EP0952003B1 - Ink jet printing - Google Patents

Ink jet printing Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0952003B1
EP0952003B1 EP99303072A EP99303072A EP0952003B1 EP 0952003 B1 EP0952003 B1 EP 0952003B1 EP 99303072 A EP99303072 A EP 99303072A EP 99303072 A EP99303072 A EP 99303072A EP 0952003 B1 EP0952003 B1 EP 0952003B1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
nozzle array
medium
nozzle
ink jet
coordinates
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
EP99303072A
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German (de)
English (en)
French (fr)
Other versions
EP0952003A1 (en
Inventor
Alan E. Cariffe
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
HP Inc
Original Assignee
Hewlett Packard Co
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Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Hewlett Packard Co filed Critical Hewlett Packard Co
Publication of EP0952003A1 publication Critical patent/EP0952003A1/en
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of EP0952003B1 publication Critical patent/EP0952003B1/en
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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    • 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
    • B41J19/00—Character- or line-spacing mechanisms
    • B41J19/16—Special spacing mechanisms for circular, spiral, or diagonal-printing apparatus

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to ink-jet printing techniques, and more particularly to a method for media coverage which involves unidirectional ink-jet printing which reduces mechanical hysteresis and reduces the area of unprintable margins to zero by printing along a spiral locus path.
  • ink-jet nozzles are activated at different times to "shoot” or eject drops of ink, and these drops land upon the media, thereby making text or images visible upon the media.
  • errors are generally due to mechanical alignments within and about the mounting of the ink-jet "head”, directionality errors caused by the angles with which the drops are ejected from the nozzles, timing quantization, position sensing, and importantly, mechanical hysteresis.
  • Hysteresis is an effect that manifests itself by a non-repeatable position trace while moving from left-to-right, and then moving from right-to-left, so that the commanded position has an uncertainty or offset from that of the actual nozzle position.
  • Hysteresis is often the result of friction in a mechanism, accompanied by the normal tolerance of fitted parts, and accentuated by a start-stop motion of the mechanism. Starting friction may be higher than running friction; hence there is a tendency for the heads to move toward one end of their mechanical tolerance at the reversal of the sweep.
  • This invention improves upon the hysteresis problem, and the margin problem as described above for the case of a rectangular "raster" sweep of an ink-jet nozzle array over a flat media.
  • An improvement to the hysteresis problem will be provided if the mechanical system does not start and stop more than once, that is, there is continuous motion of the nozzle array with respect to the media.
  • a printing technique in accordance with an aspect of the invention meets that need by effectively providing relative spiral motion between the media and the nozzle array.
  • US-A-5,317,337 discloses an ink-jet printing system with a printer head array arranged to print spiral tracks on a label.
  • the disclosure of this document corresponds generally to the preambles of the independent claims.
  • a method for media coverage with an ink jet nozzle array in accordance with one aspect of the invention includes the following steps:
  • An ink jet printing system in accordance with another aspect of the invention includes an ink jet nozzle array for ejecting ink droplets during an ink jet printing cycle, a flat medium positioned to receive ink droplets ejected by the nozzle array during an ink jet printing cycle, an apparatus for providing relative motion between the nozzle array and the medium such that a spiral path is defined by the trace of the nozzle array upon the media during an ink jet printing cycle, and is characterised in that the edges of adjacent parts of said path over a substantial extent thereof are spaced apart.
  • the spiral maximum diameter may be made equal to the diagonal dimension of a rectangular media; thus allowing drops to be deposited very close to the edge of the media, and so reducing or eliminating the area of unprintable margins on both sides and the top and bottom of the media.
  • An ink jet printing technique wherein relative motion is provided between a nozzle array and the surface of a flat media, without actually causing the nozzle array or medium to stop and reverse its direction periodically, in one exemplary embodiment.
  • This can be accomplished, in one exemplary embodiment, by mounting the nozzle array on an arm which radiates from a center of coordinates in RHO ( ⁇ ), THETA ( ⁇ ) coordinate space, where RHO is a measure of distance from a center of coordinates, and THETA is a measure of angle, most usually in radians.
  • the nozzle array can then be moved outward from this center, while at the same time the media may be rotated in a circle around the center of coordinates.
  • the nozzle array can be rotated and translated instead of the media to provide a spiral locus for the ink jet nozzles relative to the print medium.
  • FIGS. 1-8 illustrate an ink jet printing system 50 explaining the present invention.
  • An ink jet pen 52 including a nozzle plate 54 with an array of ink jet nozzles 56A-56N (FIG. 3) is supported in a carriage 60.
  • the carriage 60 is adapted for movement along a scan axis 62.
  • a carriage drive system 70 is coupled to the carriage to drive the carriage in a path along the axis 62.
  • Carriage drive systems are well known for swath printers, and typically include a drive motor 72, belt drive 74, and encoder strip 76 with encoder sensor 78 (FIG. 8) for providing carriage position data.
  • the drive system for the system of FIG. 1 does not require as high speed carriage velocities as is typically required for linear swath-type printers, and so other drive mechanisms can be employed, such as leadscrew drives.
  • the print medium 10 is mounted on a flat turntable platen 80 which is in turn mounted for rotation about a center axis 82, which at the plane of the medium 10 defines the center of coordinates 86.
  • the turntable platen 80 is driven by a rotary turntable drive system 90 which includes a turntable motor 92 and a turntable encoder 94 (FIG. 8) for providing turntable position data.
  • an apparatus for holding the print medium flat against the turntable.
  • Such apparatus are well known in the art, e.g. a vacuum hold-down system, an electrostatic system, or a mechanical system with a fixture for holding the medium in place.
  • the carriage axis 62 intersects the linear nozzle array axis above the center of coordinates 86 (FIG. 3).
  • a second device 40 being held by the carriage.
  • This device is optional, and can be a black ink jet pen (e.g., pen 40B in FIG. 8), in the case where the pen 52 is a tri-compartment, three colour pen with three nozzle arrays for ejecting ink droplets of three different colours.
  • Motions of the pen carriage and the media turntable may be used to allow both pens to sweep over the same regions on the medium. For example, pen 52 may sweep over a spiral when pen 40 is swept over the same area 2 ⁇ radians of rotation later.
  • the second device can be an optical scanning head with a light sensor array (eg. array 40A in FIG. 8), for providing an optical scanner function, as more particularly described in the above mentioned co-pending application.
  • a light sensor array eg. array 40A in FIG. 8
  • An exemplary optical scanning head suitable for the purpose is described in European patent application EP-A-0831639. In other applications, no second device 40 is employed.
  • FIG. 2 is a chart illustrating the relative motion path, a spiral locus, of the nozzle array in relation to the medium 10 during a printing operation in accordance with an example useful in explaining the present invention.
  • LOCUS 1 is a trace of the path taken by the nozzle of pen 52, for example, which is mounted furthest from the centre of coordinates 86, relative to the surface of the print medium 10.
  • REGION 1 is the circular region defined by the relative nozzle sweep which would occur with a stationary nozzle array and the medium in rotation, when the nozzle array is closest to the centre of coordinates 86, such that the inner nozzle is over the center of coordinates 86, and the nozzle located at the position of LOCUS 1 is the furthest from this center.
  • REGION 2 illustrates a typical rectangular printing region, W by H.
  • REGION 3 is bounded by a circle indicating the outer limit of coverage for potential ink drops.
  • FIG. 3 illustrates a simplified nozzle array 54 with a plurality of nozzles 56A-56N.
  • Position 1 shows the nozzle array in a start position relative to the surface of the medium 10, with the nozzle 56A at the platen center of coordinates 86.
  • Position 2 shows a relative rotation (by some angle ⁇ ) between the nozzle array 54 and the medium 10.
  • the carriage is stationary during the first complete rotation of the platen 80, to provide complete coverage, i.e. to sweep out, REGION 1.
  • This first complete relative rotation is circular, and the nozzle 56A remains at the center of coordinates 86, which is illustrated in FIG. 3.
  • the carriage is put in motion, to provide a spiral relative path as shown in FIG.4.
  • FIG. 4 is a simplified illustration of the path of the outermost nozzle 56N for a second complete rotation (2 ⁇ radians) of the medium 10, i.e. for the case of a given motion of the carriage along the carriage axis 62 as the platen 80 rotates.
  • the printer controller is programmed to suppress firing the nozzles, for this second rotation, over the overlapped area to prevent duplicate dot coverage.
  • the drops or dots of ink are preferably spaced evenly along the spiral path in accordance with standard design practices.
  • FIGS. 2 and 4 also illustrates the condition that, for this exemplary embodiment, the radial motion of the nozzle array is constrained to move one nozzle array width in the radial direction for each 2 ⁇ radians (360 degrees) rotation of the medium 10 on platen 80.
  • the spiral path does not overlap or underlap onto itself.
  • FIG. 5 illustrates an exemplary spiral locus for such an overlapped case.
  • the carriage moves outwardly at a rate of .5 unit (nozzle array width) per complete rotation of the nozzle array.
  • the nozzle array can be moved more than a full nozzle array width for each 2 ⁇ radian rotation of the medium 10, providing gaps in the print coverage as the nozzle array moves outwardly.
  • FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary spiral locus for such an underlapped case.
  • the carriage moves outwardly at a rate of 2 units (nozzle array widths) per complete rotation of the nozzle array.
  • REGION 1 In order to completely cover REGION 1 with potential ink drops, when the nozzle array is located over REGION 1, it needs to maintain this position during the first full revolution of the medium 10 on the platen 80. Subsequently, in the second and subsequent revolutions of the platen 80, as the nozzle array moves outward, all the remaining area of REGION 3 becomes the potential target of ink drops.
  • REGION 3 is circular, but most of the media upon which it is desired to print will typically be rectangular, as illustrated by the rectangular printing REGION 2. In order to completely cover this region, the innermost nozzle of the nozzle array needs to travel away from the center of coordinates outward, and the outermost nozzle must be able to just reach the furthest corners of the media.
  • the ink-jet nozzles fire their drops out at a constant rate, although this is not required by this invention.
  • FIG. 7 is a graph plotting an exemplary angular speed of the head as a function of the radial distance from the center of coordinates.
  • the maximum rotational rate of the media will be V radians per second, when the innermost nozzle is located over the center of rotation, and the minimum rotational velocity will be 2V/(W 2 +H 2 ) 1/2 radians per second for a nozzle array of 1 unit length.
  • the maximum tangential velocity that this nozzle array supports, while firing dots at its maximum rate is 25.4cm per second (10.0 inches per second).
  • 10*300 3000 dots are fired per second while the head moves over the media at this speed, and the "swath-width" is 2.54cm (1.0 inch) wide.
  • the total print time can be approximated at the time it takes to sweep out the total circular area of REGION 3 at the constant rate of 64.5 sq cm per second (10 square inches per second) (the area swept out be the head in one second is the length of the nozzle array times the distance traveled in one second).
  • FIG. 8 is a simplified schematic block diagram of the control system for the printer system illustrated in FIG. 1.
  • a controller 100 is coupled to a memory 102 for retrieval of data defining a print job.
  • the controller generates the drive commands to the pen scanning motor 72, which comprises the carriage drive, and receives position signals indicative of the carriage/pen position from pen scanning encoder 78.
  • the controller also generates turntable motor drive commands to control the turntable motor 92 which rotates the turntable platen, and receives encoder signals from the turntable encoder 94 to determine the position and angular velocity of the turntable platen.
  • the controller thus can control the carriage drive to achieve a non-overlapping spiral locus of the pen nozzle array with respect to the medium, or an overlapped spiral locus to prevent banding or other artifacts, or an underlapped locus to provide for other special printing modes.
  • Other exemplary print modes include skipping printing on alternate rotations forming the spiral, and to reverse the direction of the carriage at the end, filling in the omitted dots in the alternate rotations.
  • the controller also provides firing pulses to the pen printhead nozzles 54, in dependence on the image to be generated and the position of the pen in relation to the center of coordinates.
  • the image data can be stored in the memory 102, or received from a host computer 120.
  • the controller can also set the firing rate for the pen nozzles. While in many cases it is desirable to use a constant (maximum) firing rate, for other jobs or applications, the controller can control the firing rate to be non-constant over a particular print job, or to use a slower constant firing rate. Faster or slower firing rates can be used to achieve higher or lower densities of dots in particular regions on the medium 10.
  • Each nozzle in the nozzle array 54 is at a different radial distance from the center of coordinates 86 than any other nozzle.
  • the result of this is that firing all nozzles at a constant rate produces dot spacing differences which will be readily apparent at small values of RHO, especially in REGION 1 of FIG. 2.
  • the nozzle 56N (FIG. 3) at RHO furthest from the center of rotation must fire 300 times for every inch along the circumference.
  • the circumference is 2 ⁇ inches.
  • 1,885 dots would actually be fired if the firing rate were to be the same as the outermost nozzle, and the dots thus produced would be closer together than those produced by the outermost nozzle.
  • pixels which have been printed should not be re-printed, and logic in the controller can easily determine which pixel is to be printed by each nozzle, and nozzles closer to the center of rotation can be fired less frequently.
  • the nozzle 56A when the nozzle array has reached a RHO value of 2.0, after the second complete rotation of the medium, the nozzle 56A (closest to the center of rotation) is at a RHO value of 1.0, and will need to be fired at one-half the rate of the outermost nozzle to maintain the same dot spacing.
  • logic in the controller will adjust the firing rate to not put ink on a pixel which has already been printed once.
  • the above-described embodiments are merely illustrative of the possible specific embodiments which may represent principles of the present invention.
  • other arrangements can be employed to provide the desired relative motion between the pen and the print medium to provide a spiral path.
  • the pen can located on an arm mechanism which moves in a,spiral path, with the print medium located on a stationary platen.
  • the pen can be located in a stationary position, and the print medium located on a platen which provides the desired spiral movement locus.
  • the motion of the pen has been described as commencing from a position at the center of coordinates and moving radially outwardly, the pen could alternatively be started at any other position, e.g., at the outermost position and spiraled inwardly to end at the center of coordinates.

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  • Ink Jet (AREA)
EP99303072A 1998-04-24 1999-04-21 Ink jet printing Expired - Lifetime EP0952003B1 (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US6662198A 1998-04-24 1998-04-24
US66621 1998-04-24

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0952003A1 EP0952003A1 (en) 1999-10-27
EP0952003B1 true EP0952003B1 (en) 2004-06-30

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Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP99303072A Expired - Lifetime EP0952003B1 (en) 1998-04-24 1999-04-21 Ink jet printing

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EP (1) EP0952003B1 (enrdf_load_stackoverflow)
JP (1) JPH11334046A (enrdf_load_stackoverflow)
DE (1) DE69918355T2 (enrdf_load_stackoverflow)

Families Citing this family (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
DE10016412C2 (de) * 2000-04-01 2003-08-07 Edison Fatehpour Matrixdrucker bzw. Scanner zum Bedrucken bzw. Scannen eines Druckmediums
US6935738B2 (en) 2000-08-03 2005-08-30 Agfaphoto Gmbh Ink-jet printer and method for printing image material in an ink-jet printer
JP2002251862A (ja) * 2001-02-26 2002-09-06 Ricoh Co Ltd 記憶メディアとこれを用いる情報記録再生装置
GB2376920A (en) 2001-06-27 2002-12-31 Inca Digital Printers Ltd Inkjet printing on a three-dimensional object including relative movement of a printhead and the object during printing about a rotational axis
US7307649B2 (en) * 2002-12-12 2007-12-11 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Optical disc non-cartesian coordinate system
JP5914064B2 (ja) * 2012-03-12 2016-05-11 株式会社エルエーシー プリント装置

Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JPS6490433A (en) * 1987-09-30 1989-04-06 Fuji Photo Film Co Ltd Image reading and reproducing method
US5317337A (en) * 1987-07-01 1994-05-31 U.S. Philips Corporation Printing method for disc-shaped information carriers
JPH09265760A (ja) * 1996-03-27 1997-10-07 Seiko Epson Corp 光ディスク装置

Family Cites Families (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US2389408A (en) * 1944-04-28 1945-11-20 Albert W Boyd Attachment for typewriting machines
GB1406482A (en) * 1972-01-14 1975-09-17 Marconi Co Ltd Teleprinters
JPH05238005A (ja) * 1992-02-28 1993-09-17 Taiyo Yuden Co Ltd ディスクのレーベル印刷装置及び光ディスクの情報記録装置
JPH09219019A (ja) * 1996-02-13 1997-08-19 Nippon Sheet Glass Co Ltd 磁気ディスクにおけるテクスチャーの形成方法
US6516410B1 (en) 2000-02-17 2003-02-04 Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P. Method and apparatus for manipulation of MMX registers for use during computer boot-up procedures

Patent Citations (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US5317337A (en) * 1987-07-01 1994-05-31 U.S. Philips Corporation Printing method for disc-shaped information carriers
JPS6490433A (en) * 1987-09-30 1989-04-06 Fuji Photo Film Co Ltd Image reading and reproducing method
JPH09265760A (ja) * 1996-03-27 1997-10-07 Seiko Epson Corp 光ディスク装置

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Publication number Publication date
EP0952003A1 (en) 1999-10-27
JPH11334046A (ja) 1999-12-07
DE69918355D1 (de) 2004-08-05
DE69918355T2 (de) 2005-06-30

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