Seiko Epson Corporation

Shoichi Hiraide

Takao Kobayashi

Kazuo Koshino

Satoshi Shinada

Hisashi Miyazawa

Seiji Mochizuki

Yoshinori Miyazawa

Takashi Suzuki

Eiko Yanagida

Kiyofumi Usui

Minoru Usui

Munehide Kanaya

Satoru Hosono

Kazunaga Suzuki

Tomoaki Abe

Akira Takagi

Hiroaki Tojo

An ink cartridge including: an ink chamber for retaining liquid ink; a foam chamber maintained in fluid communication with the ink chamber through a communication hole. An ink supply port for supplying ink from a porous body accommodated in the foam chamber to a recording head is provided. The portion of the foam body confronting the ink supply port is compressed by the ink supply port. The ratio between the amount of ink initially charged in the ink chamber and that of ink absorbed in the porous body is in the range from 1:1 to 1:3. When a cartridge uses more than one color of ink for printing in color, a plurality of foam and ink cartridges are used. The cartridge is filled under reduced pressure while the interior of the cartridge is further evacuated before filling with ink.

Ink cartridge for ink jet printer and method of charging ink into said cartridge

Ink-jet recording apparatus for ink cartridge

In an ink jet printer, a print head includes (N+1) nozzles arrayed in the paper feed direction. The distance between the adjacent nozzles is K times as long as the dot line pitch P. N and K are each an integer larger than 2, and mutually prime. The quantity of ink droplet discharged from each nozzle is adjusted so as to form on a print paper, dots each having the diameter at least 1.4 times as long as the dot line pitch. An interlaced print as the combination of a print of paths made by the N successive upper nozzles of the print head and a paper feed of N print line pitches is used for the print on the most part of the print paper. A minute-feed print as the combination of a print of paths made by the N successive upper or lower nozzles of the print head and a paper feed of one print line pitch is used for the print on the upper and lower end areas of the print paper that reject a perfect print by the interlaced print. With the combination of the interlaced print and the minute-feed print, a perfect print is made on the entire surface of the print paper.

Serial printer with hybrid print control of interlaced and minute feed

An ink jet printing head which prints image data with ink droplets without impairing print quality or causing the recording paper to be excessively wetted. The ink jet recording head includes pressure producing chambers communicating with nozzle openings, and piezoelectric vibrating elements for expanding and contracting the pressure producing chambers. Whether print data is graphics image data or text data is determined by a data judging unit, and as a result of the determination, a time constant of a variable time constant adjusting unit is set to a longer time in the case of printing image data than in the case of printing text data. Also the pressure producing chambers are caused to expand without undergoing damped oscillation for a time which is longer than the natural vibration cycle of the piezoelectric vibrating element.

Method for driving ink jet recording head and apparatus therefor

The apparatus includes a circuit 49 for generating a first voltage waveform for expanding piezoelectric vibrators at a rate suitable to form ink drops, a second voltage for holding an expansion or contraction state, and a third voltage waveform for contracting the piezoelectric vibrators at a rate suitable to suck ink into pressure generating chambers; a circuit 52 for detecting the time when the process of forming ink drops by the first voltage waveform is ended; a delay circuit 53 for delaying a signal from the circuit 52 by a time .DELTA.T until vibration of menisci caused by the ink drop formation process, switches to motion toward nozzle openings; a charge signal generating circuit 48 for generating the third voltage waveform on the basis of a signal from the delay circuit 53; and a discharge signal generating circuit 51 for generating the first voltage waveform on the basis of a print timing signal. The third voltage waveform is generated when the menisci produced after forming ink drops have started moving toward the nozzle openings, so that ink required for the next formation of ink drops is sucked into the pressure generating chambers. Therefore, the force to retreat the menisci due to the expansion of the pressure generating chambers is canceled by motion of the menisci per se, and the retreat of the menisci caused by the suction of ink can be minimized. It is therefore possible to stabilize the menisci independently of the frequency.

Ink jet type recording apparatus that controls into meniscus vibrations

Growing community of inventors

Nagano, Japan

Shoichi Hiraide