Damper apparatus, damper tube assembly, and ink jet printer

#This application claims the priority benefit of Japan application serial no. 2011-124006, filed on Jun. 2, 2011. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.

#1. Technical Field

#The present invention relates to a damper apparatus configured to open and close an ink channel connecting an ink tank and a printer head, a damper tube assembly, and an ink jet printer.

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a printer apparatus according to the invention viewed obliquely from the front.

#FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the printer apparatus viewed obliquely from the rear.

#FIG. 3 is a front view showing a configuration of a principal portion of an apparatus body which constitutes the printer apparatus.

#Referring now to the attached drawings, a mode of preferable embodiment of the invention will be described. As an example of an ink jet printer according to the invention (hereinafter, referred to as a printer apparatus), a perspective view of a printer apparatus P of a type in which a printing medium moves along one of two orthogonal axes along a surface of an object to be printed and a printer head moves along the other axis viewed obliquely from the front is shown in FIG. 1, a perspective view of the same viewed obliquely from the rear is shown in FIG. 2, and a configuration of a principal portion of an apparatus body 1 in the printer apparatus P is shown in FIG. 3. First of all, referring to these drawings, a general configuration of the printer apparatus P will be described in brief. In the following description, directions indicated by arrows F, R, and U shown in FIG. 1 are referred to as front, right and up respectively.

#The printer apparatus P includes the laterally elongated box-shaped apparatus body 1 configured to perform a printing process such as characters or graphics on a surface to be printed of a sheet-shaped printing medium M such as a PVC sheet or the like, which are referred to as “media”, a supporting portion 2 configured to support the apparatus body 1 at a height position which facilitates an operation, a feeding mechanism 3 provided on the back side of the supporting portion 2 to feed the unprocessed printing medium M wound in a roll shape to the apparatus body 1, and a winding mechanism 4 provided on the front side of the supporting portion 2 to wind the printing medium M after the completion of printing.

#The apparatus body 1 includes a laterally elongated window-shaped media inserting portion 15 configured to allow insertion of the printing medium M in the fore-and-aft direction at a vertical intermediate portion of a frame 10 which forms a frame structure. Provide on a lower frame 10L positioned below the media inserting portion 15 are a platen 20 configured to support the printing medium M and a medium moving mechanism 30 configured to cause the printing medium M supported by the platen 20 to be moved in the fore-and-aft direction. Provided on an upper frame 10U positioned on the upper side of the media inserting portion 15 is a carriage 40 configured to hold a printer head 60 and a carriage moving mechanism 50 configured to move the carriage 40 in the lateral direction. The apparatus body 1 is provided with a control unit 80 configured to control operations of respective parts of the printer apparatus P such as a fore-and-aft movement of the printing medium M by the medium moving mechanism 30, a left-and-right movement of the carriage 40 by the carriage moving mechanism 50, and discharge of ink by the printer head 60, and an operating panel 88 is disposed on a front surface of the apparatus body 1.