Printer System Sliding Axes Control for Printing Evenness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing printer systems face inefficiencies in printing time and evenness, particularly when dealing with objects that require varying printing efforts across their surfaces, as they lack advanced control mechanisms for optimizing the movement of print heads along multiple axes.
Innovation Solution
The printer system incorporates a control device that manages the movement of first and second sliding axes, allowing them to be moved together or individually in the transport direction, with adjustable speeds and distances, ensuring even or uneven printing efforts are distributed efficiently across the object's surface, and includes multiple print heads with their own traversing devices for parallel processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple print heads are used to print different areas of the object simultaneously, then printing productivity is improved, but printing evenness deteriorates due to difficulty in synchronizing the movement of multiple sliding axes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the control of multiple sliding axes by making them share a common displacement device. This allows the sliding axes to be displaced together in the transport direction, ensuring they maintain synchronized positions and print at the same speed, thereby resolving the contradiction between using multiple print heads for productivity and maintaining printing evenness.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the sliding axes are moved individually to optimize printing on uneven surfaces, then printing adaptability is improved, but printing time increases due to lack of parallel movement
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic control system where the displacement device can adapt its operation based on the object's surface characteristics. For uneven surfaces, the control device allows individual sliding axes to move independently to their optimal positions. The system dynamically adjusts between collective and individual movement modes, maintaining adaptability while minimizing printing time through optimized control sequences.
3Speed
If the sliding axes are moved faster than the object in the transport direction to reach next print lines, then positioning speed is improved, but printing synchronization deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a feedback control mechanism where the control device continuously monitors the positions of the sliding axes and the object. When sliding axes need to reach next print lines, the system calculates the required displacement and timing, then executes coordinated movement. The feedback ensures that even when moving faster than the object, the axes maintain proper synchronization with the print lines and with each other, preventing desynchronization.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates, inter alia, to a printing apparatus (10), comprising: - a transport device, which is suitable for moving an object (20) to be printed on through a printing portion of the printing apparatus (10) in a predefined transport direction (T); - a first printing head (D1) for depositing a viscous printing material, the first printing head (D1) being slidable along a first sliding axis (S1), which is perpendicular to the transport direction (T), by means of a first printing-head moving apparatus; and - a second printing head (D2) for depositing the viscous printing material, the second printing head (D2) being slidable along a second sliding axis (S2), which is parallel to the first sliding axis (S1) and is offset in the transport direction (T), by means of a second printing-head moving apparatus. According to the invention, the first and the second sliding axes (S1, S2) can each be moved in the transport direction (T) by means of a moving apparatus controllable by a control apparatus (12).