|Publication number||US7600852 B2|
|Application number||US 11/390,645|
|Publication date||13 Oct 2009|
|Priority date||31 Oct 2000|
|Also published as||DE60135397D1, DE60139334D1, EP1330361A2, EP1330361B1, EP1780023A2, EP1780023A3, EP1780023B1, US7419239, US20040104959, US20060197792, WO2002036347A2, WO2002036347A3|
|Publication number||11390645, 390645, US 7600852 B2, US 7600852B2, US-B2-7600852, US7600852 B2, US7600852B2|
|Inventors||Steven Robert Brown, Martin McNestry, Steven John Buckby|
|Original Assignee||Zipher Limited|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (46), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (1), Classifications (10), Legal Events (3)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/415,676, filed Jan. 20, 2004, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,419,239 the entire specification of which is hereby incorporated herein.
This invention relates to inkjet-printing apparatus, and in particular to apparatus for cleaning, maintaining and supplying ink to a printhead of an ink jet printer.
Types of printers exist which make use of so called piezo-electric ink-jet printing technology. A piezo-electric printhead (also sometime referred to as PZT printhead) of such a printer is characterised in that it has a plurality of miniature jetting chambers or “jets” closely arranged in an array. Each jet is arranged to project ink from a respective one of an array of orifices defined by the printhead, and the jets are selectively energised by a controller to project (or not project as the case may be) “pixels” of ink. The ink is projected onto a substrate to be printed, relative movement between the printhead and the substrate resulting in ink projected from one orifice being deposited along an elongate path on the substrate. The printhead is arranged within the printer such that the array of jets extends at a predetermined angle (for example 90°) to the direction of the relative motion between the printhead and the substrate. The controller selects a first combination of jets through which ink is projected, and then a second combination of jets, etc, relative movement between the substrate and the printhead resulting in a two dimensional image being printed on the substrate.
Piezo-electric ink jet printers are used in many office and industrial applications. Industrial printing applications include packaging printers, which print directly onto substrates such as cardboard boxes, trays, flexible film and labels.
Current industrial printers use a range of different inks in conjunction with a variety of different models of piezo-electric printheads. Some utilise liquid ink, others utilise solid ink which is heated so as to phase-change to liquid within the printer, the ink being liquid at the time it is ejected from the jets.
Printhead arrays used in industrial applications typically range in length from 10 mm to 70 mm. In high resolution printheads, as many as 512 jets are arranged in a 70 mm long linear array on a printhead. It will therefore be appreciated that the jets are very small. Each jet ejects a very small (picoliter order of magnitude) droplet of ink each time it is energised by the controller.
Whilst such printers can produce fine resolution images, they are subject to image degradation due to one or more of the jets becoming blocked by dust or other contaminant, or otherwise fail as the result of a jet not being filled with ink to adjacent the orifice at the time the ink is to be projected (commonly referred to as a “de-primed” state), so that they no longer eject ink properly. This jet failure (often referred to as “jet drop out”) results in a degraded image having one or several unprinted lines running throughout the printed image in the direction of relative movement between the printhead and the substrate. A contaminant that does not completely block a jet can also cause problems by causing the deflection of a droplet of ink as it is ejected from the jet, such deflection resulting in a distorted image.
In certain industrial applications such as printing onto cardboard boxes or trays, a significant contributor of contamination is dust, either airborne or resting on the surface of the cardboard. The piezo-electric printing process requires the printhead jet array face to come into very close proximity with the target substrate. Furthermore there can be a build up of static electricity in the production process in the area around the printer, which can result in dust being positively attracted to the print face. Thus particularly in industrial applications contamination of jets is a major problem.
Given the problems referred to above, it is common practice, particularly in industrial applications, to follow a procedure often referred to as “purging” in order to maintain or restore the proper function of the jets in the printhead. The purging procedure involves forcing ink through all the jets of the printhead, with the intention of flushing out and removing any contaminants from the jets and ensuring that the jets are correctly primed, that is filled with ink to adjacent the orfices. After performance of the purging procedure, the jets should be in a stable working condition (commonly referred to as a “primed” state) such that high quality printing can be commenced or recommenced.
In known industrial printers, the purging procedure is typically initiated by the user. The purging action is typically brought about by putting an ink supply to the printhead under sufficient positive pressure to force some ink through all the jets of the printhead. This can be achieved by the user applying pressure manually to an ink reservoir communicating with ink in the printhead, or by applying pressure using a pump to the reservoir. Typically, positive pressure is applied for a period of a few seconds.
In industrial applications, such as printing onto cardboard boxes or trays, the printhead is often mounted adjacent a production line, so that the boxes pass in close proximity to the printhead. In these applications the printhead is most often mounted such the jet array is vertical, or at some predetermined angle to the horizontal. When ink is purged through the jets, it collects on an orifice plate of the printhead in which the jet orifices are formed, and begins to flow down the orifice plate under gravity. The flow is of ink is relatively slow, the ink taking a number of seconds to flow down to the bottom of the printhead. Of course, the longer the printhead in the vertical direction, the longer the downward flow of ink takes.
Since a relatively large volume of ink (as compared with the volume of ink normally projected by an individual jet) is purged out of the orifices, the jets are not able to jet ink properly to create an image until substantially all the ink has flowed down away from the jets or has otherwise been moved away from the jets. Generally steps are taken to remove purged ink. For example, purged ink is soaked into a cloth which is then disposed off. This can easily result in ink being dripped onto the floor or surrounding factory equipment, creating unwanted mess, which is difficult to remove and clean. The wasted purged ink is a considerable percentage of the total ink consumption. Furthermore, wiping away purged ink in this way typically takes several seconds. The total time taken to complete a single ink purge procedure is thus substantial.
Accordingly, although the purge procedure is generally successful in recovering jets, it can cause a number of problems. Firstly the purge procedure generally requires manual intervention and takes at least several seconds. It will be appreciated that the printhead cannot properly print images whilst it is being purged. Therefore it is therefore often necessary to stop an associated process (for example a production line) until the purge procedure has been completed. Secondly, the amount of ink consumed in the process is relatively large, often being several times greater than the amount of ink used to print an image.
Various proposals for improving ink purge procedures have been proposed. For example, one known purging procedure described in British Patent GB 2339170 provides an aperture in a plate defining the orifices from which ink is projected, the aperture being positioned in use vertically beneath the jets. Either in response to detection of jet dropout requiring remedial treatment, or at intervals for maintenance purposes before jet dropout has occurred, an ink feed reservoir is pressurised with a pump or manually to cause ink to flow out of the printhead orifices. After purging, ink flows down the orifice plate under gravity towards the aperture. The ink is sucked through the aperture and ducted to a reservoir for filtering and subsequent re-use. Ink wastage is thus reduced, but as the ink flows only under gravity it will be appreciated that it takes at least several seconds for the ink to flow away from the jets to the aperture. Even on production lines operating at modest speed the time taken for purged ink to be removed from the orifice plate is too long for purging to be carried out between two successive product print cycles. Thus it will be appreciated that this known purging procedure takes too long to avoid the necessity of stopping the production line whilst purging occurs.
International patent specification WO 89/04255 describes an ink jet priming system in which pressurised air is used to purge ink into an ink collection system which is located adjacent ink jets to be purged only during the purging procedure. During purging, a sufficiently high pressure is applied to the ink such that it streams into the collection system rather than trickling out of the jets. Thus purged ink is removed from adjacent the jets without requiring manual intervention, but only as the result of providing a complex mechanical assembly to achieve the necessary relative movement between the jets and the ink collection system. The described system has the capability of controlling the shape of a pressure pulse that is used to purge ink from the jets, that pulse having a “soft” profile (slowly rising leading edge and rapidly falling trailing edge) or a “hard” profile (rapidly rising leading edge and rapidly falling trailing edge). In the described examples, the slowly rising leading edge part of the pulse has a duration of 100 milliseconds or 200 milliseconds. It is stated that it is desirable to abruptly terminate the supply of air which causes the ink to flow out of the jets (the rapidly falling trailing edge of the pulses). This is said to cause the streaming of ink from the jets to abruptly cease. It is stated that the described arrangement eliminates the trickling of ink from the jets.
European Patent Specification EP 1016530 describes another arrangement for cleaning and preventing obstruction of the orifice plate of an ink jet printer. The device described incorporates a cleaning assembly which is moveable relative to the orifice plate to a position in which a closed chamber is formed over the orifice plate. A fluid is then pumped through the closed chamber so as to clean any contaminants from the orifice plate surface or any individual orfice in the plates.
The highly complex arrangement of EP 1016530 is presented as an improvement of an earlier proposal which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,970,535. That US patent discloses an arrangement in which an ink jet orifice plate cleaner is moved into engagement with the orifice plate so as to provide a closed air passageway through which air is directed to provide the required cleaning effect. Once again the described assembly is complex, requiring relative movement between a “ready to print” configuration and a “cleaning” configuration. Furthermore it is stated in EP 1016530 that air cleaning in the manner suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 4,970,535 does not provide acceptable results.
European patent specification EP 604029 describes another cleaning arrangement in which an air curtain is directed across an ink jet orifice plate. The jets are located behind an aperture in the plate, projected ink passing through that aperture before being deposited upon a substrate to be printed. Air flows between the apertured plate and the orifice plate and thus across the orifices. The airflow is maintained during printing at an airflow rate that is sufficiently slow as to not significantly effect ink projection. The purpose of this airflow is to avoid the build up of contaminants on the orifice plate, not to clean ink off the orifice plate. Cleaning of the printing head requires a separate operation, involving release of a latch mechanism to enable the orifice plate to swing away from a “ready to print” position to a position in which it can be readily cleaned. Positioning the orifice plate behind another plate means that none of the orifice plate is open to the space through which the substrate to be printed travels relative to the orifice plate. As a result the distance through which ink must be projected is relatively large.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,147 describes an inkjet printhead maintenance system incorporating various relatively moveable components including a slowly moving elongate mechanical wiper and an “air knife”. The air knife generates a narrow stream of air which is swept across the orifice plate. Thus the air knife requires relative movement between the structure generating the narrow stream of air and the orifice plate. Furthermore, the air knife is provided as only one of a number of complimentary cleaning mechanisms in an overall assembly of great complexity.
In the absence of a simple fast operating jet purging system, in many applications purging generally requires the stopping of an associated process, for example a production line. As a result, users prefer to initiate the purge procedure as seldom as possible. This can result in a compromise between production line efficiently on the one hand and image quality on the other. In practice, it is common for operators to wait for printing quality to deteriorate significantly before initiating the purge procedure. It will also be appreciated that the the longer dust and debris is allowed to build up on the printhead, the more purging and cleaning of the jets is likely to be necessary to fully restore print quality.
According to a first aspect of the disclosed apparatus, there is provided an apparatus for cleaning an inkjet printer printhead which defines an elongate array of orifices from which in use jets of ink are projected into a space within which substrates to be printed are presented, comprising an air curtain generating means fixed in position relative to the printhead and extending along one side only of the array of orifices so as to direct a curtain of air across the array of orifices and across a portion of the printhead which is open to the said space and which is on the side of the array of orifices remote from the air curtain generating means.
The apparatus defined in the preceding paragraph makes it possible to rapidly displace purged ink from the printhead using an assembly which is permanently fixed in position and which is not interposed between the printhead and a substrate onto which ink is to be projected from the printhead. A compact and mechanically simple printing arrangement is thus provided which can be rapidly cleaned, enabling cleaning to be performed after completion of one printing operation and before the initiation of a subsequent printing operation even if the two printing operations are spaced by only a relatively short period of time for example 1 second or less.
According to a second aspect of the disclosed apparatus, there is provided an apparatus for maintaining an inkjet printer printhead in a working state, the printer defining an array of orifices from which in use jets of ink are projected, the apparatus comprising means for applying a pressure pulse to ink within the printhead sufficient to discharge ink from each orifice, the pressure pulse having a relatively rapidly rising leading edge and a relative slowly falling trailing edge.
The use of a pulse shape as defined above ensures that contaminants are readily dislodged from the jets by the flow of ink generated by the pulse and vet there is minimal risk of the jets becoming de-primed when the pulse is terminated.
According to a third aspect of the disclosed apparatus, there is provided an inkjet printer ink supply apparatus for supplying ink to a printhead defining an array of orifices from which ink may be projected, the apparatus comprising a reservoir coupled to the printhead for supplying ink to the orifices, and means for supplying ink to the reservoir, the orifices being arranged in at least two vertically offset groups, the reservoir being divided into vertically offset reservoir sections including a lowermost section and at least one upper section with each reservoir section being coupled exclusively to a respective group of orifices, and the or each upper reservoir section being arranged to overflow into the immediately adjacent reservoir section which is spaced therebelow, wherein each reservoir section includes means for detecting the level of ink within that section, and the ink supply means is arranged to deliver ink to the reservoir section which is vertically uppermost if any level detecting means detects an ink level in the respective reservoir section below a predetermined level.
An arrangement as defined in the preceding paragraph makes it possible to replenish a series of ink reservoirs each of which feeds a different set of jets using only one arrangement for delivering ink to all the reservoirs.
Preferably, the air curtain is directed to flow in a direction perpendicular to the elongate array of orifices. An ink-receiving opening may extend along the side of the array of orifices, the curtain of air being directed across the array of orifices towards the opening. The opening may be defined by a gap between a deflector on the side of the opening remote from the array of orifices and an edge of a surface of the printhead in which the orifices are formed.
Preferably, an edge of the deflector which defines a first side of the gap is set back relative to the surface of the printhead in which the orifices are formed such that the said deflector edge is further away from the space within which substrates to be printed are presented than the said edge of the surface of the printhead which defines a second side of the gap. The set back of the deflector edge may be from 0.1 mm to 3 mm, for example 1 mm.
The deflector preferably defines a deflector surface extending from the deflector edge which defines the first side of the gap, the deflector surface being inclined to the curtain of air so as to deflect the curtain of air towards the said space within which substrates to be printed are presented. The deflector surface may be inclined at an angle of from 10° to 35°, for example 20°, to the direction in which the air curtain flows across the printhead, the angle of inclination being measured between the deflector surface and a line extending from the said edge in the direction of flow. The deflector surface preferably extends from the said deflector edge to a downstream edge on the side of the deflector edge remote from the array of orifices, a further surface of the apparatus extending from the downstream edge of the deflector in a direction away from the said space within which substrates to be printed are presented. The further surface is preferably inclined to the deflector surface at all inclined angle of from 70 to 155°, e.g. 110°.
Preferably an ink-receiving channel is defined behind the deflector, the ink-receiving channel opening into the gap and extending to a lower edge of the deflector. An ink collector may be located beneath a bottom end of the ink-receiving channel. The bottom end of the channel may be positioned to deliver ink to a formation on which ink will accumulate and which is in contact with or closely spaced from a surface defined by the collector. A manually adjustable screw may be mounted on the collector and adjustable in position relative to the formation such that ink on the formation can flow onto the screw and via the screw into the collector. Preferably, the collector comprises an overflow, means for detecting ink flowing through the overflow, and means for signalling a fault if overflowing ink is detected. The detecting means preferably comprises an emitter and a detector at least one of which is positioned to be at least partially covered by overflowing ink, and means for signalling a fault if an output of the detector indicates an overflow of ink. The emitter and detector may be arranged to project from a support surface which is located below the printhead and which is open to the said space within which substrates to be printed are presented, the emitter and detector being connected to a sensing circuit sensitive both to the presence of overflowing ink and to the presence of an object in front of the printhead which reflects emissions from the emitter to the detector. The emitter and detector may be angled towards each other and angled upwards. The ink-receiving opening may have a width of from 0.5 mm to 2 mm, for example 1 mm.
The air curtain may be generated from all elongate slot extending along the said one side of the array of orifices by pumping air through the slot towards the orifices. The slot may be defined between a body adjacent the printhead and an edge of a plate secured to the body, an air inlet communicating with a space defined between the body and the plate. The slot may have a width of from 0.1 mm to 0.3 mm, for example 0.2 mm. Air may be delivered to the slot at a pressure of from 100,000 to 600,000 Pa (1 to 6 bar) above atmospheric pressure, for example 300,000 Pa (3 bar).
Preferably, the pressure pulse applied to the ink has a duration from initiation of the leading edge to initiation of the trailing edge of less than 1 second, e.g. less than 300 ms, or less than 100 ms, or within the range of 10 to 50 ms.
The pressure may be applied through a valve which is switchable between a first condition in which a source of compressed air is connected to an ink supply arrangement, and a second condition in which the ink supply arrangement is connected to an exhaust conduit which communicates with the atmosphere via an airflow restrictor. Preferably the airflow restrictor is manually adjustable to enable control of the slope of the trailing edge of the pressure pulse. The pressure pulse may be applied after a predetermined number of printing operations have been performed by projecting ink from the orifices, for example after each printing operation.
The volume of ink delivered to the reservoir may be controlled in response to an ink demand initiated by detection of an ink level in any one reservoir section below the predetermined level, the ink supply control means being operative to deliver a predetermined volume of ink in response to an ink demand, to suspend ink delivery for a predetermined period, and to deliver further ink if an ink demand is indicated after the end of the predetermined period. The reservoir sections may communicate with a single compartment to which compressed air is delivered via a single air inlet to pressurise the ink in the reservoir sections, a baffle being positioned over the air inlet within the compartment to distribute incoming air evenly over all the reservoir sections. The reservoir sections are preferably defined within a common body partitioned to divide the interior of the body into the reservoir sections, each partition defining an edge over which ink can overflow from a reservoir section on one side of the partition to a reservoir section on the other side of the partition.
Preferably, each reservoir section has housed within it a float which supports a magnets displacement of the float by a changing ink level causing displacement of the magnet relative to a magnetic field sensor supported in a wall of the reservoir section, the magnetic field sensor providing an output indicating a demand for ink if the magnet assumes a predetermined position relative to the magnetic field sensor. The magnetic field sensor may be a Hall effect device. The float and magnet may be supported on an arm pivotally mounted on the reservoir section wall, or the float and magnet may be supported on an arm pivotally mounted on a lid of the reservoir.
Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
The air supply device 4 is supplied with compressed air via a conduit 7, the supply of air being controlled by a solenoid-actuated valve 8. When the valve 8 is open, the air curtain 5 is established so as to sweep any ink or contaminants on the orifice plate 2 towards a gap 9 defined between a downstream edge 10 of the orifice plate and an upstream edge 11 of the deflector plate 6. Ink swept from the orifice plate 2 is directed by the flow of air into the gap 9 and thereafter flows downwards under gravity to drip from a drip point 12 on the lower edge of the deflector plate 6. Such ink is collected in a collector 13.
As shown in
The upstream edge 11 of the deflector plate 6 is set back from the orifice plate surface 2, the edge 11 lying on a plane indicated by line B in
The deflector plate 6 extends in a direction parallel to a plane indicated by line C, the plane C being inclined to the plane of the orifice plate 2 by an angle α which in the illustrated embodiment is approximately 20° but will generally be in the range of 10° to 35°. The deflector plate 6 has a width (the dimension in the direction away from the printhead parallel to the line C) of approximately 5 mm. The downstream edge of the plate 6 is cut back to define the angle β shown in
The downstream edge of the plate 6 is cut back in order to improve the flow of air over the orifice plate 2. When printing for example a cardboard box which defines a flat surface close to the printhead assembly, the presence of the box increases air flow resistance. If the downstream edge of the plate 6 was not cut back such that an extensive surface was defined extending parallel to the plane A (corresponding to the sum of the angles α and β being equal to 180°), a small elongate gap would be defined between the printhead assembly and the box downstream of the plate 6. Such a gap would result in air flow resistance that could disrupt the flow of the air curtain across the orifice plate 2.
The conduit 19 is coupled to the ink collector 13 by a conduit 25 leading to a pump 26, a conduit 27 into which the pump 26 delivers ink from the collector 13, and a filtering unit 28 which ensures that only ink which is sufficiently clean for re-use is deliver to the reservoir 14.
The pressure of air supplied to the air supply device 4 will typically be of the order of 3 bar (300,000 Pa). The valve 8 will either be closed or fully open so as to deliver the supply pressure to the interior of the air supply device 4. The compressed air delivered to the valve 8 will be appropriately regulated to maintain the desired pressure and the supplied air will be appropriately cleared and filtered. The same supply of air is used to deliver compressed air to conduit 22 connected to valve 21, but the pressure applied to the surface of the ink in the reservoir 14 may be limited as described with reference to
The valves 8 and 21 and the pump 26 are controlled by a controller 29. When a substrate is to be printed the valve 8 is closed and the valve 21 is closed. Thus no air flows across the orifice plate 2 and there is therefore no risk of projected jets of ink being deflected from their intended path. At a time when not printing, a purge procedure is executed in which initially the valve 8 is opened so as to establish a flow of air across the orifice plate 2 and then the valve 21 is opened to apply a positive pressure to the ink within the reservoir 14, causing ink to be discharged out of the orifices 3 onto the surface of the orifice plate 2. That ink is then displaced by the air flowing across the orifice plate and gathers in the gap 9 on the downstream side of the orifice plate. The flow of air across the orifice plate 2 is then cut off by closing the valve 8. The printer is then ready for the next printing cycle. It may take some time for ink to run down into the collector 13 but as it is retained in the gap 9 on the downstream side of the orifice plate 2 this does not impede the normal operation of the printer. The pump 26 is used to periodically transfer ink from the collector 13 to the reservoir 14. For example, the pump 26 may be turned on for a predetermined period after each purge procedure.
The time which elapses between initiation of a purge procedure and delivery of substantially all of the purged ink to the gap 9 is the sum of the duration of the period within which ink is purged from the orifices in the orifice plate 2 and the period of time taken for the purged ink to be swept into the gap 9. Minimisation of the period for which positive pressure is applied to ink in the reservoir is therefore desirable and accordingly as illustrated in
The upper half of
The lower half of
The performance represented in
It will be noted that there is a delay of several milliseconds after the valve 21 begins to draw current (time t1) before the valve 21 starts to open, but thereafter the valve opens quickly and the pressure in the reservoir inlet 20 rises rapidly. The rate of rise of the pressure tails off as the pressure rises towards the supply pressure in conduit 22. Given this tail off in the rate of pressure rise, and the short duration of the pressure pulse, the maximum pressure applied to the ink reservoir may be substantially below the supply pressure, e.g. only 0.5 bar with a supply pressure of 1 bar. Similarly, there is a delay after the current to valve 21 begins to fall (time t2) before the valve 21 starts to close. Once the valve 21 begins to close, there is an initial rapid fall in the pressure within inlet 20, but thereafter there is a relatively slow fall off in the pressure within inlet 20 as air flows out through the restrictor 24. The initial rapid fall in pressure reduces the period for which ink is being purged, whereas the subsequent slow fall in pressure avoids problems with jet de-priming.
In the case illustrated in
Although a pressure pulse of only 30 ms duration is preferred, even with such a short duration pulse ink may continue to be purged from the printhead orifices for a substantial period dependent upon the hydrodynamic characteristics of the overall assembly. For example, ink may still be purged more than 100 ms after termination of the pressure pulse. The air curtain which cleans the orifice plate should be maintained for a sufficient duration to ensure that all purged ink has been displaced off the orifice plate, for example for a duration of 200 ms or 300 ms. The more efficient the cleaning the better, as the risk of dust sticking to the orifice plate is reduced. In a very dirty environment, a decision might be taken to maintain the air curtain except during printing, although there will be a trade-off between cleaning efficiency and the cost of compressed air supplying the air curtain.
The collector 13 is shaped so as to cause collected ink to run backwards away from the front wall portions 30 and 31 and into a cup-shaped sump from where it is sucked away by the pump 26 (
The collector 13 may be modified to support components which enable detection of a problem resulting in overflow of the collector 13 and detection of products moving in close proximity to the orifice plate 2. As shown in
The emitter 32 and detector 33 are connected to the controller 29 of
Thus the emitter/detector pair as shown in
In the embodiment of the invention illustrated in
Each reservoir section is provided with a sensor arrangement schematically represented in
The volumes of ink which are discharged from and delivered to the various reservoir sections are relatively small. As a result, if for example the lowermost section 36 required refilling and ink was pumped continuously into the uppermost section until the lowermost section 36 was full, it could be that so much ink would have been delivered to the uppermost section by the time that the lowermost section 36 was full that the lowermost section could overflow once all the ink already delivered had overflowed down to the lowermost section. To avoid this happening, ink can be delivered to the upper most section 35 in a controlled manner. For example, whenever a demand for ink is signalled by one of the sensors 41, a controlled volume of ink could be delivered, the volume being limited to ensure that overflow cannot occur. If after a predetermined delay a demand for ink is still indicated the same volume could again be delivered, the cycle being repeated until such time as the signal indicating a demand for ink has disappeared. For example ink could be pumped into the uppermost reservoir section for a set period and then the delivery of ink could be arrested for a second set period. Such a procedure avoids the risk of overflow.
In use, when ink is purged from the orifices 60 and a curtain of air is directed across the orifice plate 59, that air pushes the purged ink to the downstream edge 64 of the orifice plate 59 and the ink flows through a gap defined between that downstream edge 64 and an upstream edge 65 of the deflection plate 56 so as to enter a collection channel 66 defined behind the deflector plate 56. Ink then flows down the channel 66 for collection and re-circulation. A substantial volume of ink can be retained within the channel 66 so that, even if a relatively large volume of ink is purged onto the orifice plate 59, all of that volume can be deflected into and retained within the channel 66 pending the downward flow of the retained ink into the ink collector at the foot of the deflector plate 56. In the illustrated embodiment, the gap between the edges 64 and 65 is 1 mm, and the channel 66 into which that gap opens has a rectangular cross-section with a length of 4 mm and a width of 1 mm.
Ink flowing down the channel 66 flows onto a projection 67 arranged over a cavity formed in the base of the assembly which forms an ink collection vessel. A grub screw is positioned within that vessel which can be manually adjusted so as to just touch the projection 67 onto which ink flows, thereby facilitating the flow of ink into the collector and minimising the risk of a large drop of ink forming at the base of the channel 66 and thereby minimising the risk of the channel 66 becoming filled with ink so that some ink could emerge in the forwards direction from the channel 66.
Referring now to
The mode of operation of the arrangement illustrated in
The casing 68 shown in
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|U.S. Classification||347/22, 347/10, 347/68|
|International Classification||B41J2/165, B41J2/045, B41J29/38|
|Cooperative Classification||B41J2/16552, B41J2/16526|
|European Classification||B41J2/165C3, B41J2/165C1P|
|28 Aug 2006||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: ZIPHER LIMITED, UNITED KINGDOM
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:BROWN, STEVEN ROBERT;MCNESTRY, MARTIN;BUCKBY, STEVEN JOHN;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:018190/0168
Effective date: 20040115
|14 Mar 2013||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|14 May 2013||SULP||Surcharge for late payment|