Hewlett-packard Company

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.P.

Roger Robert Sleger

John Norman Lodal

Paul K Mui

James Clifford Anderson

Wayne E Foote

Edward Walsh

Russell R Grobe

Robert E Lasson

An apparatus for servicing an inkjet print head includes a print head wiper for wiping the inkjet print head and a wiper cleaner adjacent to the print head wiper for cleaning the print head wiper.

Method and apparatus for servicing an inkjet print head

Manufacturing an inkjet printhead and orifice plate by providing upstanding spaced apart barrier walls on the orifice plate to separate adjacent firing chambers on the printhead. A plurality of orifice plates are initially created in a one-layer array on a workpiece. An abrasive member is controlled to contact and truncate end edge portions of the barrier walls on the workpiece to create mutually coplanar surfaces for engagement with a substrate in order to help prevent cross-talk between adjacent firing chambers.

Method of manufacturing an inkjet nozzle plate and printhead

A replaceable ink container for providing ink to a printhead of a printing system. The ink container has a housing that includes and ink reservoir for containing a supply of ink, and an ink level sensor for sensing a low ink condition in the ink reservoir. The ink reservoir includes a capillary ink storage member. The ink level sensor includes resistance probes that are in fluid communication with the supply of ink, but are free from contact with the capillary ink storage member. The resistance probes are mounted to the housing by way of sensor ports that extend through the housing and prevent contact between the capillary ink storage member and the probes. The resistance probes protrude slightly from an exterior surface of the housing to define electrical contacts for engaging corresponding electrical contacts of the printing system. A change in electrical resistance measured across the resistance probes indicates a low ink condition in the ink reservoir.

Ink container electrical resistance ink level sensing mechanism and method for determining ink level information

Packaging for enclosing an inkjet print cartridge that preserves the reliability and function of the cartridge by incorporating water vapor inside the packaging to inhibit the growth of bubbles under the sealing component or tape that covers the nozzle orifices during shipping or storage.

Preserving inkjet print cartridge reliability while packaged

A printhead is used to eject printing fluid, such as ink, onto a printing medium. This printhead has an orifice plate defining plural orifices from which the printing fluid is individual ejecting into the printing medium to form characters and images. This orifice plate includes in addition to the plural orifices, plural barrier walls interdigitated with the orifices so that each orifice is between a pair of spaced apart barrier walls. The barrier walls substantially prevents the ejection of printing fluid from one selected orifice from causing an unwanted ejection of printing fluid from adjacent orifices.

Printer orifice plate with mutually planarized ink flow barriers

A thin film structure is fabricated using photolithographic techniques and includes a plurality of substrates defining a resistor film, a conductor film and a passivation layer. The resistor film is etched to provide a plurality of individual heaters. The conductor film is etched to provide a plurality of conductive traces. At least one passivation layer covers the conductor film. A plurality of electrical contact pads are also formed that extend through etched holes in the passivation layer so that the electrical contact pads make electrical contact with the conductive traces. A nozzle plate is attached to the thin film structure. The nozzle plate has a plurality of individual nozzle orifices and also defines a plurality of corresponding ejection cavities for receiving ink from an ink reservoir via capillary action. The ejection cavities are each aligned with a corresponding one of the heaters for thermally ejecting ink through the orifices onto an adjacent print medium, The thin film structure and the attached nozzle plate are mounted to a housing that includes the ink reservoir. A mixture of a volatile liquid carrier and at least one corrosion inhibitor is sprayed onto the portion of the thin film structure having the plurality of electrical contact pads. The mixture has a very low surface tension so that the mixture will wick into any minute crevices around the perimeters of the electrical contact pads. The liquid carrier is evaporated by passing the assembled print cartridge through an oven so that the corrosion inhibitor will hermetically seal the crevices. Moisture is thereby prevented from entering the minute crevices and causing corrosion that would otherwise lead to operational failures of the print cartridge.

Corrosion resistant thermal ink jet print cartridge and method of manufacturing same

In a magnetic disk memory drive, inertia in the magnetic head positioning system is reduced by providing a light weight, integrated, magnetic head suspension assembly fabricated of weldable thin sheet material and shaped to provide the required magnetic head flexibility, mobility and spring loading, while affording structural rigidity and dimensional stability in the disk memory drive environment. Unwanted magnetic head displacements are additionally minimizing by employing materials in the magnetic head suspension assembly, including the actuator, the arm and the load beam or flexure, having the same, or nearly the same, thermal expansion coefficients.

Magnetic head suspension assembly in a disk drive

A disk drive having a base and a cover, enclosing the memory disks and the magnetic head actuator. The spindle journaling the memory disks and the support for the actuator are secured to the base and to the cover and relatively position the base and the cover with respective peripheral extremities in closely spaced, but not touching relationship, to provide a gap therebetween. A pressure sensitive adhesive tape of a material having a high shear strength is applied to the base and the cover bridging the gap without applying stresses to the cover or the base through the tape and providing a seal for the disk drive between the cover and the base. The materials of the base, the cover, the spindle and the support, have thermal coefficients of expansion which are at least substantially the same. Preferably the materials are the same. Steel is a preferred material. The design also provides rigidity between the ends of the rotary mounting of the memory disks and the support for the magnetic head actuator while providing flexibility in the connections between the base and cover, and thereby eliminating thermally induced slip at these connections. Slip between structural parts of a disk drive can prevent reliable writing and reading of data.

Thermally predictable disk drive mechanism

A disk drive in which the base and the cover are interconnected in spaced positions to provide a marginal, peripheral gap between confronting or adjacent faces or edges thereof. The gap is bridged, closed and sealed by means of a pressure sensitive adhesive tape, a viscoelastic tape, which is energy adsorbing to damp disk drive vibrations.

Disk drive enclosure for minimizing stresses and a vibration damping

In order to improve servo system stability and decrease settling times in rotary head positioners for high performance magnetic disc drives, a floating mass damper is mounted on the end of an accessing head arm structure of the positioner opposite to the end or ends carrying the magnetic head or heads. The damper includes a centered floating mass which rests on a viscous film, such as silicone oil, and the shear forces developed by motion of the floating mass across the film dissipates vibrational mode energy in the accessing head arm structure during both a fast seek operation followed by track following fine servo operation. Such energy dissipation thus reduces the settling time and amplitude of natural resonance of the head positioner. The floating mass may be either an elongated cylindrical metal slug or a plurality of steel balls, but lower tolerances and lower manufacturing costs are made possible when the steel balls are used as the floating mass.

Apparatus and method for damping head positioners for high performance

In order to improve servo system stability and decrease settling times in rotary head positioners for high performance magnetic disc drives, a floating mass damper is mounted on the end of an accessing head arm structure of the positioner opposite to the end or ends carrying the magnetic head or heads. The damper includes a spring centered floating mass which rests on a viscous film, such as silicone oil, and the shear forces developed by motion of the floating mass across the film dissipates vibrational mode energy in the accessing head arm structure during both a fast seek operation followed by track following fine servo operation. Such energy dissipation thus reduces the settling time and amplitude of natural resonance of the head positioner.

Apparatus for damping head positioners for disc drives

A precision hydrodynamic bearing which has a rotatable shaft disposed in the bore of a housing to form an annular gap. The annular includes a journal zone for containing and pressurizing lubricant to facilitate low friction rotation of the shaft and to maintain the annular gap as the shaft rotates.

Precision hydrodynamic bearing

A shaft assembly of a rotary actuator arm structure in a rotary disc memory drive in which all machine operations cutting slots or openings for receiving leaf springs which provide axial and radial loads are performed along axes paralleling the axis of the rotary actuator. One leaf spring provides an axial load on the bearings of the shaft assembly. A second leaf spring fitted between one shaft bearing and the bearing housing thereat provides the radial bearing load.

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Eagle, ID, United States of America

Roger Robert Sleger