Non-impact printing device
AssigneeIng. C. Olivetti & C., S.p.A.
InventorsMichele Bovio, Aquilino Barbero, Walter Gillone, Pierangelo Berruti
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Abstract
A non-impact printing device with selective emission of solid ink particles is disclosed. A rod 19 of solid ink is pressed by a spring 20 in an insulating housing II against an end wall with a nozzle 13 therein. A pulsed high voltage applied between the ink rod and a counter-electrode 16 (which can be behind the paper 25) causes ink particles to be eroded from the rod and ejected through the nozzle on the paper. Printers are described which employ incremental line-feed paper movement, movement of printing devices as just described along the printing line, and selective control of the high-voltage pulsing such as to form characters by a dot matrix technique.
Claims23
A non-impact printing device for printing symbols on a recording sheet by means of selective emission of ink particles from a nozzle, comprising
- a housing of electrically insulative material defining said nozzle at one end facing said sheet,
- a rod of electrically conductive solid ink comprising a compressed mixture of pigmented particles and a binder mounted in said housing with an end adjacent said nozzle,
- first and second electrodes spaced from each other on opposite sides of said nozzle, the first electrode being electrically connected to said rod, the second electrode being located adjacent said sheet, and
- selectively activated means for generating a predetermined high voltage between said electrodes sufficient to overcome the binding action of said binder on the solid ink particles of said rod adjacent said nozzle to cause erosion thereof from said rod, to eject them through said nozzle and to move them rectilinearly toward said sheet.
Printer for non-impact printing of alphanumeric characters in dot matrices of the type comprising a plurality of selectively activable solid ink printing devices mounted on a carriage, spaced regularly along the printing line of a recording sheet and selectively activable for printing a dot, line-spacing means for incremental advance of the recording sheet perpendicularly to the printing line, means for the reciprocating rectilinear movement of the carriage along the printing line and means for detecting the position of the said carriage, wherein, said printing devices comprise means for housing said solid ink adjacent to a nozzle and selectively activable means for eroding and emitting ink particles from the housing means through the nozzle to form a printed dot on said recording sheet, and said detecting means condition the selectively activable pulse generator and the line-spacing means so that, during repeated reciprocating movements of the carriage, each of the printing devices prints all the dots of at least one character of the line of print.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.