International Business Machines Corporation

David Chan-Wai Lo

George J Fan

Joseph W Mitchell

A vector magnetic ink jet printer is arranged so that the ink droplets in the initial jet stream are alternately selected (i.e., magnetized) and unselected (unmagnetized). The interposition of unselected droplets between selected droplets prevents undesired magnetic interactions between selected droplets and gives them optimum spacing before they are deposited upon the recording surface, while at the same time keeping all of the droplets in sufficiently close proximity to give the stream aerodynamic stability. The gutter or catcher for unselected droplets is located between the second axial deflector (X deflector) and the recording surface. The magnetic field of the second deflector is specially shaped so that it can effectively control the trajectories of all selected droplets that have passed through the field of the first axial deflector (Y deflector), but without affecting the trajectories of unselected droplets aimed at the gutter. The selected and unselected droplets form separate substreams which have sufficient angular divergence in the X direction for enabling the unselected droplets to be guttered without excessively spreading their individual trajectories along that axis, since they are not affected by the X deflecting field, but the divergence is not great enough to disrupt the aerodynamic stabilizing action of each substream upon the other.

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W. Hurley, NY, United States of America

David Chan-Wai Lo