Nozzle guard for a printhead

Abstract

An ink jet printhead has a number of printhead chips (10). Each printhead chip (10) has a wafer substrate (16). A plurality of nozzle arrangements (10) is positioned on the wafer substrate. Each nozzle arrangement (22) has nozzle chamber walls and a roof wall that define a nozzle chamber (34) and a nozzle opening (24) in fluid communication with the nozzle chamber. An actuator (28) is operatively arranged with respect to each nozzle arrangement (10) to eject ink from the nozzle chamber through the nozzle opening. A nozzle guard (80) is positioned over the printhead chip. The nozzle guard has a support structure (86) and a planar cover member (82). The planar cover member is positioned on the support structure. The planar cover member defines a plurality of passages (84). Each passage (84) is in register with a respective nozzle opening (24). The planar cover member (82) is less than 300 microns thick.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.