Hewlett-packard Company

Dean A Gaylor

Michael S Millman

Stephen G Brown

Robert M Yraceburu

John A Barinaga

Michael K Bowen

Michael W Munro

Angela S Chen

Paul M O'Brien

Richard Olson

Alan Shibata

Todd R Medin

Le Gia Pham

Tanya Vesta Burmeister

A flipping wiper scraper system for cleaning several inkjet printheads in an inkjet printing mechanism has a wiper support mechanism which moves several elastomeric wipers across the printheads to wipe off accumulations of ink residue. This ink residue is then scraped off of the wipers to ready them for the next wiping stroke using a scraper system. The wiper support mechanism inverts the wipers to engage scraper bars of the scraper system. The scraper bars have scraping heads and capillary channels to draw liquid ink residue away from the heads through capillary forces. The scraper bars are arranged so only one or two wipers are scraped at any given time to reduce noise and quiet overall unit operation. A method of cleaning an inkjet printhead, along with an inkjet printing mechanism having such a flipping wiper scraper system are also provided.

Flipping wiper scraper system for inkjet printheads

A single-pass wiping system is provided for cleaning ink residue from an inkjet printhead in an inkjet printing mechanism. The wiper system includes a platform moveable through a wiping stroke, along with a first wiper blade and a second wiper blade each supported by the platform. A third intermediate wiper blade is supported by the platform between the first wiper blade and the second wiper blade to wipe ink residue from the printhead during a unidirectional wiping stroke through contact first with the first wiper blade, followed by contact with the third wiper blade, followed by contact with the second wiper blade. An inkjet printing mechanism is provided with a single-pass wiping system as described above, along with a method is provided for cleaning ink residue from an inkjet printhead in an inkjet printing mechanism.

Single-pass wiping system for inkjet printheads

A transferring spittoon system is provided for an inkjet printing mechanism to handle waste inkjet ink that has been spit from an inkjet printhead during a nozzle clearing, purging or &ldquo;spitting&rdquo; routine. A rotating spit wheel receives ink residue spit from the printhead. A scraper removes the residue from the spit wheel and directs the residue into a temporary storage container. A transfer mechanism transports the ink residue from the temporary storage container to a permanent storage container. A second scraper may be used to remove the residue from the transfer mechanism and direct the residue into the permanent storage container. The transfer mechanism may be a rotating auger, a conveyor belt, or a turntable. A method of purging ink residue from an inkjet printhead, along with an inkjet printing mechanism having such a transferring spittoon system, are also provided.

Transferring spittoon system for waste inkjet ink

Auxiliary sheet feeder for an inkjet printer

Inkjet printer with an auxiliary sheet feeder

Inkjet printer

Growing community of inventors

Vancouver, WA, United States of America

Dean A Gaylor