Carriage random vibration
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Company
InventorRobert W. Beauchamp
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An ink jet printer that includes a movable print carriage for reciprocatingly scanning along a carriage scan axis, a printhead having a plurality of ink jet nozzles and supported by the movable print carriage, a print media moving mechanism for moving print media along a media axis through a print zone, and a vibration inducing piezoelectric element for causing relative vibration between the printhead and the print media such that locations along a media axis of dots printed by the ink jet nozzles are minutely randomly varied to reduce otherwise visible banding caused by poor paper advance or misdirected nozzles.
Claims24
A printer having reduced visible print banding, comprising:
- a movable print carriage for reciprocatingly scanning along a carriage scan axis;
- a removable printhead supported by said movable print carriage during printing operations and having a plurality of printing elements for printing dots on print media in a print zone;
- a print media handling system for advancing print media along a media scan axis to the print zone;
- and
- a carriage vibration inducing element attached to the carriage for causing said carriage to vibrate relative to the print media in the print zone such that locations along the media scan axis of the dots printed by said printing elements are minutely randomly varied to reduce visible print banding caused by less than optimum print media advance or by misdirection of the printing elements.
A printer having reduced visible print banding, comprising:
- a movable print carriage for scanning along a carriage scan axis;
- a carriage slide structure for supporting the carriage for said scanning along the carriage scan axis, the slide structure including a slider rod having a longitudinal axis parallel to the carriage scan axis, the carriage being supported on the rod for sliding movement;
- a carriage drive system coupled to the carriage for driving the carriage through said sliding movement along the slider rod;
- a removable printhead supported by said movable print carriage during printing operations and having a plurality of printing elements for printing dots on print media in a print zone;
- a print media handling system for advancing print media along a media scan axis to the print zone;
- and
- a carriage vibration inducing element attached to the carriage for causing said carriage to rotationally vibrate about the slider rod longitudinal axis such that locations along the media scan axis of the dots printed by said printing elements are minutely randomly varied to reduce visible print banding caused by less than optimum print media advance or by misdirection of the printing elements.
A method of inkjet printing with reduced visible printing banding artifacts, comprising:
- advancing a print medium along a media scan axis to a print zone;
- scanning a print carriage along a carriage scan axis while supporting an inkjet printhead having a plurality of printing elements for printing dots on print media in the print zone;
- vibrating the carriage relative to the print media in the print zone such that locations along the media scan axis of the dots printed by said printing elements are minutely randomly varied to reduce visible print banding caused by less than optimum print media advance or by misdirection of the printing elements.
A printer having reduced visible print banding, comprising:
- a plurality of ink-jet printheads each comprising a nozzle array structure, each nozzle array structure having a plurality of printing elements for printing dots on print media in a print zone;
- a movable print carriage for scanning along a carriage scan axis for mounting said plurality of replaceable printheads;
- a carriage slide structure for supporting the carriage for said scanning along the carriage scan axis, the slide structure including a slider rod having a longitudinal axis parallel to the carriage scan axis, the carriage being supported on the rod for sliding movement;
- a carriage drive system coupled to the carriage for driving the carriage through said sliding movement along the slider rod;
- a print media handling system for advancing print media along a media scan axis to the print zone;
- and
- a carriage vibration inducing element attached to the carriage for causing said carriage to rotationally vibrate about the slider rod longitudinal axis such that locations along the media scan axis of the dots printed by said printing elements of said plurality of ink-jet printheads are minutely randomly varied to reduce visible print banding caused by less than optimum print media advance or by misdirection of the printing elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.