes (creation of bubbles). Then, ink is discharged from discharge ports by the active force exerted by such change of states. The ink thus discharged is allowed to adhere to a recording medium for the formation of images. This is called an ink jet recording method, which is conventionally known as the so-called bubble jet recording method. As disclosed in the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,129, and others, the recording apparatus that adopts this bubble jet recording method comprises, in general, the discharge ports that discharge ink; the ink flow paths which are communicated with the discharge ports; and recording elements serving as energy generating means, which are arranged in the ink flow paths to discharge ink, respectively.
With the recording method of the kind, high quality images can be recorded at high speeds with a lesser amount of noises. At the same time, the head that performs this recording method makes it possible to arrange discharge ports in high density therefor. As a result, among some others, this head has an excellent advantage that images are recorded in high resolution with a smaller apparatus, and also, color images can be made easily. With such advantages, the bubble jet recording method has been widely unutilized in recent years for a printer, a copying machine, a facsimile equipment, and many other office machines and equipments. Further, it has begun to be used for textile printing systems, and some others for industrial use.
Now that the recording elements that generate energy for discharging ink are manufactured by use of the semiconductor manufacturing processes, the conventional head which has been made by the utilization of the bubble jet technologies and techniques is structured in such a manner that a substrate is formed by arranging recording elements on an elemental base plate formed by a silicon base plate, and that a ceiling plate formed by polysulfone or some other resin or glass or the like, which is provided with grooves, is bonded with such substrate to provide ink flow paths.
Also, by the utilization of the elemental base plate being formed by the silicon base plate, not only the recording elements are formed on the elemental base plate, but also, the driving circuit that drives the recording elements, the temperature sensor which is used to control the temperature of the recording elements, the driving controllers, and some others are arranged thereon.
FIG. 15
shows one example of an elemental base plate of the kind.
In
FIG. 15
, there are formed on the elemental base plate
1001
, the heater group
1002
having a plurality of heat generating elements (recording elements)
1005
formed by resistive elements that give thermal energy for use of ink discharges, which are arranged in parallel; a driving circuit
1003
having a plurality of transistors
1008
for driving each of the heating elements
1005
, which are arranged in parallel; a control circuit
1004
for controlling each of the transistors
1008
on the driving circuit
1003
; and input terminals
1007
for receiving image data, each kind of signals, and the like from outside. Also, for the elemental base board
1001
, a temperature sensor that measures the temperature of the elemental base plate
1001
or a sensor
1006
, such as a resistance sensor, for measuring the resistive value of each of the heat generating elements.
The control circuit
1004
comprises shift registers that outputs to the driving circuits
1003
the image data which are received serially from outside; the latch circuits that store data provisionally and output them to the transistors
1008
; a driving control circuit that drives the sensor
1006
, and controls the width of pulses to drive the heat generating elements
1005
in accordance with output from the sensor
1006
. In this respect, the control circuit
1004
may be arranged to output image data individually or may be arranged to divide the heater group
1002
into plural blocks and output image data per unit block, among some others. In this manner, a plurality of shift registers are arranged for one head, and then, the image data transmitted from the ink jet recording apparatus are allotted to a plurality of shift registers, thus making the printing speed higher with ease.
As the sensor
1006
, a temperature sensor that measures the temperature in the vicinity of the heat generating elements, a resistance sensor that monitors the resistive value of the heat generating elements, or the like is used.
As regards the discharge amounts in terms of the liquid droplets to be discharged, it is conceivable that the discharge amount is related mainly to the bubbled value of ink. the bubble value of ink changes depending on the heat generating elements
1005
and the circumferential temperature thereof as well. The temperature of the heat generating elements
1005
and that of the circumference thereof are measured by the temperature sensor. In accordance with the result thus obtained, the pulses, which gives energy only in an intensity small enough so as not to allow ink to be discharged (preheat pulses), are added before applying the heat pulses that enables ink to be discharged. Then, it is practiced that the pulse width of such preheat pulses or the output timing is controlled to change for adjusting the temperatures of the heat generating elements
1005
and the circumference thereof in order to maintain the image quality by discharging ink droplets in a specific amount.
Also, as regards the energy required for bubbling ink in terms of the heat generating elements
1005
, the energy can be expressed by the product of the input energy per unit area which is needed for the heat generating elements
1005
and the area of the heat generating elements
1005
, provided that the condition of the heat radiation is constant. In this way, the voltage applied to both ends of each heating element
1005
, the electric current running on each heat generating element
1005
, and the pulse width should be set only at the value at which the required energy is obtainable. The electric current running on each of the heat generating elements
1005
has different resistive value of the heat generating element
1005
depending on each lot or each elemental base plate
1001
due to the varied film thickness of the heat generating elements which may be obtained in the manufacturing process of the elemental base plate
1001
.
Therefore, if the resistive value of the heat generating element
1005
is greater than the set value, the value of running electric current becomes smaller, provided tha
Imanaka Yoshiyuki
Ishinaga Hiroyuki
Matsumoto Nobuyuki
Mochizuki Muga
Saito Ichiro
Barlow John
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Dudding Alfred E
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
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