Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-18
2003-01-14
Nghiem, Michael (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
active
06505911
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a nozzle cleaning method for a micro injecting device, and more particularly, to a nozzle cleaning method of a micro injecting device that prevents unnecessary consumption of ink when performing spitting by checking for used. nozzles during printing and performing spitting for only the unused nozzles.
2. Prior Art
Generally, unlike the dot matrix printer, an inkjet printer which utilizes a micro injecting device uses a cartridge and thereby is able to embody color documents and has a low noise level and elegant print quality. However, compared to a laser printer, the printing speed is more or less slower than the laser printer and the printing resolution is comparatively low. However, because the price and maintenance expenses are low in comparison to a laser printer, inkjet printers are widely used.
The micro injecting device of an inkjet printer is mounted on a cartridge and a plurality of nozzles, which spray ink, are located within the micro injecting device.
For these conventional inkjet printers, generally three methods are used to clean the nozzles of the micro injecting devices.
The first method is capping. This method prevents foreign substances from sticking onto the nozzles during print standby and power-off state by actuating a rib that is mechanically installed onto one side of the home position, when the micro injecting device is being moved to the home position, and by covering the nozzles with capping rubber.
The second method is wiping. After the micro injection device assumes the capping operation, this method moves the micro injection device at a certain distance to one side and a wiping rubber installed under the nozzle cleans the whole surface of the nozzles through the use of friction.
The third method is spitting. After the micro injecting device assumes the wiping operation, this method prevents the nozzles of the micro injecting device from clogging by spraying ink from all of the nozzles, prior to being moved to the home position. In addition, when the printed pages exceed a certain amount, the printer moves the micro injecting device to the home position and cleans the micro injecting device by performing spitting.
However, according to the conventional printer, the following problems arise.
In actual printing operations, it happens that among all the nozzles of the micro injecting device, nozzles that spray ink and nozzles that do not spray ink exist. However, although the nozzles that have sprayed ink during printing are clean because they sprayed ink, when the micro injecting device performs spitting, ink is sprayed from all nozzles and ink is needlessly consumed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, this invention is disclosed to resolve such problems, and the object thereof is to prevent unnecessary consumption of ink by checking for nozzles actually used during printing and performing spitting for only the nozzles which were not used.
To achieve the foregoing object, the present invention is characterized in a method of controlling a micro injecting device that performs spitting action which sprays ink from nozzles to maintain the clean state of the nozzles of the micro injecting device comprising the steps of: storing respective code values corresponding to the numbers of the nozzles that have sprayed ink among all the nozzles, in a storage section, when printing is initiated; detecting a spitting action performance time while checking the number of printed pages; checking the code values of nozzles among all the nozzles which have sprayed ink over a predetermined frequency during printing by using respective code values stored in the storage section, if it is spitting action performance time as a result of detection; searching for computed remaining code values by computing the code values of the nozzles that have sprayed ink from reference code values which correspond to all nozzles pre-stored in the storage section; and performing spitting by spraying ink from the nozzles which have been determined to correspond to the remaining code values as a result of searching.
Here, when spitting is completed, the code values stored in the storage section and the remaining code values are deleted.
In addition, to detect the code values, the steps of searching for the code values, among respective code values stored in the storage section, which are stored over a predetermined number of times; and storing the searched code values in a separate sector in the storage section, are included.
In addition, to search for code values, the code values remaining after coinciding code values are deleted among the code values corresponding to all nozzle numbers are stored in another separate sector in the storage section.
On the other hand, to perform spitting, micro injecting device nozzle control signals are generated according to the remaining code values stored in the other separate sector of the storage section.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4558332 (1985-12-01), Takahashi
patent: 5530462 (1996-06-01), Takahashi et al.
patent: 59-207259 (1984-11-01), None
patent: 63-252748 (1988-10-01), None
patent: 3-155952 (1991-07-01), None
Bushnell , Esq. Robert E.
Nghiem Michael
Samsung Electronics Co,. Ltd.
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