Ink supply device
AssigneeMitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
InventorsShinichi Fujimoto, Teruaki Kihara
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention relates to an ink supply device and an ink key thereof and makes it possible to stabilize the action of the ink key and to save labor in cleaning of the ink key by preventing the ink from getting into a gap between the neighboring ink keys. A cover member hermetically covering the surfaces of a plurality of ink keys is mounted in an ink box to reduce an area where the ink keys are in direct contact with the ink and a groove is made on one or both of the sides of each of the plurality of neighboring ink keys covered by the cover member from the top surface of the ink key to the bottom surface thereof, and even if the ink leaks and gets into a gap between the ink keys because of capillary phenomenon, the groove prevents the ink from spreading the gap between the ink keys.
Claims8
An ink storage device for a printer, the ink storage device comprising:
- an ink box including a plurality of ink keys defining a bottom surface of the ink box;
- a shaft to which the ink keys are mounted for pivoting in a predetermined direction;
- and
- a plurality of spring force applying members mounted for applying spring forces to the ink, keys, with the spring forces seeking to pivot the ink keys in the predetermined direction,
- wherein the spring force applying members are operative for being disengaged so that the spring forces are not applied to the ink keys.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.