Glass-fiber thermal inkjet print head
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsJames S. Hardisty, Jeremy H. Donaldson, Roger J. Kolodziej
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A page-wide inkjet print head is formed by assembling individual glass fiber tube sections, which are then sintered together drawn to thin or neck the diameter of the orifices, slicing the glass tube sections and depositing individual semiconductor control circuits in or approximate to the top of the glass tube sections. Ink reservoirs can supply water based ink that flows through the glass tube sections but which is held in place by capillary action. Ink is ejected by heating a semiconductor resistive element deposited into one open end of the tube section so as to cause the ink to be ejected onto a print medium.
Claims17
A print head for depositing ink and ink constituents on a print medium comprised of:
- a. a plurality of substantially hollow, glass-fiber tube sections joined together so as to be substantially parallel to each other, each glass fiber tube section having a first open end capable of being coupled to an ink supply and having a second open end that includes a heating element capable of heating liquid ink in said glass fiber tube sections so as to cause said ink in said glass fiber tube sections to be projected onto a print medium.
A printer for depositing ink on a print medium comprised of:
- a. a print head, said print head being comprised of:
- i. a plurality of substantially hollow, glass-fiber tube sections joined together so as to be substantially parallel to each other, each glass fiber tube section having a first open end capable of being coupled to an ink supply and having a second open end that includes a heating element capable of heating liquid ink in said glass fiber tube sections so as to cause said ink in said glass fiber tube sections to be projected onto a print medium;
- b. a print head carriage carrying said print head;
- and
- c. a print head position controller;
- d. an ink reservoir coupled to said print head.
An ink jet print cartridge comprised of:
- a. an ink reservoir;
- b. a plurality of substantially hollow, glass-fiber tube sections joined together so as to be substantially parallel to each other, a plurality of glass fiber tube sections having a first open end coupled to said ink reservoir and having a second open end that includes a heating element capable of heating liquid ink in said glass fiber tube sections so as to cause said ink in said glass fiber tube sections to be projected onto a print medium;
- c. connection nodes for electrically coupling said heating element to an electrical power supply.
A method of fabricating a print head from glass fibers comprising the steps of:
- a. sintering a plurality of tubular glass fiber sections together, each tubular glass fiber section being comprised of a first type of glass and having substantially tubular section with a center axis and having an inside diameter D, said tubular section being filled with a second type of glass;
- b. drawing said sintered bundle of glass fibers;
- c. re-sintering said drawn bundle of glass fibers;
- d. slicing a section of said re-sintered and drawn bundle of glass fibers;
- e. removing said second type of glass from within said tubular section;
- whereby after dissolving said second type of glass from within said tubular section there is formed a printer head substrate having multiple orifices formed by the removal of said second type of glass from within said tubular sections.
A controller for a print head comprised of:
- a. a series of multi-terminal latching current sources, each current source having first, second and third inputs and first and second outputs said series of multi-terminal latching current source configured to have:
- 1) the first current source having its first and second inputs coupled to a first signal source and the third input coupled to a second signal source, said first output of said first current source coupled to a heater resistor for said print head;
- 2) each of the other N-number of multi-terminal latching current sources coupled in series behind said first current source whereby the Nth multi-terminal latching current source has its first input coupled to said first signal source, its second input coupled to said second output of the N−1st multi-terminal latching current source and the third input of the Nth multi-terminal latching current source coupled to said second signal source, said first output of said Nth current source being coupled to an Nth heater resistor for said print head;
- whereby said multi-terminal latching current sources are sequentially latched to a conductive state by a sequence of synchronous voltage pulses on both said first and second signal sources.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.