Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd

Zamtec Limited

Brian Christopher Morahan

Kia Silverbrook

John Robert Sheahan

Michael John Webb

Mark Jackson Pulver

Alireza Moini

Timothy Peter Gillespie

Marcelle Louisa Gannon

Angus John North

Brian Robert Brown

Richard Thomas Plunkett

Roger Mervyn Lloyd Foote

An inkjet printhead that has a support member, and a plurality of printhead IC's mounted adjacent each other on the support member. Each of the printhead IC's has an array of nozzles for ejecting drops of printing fluid onto a media substrate, and drive circuitry for driving the array of nozzles. A print engine controller (PEC) sends print data to each of the printhead IC's and the drive circuitry extracts a clock signal from the data transmission from the PEC.

Printhead with controller for generating combined print data and clock signal

A printhead IC is provided having an array of ejection nozzles, sensing circuitry for sensing temperatures of regions of the nozzle array, and drive circuitry for providing drive pulses to the nozzles to cause ejection. The drive circuitry is configured to set a different profile of the drive pulses for each region of the nozzle array in accordance with the sensed temperatures.

Printhead IC having temperature based ejection

An inkjet printer that has a printhead IC an array of nozzles for ejecting drops of printing fluid onto a media substrate and drive circuitry for driving the array of nozzles and, a print engine controller (PEC) for sending print data to the printhead IC. The drive circuitry is configured to extract a clock signal from the data transmission from the PEC.

Printer with controller for generating combined print data and clock signal

An inkjet printer comprising: an array of nozzles arranged into rows, each row of nozzles is divided into a series of groups; and, drive circuitry for sending a drive pulse to each of the nozzles individually such that they eject a drop of printing fluid; wherein, the drive circuitry delays sending the drive pulses to one of the groups relative to at least one of the other groups.

Printhead IC with staggered nozzle firing pulses

A printhead IC is provided having an ejection nozzle, drive circuitry for generating drive signals for driving the ejection nozzle, and a temperature sensor connected to the drive circuitry. The drive circuitry adjusts the drive signals in response to output of the temperature sensor so as to generate the drive signals as print signals and de-clog signals. The de-clog signals have a longer duration than the print signals.

Printhead IC with temperature based de-clog ejection

A printhead IC comprising: an array of nozzles; an ejection actuator corresponding to each of the nozzles respectively, the ejection actuator having a resistive heater that is activated when the actuator ejects ink through the corresponding nozzle; drive circuitry for receiving print data and activating the actuators with drive signals in accordance with the print data; and, open actuator test circuitry for selectively disabling the actuators when they receive a drive signal while comparing the resistance of the resistive heater to a predetermined threshold to assess whether the actuator is defective.

Printhead IC with open actuator test

A printhead IC comprising: an array of nozzles having a plurality of adjacent regions; and, drive circuitry for sending an electrical pulse to each of the nozzles individually such that they eject a drop of printing fluid; and, a plurality of temperature sensors for sensing the temperature of the printhead IC within each of the regions respectively.

Printhead IC with multiple temperature sensors

A printhead IC is provided having ejection nozzles, drive circuitry for sending drive pulses to resistive heaters of the nozzles to cause ejection from the nozzles, sensing circuitry being activated to sense the temperature of the printhead IC and adjust the profile of the sent drive pulses in accordance with the sensed temperature and being de-activated after a period of use, and test circuitry for selectively disabling the resistive heaters when they receive the drive pulses while comparing the resistance of the resistive heaters against a predetermined threshold to assess whether the resistive heaters are defective.

Printhead integrated circuit having sensing and test circuitry

Provided is a print engine controller for an inkjet printhead with a plurality of nozzle arrangements operatively actuated by thermal actuators. The controller has controller circuitry with an open actuator test circuit to test each respective actuator. The controller circuitry includes an open actuator test input, a column enable input and a row enable input, as well as a drive transistor operatively linking said thermal actuator to a power supply. The circuitry also includes a bleed transistor arranged in parallel with the thermal actuator, and a sense transistor operatively linking an output of the drive transistor and inputs of the thermal actuator and bleed transistor to a sensing node. The controller circuitry is configured so that when only the column enable and row enable inputs are activated the bleed and sense transistors are deactivated and the drive transistor is activated to link the thermal actuator to the power supply.

Print engine controller having controller circuitry with an open actuator test circuit

A printhead IC for receiving print data from a print engine controller (PEC) which may be one of a plurality of different types of PEC. The printhead IC has an array of nozzles for ejecting drops of printing fluid onto a media substrate and drive circuitry for driving the array of nozzles. The drive circuitry is configured for connection to a power source in the printer. The drive circuitry is configured to reset itself to a known initial state in response to receiving power from the power source after a period of not receiving power from the power source.

Printhead IC with multiple operating modes

A printhead IC is provided having an ejection nozzle having a heater for heating printing fluid, and drive circuitry for generating print pulses and maintenance pulses for driving the heater of the ejection nozzle. The maintenance pulses have a series of sub-ejection pulses preceding a de-clog pulse. The print signals are generated to heat the heater to form a first vapor bubble in printing fluid that causes ejection of the printing fluid from the nozzle. The de-clog pulse is generated to have lower power and longer duration than the print pulses so as to heat the heaters to form a second vapor bubble in the printing fluid which does not cause ejection. The sub-ejection pulses are generated to have lower power than the print pulses and shorter duration than the de-clog pulse so as to heat the heater without sufficient energy to nucleate a vapor bubble in the printing fluid.

Printhead IC with non-ejection maintenance

Provided is a printhead integrated circuit for an inkjet printer that has a nozzle and a corresponding actuator for ejecting ink through the nozzle. The Printhea IC also has drive circuitry for controlling the operation of the actuator. The drive circuitry has an open actuator test circuit comprising an open actuator test input, a column enable input and a row enable input, a drive transistor operatively linking said actuator to a power supply, a bleed transistor arranged in parallel with the actuator, a sense transistor operatively linking an output of the drive transistor and inputs of the actuator and bleed transistor to a sensing node. Actuating the actuator to eject ink by enabling the column and row enable inputs, deactivates the bleed transistor and activates the drive transistor to link the actuator to the power supply. Testing the actuator involves enabling the open actuator test input to activate the sense transistor, so that the actuator is short-circuited and the sense node is pulled high if the actuator is open-circuit.

Printhead integrated circuit with open actuator test

A printhead IC comprising: an array of nozzles; and, drive circuitry for receiving print data and sending drive pulses to the nozzles in accordance with the print data; wherein, the drive pulses consist of ejection pulses with sufficient energy to eject printing fluid from the nozzles designated to fire at that time, and sub-ejection pulses with insufficient energy to eject printing fluid from the nozzles not designated to fire at that time.

Printhead with sub-ejection pulse for non-firing nozzles

A printhead IC comprising: an array of nozzles; drive circuitry for receiving print data and fire commands from a print engine controller; wherein during use, the drive circuitry receives the print data for the array in a plurality of sequential portions with a fire command at the end of each portion.

Printhead IC with multi-stage print data loading and firing

An inkjet printer comprising: an array of nozzles arranged into rows, each row consisting of a plurality of nozzle groups, the nozzles in each group being interspersed with nozzles from the other groups; and, associated drive circuitry for actuating the nozzles in the row in accordance with a firing sequence, the firing sequence enabling the nozzles in each group to eject printing fluid simultaneously, and enabling each of the groups to eject printing fluid in succession; wherein, the nozzles in each group are spaced from each other by at least a predetermined minimum number of nozzles and, each of the nozzles in a group is spaced from the nozzles in the subsequently enabled group by at least the predetermined minimum number of nozzles.

Growing community of inventors

Balmain, Australia

Brian Christopher Morahan