EP0600648B1 - Verfahren und Vorrichtung zur Überwachung von Thermo-Tintenstrahl-Druckern - Google Patents

Verfahren und Vorrichtung zur Überwachung von Thermo-Tintenstrahl-Druckern Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0600648B1
EP0600648B1 EP19930309242 EP93309242A EP0600648B1 EP 0600648 B1 EP0600648 B1 EP 0600648B1 EP 19930309242 EP19930309242 EP 19930309242 EP 93309242 A EP93309242 A EP 93309242A EP 0600648 B1 EP0600648 B1 EP 0600648B1
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EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
temperature
printhead
printhead substrate
reference temperature
substrate
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Expired - Lifetime
Application number
EP19930309242
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English (en)
French (fr)
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EP0600648A2 (de
EP0600648A3 (de
Inventor
Brian Canfield
Clayton Holstun
King-Wah W. Yeung
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HP Inc
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Hewlett Packard Co
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Publication date
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Publication of EP0600648A2 publication Critical patent/EP0600648A2/de
Publication of EP0600648A3 publication Critical patent/EP0600648A3/de
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Publication of EP0600648B1 publication Critical patent/EP0600648B1/de
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Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/005—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by bringing liquid or particles selectively into contact with a printing material
    • B41J2/01—Ink jet
    • B41J2/015—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process
    • B41J2/04—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process generating single droplets or particles on demand
    • B41J2/045—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process generating single droplets or particles on demand by pressure, e.g. electromechanical transducers
    • B41J2/04501—Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits
    • B41J2/04528—Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits aiming at warming up the head
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/005—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by bringing liquid or particles selectively into contact with a printing material
    • B41J2/01—Ink jet
    • B41J2/015—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process
    • B41J2/04—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process generating single droplets or particles on demand
    • B41J2/045—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process generating single droplets or particles on demand by pressure, e.g. electromechanical transducers
    • B41J2/04501—Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits
    • B41J2/04563—Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits detecting head temperature; Ink temperature
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/005—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by bringing liquid or particles selectively into contact with a printing material
    • B41J2/01—Ink jet
    • B41J2/015—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process
    • B41J2/04—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process generating single droplets or particles on demand
    • B41J2/045—Ink jet characterised by the jet generation process generating single droplets or particles on demand by pressure, e.g. electromechanical transducers
    • B41J2/04501—Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits
    • B41J2/0458—Control methods or devices therefor, e.g. driver circuits, control circuits controlling heads based on heating elements forming bubbles
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/005—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by bringing liquid or particles selectively into contact with a printing material
    • B41J2/01—Ink jet
    • B41J2/21—Ink jet for multi-colour printing
    • B41J2/2121—Ink jet for multi-colour printing characterised by dot size, e.g. combinations of printed dots of different diameter
    • B41J2/2128—Ink jet for multi-colour printing characterised by dot size, e.g. combinations of printed dots of different diameter by means of energy modulation
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B41—PRINTING; LINING MACHINES; TYPEWRITERS; STAMPS
    • B41J—TYPEWRITERS; SELECTIVE PRINTING MECHANISMS, i.e. MECHANISMS PRINTING OTHERWISE THAN FROM A FORME; CORRECTION OF TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS
    • B41J2/00—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed
    • B41J2/315—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by selective application of heat to a heat sensitive printing or impression-transfer material
    • B41J2/32—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by selective application of heat to a heat sensitive printing or impression-transfer material using thermal heads
    • B41J2/35—Typewriters or selective printing mechanisms characterised by the printing or marking process for which they are designed characterised by selective application of heat to a heat sensitive printing or impression-transfer material using thermal heads providing current or voltage to the thermal head
    • B41J2/355—Control circuits for heating-element selection
    • B41J2/36—Print density control

Definitions

  • This invention relates generally to the field of thermal ink jet printers and more particularly to controlling the temperature of thermal ink jet printheads.
  • Thermal ink jet printers have gained wide acceptance. These printers are described by W.J. Lloyd and H.T. Taub in “Ink Jet Devices," Chapter 13 of Output Hardcopy Devices (Ed. R.C. Durbeck and S. Sherr, San Diego: Academic Press, 1988) and U.S. Patents 4,490,728 and 4,313,684. Thermal ink jet printers produce high quality print, are compact and portable, and print quickly but quietly because only ink strikes the paper.
  • the typical thermal ink jet printhead i.e., the silicon substrate, structures built on the substrate, and connections to the substrate
  • uses liquid ink i.e., colorants dissolved or dispersed in a solvent).
  • each chamber has a thin-film resistor, known as a thermal ink jet firing chamber resistor, located opposite the nozzle so ink can collect between it and the nozzle.
  • a thermal ink jet firing chamber resistor located opposite the nozzle so ink can collect between it and the nozzle.
  • a small portion of the ink next to it vaporizes and ejects a drop of ink from the printhead.
  • Properly arranged nozzles form a dot matrix pattern. Properly sequencing the operation of each nozzle causes characters or images to be printed upon the paper as the printhead moves past the paper.
  • Drop volume variations result in degraded print quality and have prevented the realization of the full potential of thermal ink jet printers.
  • Drop volumes vary with the printhead substrate temperature because the two properties that control it vary with printhead substrate temperature: the viscosity of the ink and the amount of ink vaporized by a firing chamber resistor when driven with a printing pulse.
  • Drop volume variations commonly occur during printer startup, during changes in ambient temperature, and when the printer output varies, such as a change from normal print to "black-out" print (i.e., where the printer covers the page with dots).
  • Variations in drop volume degrades print quality by causing variations in the darkness of black-and-white text, variations in the contrast of gray-scale images, and variations in the chroma, hue, and lightness of color images.
  • the chroma, hue, and lightness of a printed color depends on the volume of all the primary color drops that create the printed color. If the printhead substrate temperature increases or decreases as the page is printed, the colors at the top of the page can differ from the colors at the bottom of the page. Reducing the range of drop volume variations will improve the quality of printed text, graphics, and images.
  • EP-A-0 511 602 describes a system for reducing variations in the size of ink drops ejected from thermal printheads by heating the printhead using nonprinting pulses.
  • the scope of the present invention includes heating the printhead substrate during a print cycle (i.e., the interval beginning when a printer receives a print command and ending when it executes the last command of that data stream), as well as, heating it at anytime or heating it continuously.
  • the scope of the present invention includes heating the printhead substrate by heating the entire cartridge (i.e., the printhead substrate, the housing, connections between the printhead substrate and the ink supply, and the ink supply if it is attached to the printhead substrate) by using a cartridge heater or heating the printhead substrate more directly by driving the firing chamber resistors with nonprinting pulses (i.e., pulses that do not have sufficient energy to cause the printhead to fire).
  • the scope of the present invention includes using a thermal model to estimate the amount of heat to deliver to the printhead substrate to raise its temperature to the reference temperature and delivering this energy between swaths to avoid slowing the printer output.
  • Another preferred aspect of the present invention varies the reference temperature according to the print resolution.
  • This preferred aspect of the present invention reduces this empty space by increasing the reference temperature of the printhead substrate so that it produces larger dots.
  • a further preferred aspect of the present invention is a darkness knob that allows the user to vary the reference temperature and thereby control the darkness of the print and the time required for it to dry.
  • the present invention preferably includes a temperature sense resistor deposited around the firing chamber resistors of the printhead substrate.
  • the present invention has the advantage of reducing the range of drop volume variation and increasing the quality of the print.
  • Other advantages of the invention include a reduction in the average drop volume since a smaller drop volume range allows the designer to set the average drop volume to a lower value, a reduction in the amount of ink that the paper must absorb, and more pages per unit ink volume whether the ink supply is onboard (i.e., physically attached to printhead substrate so that it moves with it) or offboard (i.e., stationary ink supply).
  • FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the present invention.
  • Figure 2 is a plot of the thermal model of the printhead substrate used by the preferred embodiment of the invention.
  • FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an alternate embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figure 4A is a histogram of the distribution of print-cycle temperatures that a population of printheads substrates without the present invention would experience over a typical range of user plots.
  • Figure 4B is a histogram of the distribution of print-cycle temperatures that a population of printheads with the present invention would experience over the same typical range of user plots where the reference temperature equals 40°C.
  • Figure 5A is a plot of the distribution of drop volumes for a printhead substrate without the present invention.
  • Figure 5B is a plot of the distribution of drop volumes for a printhead substrate made according to the preferred embodiment of the invention.
  • Figure 6 shows the temperature sense resistor for the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
  • Figure 7A shows print having a resolution of 300x600 dots per inch
  • Figure 7B shows print having a resolution of 300x300 dots per inch.
  • Figure 8 shows the effect of increasing the drop size when printing at a resolution of 300x300 dots per inch.
  • Drop volume varies with printhead substrate temperature.
  • the present invention uses this principle to reduce the range of drop volume variation by heating the printhead substrate to a reference temperature before printing begins and keeping it from falling below that temperature during printing.
  • the preferred embodiment uses a thermal model of the printhead substrate to estimate how long to drive the printhead substrate at a particular power level to raise its temperature to the reference temperature of the printhead substrate.
  • Figure 1 is a block diagram of the preferred embodiment of the present invention. It consists of a printhead substrate temperature sensor 22, also shown in Figure 6, a cartridge (i.e., the box that holds the ink and the printhead substrate) temperature (i.e., the air temperature inside the cartridge which is the ambient temperature of the printhead substrate) sensor, and a reference temperature generator.
  • the outputs of these three devices are fed into a thermal model processor/comparator which calculates how long to drive the firing chamber resistors with nonprinting pulses having a known power.
  • the preferred embodiment of the invention heats the printhead substrate only between swaths so it has a printhead position sensor that detects when the printhead is between swaths.
  • the output of the thermal model and the output of the printhead position sensor goes to a nonprinting pulse controller that determines when the firing chamber resistors should be driven with nonprinting pulses.
  • the output of the nonprinting pulse controller signals a pulse generator when to drive the firing chamber resistors with one or more packets of nonprinting pulses having the duration specified by the thermal model processor/comparator.
  • Figure 2 is a plot of the thermal model of the printhead substrate.
  • a and ⁇ are constants of the system.
  • the inputs to the thermal model include: the reference temperature, the cartridge temperature (i.e., the temperature of the air inside the cartridge that surrounds the printhead substrate), and the printhead substrate temperature.
  • the advantage of the thermal model is that the printhead substrate reaches the reference temperature with reduced iterations of measuring the printhead substrate temperature and heating the printhead substrate.
  • the thermal model is part of a closed-loop system and the system may use several iterations of measuring and heating if needed.
  • Figure 4A is a histogram that represents the distribution of print-cycle temperatures that a population of printheads without the present invention would see over a typical range of user plots.
  • the average print-cycle temperature of these printhead substrates without the invention is T APCT and equals 40°C.
  • the preferred embodiment of the invention sets the reference temperature of a printhead substrate equal to T APCT . This has the advantage of eliminating half the temperature range and, thus, half the drop volume variation due to temperature variation.
  • the preferred embodiment of the invention heats the printhead substrate to the reference temperature only during the print cycle. This has the advantage of keeping the printhead substrate at lower and less destructive temperatures for longer. Additionally, the preferred embodiment of the invention heats the printhead substrate only between swaths (i.e., passes of a printhead across the page) to reduce the load on the processor and prevent a reduction in the print speed.
  • An alternate embodiment of the present invention heats the printhead substrate continuously. It measures the temperature of the printhead substrate as it moves across the paper. If it is below the reference temperature the machine will send either a printing pulse if the plot requires it or a nonprinting pulse. Alternate embodiments of the invention may heat the printhead substrate at anytime without departing from the scope of the invention.
  • the preferred embodiment of the invention heats the printhead substrate to the reference temperature by driving the firing chamber resistors with nonprinting pulses (i.e., pulses that heat the printhead substrate but are insufficient to cause the firing chamber resistors to eject drops).
  • nonprinting pulses i.e., pulses that heat the printhead substrate but are insufficient to cause the firing chamber resistors to eject drops.
  • Alternate embodiments of the invention can heat the printhead substrate in any manner (e.g., printing pulses driving any resistive element, a cartridge heater, etc.) without departing from the scope of the invention.
  • the preferred embodiment uses a thermal model of the printhead substrate, having inputs of the reference temperature, the cartridge temperature, and the printhead substrate temperature, that calculates how long the firing chamber resistors of the printhead substrate should be driven with packets of nonprinting pulses delivering power at the rate of Power, to the printhead substrate between swaths to raise the printhead substrate temperature to the reference temperature.
  • Figure 3 shows an alternate embodiment of the invention that uses an iterative approach to heating the printhead substrate to the reference temperature.
  • the temperature sensor measures the printhead substrate temperature.
  • An output signal 25 of the temperature sensor is processed by either a buffer-amplifier or a data converter and goes to an error detection amplifier that compares it to a reference temperature signal 36. If the printhead substrate temperature is less than the reference temperature, the closed-loop pulse generator will drive the firing chamber resistor with a series of nonprinting pulses. This process is repeated continuously during the print cycle.
  • Figure 4A is a histogram of the distribution of print-cycle temperatures for a printhead substrate without the present invention.
  • the average print-cycle temperature, T APCT is 40°C.
  • This printhead substrate made according to the preferred embodiment of the invention operates at the reference temperature of 40° C most of the time but it does float up to higher temperatures including a maximum temperature (i.e., the highest printhead substrate temperature) when the print duty cycle is high in a warm environment.
  • the preferred embodiments of the present invention sets the reference temperature equal to T APCT because it has the advantage of eliminating half the temperature range and half the range of drop volume variation due to temperature variation.
  • Alternate embodiments could set the reference temperature equal to any temperature, such as above the maximum temperature, equal to the maximum temperature, somewhere between T APCT and the maximum temperature, or below T APCT without departing from the scope of the invention.
  • FIG. 1 Another preferred aspect of the invention, is a darkness control knob, shown in Figure 1, that allows the user to change the reference temperature and thereby adjust the darkness of the print or the time required for the ink to dry according to personal preference or changes in the cartridge performance. Adjustments of the darkness control knob can cause the reference temperature to exceed the maximum temperature.
  • Raising the reference temperature has the advantage of reducing the range of printhead substrate temperature variation and if the reference temperature equals the maximum temperature, the printhead substrate temperature will not vary at all. But raising the reference temperature places increased stress on the printhead substrate and the ink and the likelihood of increased chemical interaction of the ink and the printhead substrate. This results in decreased reliability of the printhead. Also, a printhead substrate with a higher reference temperature will require more time for heating. Another disadvantage of raising the reference temperature is that all ink jet printer designs built to date have shown a higher chance of misfiring at higher printhead substrate temperatures.
  • Figure 5A shows the drop volume range for a printhead substrate without the present invention.
  • the X-axis is the volume of the drops and the Y-axis is the percentage of drops having that volume.
  • the peak of the distribution curve is at 52.5 pico liters.
  • the vertical lines are the lower acceptability limit (i.e., the smallest acceptable drops) and upper acceptability limit (i.e., the largest acceptable drop).
  • the largest drops produced by a printhead substrate without the present invention exceed the upper acceptability limit and cause the feathering, bleeding, and block (i.e., the sleeve of a transparency film adheres to the printed area of the film and permanently changes the surface of the film) problems, as well as, the cockling and curling problems mentioned earlier.
  • Drop volume is a function of the printhead substrate temperature, geometric properties of the printhead such as resistor size or nozzle diameter, and the energy contained in a printing pulse. As shown in Figure 5A, the drop volume range of printheads without the present invention is large. Typically, the drops ejected by previously-known printers at the cold, start-up printhead substrate temperatures are too small and produce substandard print. To produce larger drops at the cold, start-up temperatures, the properties of a printhead without the present invention, such as its geometry, must be adjusted so that the drops produced by a cold printhead substrate at power-on are large enough to produce satisfactory print (i.e., completely formed characters of adequate darkness).
  • Figure 5B shows the drop volume range for a printhead substrate made according to the present invention.
  • the peak of the distribution curve is at 47.5 pico liters and both the lower end and the upper end of the drop distribution fits inside the limits of acceptability.
  • This volume distribution was obtained by using the present invention which keeps the printhead substrate temperature from falling below the reference temperature and by skewing the entire range of drop volumes down to lower drop volumes. This is accomplished by changing the geometry of the printhead such as the size of the resistors and the orifice diameter.
  • an advantage of the present invention is that the largest drops can be eliminated by skewing down the entire range of drop volumes.
  • FIG 6 shows the temperature sense resistor 22 that the preferred embodiment of the invention uses.
  • Temperature sense resistor 22 measures the average temperature of a printhead substrate 20 since it wraps around all nozzles 24 of printhead substrate 20.
  • the temperature of the ink in the drop generators is the temperature of greatest interest, but this temperature is difficult to measure directly but temperature sense resistor 22 can measure it indirectly.
  • the silicon is thermally conductive and the ink is in contact with the substrate long enough that the temperature averaged around the head is very close to the temperature of the ink by the time the printhead ejects the ink.
  • Printhead substrate temperature sensor 22 is inexpensive to manufacture because it does not require any processing steps or materials that are not already a part of the manufacturing procedure for thermal ink jet printheads. However, it must be calibrated using standard calibration techniques, an accurate thermistor located in the printer box, and a known temperature difference between the printhead substrate and printer box. Other possibilities for calibrating printhead substrate temperature sensor 22 include laser trimming of the resistor.
  • the preferred embodiment of the invention heats the printhead substrate by using packets of nonprinting pulses.
  • the power delivered by these packets equals the number of nozzles times the frequency of the nonprinting pulses (which can be much higher than that of the printing pulses since no drops are ejected from the printhead) times the energy in each nonprinting pulse.
  • This power parameter is used to create the thermal model shown in Figure 2.
  • the number of nozzles and the frequency of the nonprinting pulses are constant and set by other aspects of the printhead design. Alternate embodiments of the invention can vary the frequency of the nonprinting pulses and pulse some but not all of the nozzles without departing from the scope of the invention.
  • the nonprinting pulses have the same voltage as the printing pulses so that the various time constants in the circuit are the same for printing pulses and nonprinting pulses.
  • the pulse width and energy delivered by printing pulses are adjusted according the characteristics of each particular printhead.
  • the width of nonprinting pulses is equal to or less than .48 times the width of the printing pulse so that it has little chance of ever ejecting ink from the printhead.
  • the printing pulses have a width of 2.5 ⁇ sec. and the nonprinting pulses have a width of .6 ⁇ sec.
  • the preferred embodiment of the invention changes the reference temperature with changes in resolution that are caused by a change in print speed.
  • the resolution is 300 dots per inch along the paper feed axis and 600 dots per inch across the width of the paper in the carriage scan direction which translates into twice the number of dots across the width of the paper.
  • Figure 7A shows the coverage of dots in 300 x 600 dot per inch print. If the print speed is doubled, the printhead operates the same way but the resolution becomes 300 x 300 dots per inch.
  • Figure 7B shows the coverage of dots when the resolution is reduced to 300 x 300 dots per inch print. Holes open up between the dots.
  • the present invention increases the reference temperature to T LDref , shown in Figure 2, so that the printhead ejects drops with a larger volume that produces larger dots that better fill in the empty space between the dots as shown in Figure 8.

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  • Particle Formation And Scattering Control In Inkjet Printers (AREA)
  • Ink Jet (AREA)

Claims (12)

  1. Ein Verfahren zum Reduzieren des Schwankungsbereichs des Tropfenvolumens eines thermischen Tintenstrahldruckkopfs, wobei das Verfahren folgende Schritte umfaßt:
    Messen der Temperatur des Druckkopfsubstrats (20);
    Vergleichen der gemessenen Temperatur mit einer Referenztemperatur; und
    Erwärmen des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) auf die Referenztemperatur, wobei die Referenztemperatur derart ist, daß das Erwärmen des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) auf dieselbe dazu dient, den Bereich der Tropfenvolumenschwankung zu reduzieren;
    dadurch gekennzeichnet, daß
    der Druckkopf derart strukturiert ist, daß das maximale Tropfenvolumen etwa 60 Pikoliter beträgt.
  2. Ein Verfahren gemäß Anspruch 1, das ferner den Schritt des Erwärmens des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) durch Treiben eines Abfeuerungskammerwiderstands auf dem Druckkopfsubstrat mit Nicht-Druck-Impulsen umfaßt.
  3. Ein Verfahren gemäß Anspruch 1 oder 2, bei dem das Druckkopfsubstrat (20) während dem Druckzykius auf die Referenztemperatur erwärmt wird.
  4. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der vorhergehenden Ansprüche, das ferner das Einstellen der Referenztemperatur gleich einer Maximaltemperatur des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) umfaßt.
  5. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der Ansprüche 1 bis 3, das ferner das Einstellen der Referenztemperatur unterhalb der durchschnittlichen Druckzyklustemperatur umfaßt.
  6. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der Ansprüche 1 bis 3, das ferner das Einstellen der Referenztemperatur zwischen einer durchschnittlichen Druckzyklustemperatur und einer Maximaltemperatur des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) umfaßt.
  7. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der Ansprüche 1 bis 3, das ferner das Einstellen der Referenztemperatur gleich zu etwa einer durchschnittlichen Druckzyklustemperatur des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) umfaßt.
  8. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der vorhergehenden Ansprüche, das ferner das Erhöhen der Referenztemperatur umfaßt, wenn sich die Druckauflösung des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) verschlechtert.
  9. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der vorhergehenden Ansprüche, das ferner das Verwenden eines thermischen Modells des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) umfaßt, um zu schätzen, wieviel Energie die Nicht-Druck-Impulse zu den Abfeuerungskammerwiderständen liefern sollten.
  10. Ein Verfahren gemäß einem der vorhergehenden Ansprüche, das ferner den Schritt des Variierens der Referenztemperatur ansprechend auf eine Benutzereingabe umfaßt.
  11. Ein thermischer Tintenstrahldruckkopf, der Tinte mit vorbestimmten Charakteristika enthält, wobei der Druckkopf folgende Merkmale aufweist:
    eine Einrichtung zum Messen der Temperatur des Druckkopfsubstrats (20);
    eine Einrichtung zum Vergleichen der gemessenen Temperatur mit einer Referenztemperatur; und
    eine Einrichtung zum Erwärmen des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) auf die Referenztemperatur;
    wobei die Referenztemperatur derart ist, daß das Erwärmen des Druckkopfsubstrats (20) auf dieselbe dazu dient, den Bereich des Tropfenvolumens zu reduzieren;
    dadurch gekennzeichnet, daß der Druckkopf bezüglich der vorbestimmten Charakteristika der Tinte derart strukturiert ist, daß das maximale Tropfenvolumen etwa 60 Pikoliter beträgt.
  12. Ein thermischer Tintenstrahldruckkopf gemäß Anspruch 11, der ferner eine Einrichtung aufweist, die es einem Benutzer erlaubt, die Referenztemperatur auszuwählen, um dadurch die Dunkelheit des Drucks zu steuern.
EP19930309242 1992-11-30 1993-11-19 Verfahren und Vorrichtung zur Überwachung von Thermo-Tintenstrahl-Druckern Expired - Lifetime EP0600648B1 (de)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US98300992A 1992-11-30 1992-11-30
US983009 1992-11-30

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EP0600648A2 EP0600648A2 (de) 1994-06-08
EP0600648A3 EP0600648A3 (de) 1995-01-04
EP0600648B1 true EP0600648B1 (de) 2001-10-24

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EP (1) EP0600648B1 (de)
JP (1) JP3408302B2 (de)
DE (1) DE69330991T2 (de)
SG (1) SG47457A1 (de)

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Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5736995A (en) * 1991-05-01 1998-04-07 Hewlett-Packard Company Temperature control of thermal inkjet printheads by using synchronous non-nucleating pulses
JP3521976B2 (ja) * 1993-10-27 2004-04-26 ヒューレット・パッカード・カンパニー インクジェット印書方法及びプリンタ
US5714989A (en) * 1993-11-22 1998-02-03 Hewlett-Packard Company Inkdrop-volume test using heat-flow effects, for thermal-inkjet printers
JPH0839807A (ja) * 1994-07-29 1996-02-13 Canon Inc インクジェットプリント方法および装置
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SG47457A1 (en) 1998-04-17
JP3408302B2 (ja) 2003-05-19
DE69330991T2 (de) 2002-04-04
JPH06278291A (ja) 1994-10-04
EP0600648A2 (de) 1994-06-08
DE69330991D1 (de) 2001-11-29
EP0600648A3 (de) 1995-01-04

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