Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Fluid or fluid source handling means
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-29
2001-04-10
Yockey, David F. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Fluid or fluid source handling means
C222S567000, C141S018000, C141S025000, C215S352000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06213597
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an ink cartridge of a jet printer, and particularly to an apparatus for ink cartridge of a jet printer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the conventional jet printer, the ink is loaded in a cartridge, and the ink jetted on the printing paper is controlled with a sprayer; when ink in the cartridge is used up, the cartridge has to be replaced for further printing operation; however, the ink cartridge supplied by the original manufacturer is considerably expensive, i.e., a user to print a lot of papers will spend a lot of money.
In the conventional ink cartridge of a jet printer, the ink chamber of the ink cartridge is usually loaded with an equalization air bladder or a piece of sponge for soaking and supplying ink. The ink cartridge supplied by the original manufacturer Unusually has an equal pressure in the ink chamber during the automatic manufacturing process, and there will be no leak during printing operation.
When refilling ink into a conventional hollow ink cartridge, and if such ink cartridge is furnished with an equalization air-bladder in the ink chamber thereof, a sticky tape should be used to close the air vent of the maze passage on the bottom of the ink cartridge so as to prevent ink from leaking; then, the intake hole of the airbladder should also be closed with sticky tape so as to maintain equalization of pressure; then, use a sharp point to press the seal bead out of its position so as to provide a refilling hole. Take a suitable amount of ink with a syringe, and then inject the ink into the refilling hole on the ink cartridge slowly until the cartridge being full; use a rubber plug to seal the refilling hole, and then tear off the sticky tapes on the intake hole and on the bottom of the ink cartridge respectively; it is quite often that the opening end of the maze passage or the jet nozzle would have a leakage of ink after the sticky tape on the bottom of cartridge being removed because of the pressure in the ink chamber not being equalized. To overcome such leakage, the only method is to rub off the ink leaked slowly until the leak stopped.
In the conventional ink cartridge loaded with a sponge, an empty ink cartridge can be replenished by sealing and closing the end opening of the output port by means of a glue paper; then, a center through hole on lid of the top surface of the ink cartridge is sealed with a membrane; a syringe is sucked with a suitable amount of ink. A slender hollow needle is used to stab through the membrane on the through hole, and to the most lower portion of the storage chamber so as to inject ink in the storage chamber; however, the sponge in the storage chamber contains a great amount of bubbles, and the ink injected is unable to exhaust the air therein; as a result, the ink injected in is limited. Since there is a mesh furnished between the storage chamber and the second chamber, if air in the second chamber is unable to exhaust, the ink in the storage chamber will be unable to enter the second chamber via the mesh, and the ink will be unable to flow into the spraying chamber.
When the ink cartridge on a printer fails to print continuously, the major cause is that the sprayer in the printing head is in short supply of ink, i.e., lack of sufficient ink flowing through the passage defined by the bearing member; in other words, if too much air enters the second chamber in the printing head, such air would enter the storage chamber of the sprayer to cause interruption of ink, i.e., having no ink to spray out; in the event of no ink to spray out of the sprayer for a considerable time, the sprayer might be burned out.
In the former application Ser. No. 09/328,378, “An Ink-replenishing Device for Ink Cartridge of A Jet Printer” of the applicant, the device comprises an outer cylinder and an inner cylinder; the outer end of the outer cylinder is furnished with a thread cap of the ink straw; the inner surface thereof is to receive the inner cylinder. One end of the inner cylinder that faces the ink straw has an empty part, of which the outer end is mounted with a ring seal having a plurality of contact rings to be in close contact with the inner surface of the outer cylinder. When the disk member of the inner cylinder is pushed to the shortest distance from the lugs of the outer cylinder, a suitable amount of ink will be stored in the front end of the outer and inner cylinders. After the ink-injection cylinder is connected with the ink-injection hole of the ink cartridge, the air in the ink-storage chamber will be evacuated first by means of vacuum suction before filling ink into the ink-storage chamber of the ink cartridge by means of negative pressure method; after the aforesaid procedures being done for several times, there will be no bubbles or air left in the sponge of the ink-storage chamber and the second chamber.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The prime feature of the present invention is that the former application Ser. No. 09/328,378, “An Ink-replenishing Device for Ink Cartridge of A Jet Printer” will further be improved; for instance, the ink is to be stored in an isolated ink-storage container, which is to be mounted in a cylinder with an ink straw by means of a piston ring mounted on the bottle mouth of the ink-storage chamber. The ink straw on the front end of the cylinder is to be connected with the ink-injection hole of the ink cartridge of a jet printer, and then the ink in the ink-storage container will be filled into the ink-storage chamber of the ink cartridge by means of a negative pressure method.
Another feature of the present invention is that the bottle mouth of the ink-storage container is furnished with screw threads and a retaining ring; the retaining ring is to be mounted with a piston ring. The screw threads on the bottle mouth is to be mated with a threaded cap so as to form into an isolated ink-storage container for storing ink to be used in an ink cartridge of a jet printer. After the threaded cap is removed from the ink-storage container, the piston ring on the bottle mouth will be plugged into the inner cylinder of the cylinder; the ink straw on the front end of the cylinder is to be connected with the through hole of the ink cartridge; hold the cylinder with a hand, and push the ink-storage container upwards with thumb so as to generate a negative pressure between the ink-storage container and the ink-storage chamber of the ink cartridge; the ink in the ink-injection cylinder will be injected quickly into the ink-storage chamber to have the sponge soaked with ink completely.
Still another feature of the present invention is that the ink-storage container includes a cylindrical body portion to be plugged in the cylinder and an outer body portion having a larger diameter. The piston ring on the cylindrical body portion is to be plugged into the inner cylinder of the cylinder so as to form into a sealed chamber having a large capacity; the sealed chamber can communicate with the outside only through the ink straw. To fill the ink cartridge with ink, the ink straw should be connected with the through hole of the ink cartridge, and then push the ink-storage container outwards with thumb so as to have the sealed space in the ink-storage container increased, and to generate the negative pressure in the sealed space in order to evacuate the air and bubbles from the ink-storage chamber and the sponge. As soon as the pushing force to the ink-storage container is removed, the negative pressure in the ink-storage chamber will force ink in the ink-injection cylinder to flow into the ink cartridge before the pressure being set in a balance condition.
A further feature of the present invention is that the ink straw for connecting the cylinder and the ink cartridge is furnished in the center or one side of the sealed surface of the cylinder, and it is molded with the cylinder together as one piece.
A still further feature of the present invention is that the ink straw for connecting the cylinder and the ink cartridge has a connecting stem in th
Dougherty & Troxell
Yockey David F.
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