Parallel Conveyance Passages for Ink Drying in Printers
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Solution Overview
Problem
In image forming apparatuses, particularly in commercial printing, the drying time of liquid ink on sheets is often longer than the image formation time, necessitating the use of multiple conveyance passages with drying functions, which can be inefficient and costly due to the need for multiple drying units.
Innovation Solution
A conveying device with multiple parallel conveyance passages, conveyors, a conveyance passage guide, a sensor to detect the conveyance object, and circuitry to manage retention time and conveyance, allowing for efficient distribution and drying of sheets across available passages, and adjusting the order of image forming processes based on drying requirements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple conveyance passages with drying functions are provided, then drying capacity is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
A single drying unit is designed to serve multiple conveyance passages through selective deployment. The drying unit can be positioned in different passages based on real-time needs, allowing one unit to perform the drying function across multiple passages rather than requiring dedicated drying units for each passage.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically assigns drying units to specific conveyance passages based on real-time detection of conveyed objects and drying requirements. The drying unit's position and activation are not fixed but can be adjusted dynamically, allowing flexible resource allocation and reducing the total number of drying units needed.
2Manufacturing precision
If drying time is extended, then image quality is improved, but productivity decreases
Solution Approach 1:
While one conveyed object is undergoing drying in a conveyance passage, other passages continue to transport new objects through the system. The drying process occurs continuously alongside ongoing conveyance operations, ensuring that image quality requirements are met without creating bottlenecks that would reduce overall productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The drying process is segmented across multiple conveyance passages, allowing different objects to be dried in different passages simultaneously. This parallel processing approach enables multiple drying operations to occur at the same time, maintaining image quality standards while increasing total throughput.
Data Source
AI summary
A conveying device includes a plurality of conveyance passages, a plurality of conveyors, a conveyance passage guide, a conveyance sensor, a conveyance availability detector, and circuitry. The conveyance passages are disposed in parallel to each other. Each conveyors is disposed in corresponding one of the conveyance passages. The circuitry is configured to: set a set retention time for which a conveyance object is to be retained in available one of the conveyance passages; control one of the conveyors to convey and stop conveying the conveyance object guided by the conveyance passage guide; measure a retention time of the conveyance object conveyed in the available one of the conveyance passages; and cause the one of the conveyors to eject the conveyance object from the available one of the conveyance passages in a case in which the retention time of the conveyance object is longer than the set retention time.