The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 07, 1992
Filed:
Jul. 05, 1990
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for cleaning the orifice plates of multiple printheads of an ink-jet printer. The apparatus includes a multi-blade wiper which is indexed automatically to permit each printhead to be wiped in sequence by a selected blade. The desired cleaning is produced by dragging a printhead across the selected wiper blade. The wiper mechanism may also comprise a plurality of resilient blades each having an octagonal shape and rotatable about an axis. A cam coupled to the printhead carriage causes simultaneous pivoting of the wiper blades into contact with the printheads as well as rotation of the blades to facilitate cleaning thereof. In the method of this invention, ink is expelled from the printheads to rehydrate dried ink thereon to facilitate its removal.