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:
Jul. 10, 2001
Filed:
Jan. 13, 1999
Susumu Tokumaru, Tokyo, JP;
Yoshitaka Iwashita, Tokyo, JP;
Hiroshi Fukumoto, Tokyo, JP;
Hirohumi Matsuo, Tokyo, JP;
Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An ink jet printer serves to solve a problem that ink is not normally discharged when bubbles are present in ink contained in a ink chamber of a print head. The ink jet printer performs normal discharge of ink by detecting bubbles contained in ink and carrying out an optimum head recovery operation, so that stable and high-quality printed matter can be obtained. According to a bubble detecting circuit and method employed in this ink jet printer, the impedance of the piezoelectric element of the head is first measured at given frequencies. Then, impedance versus frequency characteristics are obtained. Subsequently, it is determined, based on the impedance versus frequency characteristics, whether or not a bubble adheres to the piezoelectric element.