Application of the laser jet method for inscribing office machine keyboard buttons
AssigneeOlympia Aktiengesellschaft
InventorsDieter Lewandowski, Rolf Ostermoor, Dieter Spranger
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process for inscription of parts from plastic material whose color can be changed through the effect of an energy radiation used for providing alphanumeric characters or other symbols on the key buttons of a keyboard. The office machine keyboard completely equipped with blank key buttons is for that purpose moved relative to the energy radiation, for instance a laser beam, with the coordinated character or symbol being inscribed on each key button by the energy radiation in accordance with stored data as the key button proceeds into the effective area of the energy radiation.
Claims7
The method of producing an inscription on key buttons, said key buttons consisting of plastic material which changes color under the effect of energy radiation, said key buttons being mounted on a keyboard, said keyboard being adapted to be installed as a unit in a completely assembled office machine, said method comprising the steps of moving said keyboard relative to an energy radiation supply to bring each blank key button successively into the effective area of the energy radiation, storing in a memory of a control unit for controlling the deflection of the energy radiation control data for all characters and symbols to be inscribed on the blank key buttons, and upon the keyboard reaching each new inscription position deflecting the energy radiation supply so that the character or symbol coordinated with this position is inscribed on one of said key buttons by the energy radiation in accordance with the respective control data retrieved from the said memory.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.