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:
Aug. 12, 1997
Filed:
Jan. 03, 1994
John Wei-Ping Lin, Webster, NY (US);
Xerox Corporation, Stamford, CT (US);
Abstract
The invention includes an ink delivery and filtration medium for delivering and filtering ink from an ink chamber to a printhead in an ink jet system. The ink delivery and filtration medium comprises a porous woven material. The woven material can be made with fibers such as Nylons, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethersulfone, polyesters, polyvinylidene fluoride, polytetrafluoroethylene. The woven material is flexible, thermally stable and chemically resistant to ink. The pore size and porosity of the woven material can be controlled by controlling the number of stitches per inch, fiber stitching pattern and fiber thickness or diameter. In addition, the pore size can be controlled by layering the woven material in combination with woven materials of the same or different pore sizes. Accordingly, not only can the pore size of each layer be controlled, but the pore size of the entire medium can be controlled by cumulative stacking of layers of materials with same or different pore size. The ink delivery and filtration medium provides smooth ink flow to the printhead without undesired ink clogging and impedance thereby substantially minimizing or eliminating jetting problems such as missing jets, exploding jets, and ink misdirection. In addition, restricted ink flow due to inefficient filtration and blockage of the filter by particles, debris or fibers, which causes slow ink refill and air ingestion problems resulting in slow printing speed and poor ink jet print quality can also be avoided or minimized by the steady and strong flow of ink produced with the invention.