US 5,668,583 AGranted

Ink printer head composed of individual ink printer modules

AssigneeFrancotyp-Postalia GmbH

InventorsWolfgang Thiel, Junming Zhang

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Abstract

An ink printer head of individual ink printer modules operating according to the edge-shooter principle equipped with piezoelectric actuators is provided for use in printers for postage meter machines and correspondingly has a large number of nozzles arranged in columns. For this purpose, a nozzle module, composed of a nozzle plate and two adapter plates arranged at opposite sides thereof, is disposed between ink printer modules that are constructed mirror-symmetrically relative to one another and are equipped with piezoactuators applied on both sides. The adapter plates are provided with openings for ink guidance and with recesses providing for the free space needed for piezoactuators. The openings in the adapter plates are matched, first, to the nozzle dimensions and, second, to the dimensions of the connecting channels to the ink chambers and are aligned with both the nozzles and the connecting channels. Identical etching masks can be used for a number of plates due to the mirror-symmetrical structure. A reduction in the manufacturing outlay while preserving the requiring printing precision is achieved. A high degree of repetition is achieved by employing identical ink printer modules and ink paths of approximately identical length is also achieved. The nozzle apertures can be given a circular cross-section without difficulty.

Claims9

Dependent claims

An ink printer head comprising:

an edge shooter assembly having at least two mirror symmetric ink printer modules and a nozzle module disposed between said at least two mirror-symmetric ink printer modules, said assembly having a front side;
each ink printer module containing a plurality of open volumes respectively forming ink chambers therein and each ink chamber having a piezoactuator associated therewith for forcing a quantity of ink out of the ink chamber associated therewith;
said nozzle module being composed of a nozzle plate and two adapter plates respectively disposed on opposite sides of said nozzle plate so that each adapter plate is adjacent one of said at least two ink printer modules, said nozzle plate having a comb-like edge exposed at said front side of said assembly, said comb-like edge having a plurality of gaps therein forming nozzle apertures, and each adapter plate having openings therein respectively in registration with outlets of the ink chambers in the ink printer module adjacent thereto and recesses therein for the piezoactuators of the adjacent ink printer module;
and
said nozzle openings formed by said gaps in said comb-like edge of said nozzle plate being disposed equidistantly under one another in a column, and said openings in said adapter plates alternatingly connecting successive nozzle openings in said column to the respective ink chambers of said ink printer modules.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.