Conductive heating of print media
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsGeoff Wotton, Angela Chen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Heat is uniformly conducted to print media in an ink-jet printer in conjunction with the uniform application of vacuum pressure to the media for supporting the media as it is conveyed on a heated belt through the printer. The heat is applied to the media by conduction, in a manner that does not overheat the print head of the printer nor interfere with the trajectory of the droplets expelled from the print head. The heat is applied to the media in the print zone as well as regions on either side of the print zone where the media enters and exits the print zone. The amount of heat applied to each of these regions is independently controlled, and can be related to the physical characteristics of the particular type of print media or inks that are used.
Claims14
A method of manufacturing a heatable platen for supporting print media in a printer, comprising the steps of:
- providing a platen having a support surface for supporting print media;
- forming ports in the platen so that there is fluid communication through the platen via the ports and so that at least a first portion of the support surface carries a uniform distribution of the ports;
- and
- connecting to the platen a conductive heater that has two spaced-apart heater elements arranged to extend adjacent to ports in the first portion so that some of the ports in the first portion are substantially between the two elements.
A heatable platen for supporting print media in a printer, comprising:
- a platen having a support surface for supporting print media and having ports formed therein so that there is fluid communication through the platen via the ports and so that at least a first portion of the support surface carries a uniform distribution of the ports;
- and
- a conductive heater connected to the platen and having elements arranged to extend adjacent to ports in the first portion with some of the ports in the first portion being substantially between the heater elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.