Screen Holdings Co., Ltd.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Kazuhiko Asada

Shinsuke Yamashita

Hideki Omori

Makoto Kitabatake

Kazuhiro Nobori

Keisuke Hirai

Hideyuki Kominami

Masanori Ogawa

Nobuyoshi Nagagata

Hidekazu Yamashita

Yasunori Akiyoshi

Mitsuyuki Kiuchi

Ryota Uemura

Tadayoshi Suyama

Hiroyuki Saito

Shogo Muto

Hirofumi Noma

Shoichi Umakoshi

Hisachi Hagiwara

Toshiaki Iwai

Yusuke Akiyama

An ink is circulated in a circulation path including a supply sub-tank, a discharge head and a collection sub-tank in a head unit. If the amount of the ink in the head unit decreases, the ink stored in the buffer tank is replenished to the head unit. On the other hand, in a first non-replenishment time during which the ink is not replenished, the ink is circulated through the buffer tank, the collection sub-tank and the supply sub-tank in this order. Thus, a temperature fluctuation of the replenishment ink stored in the buffer tank is suppressed. As a result, even if the ink is replenished to the head unit from the buffer tank, physical properties, particularly a viscosity, of the ink do not largely vary.

Printing apparatus and printing method

An ink supplier includes a supply reservoir that stores ink to be supplied to a plurality of heads in an ink-jet printing apparatus. The supply reservoir includes: a first horizontal reservoir of a cylindrical shape having a plurality of supply ports communicating with a plurality of heads; and a first vertical reservoir having a side surface provided with a first opening directly or indirectly communicating with one end of the first horizontal reservoir. A top surface of the first horizontal reservoir is tilted from a horizontal direction at an angle of tilt equal to or greater than 0.3° in such a manner as to extend upward from the other end toward the first opening or the one end. Thus, air bubbles in the first horizontal reservoir move along the top surface into the first vertical reservoir through the first opening and can be removed from the first horizontal reservoir.

Ink supplier

The present invention is a position adjustment method for head units arrayed in a predetermined width direction attachably to and detachably from a base member. A position of a second head unit in the width direction and a rotation direction are respectively adjusted while the second head unit is engaging a tip part of a reference pin. More particularly, a width direction adjuster moves the second head unit in the width direction with a first head unit kept fixed to the base member. In this way, the gap between the first head unit and the second head unit is adjusted. Further, a rotation direction adjuster moves the second head unit in the orthogonal direction at a separation position distant from the reference pin. In this way, a rotation direction position of the second head unit with respect to the tip part of the reference pin is adjusted.

Head unit position adjustment method

Closing the replenishing solenoid valve Vland opening the return solenoid valve Vlprohibits passage of the ink fed using the replenishing pumpthrough the replenishing solenoid valve Vland allows this ink to pass through the return solenoid valve Vl. In this way, the ink is circulated along the circulation path Cc(second circulation path) along which the ink is fed from the buffer tankto the branch point J though the replenishing pipeand then fed from the branch point J to the buffer tankthrough the return pipe

Printing apparatus and ink feeding method in printing apparatus

A head unit to be detachably arrayed in a predetermined array direction on a base member includes: an ink discharge head having a nozzle surface configured to discharge an ink; a head holder attachable to and detachable from the base member while holding the ink discharge head in a holding region; and a posture adjustment mechanism configured to adjust a posture of the nozzle surface with respect to the head holder by rotating the ink discharge head with respect to the head holder about an axis of rotation perpendicular to both a surface normal to the nozzle surface and the array direction in a state where the head holder is not attached to the base member.

Head unit, head unit adjustment method, attaching/detaching jig and head unit exchange method

In the invention, pipes and the like are guided in parallel to a second horizontal direction according to collective movements of printing bar units while being stored and protected by a protecting/guiding member arranged outside and adjacent to a body frame. In this way, breakage of the pipes and the like during the collective movements of printing bar units is reliably prevented. Moreover, the pipes and the like stored in the protecting/guiding member move outside the body frame and are not present inside the body frame. As a result, a work space can be secured without being limited by the collective movements of the printing bar units to the maintenance space.

Printing apparatus and head maintenance method in printing apparatus

Both end parts of a cord are fixed to a maintenance mounting frame, and an intermediate part of the cord is laid on a first body-side rotating member, a head-side rotating member and a second body-side rotating member. Here, when a motor is driven, the movement restriction of the cord is released and a movement of a head mounting frame is restricted, whereby only the maintenance mounting frame moves together with a maintenance part while the movement of the head mounting frame is restricted. Further, when the motor is driven, a movement of the cord is restricted and the movement restriction of the head mounting frame is released, whereby only the head mounting frame moves together with a discharge head while a movement of the maintenance part is restricted.

Moving device, moving method and printing apparatus

The printing medium M after color printing is performed on the front surface M(recording surface) by the color printing unitcan be conveyed while the front surface Mand the back surface Mof the printing medium M are inverted twice by the only rollersto(rotary bodies) in contact with the back surface M(non-recording surface) of the printing medium M (inverting conveying part). In this way, without providing air turn bars, a time to convey the printing medium M from the color printing unitto the white printing unitcan be secured while the printing medium M is firmly supported by the rollerstoin contact with the back surface Mof the printing medium M.

Printing apparatus, printing system and printing method

An ink feeding mechanism includes an ink reservoir, a subtankfor temporarily storing ink, a decompression channelfor decompressing the subtankto a fixed pressure, an ink force-feed channelinterconnecting the ink reservoirand subtank, a first switch valvemounted on the ink force-feed channel, a communication channelinterconnecting the subtankand an inkjet head, an ink circulating channelinterconnecting the communication channeland ink reservoir, and a second switch valvemounted on the ink circulating channel. A lid memberforming part of a chamber has a pressure regulating channelconnected thereto, which is connected also to a force-feed channelwith a pressure pumpmounted thereon, and an exhaust channelwith an exhaust pumpmounted thereon.

Image recording apparatus

At least two switching devices each including a substrate formed of a wide bandgap semiconductor, source and gate electrodes formed in a principal surface side of the substrate, and a drain electrode formed on the back surface of the substrate are stacked so that respective upper surface sides of the switching face each other.

Sustaining circuit with bi-directional device

With the use of three inverter circuits controlled by a single processor, the controller of the motor-driving apparatus provides a rotation drum-driving motor, a compressor-driving motor and a blow fan-driving motor with a simultaneous sinusoidal-wave control. The configuration above offers stable sinusoidal-wave drive, reducing vibration noise of the rotation drum, the compressor and the blow fan.

Motor driving apparatus of washing and drying machine

Stacked semiconductor transistors

An induction heating cooker has a rectifier (13) for producing pulsating DC current, an inverter (14) which receives the pulsating current given from the rectifier (13) and produces a high frequency output current and a load circuit (15) including an output coil (21) and a resonance capacitor (22) connected in series to each other to receive high frequency output signal from the inverter, and the variation or adjustment of output electromagnetic power is made by changing duty ratio of the high frequency output current of the inverter by giving variable duty ratio setting signals to switching elements (Qa, Qb) in the inverter 14; the frequency of the high frequency output current of the inverter 14 is fixed, and therefore, unpleasant interference sound is not generated at parallel simultaneous operation.

Induction heating cooker with constant frequency controlled inverter

An induction heating apparatus comprises a heating coil and a transistor which is connected to a direct current power source in series thereto to form an inverter for converting the direct current to an alternating current, and furthermore, a first coupling coil for supplying a forward base current to the transistor is coupled with the heating coil inductively and a second coupling coil for supplying a inverse base current for the transistor is also coupled to the heating coil inductively, and the inverter is controlled by a switching device which is controlled by a control circuit.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Kazuhiko Asada