Point-of-incidence ink-curing mechanism for radial printing

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for curing or drying of individual ink objects, dynamically during the radial printing process, at the ink object's point of incidence are described. Mechanisms for curing or drying ink objects, dynamically during the radial printing process, at the ink object's point of incidence, reducing ink object migration while the ink is wet, caused from inherent centrifugal forces and secondary air turbulence during the radial printing process, reducing image distortion, resulting in a more clearly printed image, such as on a spinning CD, are disclosed.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 10 / 125,777, filed Apr. 17, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,854,841, which is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 09 / 062,300, filed on Apr. 17, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,295, application Ser. No. 10 / 125,777 claims the benefit of provisional Application No. 60 / 284,605, filed Apr. 17, 2001. These referenced applications and patents are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety for all purposes.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to fluid dispensing devices and mechanisms for curing or drying fluid dispensed from such devices. More particularly, it concerns dynamically curing or drying individual ink objects, at the point of incidence on the media, to avoid their displacement during the process of radial printing, wherein the media is spinning, such as with a CD disc. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] In the art of dispensing fluidic ink ob...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a printing system for radially printing onto a rotating media using point-of-incidence techniques. The system includes a dispensement mechanism for dispensing ink objects onto the media while it rotates, and a curing mechanism for drying or curing the ink objects at the point-of-incidence. The curing mechanism focuses energy on the ink objects, reducing the impact of heat and size limitations. The system also reduces image distortion and build-up of excess heat by using a small solid-state laser as the curing mechanism. The ink object is a singular drop of ink, and the ink dispensement mechanisms are arranged to dispense the ink object onto an area that includes a radius of the rotating media. The technical effects of this invention include reduced impact of heat and size limitations, improved image quality, reduced noise, and more compact design.

Problems solved by technology

Conventional mechanisms for ink curing, drying, and migration typically result in image distortion.

Other inks, such as polymers, require irradiation by intense doses of ultra violet (UV) light, often creating unwelcomed excessive heat from the irradiance lamps.

With traditional silk screening used to apply UV curable polymer inks, larger volumes of inks are used versus radial printing, thus creating higher concentrations of unwelcomed toxic outgases, necessitating this be done in industrial settings usually with exhaust fans to remove and treat the gases.

Other techniques include using drying fans to move air over a freshly inked surface; however, if air blasts are too intense, this method can also migrate the ink objects, causing distortion.

Heaters usually irradiate a large portion or the entire area of the media surface with infrared (IR) energy, also often creating unwelcomed excessive heat from the IR source device.

Since most radial printing is done in devices intended for offices or homes, reducing the unwelcomed side effects of these traditionally ink curing or drying becomes a more challenging design task when developing an integrated CD recording, radial printing device.

The process of implementing radial printing devices reveals new specific issues and problems when considering components used to traditionally cure or dry ink, such as: (1) Too much heat is built up within the device, generated by the curing or drying element, due to the confined space of the relatively small packaging area within or in near proximity to a CD or DVD recording device; (2) Air turbulence and eddy currents caused from the media spinning, especially induced by the near proximity of the print head hovering directly over the media surface; and (3) Centrifugal force, resulting from the media spinning between 360 RPM at 1×CD spinning rates, to over 14,400 RPM and higher with increasing spinning rates of 40× or more.

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