JP2007076299A - Liquid injection apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a liquid injection apparatus which has a simple mechanism of a low cost, does not cause a contamination due to a liquid wiped off with a wipe blade flying to a perimeter, and is equipped with a wiping mechanism having a highly reliable wide blade. <P>SOLUTION: The liquid injection apparatus is equipped with a liquid injection head for injecting a droplet from a nozzle, an elastic wipe blade which contacts with a nozzle forming face of the liquid injection head and wipes away the face, and a wipe blade hold member for holding the wipe blade. The wipe blade is maintained in the state of being sagged with a wipe blade regulation member. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus.

  Examples of a liquid ejecting apparatus having a liquid ejecting head capable of ejecting liquid in the form of droplets include an image recording apparatus that ejects ink droplets to record an image on recording paper, and ejects a liquid electrode material onto a substrate. An electrode forming apparatus for forming an electrode, a biochip manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing a biochip by discharging a biological sample, or a micropipette for discharging a predetermined amount of a sample to a container has been proposed. In this type of liquid ejecting apparatus, the liquid to be ejected is stored in a storage container, and this liquid is supplied to the liquid ejecting head to be ejected.

  The above-described liquid ejecting head discharges the liquid pressurized in the pressure generating chamber as a droplet from the nozzle toward the target, but when the discharged droplet reaches the target, the nozzle opening is formed. In some cases, it adheres to the surface (hereinafter referred to as the nozzle forming surface) and becomes dirty.

  In addition, when ejecting from a nozzle, in addition to droplets that land on an object, smaller droplets (satellite) separated from the droplets may be generated. This satellite does not reach the object but drifts in the air and may adhere to the nozzle forming surface.

  Furthermore, in order to eliminate clogging of the nozzle opening, the nozzle forming surface is sealed with a cap member that seals the nozzle forming surface, and a negative pressure is applied from the suction pump to forcibly suck and discharge liquid from the nozzle opening. When processing is performed, droplets may remain in the vicinity of the nozzle opening.

  As described above, when the nozzle forming surface of the liquid jet head, particularly around the nozzle opening, becomes dirty, the droplet discharge direction deviates from the normal direction, or the nozzle is blocked and cannot be discharged. May affect.

  In order to solve this problem, some liquid ejecting apparatuses of this type include a wiping mechanism that wipes off dirt adhering to the nozzle formation surface. The wiping mechanism includes a plate-like (strip-like) wiper blade formed of an elastic material such as rubber or elastomer, and is disposed on the home position side which is a standby area of the liquid ejecting head in the liquid ejecting apparatus. ing.

The absorptive member is installed on the downstream side in the sliding direction of the elastic plate member, and the elastic elastic member and the absorbent member are moved forward and backward to the liquid ejecting head side so that the elastic plate member slides and cleans the head face surface. A method has been proposed in which the absorbent member is advanced before the elastic recovery later. (For example, see Patent Document 1)
Further, in the normal state, it is located at the retracted position where it does not contact the liquid ejecting head, but when the liquid ejecting head moves from the home position to the drive region side, the upper part of the wiper blade is on the nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head. Move (rise) to a wiping position where contact is possible. When the wiper blade comes into contact with the liquid ejecting head, the entire blade bends in a bow shape, and the wiper blade holding member or the liquid ejecting head moves while the tip of the blade is in contact with the nozzle forming surface. A method has been proposed in which dirt is wiped off and dirt adhered to the nozzle forming surface is removed. (For example, see Patent Document 2)
JP-A-7-52396 JP 2001-191543 A

  However, when a complicated mechanism is required or when the wiper blade comes off the nozzle formation surface of the liquid ejecting head at the final stage of the wiping operation, the liquid wiped off from the tip of the wiper blade is splashed and splashed around. , Could contaminate the surroundings. In order to prevent this, a method of reducing the rigidity of the wiper blade has been adopted, but there is a possibility that wiping is difficult to be performed sufficiently.

  The present invention has a simple mechanism, a low cost, and a liquid jet equipped with a wiping mechanism having a highly reliable wiper blade that prevents the liquid wiped off by the wiper blade from splashing around and being contaminated. An object is to provide an apparatus.

  The object of the present invention can be achieved by the following constitution.

(1)
A liquid ejecting head for ejecting liquid droplets from a nozzle; a wiper blade having elasticity for wiping the nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head in contact; a wiper blade holding member for holding the wiper blade; and the wiper blade A liquid ejecting apparatus comprising: a wiper blade restricting member that maintains a bent state.

(2)
The liquid ejecting apparatus according to (1), wherein a part or all of the wiper blade regulating member is configured by an absorber.

(3)
The liquid ejecting apparatus according to (1), wherein a groove is formed in the wiper blade regulating member.

  According to the first aspect of the present invention, the liquid ejecting head that ejects liquid droplets from the nozzle, the wiper blade having elasticity that wipes the nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head in contact with the nozzle, and the wiper blade are held. And a wiper blade regulating member that maintains the wiper blade in a bent state, thereby reducing a distance until the blade is restored when the blade is separated from the nozzle forming surface after wiping. Therefore, the flying distance of the droplet can be shortened. For this reason, it is possible to prevent the surrounding contamination due to the scattering of the droplets. Further, since no complicated mechanism is required, an increase in cost can be avoided.

  According to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to efficiently remove the liquid adhering to the blade by configuring part or all of the wiper blade regulating member with the absorber.

  According to the invention described in claim 3, it is possible to efficiently discharge the liquid adhering to the blade by forming a groove in the wiper blade regulating member.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of an ink jet recording apparatus in which a liquid ejecting apparatus according to the present invention can be used.

  Reference numeral 10 denotes the entire inkjet recording apparatus, and 9 denotes a paper discharge tray on which a recording medium (paper) 7 on which an image is recorded is discharged and stacked. The ink jet recording apparatus 10 includes a recording medium storage unit in which a liquid ejecting head 1, a main tank 3, an intermediate tank 4, a maintenance unit 5, a conveyance belt 6, and a recording medium 7 constituting the liquid ejecting apparatus according to the invention are accommodated. 8 is provided.

  For example, according to a program stored in the CPU, the control unit 2 operates various means constituting the ink jet recording apparatus, reads image information of a document, or from an external information device via an interface (not shown). Printer function that executes a series of image information recording control that inputs image information etc., stores that information, and records and outputs it on a recording medium, and adjustment and maintenance of various means so that the printer function can be executed reliably Maintenance function to perform etc.

  Although details will be described later, the liquid ejecting head 1 includes, for example, a plurality of nozzle openings for ejecting each ink of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (BK). The head units are provided for four colors, and although not shown, for example, a drive circuit for performing an ink discharge operation corresponding to each head unit is integrated.

  The maintenance unit 5 is a cap that covers the vicinity of the nozzle opening so that dust or dust adheres to the nozzle opening of the liquid jet head 1 or the ink does not dry and become clogged when the printing operation is interrupted for a while. Or before the next printing operation starts after the printing operation is interrupted, or at regular intervals, ink is ejected from the nozzle opening or the nozzle opening is cleaned to prevent clogging. It is made to recover so that a normal ink discharge operation can be performed.

  For transporting the recording medium, the recording medium 7 stored in the recording medium storage unit 8 is taken out one by one by the feed roller R1. A pair of rollers R2 sends the taken recording medium 7 in the direction of the pair of rollers R3 via the paper feed guide 21. The recording medium 7 sandwiched between the rollers R3 is further sent to the conveying belt 6.

  In order to stably convey the recording medium 7 at a constant speed, the conveyor belt 6 is suspended by rollers R4 to R7. When the roller R7 is rotated by a driving source such as a stepping motor (not shown), the conveyor belt 6 is also rotated. It is designed to rotate.

  The recording medium 7 transported via the transport belt 6 faces the liquid jet head 1 and records an image while being transported at a constant speed.

  Thereafter, a paper discharge conveyance operation is executed, and when the recording medium 7 on which an image is recorded is sent to the paper discharge conveyance guide 22, it is sandwiched by a pair of rollers R8 and discharged to the paper discharge tray 9. It has become.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an ink supply system and a maintenance unit of the ink jet recording apparatus.

  The operation of the inkjet recording and maintenance unit will be described with reference to FIG.

  For example, cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (BK) ink are stored in the four main tanks 3. Each ink is supplied to the liquid ejecting head 1 via the tube 11 and the intermediate tank 4 and the damper 12.

  The recording medium 7 is transported in the sub-scanning direction (arrow Y direction) by the transport belt 6.

  The carriage 18 ejects ink from the nozzles of the liquid jet head 1 while reciprocating in the main scanning direction (arrow X direction), and an image is formed on the recording medium 7.

When performing maintenance on the liquid ejecting head 1, the carriage 18 moves to a position facing the maintenance unit 5 in the main scanning direction, and performs maintenance on the liquid ejecting head 1.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of the flow of ink in maintenance of the ink jet recording apparatus.

  The liquid jet head 1 is mounted on a carriage (18 in FIG. 2) not shown. The carriage reciprocates along the main scanning direction and is provided so as to be movable along the vertical direction. By reciprocating along the main scanning direction of the carriage, the liquid ejecting head 1 is reciprocated along the main scanning direction, and image recording is performed by ejecting ink in the process, and moving along the vertical direction. Accordingly, the ink suction cap 13 is brought into close contact with and separated from the ink suction cap 13.

  Ink is supplied to the liquid ejecting head 1 through an ink tube 11 from a main tank 3 that stores ink in the form of an ink pack. Between the main tank 3 and the liquid jet head 1, an intermediate tank 4 and a damper 12 are disposed from the upstream side.

  The intermediate tank 4 temporarily stores the ink supplied from the main tank 3 to the liquid ejecting head 1. A constant amount of ink is always stored in the intermediate tank 4, and the ink pressure supplied to the liquid ejecting head 1 is made constant regardless of the remaining amount of ink in the main tank 3.

  The damper 12 attenuates or dampens fluctuations in the ink pressure due to the expansion and contraction of the tube and the acceleration / deceleration of the ink in the tube as the liquid ejecting head 1 reciprocates along the main scanning direction.

  The maintenance unit 5 has a configuration in which an ink suction cap 13 and a wiper blade 14 are placed on a support base 23, and the opening side of the ink suction cap 13 is on the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid ejecting head 1. It is placed so as to face each other. A wiper blade 14 formed of an elastic material such as rubber for cleaning the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid jet head 1 is erected on the support 23rd by a wiper blade holding member 28.

  The suction port of the ink suction cap 13 is connected to a suction pump 16 that is a suction means. Ink sucked by the suction pump 16 (hereinafter referred to as waste ink) is discharged to a waste ink tank 17.

  An air release valve 151 is disposed at the other end of the air communication pipe 15 whose one end communicates with the ink suction cap 13. The ink suction cap 13 is urged toward the nozzle formation surface 25 of the liquid ejecting head 1 by the urging spring 24, and in a normal time when the ink suction cap 13 is not in contact with the nozzle formation surface 25, The other end is opened by the atmosphere release valve 151, but when the liquid ejecting head 1 is lowered and the nozzle forming surface 25 comes into contact with the ink suction cap 13 (leak position) and is further lowered, The end is closed by the air release valve 151 so as to seal the inside of the ink suction cap 13 (capping position).

  The wiping of the nozzle forming surface 25 by the wiper blade 14 will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5.

  FIG. 4 is a conventional example of the operation of wiping the nozzle forming surface 25 with the wiper blade 14.

  FIG. 2A shows a state in which the carriage 18 moves to the left in the main scanning direction and arrives at a position facing the maintenance unit 5 in FIG. Here, the carriage 18 and the damper 12 are omitted, and only the liquid ejecting head 1 is illustrated.

  In (b), the liquid ejecting head 1 is moved upward, and at the same time, the maintenance unit 5 is moved leftward (frontward in FIG. 2).

  In (c), when the liquid ejecting head 1 passes through the wiper blade 14, the liquid ejecting head 1 is moved downward.

In (d), the wiper blade 14 wipes the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid jet head 1 when the maintenance unit 5 is moved in the right direction (the back direction in FIG. 2). When the nozzle forming surface 25 has been wiped, the process returns to (a). At that time, the curvature of the wiper blade 14 returns, and the ink adhering to the wiper blade 14 scatters to the periphery with the return force.
[Embodiment 1]
FIG. 5 is an example of an operation of wiping the nozzle forming surface 25 with the wiper blade 14 according to the present invention.

  In (a), the wiper blade 14 is pushed and curved in advance by the wiper blade regulating member 20.

  (B) and (c) perform the same operations as (b) and (c) of FIG.

In (d), the wiper blade 14 wipes the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid jet head 1 when the maintenance unit 5 is moved in the right direction (the back direction in FIG. 2). When the nozzle forming surface 25 has been wiped, the process returns to (a). At that time, the curvature of the wiper blade 14 returns, but is limited by the wiper blade restricting member 20, so that the return amount is small and the ink adhering to the wiper blade 14 is not scattered around.
[Embodiment 2]
FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of the maintenance unit 5 using the material of the ink absorber for the wiper blade regulating member 26. When the wiper blade 14 wipes the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid ejecting head 1, the removed ink is absorbed by the wiper blade regulating member 26. After wiping, the curvature of the wiper blade 14 returns, but the amount of return is small because it is regulated by the wiper blade regulating member 26, and the removed ink is absorbed by the wiper blade regulating member 26 that is the material of the absorber, so that the nozzle The ink removed from the forming surface 25 is not scattered.
[Embodiment 3]
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of the maintenance unit 5 using an impact absorber for the wiper blade regulating member 27. After wiping the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid jet head 1 with the wiper blade 14, the impact on the wiper blade 14 due to the return of the curve is eased, so that the removed ink is not scattered and the life of the wiper blade is extended.
[Embodiment 4]
FIG. 8 is a schematic view of the wiper blade regulating member 28 and the wiper blade having grooves. When the nozzle forming surface 25 of the liquid ejecting head 1 is wiped with the wiper blade 14, the removed ink flows down through the groove of the wiper blade regulating member 28, and an ink absorber (not shown) below the wiper blade regulating member 28. And can be disposed of in a waste ink tank.

  In the present embodiment, the ink jet recording apparatus has been described as an example of the liquid ejecting apparatus. However, the present invention can also be applied to a micropipette, an electrode forming apparatus, and a biochip manufacturing apparatus.

  In addition, the detailed configuration and detailed operation of each component constituting the liquid ejecting apparatus can be changed as appropriate without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of an ink jet recording apparatus that can use the liquid ejecting apparatus according to the invention. It is the model which showed the ink supply system and maintenance part of the inkjet recording device. It is a schematic diagram showing an example of the flow of ink in maintenance of the ink jet recording apparatus. It is a schematic diagram which shows the prior art example of the operation | movement which wipes off a nozzle formation surface with a wiper blade. It is an example of the operation | movement which wipes off a nozzle formation surface with the wiper blade which concerns on this invention. It is a schematic diagram of the maintenance part which used the material of the ink absorber for the wiper blade regulating member according to the present invention. It is a schematic diagram of the maintenance part which used the shock absorber for the wiper blade regulating member according to the present invention. It is a schematic diagram of a wiper blade regulating member and a wiper blade in which a groove according to the present invention is formed.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Liquid ejecting head 2 Control part 3 Main tank 4 Intermediate tank 5 Maintenance part 6 Conveying belt 7 Recording medium 10 Inkjet recording device 13 Ink suction cap 14 Wiper blade 18 Carriage 20 Wiper blade regulating member 25 Nozzle formation surface 26 Wiper blade regulating member 27 Wiper blade regulating member 28 Wiper blade holding member 29 Wiper blade regulating member

Claims (3)

A liquid ejecting head for ejecting liquid droplets from a nozzle; a wiper blade having elasticity for wiping the nozzle forming surface of the liquid ejecting head in contact; a wiper blade holding member for holding the wiper blade; and the wiper blade A liquid ejecting apparatus comprising: a wiper blade restricting member that maintains a bent state. The liquid ejecting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a part or all of the wiper blade regulating member is configured by an absorber. The liquid ejecting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a groove is formed in the wiper blade regulating member.

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