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US 2003/0193541 A1Published application
Printer
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHideo Uwagaki, Ryoichi Kawai
Life of this patent
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AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHideo Uwagaki, Ryoichi Kawai
Estimating the term…
The invention provides a printer in which its apparatus main body's width dimension can be minimized, by achieving compact housing of a maintenance station for performing maintenance operations with effective use of the space existing at both ends of a printing region. Therein, maintenance stations are separately arranged as left- and right-hand portions at both ends outside the printing region. The maintenance station provides: a capping mode for capping a nozzle of the printing head; a wiping mode for wiping the nozzle of the printing head; and an ink spitting mode for preventing clogging of the nozzle of the printing head, and also the maintenance station includes a waste ink collecting bath for collecting ink discharged during the ink spitting mode.
A printer in which printing is carried out by reciprocating a carriage carrying two printing heads along a main scanning direction, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Backward citations are indexed for grants only.
Mechanical power drives: using a single or common power source for two or more functions
Constructions for the positioning of wipers: the wipers and caps or spittoons being on the same movable support
Typewriters
Term end not estimated
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an arrangement of a maintenance mechanism designed for an ink-jet type printer that produces a printed record by applying ink droplets to a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Other and further objects, features, and advantages of the invention will be more explicit from the following detailed description taken with reference to the drawings wherein:
FIG. 1 is an explanatory block diagram showing a printer according to one embodiment of the invention;
FIG. 2 is a block diagram schematically showing an electrical configuration of a maintenance station driving system of the printer;
Now referring to the drawings, preferred embodiments of the invention are described below.
Hereinafter, a detailed description will be given as to the printer according to the embodiment of the invention, with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 is a front view of the printer. The printer is built as a 2-pen type serial printer and it has two printing heads 3 and 4, of which the printing head 3 serves to represent three primary colors for color recording: yellow (Y); magenta (M); and cyan (C), and the other printing head 4 serves to represent black color (Bk). These two printing heads 3 and 4 are detachably attached to a carriage 2 which is guided by a carriage shaft 5. The carriage shaft 5 is horizontally suspended by a main frame 1. By moving the carriage 2 from left to right or vise versa, as viewed in FIG. 1, the printing heads 3 and 4 are moved reciprocally along the main scanning direction with respect to a recording medium (not shown). The recording medium is moved from the back side to the front side, as viewed in the figure, by non-illustrated recording sheet conveying means, so as to be conveyed along the sub scanning direction. As a result, a printed record is two-dimensionally produced onto the recording medium.