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US 5,065,169 AGranted
Device to assure paper flatness and pen-to-paper spacing during printing
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Company
InventorsKent D. Vincent, John P. Ertel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A printer includes an inkjet pen to eject ink drops for printing on the surface of a sheet, a carriage mounted to carry the pen back and forth on the sheet, and a skid-like spacer to ride upon the printed surface. The spacer maintains a preselected spacing between the pen and the printed surface and, also, maintains paper flatness at the localized area of printing.
Claims11
An inkjet printer comprising:
- inking means including inkjet pen means having a plurality of inkjet nozzles for printing on the surface of a sheet as the inkjet pen means is driven to traverse the surface of the sheet;
- and single spacer means interposed between the inking means and the sheet so that the spacer means rides directly upon the printer surface of the sheet to always maintain preselected minimum spacing between the inking means and the sheet during printing while, simultaneously, exerting force to provide a sheet flattening action at the localized area of printing;
- said spacer means having surface area disposed parallel to the sheet surface to ride directly thereon immediately before printing the localized areas and projecting in both the direction of travel of the inkjet pen means and perpendicular to the direction of travel to flatten cockles in the sheet in the localized areas adjacent the nozzles of the inkjet pen means, the extent of the projection in the direction of travel being substantially greater than the extent of projection in the perpendicular direction.
An inkjet printer comprising:
- inkjet pen means having nozzles for printing on the surface of a sheet;
- carriage means mounted to carry the inkjet pen means to traverse back and forth across the sheet;
- indexing means to index the sheet on a surface adjacent the inkjet pen means;
- and
- single spacer means interposed between the inkjet means and the sheet and which directly rides upon the surface of the sheet to be printed to, simultaneously, both maintain a preselected minimum spacing between the inkjet pen means and the sheet surface at all times during printing and to exert force to enhance sheet flatness over a relatively substantial area adjacent the inking means immediately before the area is printed;
- said spacer means projecting in both the direction that the inkjet pen means and perpendicular to the direction of travel to traverse the sheet so that cockles in the sheet are flattened in the localized areas adjacent the nozzles of the inkjet pen means, the extent of the projection in the direction of travel being substantially greater than the extent of projection in the perpendicular direction.
3 more elements
An inkjet printer comprising:
- a support member to position a sheet for printing;
- indexing means to index the sheet across the support member;
- guide means fixedly mounted to extend across the sheet perpendicular to the indexing direction and parallel to the sheet surface;
- carriage means pivotally mounted to the guide means to travel back and forth across the sheet;
- inkjet pen means carried by the carriage means to traverse back and forth across the sheet surface with the carriage means while ejecting ink drops to print the sheet surface;
- and
- single spacer means mounted to travel with the carriage means and having a substantial planar surface adapted to ride directly upon the printed surface of the sheet to exert a localized sheet flattening force before the area is printed while, simultaneously, maintaining a preselected minimum spacing between the printed surface and the inkjet pen means at all times;
- said spacer means projecting in both the direction of travel of the inkjet pen means and perpendicular to the direction of travel in traversing the sheet so that cockles in the sheet are flattened in the localized areas adjacent the nozzles of the inkjet pen means, the extent of the projection in the direction of travel being substantially greater than the extent of projection in the perpendicular direction.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.