Printer With Interengaging Ink Cartridge and Printhead
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional inkjet printers with integral printheads are inflexible and slow, requiring replacement of the entire unit for maintenance and suffering from print quality issues due to nozzle malfunctions, while pagewidth printheads offer high-speed printing but require complex installation and maintenance.
Innovation Solution
A printer design featuring a replaceable pagewidth printhead cartridge with ink cartridges that both supply ink and secure the printhead, utilizing an overcentre mechanism for easy installation and a maintenance station for printhead maintenance, along with resilient connectors to accommodate thermal expansion and a pressure regulator to ensure consistent ink flow.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of repair
If the printhead is made integral with the printer body, then the printer structure is simple and reliable, but the printer cannot be easily maintained and replaced when nozzle malfunctions occur
Solution Approach 1:
The printhead is divided into a replaceable cartridge unit that can be easily removed from the printer body. This segmentation allows the printhead to be replaced independently when nozzle malfunctions occur, without replacing the entire printer unit, thus improving ease of repair while maintaining overall structural simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The printhead cartridge is extracted as a separate, removable component from the printer body. This extraction enables users to easily remove and replace the printhead when maintenance is needed, addressing the contradiction by providing simple user-friendly replacement while keeping the printer body structure relatively simple.
2Productivity
If a reciprocating printhead is used, then the printer can be compact, but printing speed is slow due to multiple swathes required to deposit one line
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of moving the printhead back and forth across stationary media (reciprocating mechanism), the design inverts the approach by using a stationary pagewidth printhead that receives moving media. This inversion eliminates the need for multiple swathes to deposit one line, dramatically increasing printing speed while simplifying the mechanical mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from a dynamic reciprocating printhead mechanism to a static pagewidth printhead with dynamic media transport. This dynamic approach allows the media to move continuously past the stationary printhead, enabling high-speed printing without the complexity of reciprocating motion control.
3Productivity
If a pagewidth printhead is used, then printing speed increases significantly, but the installation and maintenance becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The pagewidth printhead is segmented into a self-contained cartridge unit with integrated ink cartridges. This segmentation allows the entire printhead assembly to be easily inserted and removed as a single unit, maintaining installation simplicity despite the advanced pagewidth technology and high printing speed capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The printhead cartridge is designed as a universal, multi-functional unit that integrates the printhead, ink cartridges, and positioning mechanisms. This multi-functionality in a single removable unit simplifies installation and maintenance operations while enabling high-speed pagewidth printing, resolving the contradiction between performance and ease of operation.
4Manufacturing precision
If the printhead cartridge requires complex positioning mechanisms, then positioning precision is improved, but user effort and installation complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The printhead cartridge incorporates self-aligning and self-positioning features that automatically ensure precise positioning during insertion. The cartridge design includes geometric constraints and guiding mechanisms that enable the user to simply insert the cartridge without manual adjustment, while the system automatically achieves the required positioning precision through self-service alignment features.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Facilitates simple and secure installation of the printhead cartridge, maintains high print quality by allowing easy replacement of malfunctioning nozzles, and supports high-speed printing with reduced manufacturing complexity and user effort.
Implementation Method 1
resilient connectors to accommodate thermal expansion
Implementation Method 2
the cradle and the casing interact to form an over centre mechanism whereby, the printhead cartridge rotates against a bias prior until reaching a balance point, after which it is biased to rotate into the operative position
Data Source
AI summary
An inkjet printer that has a printer body, a printhead cartridge for installation in the printer body, and an ink cartridge for supplying the printhead cartridge with ink. The ink cartridge has an ink outlet valve and an air inlet, the ink outlet valve engaging an ink inlet valve on the printhead cartridge, and the air inlet engaging a complementary formation on the printer body to open the air inlet and locate the ink cartridge.