2270 results about "Ink printer" patented technology

An inkjet print head includes one nozzle sheet (23) and a plurality of head chips (25) including a plurality of heaters. The nozzle sheet (23) is formed of an electroformed metal layer made of nickel or a material comprising nickel, and has discharge nozzle rows for respective colors disposed so that the discharge nozzles are in staggered arrangements and so that each set of discharge nozzles partly overlaps another set of discharge nozzles in a sheet-feed direction. The head chips are positioned at and affixed to a growth surface side of the nozzle sheet (23) in staggered arrangements so that the positions of the discharge nozzles and the positions of the heaters correspond to each other. Accordingly, reduction in printing quality caused by displacement of any of the discharge nozzles is prevented from occurring, and landing positions of discharged ink on a recording sheet are stabilized.

A low ink sensing system is combined with an ink cartridge detection system to enable a more efficient ink jet printer. An ink container which supplies ink to an associated printhead is modified by the incorporation of two light directing elements, in the preferred embodiment, a faceted prism and a roof mirror, into a transparent wall of the container housing. The cartridge, comprising the ink container and associated printhead, is mounted on a scan carriage. Periodically, the carriage is conveyed to a sensing station comprising a pair of light sources and a commonly used photosensor. A first light source is energized and a beam of light is directed to a location where the roof mirror, would be positioned if the cartridge is present. If the cartridge is absent, lack of a reflected return signal is sensed, indicating a cartridge has not been inserted. Print operation is halted until a cartridge is inserted. If a cartridge is properly inserted, the roof mirror returns most of the incident light to the photosensor which generates a signal indicating the presence of the cartridge. A second light source is then energized and directed towards the faceted prism, which is either immersed in ink or exposed to air within the interior of the container. If the latter, light is internally reflected by the prism facets back to the photosensor. If a print operation has been in progress, and the ink level has fallen, the common photosensor detects either a strong or weak redirected light component and initiates a status check and generates appropriate displays of low ink level or out of ink warnings.

An inkjet printing system includes a replaceable printhead having plural nozzles for ejecting ink droplets, a service station for capping and wiping the plural nozzles, and a replaceable ink cartridge housing a supply of ink and further including a cartridge memory for recording service station-control data. A processor is coupled to the ink cartridge memory and is responsive to service station-control data read from the cartridge memory to derive a service station control value. The printhead further includes a memory which records printhead-related parameters, and the processor is responsive thereto and service station-control data read from said cartridge memory to control the service station. The control data may be service station parameters, one or more subroutines to control the service station and combinations thereof.

In an ink jet printer of the present invention, in order to reduce the manufacturing cost, an inexpensive EEPROM enabling only sequential accesses is applied for storage elements incorporated in a black ink cartridge and a color ink cartridge. The data array of a memory cell included in each of the storage elements mounted on the ink cartridges is determined in such a manner that a second storage area, in which rewritable data, for example, data on remaining quantities of inks in the ink cartridge, are stored, is accessed prior to a first storage area, in which read only data are stored. This configuration enables the rewritable data to be securely written into the second storage area even after a power-off operation. The second storage area has two memory divisions allocated to each ink, that is, a first ink remaining quantity memory division and a second ink remaining quantity memory division. Latest data on the remaining quantity of each ink is alternately written into these two memory divisions. Alternatively, the latest data on the remaining quantity of each ink is written into these two memory divisions in a duplicated manner. Each ink remaining quantity memory division has a write complete flag to determine whether or not a writing operation has been completed normally in the ink remaining quantity memory division. This arrangement enables the remaining quantities of the respective inks to be monitored accurately and continuously.

A printer head of an ink jet printer is provided with an internal stimulation system with which it is possible to create in an upstream breaking position of a jet, an upstream break-up forming in a zero potential area, drops which will be used for printing, and jet sections on the one hand and in a downstream breaking position, a break-up of the jet or of sections of the jet forming in a non-zero potential area, drops which are recovered on the other hand. A sorting system common to all the jets of the head provides simplification of the head and reduction of its bulkiness.

An ink-jet printer includes a rotary drum for carrying a print sheet, a print head arranged above the rotary drum for printing an image by ejecting ink onto the print sheet, a washing board facing the print head to wash an end surface of the print head with ink ejected from the print head, and a control unit for controlling at a non-printing time the washing board to be set at a cleaning position located between the print head and the rotary drum and the print head to eject ink therefrom. Particularly, the washing board has grooves which receives an entire end surface of the print head and a drain section for draining the ink ejected from the print head and flowing in contact with the end surface of the print head within the groove section.

A hardcopy printing mechanism and a greeting card feeder retrofit kit therefor, along with a retrofitting method are provided for printing images on a first-sized media, and on both surfaces a second-sized greeting card media without removing the first-sized media from its normal supply tray. The hardcopy device may be an electrophotographic or inkjet printer preferably equipped with a duplexer module which inverts media from a printed first surface to an opposing second surface for printing an image thereon. For a printer having an alignment surface, and a width adjuster to push the first-sized media against the alignment surface, the greeting card feeder includes a biasing member which pushes the card stock against the alignment surface. The retrofit kit includes a supply of pre-scored greeting card stock and a software program with a group of greeting card images for a consumer to select from to print store-bought quality greeting cards.

An ink jet printer comprises at least one ink jet head, in which plural nozzles are arranged in an array in a main scan direction, and eject a droplet of ink to recording material respectively at an ejected amount according to information of an image. Feeder rollers feed the recording material relative to the ink jet head in a sub scan direction, to print the image to the recording material two-dimensionally. A thermal head includes plural heating elements arranged in an array in the main scan direction, for applying heat to the recording material respectively in a heating region. A system controller sets drying heat energy according to the ejected amount, and drives the thermal head to apply the drying heat energy to the heating region, to promote drying of the droplet in the heating region.

An ink supply unit including at least one ink storage chamber for holding ink for supply to a portable ink jet printing arrangement, the ink supply unit including a series of spaced apart baffles configured so as to reduce the acceleration of the ink within the unit as may be induced by movement of the portable printer, whilst allowing for flows of ink to the printing arrangement in response to active demand therefrom. Preferably there are several chambers for holding different color inks and are desirably formed through the injection molding of at least two separate parts which are preferably sealed together to form the ink supply unit.

A method is provided for reducing image artifacts in printers that employ two or more printhead nozzle banks that must be aligned and registered with respect to each other either through adjustment of orientation and / or position of one nozzle bank relative to another or through selective control of actuation. In the method, discrete dots are printed by the nozzle banks upon a target receiver medium. Examination of the receiver medium or a reproduction thereof is made by a scanner and information regarding location of the dots is generated. From information regarding location of the dots a determination is made of error placement of the dots from ideal locations. Alignment of the nozzle banks are made in accordance with any errors determined in placement.

The present invention provides a method for forming a flexographic printing plate that includes imagewise applying an image-forming material onto a substrate with an ink-jet printer to form a relief image, in which the image-forming material adheres to the surface of the substrate and resists deformation. The method of the present invention may further include treating the relief image.

An ink and ink set characterized in that both a combination of a specific wetting agent, penetrating agent, and water-soluble organic solvent and use of surfactant, particularly fluorine surfactant are enabled by using water dispersion in which polymer fine particles contain coloring material. Even when plain paper is printed at high speed by ink-jet recording by using this ink and ink set, the ink and ink set can realize a pigment ink for ink-jet recording, an ink set, an ink-jet recording method, ink cartridge, and recorder which have an excellent ejection stability and excellent preservability, and provide (1) good color tone, (2) high image density, (3) recorded image free of unsharpness near character or image and feathering and high in sharpness, (4) less boundary color bleedings between different colors, (5) image adaptable to both-side printing and causing less strike-throughs, and (6) image fastness such as water resistance and light resistance.