Printer for edible sheets
OwnerColm Nohilly, Hugh Nohillyinventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present inventions relates to An ink-jet printer for printing on an edible substrate, the printer comprising a guide roller for guiding the substrate through the printer and a print head for printing on the substrate, the print head being mounted adjacent the guide roller so as to be movable in a reciprocating manner substantially parallel to the guide roller characterized in that the print head mounts a roller cleaning apparatus which engages the guide roller as the print head reciprocates. This prevents a build-up of residue from the edible substrate on the guide rollers, thus providing improved performance and reliability. A method of operating the printer in conjunction with a user terminal is also disclosed.
Claims2
A printing system for printing on an edible substrate comprising an ink-jet printer for printing on the edible substrate, a remote server and a customer terminal;
- the edible substrate ink-jet printer comprising a guide roller for guiding the edible substrate through the edible substrate ink-jet printer and a print head for printing on the edible substrate, the print head being mounted adjacent the guide roller so as to be movable in a reciprocating manner substantially parallel to the guide roller, whereby, the print head mounts a roller cleaning apparatus which engages the guide roller as the print head reciprocates, wherein the roller cleaning apparatus is a brush;
- and
- the print head comprises a plurality of ink cartridges with the edible substrate ink-jet printer connected to an ink delivery system which comprises a plurality of ink reservoirs, each of the plurality of ink reservoirs in fluid communication with one ink cartridge by way of a tube respectively;
- in which at least one ink reservoir comprises an ink level sensor and the ink level sensor is connected to a communications means for transmitting ink level status information and number of prints made status information to the remote server via the customer terminal, with the edible substrate ink-jet printer comprising communications means to receive an image to be printed;
- wherein, the remote server is located remotely from the edible substrate ink-jet printer and the customer terminal, the remote server comprising means to receive level status information from the edible substrate ink-jet printer via the customer terminal;
- wherein the ink-jet printer is configured to send the ink level status information to the remote server via the customer terminal, and wherein the ink-jet printer is configured to send the number of prints made status information to the remote server via the customer terminal;
- wherein, the customer terminal is located remotely from the edible substrate ink-jet printer and the remote server, and, the customer terminal comprises means for receiving the image to be printed and a communications means to transmit the image to be printed to the edible substrate ink-jet printer, the ink-jet printer being configured to send status information to the customer terminal, the status information comprising the ink level status information and the number of prints made status information;
- and
- wherein the customer terminal stores the image to be printed on a memory in the customer terminal until the customer terminal receives a command to transmit the image to be printed to the edible substrate ink-jet printer, whereby the command is sent from the edible substrate ink-jet printer, and the customer terminal further comprises a communication means for communicating the status information to the remote server.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.