Inkjet Printer Gap Variation Timing Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Inkjet printers face challenges in accurately dispensing ink droplets onto wave-shaped recording sheets due to varying gaps between the ink discharge surface and the recording sheet, leading to deviations in ink landing positions and resulting in low-quality printed images.
Innovation Solution
An inkjet printer system that includes an inkjet head, a head moving unit, a wave shape generating mechanism, a gap variation storing unit, and a control device to determine appropriate ink discharge timings based on gap variation information, ensuring ink droplets are dispensed at correct positions by adjusting the time interval between discharges.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the recording sheet is held in a wave shape to improve sheet handling, then the recording sheet can be securely held and fed, but the gap between the ink discharge surface and the recording sheet varies causing ink landing position deviations
Solution Approach 1:
The control device determines appropriate ink discharge timings in advance based on gap variation information stored in the gap variation storing unit. By pre-calculating and storing the relationship between recording sheet positions and optimal ink discharge timings, the system compensates for gap variations before printing occurs, ensuring accurate ink placement despite the wave shape of the recording sheet.
2Manufacturing precision
If ink discharge timing is adjusted to compensate for gap variations, then ink landing position accuracy improves, but the inkjet head operation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-determines and stores appropriate ink discharge timings in the gap variation storing unit based on gap variation information. This preliminary preparation allows the control device to simply retrieve and apply the predetermined timings during printing, avoiding complex real-time calculations while maintaining high ink placement accuracy.
3Manufacturing precision
If the time interval between successive ink discharge moments is increased to account for head operation time, then ink placement accuracy improves, but printing productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The control device dynamically adjusts the time interval between successive ink discharge moments based on the specific gap variation information for each recording sheet position. By optimizing each time interval individually rather than using a uniform conservative interval, the system ensures accurate ink placement while minimizing unnecessary delays, thus maintaining higher printing productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
An inkjet printer is provided that includes a control device configured to determine ink discharge moments to sequentially discharge ink droplets from a specific one of nozzles, in such a manner that a time interval between any two successive ones of the ink discharge moments is longer than a predetermined time period required for an operation to be executed by an inkjet head when forming a single dot, based on gap variation information related to a variation, in a scanning direction, of a gap between an ink discharge surface and a recording sheet held in a wave shape.