Compact inkjet printer for portable electronic devices
AssigneeSilverbrook Research Pty Ltd
InventorKia Silverbrook
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pagewidth inkjet printer for a portable electronic device, with a roll of media substrate wrapped on a central former having at least one ink reservoir for the printhead, and a media feed assembly for drawing the media substrate a substrate passed the printhead. This configuration allows the printers to be compact enough to be incorporated into portable devices without it becoming too bulky and unwieldy. A roll of media is more easily positioned amongst other components of the device that flat sheets of media. It is a space efficient form of media storage when the ink reservoirs are located within the central former and feeding the media from a roll passed a pagewidth printhead is mechanically simpler than feeding sheets passed a scanning printhead.
Claims10
An inkjet printer for a portable electronic device, the printer comprising:
- a pagewidth printhead for printing on a media substrate;
- a roll of media substrate wrapped on a central former a media feed assembly for drawing the media substrate past the printhead;
- and
- an ink supply system for supplying ink to the printhead, the ink supply arrangement comprising:
- at least one ink reservoir contained inside the former;
- a corresponding ink chamber for each ink reservoir, each ink chamber being in fluid communication with its respective reservoir, wherein each ink chamber comprises a plurality of baffles for minimizing ink flow fluctuations in the ink supply system;
- and
- an ink manifold in fluid communication with each ink chamber, the ink manifold comprising a plurality of ink channels configured to distribute ink from each ink chamber to a plurality of ink inlets in the printhead.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.