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US 9,844,934 B2Granted
Liquid jetting device
AssigneeOce-Technologies B.V.
InventorsHylke Veenstra, Theo Hummel, Amol Khalate, Cor Venner, Marko Mihailovic
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AssigneeOce-Technologies B.V.
InventorsHylke Veenstra, Theo Hummel, Amol Khalate, Cor Venner, Marko Mihailovic
Estimating the term…
A liquid jetting device comprising a plurality of ejection units each of which is arranged to eject a droplet of a liquid and comprises a nozzle, a liquid duct connected to the nozzle and an electro-mechanical transducer arranged to create an acoustic pressure wave in the liquid in the duct, the device further comprising an electronic control system arranged to receive a pressure signal from at least one of the transducers and to generate a transducer control signal on the basis of the received pressure signal and to control the transducers of said plurality of ejection units to operate in a mode of operation selected from a variety of different modes of operation, wherein the control system is arranged to detect an acoustic property of the liquid of the basis of the received pressure signal and to select the mode of operation in accordance with the detected property, the control system being arranged to deliver transducer control signals to the transducers, which control signals are derived from a common basic waveform that is specified by mode parameters, each mode of operation of the device is specified by a different set of mode parameters, the waveform comprises a jetting pulse and quench pulse following on the jetting pulse, and one of the mode parameters is a time delay between the start of the jetting pulse and the start of the quench pulse.
A liquid jetting device comprising a plurality of ejection units each of which is arranged to eject a droplet of a liquid and comprises a nozzle, a liquid duct connected to the nozzle and an electro-mechanical transducer arranged to create an acoustic pressure wave in the liquid in the duct,
A method of controlling a liquid jetting device comprising a plurality of ejection units each of which is arranged to eject a droplet of a liquid and comprises a nozzle, a liquid duct connected to the nozzle and an electro-mechanical transducer arranged to create an acoustic pressure wave in the liquid in the duct, the device further comprising an electronic control system arranged to receive a pressure signal from at least one of the transducers and to generate a transducer control signal on the basis of the received pressure signal and to control the transducers of said plurality of ejection units to operate in a mode of operation selected from a variety of different modes of operation, wherein operating in the mode of operation comprises using a particular set of mode parameters, the method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits: using several operating modes
Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits: detecting viscosity
Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits: timing; Delays
Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits: controlling heads based on piezoelectric elements
About 9 years 8 months of term left · ends 21 Jun 2036 (estimated)
The invention relates to a liquid jetting device and, more particularly, the invention relates to an ink jet printer. Further, the present invention relates to a method of controlling such liquid jetting device and to a cartridge for use in such liquid jetting device.
A known liquid jetting device comprises a plurality of ejection units each of which is arranged to eject a droplet of a liquid and comprises a nozzle, a liquid duct connected to the nozzle, and an electro-mechanical transducer arranged to create an acoustic pressure wave in the liquid in the duct.
The electro-mechanical transducer may for example be a piezoelectric transducer forming a part of the wall of the duct. When a voltage pulse is applied to the transducer, this will cause a mechanical deformation of the transducer. As a consequence, an acoustic pressure wave is created in the liquid ink in the duct, and when the pressure wave propagates to the nozzle, an ink droplet is expelled from the nozzle.
Embodiment examples of the invention will now described in conjunction with the drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an ejection unit of a jetting device according to the invention, together with an electronic circuit for controlling the device;
FIG. 2 is a view, partly in a cross-section, of a larger part of the jetting device with a plurality of ejection units, together with an ink cartridge;
FIG. 1 shows a single ejection unit of an ink jet print head. The print head constitutes an example of a jetting device according to the invention. The device comprises a wafer 10 and a support member 12 that are bonded to opposite sides of a thin flexible membrane 14.
A recess that forms an ink duct 16 is formed in the face of the wafer 10 that engages the membrane 14, e.g. the bottom face in FIG. 1. The ink duct 16 has an essentially rectangular shape. An end portion on the left side in FIG. 1 is connected to an ink supply line 18 that passes through the wafer 10 in thickness direction of the wafer and serves for supplying liquid ink to the ink duct 16.
An opposite end of the ink duct 16, on the right side in FIG. 1, is connected, through an opening in the membrane 14, to a chamber 20 that is formed in the support member 12 and opens out into a nozzle 22 that is formed in the bottom face of the support member.