JP2010030221A - Head inclination adjusting device and liquid jet apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To simply, accurately and finely adjust the inclination of a head. <P>SOLUTION: The head inclination adjusting device includes an eccentric member which adjusts the inclination of the head for jetting liquid by rotation, a rotating member which has a first gear and rotates together with the eccentric member, and an operating member which has a second gear meshed with the first gear and smaller in pitch circle radius than the first gear and rotates the eccentric member via the rotating member when the second gear rotates. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a head tilt adjusting device and a liquid ejecting apparatus.

As a liquid ejecting apparatus, an ink jet printer that prints an image by ejecting liquid (for example, ink) onto various media such as paper, cloth, and film is known. The printer includes a head that ejects ink onto a medium.
The head is attached to a frame or the like, but if the attachment state is inappropriate (the head is attached to be inclined with respect to the frame), the ink landing position on the medium deviates from the desired position. Degradation of image quality occurs.

In order to solve the above problem, some printers include an operation knob and a head tilt adjusting device for adjusting the tilt degree of the head with respect to the frame in the vicinity of the head.
JP 2008-62534 A

  This head tilt adjusting device has an eccentric member, and for example, an operator can adjust the head tilt with a relatively simple structure by directly operating and rotating the eccentric member. However, in this configuration, it is difficult to finely adjust the tilt of the head because it is difficult to finely change the degree of rotation of the eccentric member.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is to easily and finely adjust the head tilt with high accuracy.

In order to solve the above problems, the main present invention is:
An eccentric member that adjusts the tilt of the head that ejects the liquid by rotating; and
A rotating member having a first gear and rotating together with the eccentric member;
An operation member that meshes with the first gear, has a second gear having a smaller pitch circle radius than the first gear, and rotates the eccentric member via the rotating member when the second gear rotates;
Is a head tilt adjusting device.

  Other features of the present invention will become apparent from the description of the present specification and the accompanying drawings.

  At least the following will be made clear by the description of the present specification and the accompanying drawings.

An eccentric member that adjusts the tilt of the head that ejects the liquid by rotating; and
A rotating member having a first gear and rotating together with the eccentric member;
An operation member that meshes with the first gear, has a second gear having a smaller pitch circle radius than the first gear, and rotates the eccentric member via the rotating member when the second gear rotates;
A head tilt adjusting device comprising:
According to such a head inclination adjusting device, since the pitch circle radius of the second gear is smaller than that of the first gear, the degree of rotation of the eccentric member is small with respect to the operation amount of the operation member. Can be finely adjusted.

Also, such a head tilt adjusting device,
The operation member is a disk-shaped rotating body,
The operation member is preferably provided with a plurality of scales corresponding to the adjustment amount of the tilt of the head along the circumferential direction.
In such a case, since the rotation amount of the eccentric member is easily visually recognized through a plurality of scales corresponding to the adjustment amount, the tilt of the head can be finely adjusted simply and accurately.

Also, such a head tilt adjusting device,
The eccentric member is an eccentric pin,
The rotating member has a fixed shaft fixed to the eccentric pin, and a fan-shaped extending plate extending in the circumferential direction from the fixed shaft,
Teeth that mesh with the second gear are formed at the tip of the extension plate,
The first gear is preferably the extension plate.
In this case, since the first gear is a fan-shaped extending plate, the eccentric member to which the rotating member is fixed can be disposed closer to the head, so that space saving of the apparatus can be realized.

A head for ejecting liquid;
A head tilt adjusting device for adjusting the tilt of the head,
An eccentric member that adjusts the inclination of the head by rotating;
A rotating member having a first gear and rotating together with the eccentric member;
An operation member that meshes with the first gear, has a second gear having a smaller pitch circle radius than the first gear, and rotates the eccentric member via the rotating member when the second gear rotates;
A head tilt adjustment device comprising:
A liquid ejecting apparatus comprising:
According to such a liquid ejecting apparatus, since the pitch circle radius of the second gear is smaller than that of the first gear, the degree of rotation of the eccentric member is small with respect to the operation amount of the operation member. It is possible to finely adjust the inclination.

=== Configuration of Printer ===
As an example of the liquid ejecting apparatus, an example of the configuration of the printer 1 will be described using an ink jet printer (hereinafter referred to as the printer 1) as an example. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the overall configuration of the printer 1. FIG. 2A is a sectional view of the inside of the printer 1. FIG. 2B is a perspective view of the inside of the printer 1.

  The printer 1 includes a transport unit 20, a head unit 40, a detector group 50, and a controller 60. The printer 1 that has received the print data from the computer 110 as an external device controls each unit (the transport unit 20 and the head unit 40) by the controller 60. The controller 60 controls each unit based on the print data received from the computer 110 and prints an image on paper. The situation in the printer 1 is monitored by a detector group 50, and the detector group 50 outputs a detection result to the controller 60. The controller 60 controls each unit based on the detection result output from the detector group 50.

  The transport unit 20 is for transporting a medium (for example, paper S) in a predetermined direction (hereinafter referred to as a transport direction). The transport unit 20 includes a paper feed roller 21, a transport motor (not shown), a transport roller 23 </ b> A and a transport roller 23 </ b> B, and a belt 24. The paper feed roller 21 is a roller for feeding the paper inserted into the paper insertion slot into the printer. When a transport motor (not shown) rotates, the transport rollers 23A and 23B rotate, and the belt 24 rotates accordingly. The paper S fed by the paper feed roller 21 is conveyed by the belt 24 to a printable area (area facing the head). When the belt 24 transports the paper S, the paper S moves in the transport direction with respect to the head unit 40. The paper S that has passed through the printable area is discharged to the outside by the belt 24. The paper S being conveyed is electrostatically attracted or vacuum attracted to the belt 24.

  The head unit 40 is for ejecting ink, which is an example of a liquid, onto the paper S. The head unit 40 ejects ink onto the paper S being conveyed, thereby forming dots on the paper S and printing an image on the paper S. The head unit 40 of the present embodiment can form dots for the paper width at a time. The configuration of the head unit 40 will be described later.

  The detector group 50 includes a rotary encoder (not shown), a paper detection sensor 53, and the like. The rotary encoder detects the rotation amount of the transport roller 23A and the transport roller 23B. The transport amount of the paper S can be detected based on the detection result of the rotary encoder. The paper detection sensor 53 detects the position of the leading edge of the paper being fed.

  The controller 60 is a control unit for controlling the printer. The controller 60 includes an interface unit 61, a CPU 62, a memory 63, and a unit control circuit 64. The interface unit 61 transmits and receives data between the computer 110 which is an external device and the printer 1. The CPU 62 is an arithmetic processing unit for controlling the entire printer. The memory 63 is for securing an area for storing a program of the CPU 62, a work area, and the like, and includes storage elements such as a RAM and an EEPROM. The CPU 62 controls each unit via the unit control circuit 64 in accordance with a program stored in the memory 63.

=== Detailed Configuration of Head Unit 40 ===
FIG. 3 is a view of the head unit 40 as viewed from above. FIG. 4 is a view of the head unit 40 as viewed from below.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the head unit 40 includes a plurality of heads 41 that eject ink. The plurality of heads 41 are arranged in a staggered arrangement. On the lower surface of each head 41, as shown in FIG. 4, a black ink nozzle row (nozzle row K), a cyan ink nozzle row (nozzle row C), a magenta ink nozzle row (nozzle row) M, and a yellow ink nozzle row ( Nozzle rows Y) are formed.

  Each nozzle row includes a plurality (180 in this embodiment) of nozzles that are ejection ports for ejecting ink. The plurality of nozzles in each nozzle row are arranged at a constant nozzle pitch (1/180 inch) along the arrangement direction (paper width direction) in FIG. By arranging the heads in this way, the head unit 40 can form dots (dot rows) arranged at an interval of 1/180 inch in the paper width direction over the length of the paper width.

  Each head 41 is provided with fixing plates 42 and 43 for fixing the head 41 to the frame 40a of the head unit 40, respectively. The fixing plates 42 and 43 are screwed to the frame 40a with screws, whereby each head 41 is attached (fixed) to the frame 40a.

  The fixed plate 42 is fitted with a fixed pin 44 fixed to the frame 40a. Each head 41 before fixing is configured to be rotatable about the fixing pin 44 in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG. As the head 41 rotates in this manner, the head 41 is inclined with respect to the frame 40a. Further, the fixed plate 43 is configured to contact an eccentric pin 81 described later. The reason for this configuration is to change the degree of inclination of the head 41 with respect to the frame 40a when the head 41 is attached.

=== Mechanism for Adjusting the Tilt of the Head 41 ===
When the head 41 fixed to the frame 40a ejects ink, dots are formed along the nozzle arrangement direction. For an image with good image quality, it is desirable that the direction in which dots are arranged (in other words, the nozzle arrangement direction) is parallel to the paper width direction. However, depending on the attachment state of the head 41 to the frame 40a, the nozzle arrangement direction may not be parallel to the paper width direction, and the image quality may deteriorate.

  Therefore, in order to solve the above problem, the head unit 40 is provided with an inclination adjusting mechanism 80 as an example of an inclination adjusting device for adjusting the degree of inclination of the head 41 with respect to the frame 40a, as shown in FIG. ing. A plurality of tilt adjusting mechanisms 80 are provided for each head 41.

<Detailed Configuration of Tilt Adjustment Mechanism 80>
Since the configuration of the tilt adjustment mechanism 80 corresponding to each head 41 is the same, the detailed configuration of the tilt adjustment mechanism 80 corresponding to one head 41 will be described below with reference to FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 </ b> A to 7 </ b> C. It explains using. FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing the tilt adjusting mechanism 80. FIG. 6 is a view of the tilt adjusting mechanism 80 and its peripheral portion as viewed from above. FIG. 7A is a diagram illustrating a contact state between the eccentric pin 81 and the fixing plate 43. FIG. 7B is a cross-sectional view taken along the line XX of FIG. 7A. FIG. 7C is a diagram illustrating a state of the fixing plate 43 after the eccentric pin 81 is rotated. 7A and 7C, the fixed shaft 84 is not shown for convenience.

  As shown in FIG. 5 and the like, the inclination adjusting mechanism 80 includes an eccentric pin 81 that is an example of an eccentric member, a rotation amount adjusting member 83 that is an example of a rotating member, an operation member 86, and a stopper 89.

  The eccentric pin 81 adjusts the inclination of the head 41 by rotating. That is, the degree of inclination of the head 41 is adjusted in accordance with the amount of rotation of the eccentric pin 81. The eccentric pin 81 is an axis whose cross section is a circle. The rotational axis of the eccentric pin 81 is offset from the center of the eccentric pin 81. Further, the eccentric pin 81 is in contact with the contact portion 43a of the fixed plate 43 as shown in FIG. 7A. And the eccentric pin 81 moves the fixed plate 43 as shown in FIG. 7C by rotating in contact with the contact portion 43a (for example, the fixed plate 43 moves in the direction of the arrow Y shown in FIG. 7C). To do). With this movement of the fixed plate 43, the head 41 is tilted with respect to the frame 40a by rotating around the fixed pin 44.

  The rotation amount adjusting member 83 is a member that rotates together with the eccentric pin 81 and adjusts the rotation amount of the eccentric pin 83. The rotation amount adjusting member 83 includes a fixed shaft 84 fixed to the eccentric pin 81 and a sector gear 85 that is a fan-shaped extending plate extending from the fixed shaft 84 in the circumferential direction. The fixed shaft 84 is fixed so as to cover the eccentric pin 81. The center angle α (FIG. 6) of the sector gear 85 is 180 degrees or less, and the sector gear 85 that is rotating can be prevented from colliding with the head 41.

  The operation member 86 includes an operation gear 87 that meshes with the teeth 85a of the sector gear 85, and a knob portion 88 for the operator to pinch. Further, the operation member 86 is a disk-shaped rotating body, and the diameter of the circular knob portion 88 is larger than the diameter of the operation gear 87.

  The pitch circle radius of the operation gear 87 is smaller than the pitch circle radius of the sector gear 85. The operation member 86 rotates the eccentric pin 81 via the rotation amount adjustment member 83 when the operation gear 87 rotates.

  As shown in FIG. 6, the knob portion 88 is provided with a plurality of scales corresponding to the adjustment amount of the inclination of the head 41 along the circumferential direction (attached). As this scale, 0, a positive integer, and a negative integer are attached. And the direction which adjusts inclination with a positive and negative integer is easy to be visually recognized by the operator.

  The stopper 89 is a member for preventing the operation member 86 from rotating. The tip of the stopper 89 is in contact with the outer peripheral surface 88a of the knob 88 of the operation member 86 (the outer peripheral surface 88a has irregularities formed by so-called knurling). The stopper 89 comes into contact with the outer peripheral surface 88a to prevent the operation member 86 from rotating due to a disturbance after adjusting the rotation amount.

  In the present embodiment, the sector gear 85 corresponds to the first gear, and the operation gear 87 corresponds to the second gear. The first gear may be a circular gear instead of the sector gear 85. Further, the operation member 86 is not limited to a disk-shaped rotating body, and may be a rectangular rotating body. Further, although the eccentric pin 81 has been described as an example of the eccentric member, for example, the eccentric member may be a cam.

<Tilt adjustment method of the head 41>
A method for adjusting the tilt of the head 41 using the tilt adjusting mechanism 80 having the above-described configuration will be described.

  The inclination adjustment of the head 41 is performed by an operator at the time of manufacturing or maintenance of the printer 1. When the adjustment is performed, the fixing plates 42 and 43 are not screwed, and the head 41 is rotatable about the fixing pin 44. In this state, the operator first rotates the knob 88 of the operation member 86. While the knob portion 88 is rotating, the stopper 89 is in contact with the outer peripheral surface 88a of the knob portion 88. However, since the force applied by the operator is large, the operation member 86 can rotate.

  Since the knob portion 88 has a scale, the operator rotates the knob portion 88 by a desired scale with reference to the stopper 89. As the knob portion 88 rotates, the sector gear 85 (rotation amount adjusting member 83) that meshes with the operation gear 87 also rotates. At this time, since the pitch circle radius of the operation gear 87 is smaller than the pitch circle radius of the sector gear 85 as described above, the rotation amount of the sector gear 85 (rotation amount adjusting member 83) is smaller than the rotation amount of the operation member 86. . Specifically, even if the operation member 86 rotates once, the sector gear 85 does not rotate 1/4.

  Further, the eccentric pin 81 also rotates in conjunction with the rotation of the rotation amount adjusting member 83 (sector gear 85). And the eccentric pin 81 moves the fixing plate 43 as shown to FIG. 7A and FIG. 7C by rotating in the state which contacted the contact part 43a. The movement of the fixed plate 43 causes the head 41 to move and tilt with respect to the frame 40a. In the present embodiment, when the eccentric pin 81 does not come into contact with the contact portion 43a due to rotation, an operator or the like moves the fixing plate 43 to bring the eccentric pin 81 and the contact portion 43a into contact.

  Here, the rotation amount of the eccentric pin 81 is smaller than the rotation amount of the operation member 86. That is, when the rotation amount of the operation member 86 is small, the rotation amount of the eccentric pin 81 is smaller. As a result, the eccentric pin 81 can be easily finely adjusted.

  After the rotation of the operation member 86 is finished, the fixing plate 82, 83 is screwed to the frame 40a, whereby the head 41 whose inclination is adjusted is fixed. By ejecting ink onto the head 41 with the tilt adjusted in this way, dots are appropriately formed, so that deterioration in image quality can be suppressed.

=== Effectiveness of Printer 1 ===
As described above, the tilt adjusting mechanism 80 according to the present embodiment includes, as shown in FIG. 5, (a) an eccentric pin 81 (eccentric member) that adjusts the tilt of the head 41 that ejects ink by rotating. (B) a rotation amount adjusting member 83 (rotating member) having a sector gear 85 (first gear) and rotating together with the eccentric pin 81; and (c) meshing with the sector gear 85 and having a pitch circle radius larger than that of the sector gear 85. And an operation member 86 that rotates the eccentric pin 81 via the rotation amount adjusting member 83 when the operation gear 87 rotates. As a result, the tilt of the head 41 can be easily finely adjusted with high accuracy.

  Hereinafter, the effectiveness of the tilt adjustment mechanism 80 of the present embodiment will be described while describing the comparative example shown in FIG.

  First, in the tilt adjustment mechanism according to the comparative example, the operation member 86 is not provided as shown in FIG. 8, and the operator directly operates (rotates) the rotation amount adjustment member 90, whereby the eccentric pin 81. The inclination of the head 41 is adjusted via That is, the head 41 is inclined by the rotation amount of the rotation amount adjusting member 90.

  As shown in FIG. 8, the rotation amount adjusting member 90 is provided with a knob portion 91, a scale portion 92, and a rotation fulcrum portion 93. The operator rotates the rotation amount adjusting member 90 while holding the knob portion 91. The scale portion 92 is provided with a scale corresponding to the adjustment amount of the tilt of the head 41 (only the signs + and − are shown for convenience in FIG. 8). The rotation fulcrum portion 93 is fixed to the eccentric pin 81. For this reason, the rotation amount adjusting member 90 and the eccentric pin 81 rotate together.

  In addition, a stopper 94 that contacts the outer peripheral surface 95 of the rotation amount adjusting member 90 is provided to prevent the rotation amount adjusting member 90 from rotating due to a disturbance. The stopper 94 serves as a reference for visually recognizing the amount of rotation of the eccentric pin 81 (in other words, the degree of inclination of the head 41).

  In such a configuration, in order to finely adjust the rotation amount of the rotation amount adjusting member 90, it is necessary to provide the scale portion 92 at a position further away from the rotation fulcrum portion 93. However, in such a case, the tilt adjustment mechanism may be increased in size.

In contrast, the tilt adjusting mechanism 80 of the present embodiment includes a rotation amount adjusting member 83 having a sector gear 85 and an operation member having an operation gear 87 that meshes with the sector gear 85 and has a smaller pitch circle radius than the sector gear 85. 86 is provided.
In this case, since the pitch circle radius of the operation gear 87 of the operation member 86 directly operated by the operator is smaller than the pitch circle radius of the sector gear 85, the rotation of the sector gear 85 when adjusting the tilt of the head 41 is performed. The rotation amount of the operation member 86 is larger than the amount (in other words, the rotation amount of the eccentric pin 81). As described above, since the degree of rotation of the eccentric pin 81 is small with respect to the operation of the operation member 86, the inclination of the head 41 can be easily finely adjusted. In addition, since the radius of the rotation amount adjusting member 83 for finely adjusting the tilt of the head 41 can be reduced as compared with the comparative example of FIG.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, the operation member 86 is a disk-shaped rotating body, and the operation member 86 has an adjustment amount of the inclination of the head 41 along the circumferential direction. A plurality of corresponding scales were provided.
In such a case, since the rotation amount of the eccentric pin 81 is easily visually recognized through the scale corresponding to the adjustment amount, the inclination of the head 41 can be finely adjusted simply and accurately.

Further, in the above embodiment, as shown in FIG. 5, the rotation amount adjusting member 83 includes a fixed shaft 84 fixed to the eccentric pin 81 and a fan-shaped extension extending from the fixed shaft 84 in the circumferential direction. And an output plate (sector gear 85). And the tooth | gear 84a which meshes with the operation gear 87 is formed in the front-end | tip of the said extension board, and the said 1st gearwheel decided to be the said extension board (sector gear 85).
In this case, since the first gear is the sector gear 85, the eccentric pin 81 to which the rotation amount adjusting member 83 is fixed can be disposed closer to the head 41 than in the case where the first gear is a circular gear. Therefore, space saving of the head unit 40 can be realized.

=== Other Embodiments ===
The liquid ejecting apparatus and the like according to the present invention have been described above based on the above embodiment, but the above-described embodiment is for facilitating the understanding of the present invention and limits the present invention. is not. The present invention can be changed and improved without departing from the gist thereof, and the present invention includes the equivalents thereof.

  In the above embodiment, the liquid ejecting apparatus is embodied as an ink jet printer. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and other liquids (for example, a liquid material in which particles of functional material are dispersed, a flow such as a gel, etc.) are used. It is also possible to embody the present invention in a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects (discharges). For example, a liquid material ejecting apparatus that ejects a liquid material in the form of dispersed or dissolved materials such as electrode materials and color materials used for manufacturing liquid crystal displays, color filters, EL (electroluminescence) displays, and surface light emitting displays, It may be a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects a bio-organic matter used for biochip production, or a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects a liquid that is used as a precision pipette and serves as a sample. In addition, transparent resin liquids such as UV curable resin to form liquid injection devices that pinpoint lubricant oil onto precision machines such as watches and cameras, and micro hemispherical lenses (optical lenses) used in optical communication elements. May be a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects a liquid onto the substrate, a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects an etching solution such as acid or alkali to etch the substrate, or a fluid ejecting apparatus that ejects gel. The present invention can be applied to any one of these injection devices.

  Further, the ink ejection method is not limited to that using a piezo element, and can be applied to, for example, a thermal printer.

1 is a block diagram of an overall configuration of a printer 1. FIG. FIG. 2A is a sectional view of the inside of the printer 1. FIG. 2B is a perspective view of the inside of the printer 1. It is the figure which looked at the head unit 40 from upper direction. It is the figure which looked at the head unit 40 from the downward direction. 5 is a perspective view showing an inclination adjusting mechanism 80. FIG. It is the figure which looked at the inclination adjustment mechanism 80 and its peripheral part from upper direction. FIG. 7A is a diagram illustrating a contact state between the eccentric pin 81 and the fixing plate 43. FIG. 7B is a cross-sectional view taken along the line XX of FIG. 7A. FIG. 7C is a diagram illustrating a state of the fixing plate 43 after the eccentric pin 81 is rotated. It is a figure for demonstrating a comparative example.

Explanation of symbols

1 printer, 20 transport unit, 21 paper feed roller,
23A upstream conveying roller, 23B downstream conveying roller, 24 belt,
40 head units, 40a frame, 41 heads,
42 fixed plate, 43 fixed plate, 44 fixed pin, 50 detector group,
53 Paper detection sensor, 60 controller, 61 interface section,
62 CPU, 63 memory, 64 unit control circuit,
80 tilt adjustment mechanism, 81 eccentric pin, 83 rotation amount adjustment member,
84 fixed shaft, 85 sector gear, 85a tooth, 86 operation member,
87 Operation gear, 88 knob, 88a outer peripheral surface, 89 stopper,
90 rotation amount adjusting member, 91 knob portion, 92 scale portion, 93 rotation fulcrum portion,
94 stopper, 95 outer peripheral surface, 110 computer

Claims (4)

An eccentric member that adjusts the tilt of the head that ejects the liquid by rotating; and
A rotating member having a first gear and rotating together with the eccentric member;
An operating member that meshes with the first gear and has a second gear having a smaller pitch circle radius than the first gear, and rotates the eccentric member via the rotating member by rotating the second gear;
A head tilt adjusting device comprising: The head tilt adjusting device according to claim 1,
The operation member is a disk-shaped rotating body,
The head tilt adjusting device according to claim 1, wherein the operating member is provided with a plurality of scales corresponding to an adjustment amount of the head tilt along a circumferential direction. The head tilt adjusting device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein
The eccentric member is an eccentric pin,
The rotating member has a fixed shaft fixed to the eccentric pin, and a fan-shaped extending plate extending in the circumferential direction from the fixed shaft,
Teeth that mesh with the second gear are formed at the tip of the extension plate,
The head inclination adjusting device, wherein the first gear is the extension plate. A head for ejecting liquid;
A head tilt adjusting device for adjusting the tilt of the head,
An eccentric member that adjusts the inclination of the head by rotating;
A rotating member having a first gear and rotating together with the eccentric member;
An operating member that meshes with the first gear and has a second gear having a smaller pitch circle radius than the first gear, and rotates the eccentric member via the rotating member by rotating the second gear;
A head tilt adjustment device comprising:
A liquid ejecting apparatus comprising:

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