Systems and methods for improved liquid droplet ejection from a gas pressurized printhead via arbitrary pressure and vacuum pulsed waveforms

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a system for droplet-based printing and makes use of a controller and a printhead system. The printhead system has a housing with an internal cavity and a nozzle at a lower end thereof. The internal cavity is configured to hold a quantity of liquid feedstock material. The housing also has a feedstock infeed port for enabling a feedstock material to be fed into the internal cavity. A valve system is used which is in communication with the controller and configured to selectively pressurize the internal cavity in response to control signals received from the controller. The control signals cause operations including a vacuum to be applied to the internal cavity, as well as the internal cavity to be vented to atmosphere as well as pressurized, to thus create a pressure waveform with characteristics tailored to characteristics of the feedstock material, which causes ejection of at least one of a droplet or a material jet that controllably breaks into droplets from the nozzle.