Seiko Epson Corporation

Hitoshi Hayakawa

Atsushi Kobayashi

Shigenori Fukasawa

Hisashi Miyazawa

Seiji Mochizuki

Takahiro Naka

Satoshi Shinada

Minoru Usui

Nobuhito Takahashi

Norihiro Maruyama

Masaru Takahashi

Kazuhisa Kawakami

Hitotoshi Kimura

Takeo Seino

Kazuhiko Hara

Shuhei Harada

Yoshiharu Aruga

Koichi Toba

Masahiro Isono

Masahiro Nakamura

Nobutoshi Ohtsuka

Kojiro Iizuka

Yoshiaki Shimizu

Takashi Mano

Shozo Kuwada

Toshio Kumagai

Yukihiro Hanaoka

Tatsuya Seshimo

Tsuyoshi Tomii

Hideki Okumura

Koji Harada

Takashi Akase

Hikonosuke Uwai

Tsutomu Kobayashi

Katsuhiro Komatsu

Mitsugu Ota

Kiyotaka Sema

A printer includes a cleaning mechanism that reliably performs an operation of cleaning a liquid ejecting head with a small amount of driving energy. The cleaning mechanism includes a cap manufactured by coinjection molding of a core part and an elastic part. The cap includes a bottom surface, an outer wall, and a partition wall dividing a cap inner space surrounded by the outer wall into two. A ratio of the elastic part in the partition wall is higher than that in the outer wall. With this structure, the partition wall is more elastically deformable than the outer wall. When the cap comes into contact with a nozzle surface of a recording head and covers nozzle rows, the outer wall comes into contact with the nozzle surface with a larger stress compared with the partition wall, and seals chambers where the nozzle rows on the nozzle surface are exposed.

Liquid ejecting apparatus

A valve unitis placed in an ink flow passagebetween an ink cartridgeand a recording headand can be controlled in association with the cleaning operation of the recording head. Under the control of a drive controller, the valve unitholds for a predetermined time a state in which negative pressure produced by a suction pump is accumulated, and is opened after the expiration of the predetermined time or is opened with the negative pressure accumulated and driving the suction pump is continued. The air bubbles remaining in a stuck state in the ink flow passage can be peeled from the ink flow passage together with an instantaneous fast ink flow produced as the valve unitis opened, and the peeled air bubbles can be discharged effectively from the ink flow passage following the subsequent ink flow.

Ink jet recording apparatus and cleaning control method for recording head incorporated therein

A printer includes a recording head having a nozzle through which ink is ejected onto a paper sheet and a waste tank in which the ink is retained as waste liquid after having been drained from the recording head. A deposit of the waste liquid is formed in the waste tank. The printer has a suction pump used for forcibly drawing and draining the ink from the nozzle. The suction pump functions also as a gas blasting device that blasts gas to the deposit in the waste tank for blowing off the deposit. This suppresses the amount of the ink consumed in maintenance of the printer.

Method for cleaning liquid ejection apparatus and liquid ejection apparatus

An ink cartridge for a printing apparatus providing ink to a print head through a tapered ink supply needle and removably attached to the print head. The ink cartridge comprises an ink chamber for containing ink, an ink supply port, a packing member and a valve device. The ink supply port supplies ink from the ink chamber to the print head of the printing apparatus, the ink supply port comprising an external opening. The packing member is provided in the ink supply port and forms an ink channel for allowing a flow of ink. The packing member seals the ink supply needle of the printing apparatus by fitting therewith. The valve device is contained in the ink supply port and elastically abuts against the packing member. The valve, device selectively opens and closes the ink channel in conjunction with the ink supply needle.

Ink-jet printing apparatus and ink cartridge

A valve unitis placed in an ink flow passagebetween an ink cartridgeand a recording headand can be controlled in association with the cleaning operation of the recording head. Under the control of a drive controller, the valve unitholds for a predetermined time a state in which negative pressure produced by a suction pump is accumulated, and is opened after the expiration of the predetermined time or is opened with the negative pressure accumulated and driving the suction pump is continued. The air bubbles remaining in a stuck state in the ink flow passage can be peeled from the ink flow passage together with an instantaneous fast ink flow produced as the valve unitis opened, and the peeled air bubbles can be discharged, effectively from the ink flow passage following the subsequent ink flow.

The recording medium guide member is placed along the main scanning direction scanned by the carriage mounted with a recording head, and ink-receiver holes for receiving ink discharged from the recording head are formed on the guide member in positions beyond the edges of the recording medium being conveyed. Ink absorbing materials are placed in said ink-receiver holes, and a discharged ink accumulating means that cumulatively counts the amount of ink discharged into the ink absorbing materials is provided. The amount of ink discharged into the ink-receiver holes can be controlled by the discharged ink accumulation means so that contamination of the left and right edges or the top and bottom as well as left and right edges of the recording medium, caused by excessive ink collecting in the ink-receiver holes, can be avoided.

Ink-jet recording apparatus

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes drive device for moving up a cap () of capping device () to a nozzle formation face seal position of a record head () and moving down the cap to a retreat position vertically downward from the nozzle formation face seal position. The drive device has a rack-pinion mechanism including racks (and) disposed on both side parts of a fixed frame and pinions (and) fixedly secured to both end parts of a support shaft () for guiding the support shaft in an up and down direction.

Liquid spraying device

An ink cartridge for a printing apparatus providing ink to a print head through a tapered ink supply needle and removably attached to the print head. The ink cartridge includes an ink chamber for containing ink, an ink supply port, a packing member and a valve device. The ink supply port supplies ink from the ink chamber to the print head of the printing apparatus, the ink supply port comprising an external opening. The packing member is provided in the ink supply port and forms an ink channel for allowing a flow of ink. The packing member seals the ink supply needle of the printing apparatus by fitting therewith. The valve device is contained in the ink supply port and elastically abuts against the packing member. The valve device selectively opens and closes the ink channel in conjunction with the ink supply needle.

An ink cartridge for a printing apparatus providing ink to a print head through a tapered ink supply needle and removably attached to the print head. The ink cartridge includes an ink chamber for containing ink, an ink supply port, a packing member and a valve device. The ink supply port supplies ink from the ink chamber to the print head of the printing apparatus, the ink supply port including an external opening. The packing member is provided in the ink supply port and forms an ink channel for allowing a flow of ink. The packing member seals the ink supply needle of the printing apparatus by fitting therewith. The valve device is contained in the ink supply port and elastically abuts against the packing member. The valve device selectively opens and closes the ink channel in conjunction with the ink supply needle.

Inkjet recording apparatus

An ink flow passage is formed from an ink storage chamber of an ink cartridge to an ink supply port. A passage control system is located in the ink flow passage. The passage control system is capable of opening and closing the ink flow passage when receiving a drive force from an actuator . Particularly, air bubbles A staying on a filter member within an ink supplying needle is effectively discharged to a capping system in a manner that a negative pressure is accumulated in an inner space of the capping system in a state that the passage control system is placed to a valve closing state. The passage control system is provided in the ink cartridge. Accordingly, every time the ink cartridge is exchanged with a new one, the passage control system is also exchanged with a new one. Accordingly, the printing function restoring operation performed through a cleaning operation based on the negative pressure accumulation is improved in reliability.

Ink cartridge, ink jet recording device using the same, and method for controlling the cleaning of a recording head of the ink jet recording device

A wiping member for wiping the nozzle forming surface of a recording head is mounted on a holding member and is constituted to be moved in a vertical direction. On the other hand, a capping device is provided with a wiper cleaner for abutting on the side wall of the wiping member. By the wiping operation of the recording head, a waste ink sticking to the wiping member is wiped away by the wiper cleaner with the fall of the wiping member and is removed from the wiping member.

Ink jet recording apparatus and cleaning control method for wiping device in the apparatus

There are provided a capping device capable of sealing a recording head mounted on a carriage and of sucking and discharging ink from the recording head, and a wiping member which advances to a moving path of the recording head and wipes waste ink off a nozzle forming surface of the recording head to clean the nozzle forming surface. A first drainage-amount integrating device for integrating and counting an amount corresponding to the waste ink to be wiped off the recording head by the wiping member is provided, and it is possible to prevent the contamination of the interior of the apparatus by excess waste ink.

Ink jet type recording apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Nagano, Japan

Hitoshi Hayakawa