Diagraph Corporation

Jimmy L Droit

Ronald J Johnsen

Mark V Reinders

Mark K Virkus

Edward B Evans

Donald D Porter

A printhead for ink jet printing apparatus having a plurality of orifices for delivery of droplets of ink with delivery controlled by miniature solenoids, one for each orifice, each solenoid having a plunger directly engageable with a membrane to block flow of ink to a respective orifice and electromagnetically retractable from the membrane for flow of ink for delivery of a droplet of ink from the respective orifice, with provision for proportional valve action for each orifice. A removable and replaceable dot mask plate having a pattern of holes is sandwiched between a body and a back plate of the printhead and certain of the plungers of the solenoids are aligned with holes in the dot mask and, in a forward extended position, extend through the holes to engage the membrane. The dot mask masks or blocks other plungers of the printhead.

Ink jet printhead having solenoids controlling ink flow

A system for ink jet printing of messages on articles being fed forward one after another in a predetermined path. A terminal includes a keyboard for entering message data representative of the messages. A controller interconnected with the terminal processes the message data received from the terminal and stores the message data for the messages. The controller has an output port for providing serial output data in a bit map format representative of the messages. A plurality of ink jet printheads are serially connected and positioned adjacent the path of the articles to print the messages on the articles in response to the serial output data. A single cable connects the output port of the controller to the first printhead for providing the output data to the first printhead. A separate cable interconnects each printhead to its next succeeding printhead for serially providing the data to the remaining printheads so that the printheads are connected in a daisy chain configuration. Power is also supplied to the printheads in a daisy chain configuration.

Ink jet system with serial data printheads

A printhead for an ink jet printing apparatus comprising a body having a recess in its back face, and a plurality of bosses extending from the bottom of the recess with an orifice extending through each boss; a flexible membrane over the recess forming a chamber for ink supplied from a source under pressure, the membrane engageable with the back ends of the bosses for closing the orifices; a plurality of relatively slender elongate members one for each boss extending rearward from the back of the membrane, each of the elongate members being generally aligned at its inner end with its respective boss; means at the outer end of each elongate member operable by the elongate member for releasing the membrane from the respective boss to enable the membrane to flex away from the respective boss for delivery of a drop of ink from the chamber through the respective orifice, the release means being arranged in an array spread out relative to the bosses with the elongate members extending from a relatively closely spaced array at their inner ends to the release means in their spread-out array. As shown in FIG. 1 the elongate members can be air tubes, and the release means can be electrically operated air valves which supply air through the tubes to hold and release the membrane. As shown in FIG. 9, the elongate members can be flexible wires and the release means can be solenoids which operate the wires to hold and release the membrane.

Growing community of inventors

St. Peters, MO, United States of America

Jimmy L Droit