International Business Machines Corporation

Johann Hans Meier

Jerry Wesley Raider

Blair Robertson Martin

Edward Frank Helinski

Jack Louis Zable

Louis V Galetto

Bruce Allen Wolfe

Walter Thornton Pimbley

David W Hanna

Lawrence L Anderson

A platen assembly for an impact printer comprises the combination of an impact transducer between the backup plate and the type band of a printer and an impact isolator interposed between the transducer and the type band. The transducer comprises a strip of force sensitive material. The strip extends over a plurality of print positions. Electrode means in contact with the surfaces of the force sensitive material form discrete impact zones aligned with the print hammers. One of the electrode means is a continuous conductive strip on one side of the force sensitive strip. Plural conductive pads on the other side of the strip form the discrete impact zones. The continuous conductive strip is preferably on the side facing the type band and serves as the ground connection. The impact isolation means comprises plural force elements between the type band and the transducer element and preferably is part of a comb which can be conductive and provides stiffening to the force sensitive strip. The transducer element can be a foil using PVF2 with etched conductive patterns forming the electrodes.

Impact detecting platen for a high speed impact line printer

The multi-wire dot print head is provided with a plurality of print wires with a wire driving armature associated with each of the print wires and being operable to move the print wire toward a print position. The wire driving armatures each include an actuator lever and a cylindrical movable core mounted intermediate opposite ends of the actuator lever with an electromagnetic actuator associated with each of the armatures for imparting movement thereto. The outer end of the actuator lever is provided with a downwardly depending pivot leg and pivot or fulcrum support means for the actuator lever is positioned in a plane below the level of the open end of a cylindrical bore in the electromagnetic actuator so that a minimum amount of clearance may be provided between the cylindrical core and the cylindrical bore.

Wire driving armature for dot printer

An all-points addressable dot printer has rows of sloped parallel anvils on a rotating drum. Alternate rows slope in opposite directions for bi-directional printing with a single row of hammer blades. The blades which are spaced apart, are shifted bi-directionally in synchronism with the scanning motion of the anvils to print dots at all dot line points. A second embodiment has a reciprocating comb bar located between the blades and a print medium. Spring fingers on the comb bar have dot forming protrusions. The spring fingers are uniformly spaced with center spacing equal to the center distances between the blades. Comb bar motion is linear with time along the line segments. Blade motion is simple harmonic.

All-points addressable dot printer

A dot matrix printer apparatus has a magnetic ink jet recording head which projects a continuous stream of ferro-fluid ink drops toward a print medium. The ink drops are rastered in the direction orthogonal to the direction of relative motion of the recording head and the print medium to form characters from columns of dots. The slant of the characters caused by the change in direction of relative motion is controlled by reversing the direction or sequence of rastering of ink drops when the direction of printing reverses.

Bi-directional dot matrix printer with slant control

A rotatable print disk is mounted on a carrier which traverses along the print line. The disk is moved from each character position to the next by the shortest distance and it is stopped at the time of printing. The carrier is moved from one print position to the next at a speed which is selected depending on the time required for the disk to rotate to the next character. Printing takes place with the carrier moving at one of a number of speeds. Hammer firing is timed dependent on printing speed.

Controls for a movable disk printer

Adaptive control circuit for a stepping motor in which each motor displacement from a present position to a target position is monitored and the proportion of acceleration signals to deceleration signals is modified as necessary to obtain minimal elapsed time during motor movement. Each designated motor displacement is assigned a corresponding number of acceleration signals which are applied to move the motor. Then during a subsequent homing of the motor, the motor displacement is monitored and the number of acceleration signals previously applied is either altered or left unchanged as a result of comparison between this displacement and a standard. The adaptive control circuit is shown as applied to printing apparatus in which a print disk is variously rotated by a first stepping motor mounted on a carrier and the carrier is moved along a print line by a second stepping motor.

Adaptive control circuit for a stepping motor

A serial matrix printer has a print head mounted to move along a print line. The print head has means to change the relative vertical positions of some of the print wires with respect to the others. A first embodiment uses a pair of wire guides arranged so that one is translatable with respect to the other, thereby altering the relationship of the wires in the one guide with respect to the other, and a second embodiment employs a rotatable guide which positions the wires at angles such that the desired spatial relation between the wires is obtained.

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Vestal, NY, United States of America

Johann Hans Meier