Ink jet system printer of the charge amplitude controlling type capable of printing different size characters
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorYoichi Yamamoto
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Plural streams of ink droplets are emitted from a nozzle, each stream comprising uniform size ink droplets. The size of ink droplets of the respective streams is different from each other. Charging electrodes are provided for each of the streams of ink droplets in order to charge the ink droplets included within the respective streams in accordance with a video signal. A selector is provided for allowing the application of the video signal to selected one of the charging electrodes associated with selected one of the streams of ink droplets in response to the size of characters desired to be printed.
Claims17
An ink jet system printer of the charge amplitude controlling type for emitting charged droplets from an ink droplet issuance unit directed toward a record receiving medium, and selectively deflecting said ink droplets in accordance with said charge carried thereon as said droplets pass through a constant high voltage electric field established by said deflecting means, thereby printing desired symbols of a predetermined size on said record receiving medium in a dot-matrix fashion comprising:
- emitting means for emitting a plurality of ink streams from said ink droplet issuance unit which vary in size and electric charge according to said size of said symbols to be printed;
- each of said ink streams emitted from said emitting means comprising a plurality of ink droplets and each of said ink droplets associated with a selected one of said ink streams having a size which is different than the size of each of said droplets associated with either of said remaining ink streams;
- a plurality of charging electrode means at one end of said ink droplet issuance unit for generating a plurality of charging signals thereby applying an electric charge having a predetermined amplitude to each of said droplets associated with said respective ink streams;
- each of said charging electrode means corresponding to a respective one of said ink streams and said amplitude of said charge possessed by each of said ink droplets varying proportionately with said size of said symbols to be printed;
- wherein each of said plurality of charging signals generated by said plurality of charging electrode means have different phases relative to one another, the phases of each of said charging signals being separately and independently controllable;
- and
- wherein one of said plurality of ink streams comprising ink droplets of a predetermined size is selected for printing purposes in accordance with said size of said symbols to be printed, one of said charging signals being selected to charge the ink droplets of said one of said plurality of ink streams, the ink droplets of the remaining ink streams emitted from said emitting means being precluded from receiving an electric charge from said charging signals generated by said charging electrode means.
In an ink jet system printer of the charge amplitude controlling type which emits charged ink droplets from an ink droplet issuance unit toward a record receiving medium through the use of charging means, said charge on said ink droplet having a certain amplitude of intensity corresponding to information to be printed, and which selectively deflects said ink droplets in accordance with said amplitude of said charges carried thereon as said droplets pass through a constant high voltage electric field established by said deflection means, thereby printing desired symbols on said record receiving medium in a dot matrix fashion, the improvement comprising:
- nozzle means in said ink droplet issuance unit for emitting ink droplets of different sizes, said nozzle means including a plurality of different sized orifices for emitting a plurality of ink streams which vary in size in accordance with said information to be printed;
- and
- selection means for selecting one of said plurality of different sized orifices to emit one of said plurality of ink streams of a selected size in accordance with said information, having a corresponding size of characters, to be printed.
An ink jet system printer of the charge amplitude controlling type comprising:
- an ink droplet issuance means emitting ink droplets from one end thereof, said ink droplet issuance unit means having a plurality of different sized orifice means on said one end thereof for emitting a plurality of different sized droplets;
- a plurality of charging electrode means at said one end of said issuance unit means for providing each of said ink droplets with a predetermined electric charge, said charge having a specific amplitude of intensity;
- determination means for determining the size of characters to be printed and providing a resulting determination signal in response thereto;
- means responsive to said determination signal for applying a video signal of a predetermined magnitude to a predetermined one of said charging electrodes in accordance with said resulting determination signal and in synchronism with formation of said ink droplets at said one end of said ink droplets issuance unit;
- and
- said video signal having a magnitude controlling said amplitude of said electric charges possessed by said ink droplets.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.