Ink drop character line printer with traversing orifice band
OwnerStephen F. Skalainventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A signal responsive printer selectively deposits drops of liquid ink onto a moving sheet of ordinary paper to form a line of characters. A flexible endless orifice band having a plurality of uniformly spaced orifices traverses a stationary ink source to form ink drops which are chargeable between a corresponding plurality of charging electrodes. Charged ink drops are deflected in direct proportion to their charge between deflecting electrodes to form successive columns of a character dot matrix as the orifice band advances. In order to prevent distortion of a character, an additional deflection compensates for paper motion. Uncharged ink drops deposit on an ink catcher, are drawn into an ink reservoir, and are pumped back to the ink source.
Claims5
A method for printing characters by selectively depositing ink drops onto a receiving surface including the steps of
- forming a plurality of ink drops in a plurality of uniformly spaced trajectoris, said ink drops selected for deposit on a receiving surface, said ink drops projecting toward said receiving surface, said trajectories moving in only one direction,
- moving said receiving surface in a direction perpendicular to the direction of motion of the trajectories, and
- deflecting ink drops in said trajectories commonly in a direction perpendicular to the motion of the trajectories, said deflection comprising a first deflection which deflects the ink drops to form successive columns of a character at the receiving surface and a second deflection added to the first deflection to deflect each of the drops at the receiving surface by a distance equal to the distance moved by the receiving surface from the time that printing of a character matrix would begin.
Apparatus for printing characters on a receiving surface including:
- a receiving surface and means to move said receiving surface,
- means to form uniform ink drops uniformly spaced in a trajectory projecting toward said receiving surface and means to move said trajectory at a constant velocity in a direction perpendicular to the motion of the receiving surface,
- means to deflect said ink drops in proportion to levels of a deflecting signal on said deflecting means, said ink drops deflected in a direction perpendicular to said trajectory velocity to deposit some of the ink drops on the receiving surface to form successive columns of a character,
- means to detect motion of the receiving surface and means to integrate some detected motion to generate a second increasing signal proportional to distance moved by the receiving surface, and
- means to transmit said second increasing signal to said deflecting means to compensate for motion of the receiving surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.