JP2013014085A - Liquid droplet discharging head and image forming apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform highly reliable bonding even in the case that, when a member which is one of members constituting a liquid droplet discharging head and has one surface on which an ink-repellent film is formed is bonded to the other member with an adhesive, an ink-repellent component is attached to an adhesive-bonding surface.SOLUTION: A liquid droplet discharging head includes: a nozzle plate 11 having nozzle holes 40 through which liquid droplets are discharged; and a frame 4 that is bonded to the nozzle plate 11 with an adhesive 16 at a bonding surface opposite to a liquid droplet discharging surface of the nozzle plate 11. An ink-repellent film 10 is formed on the liquid droplet discharging surface of the nozzle plate 11. Openings 27 penetrating from the bonding surface to the liquid droplet discharging surface are formed in the outer peripheral portion of the nozzle plate 11. The adhesive 16 is spread between the frame 4 and the nozzle plate 11 in the openings 27 on the outer circumference of the nozzle plate 11, and between the openings 27 and the outer circumference on the liquid droplet discharging surface to cover ribs 29 formed at the outer peripheral portion between the openings 27 and the outer circumference.

Description

  The present invention relates to a droplet discharge head and an image forming apparatus.

  As an image forming apparatus such as a printer, a facsimile, a copying machine, a plotter, or a complex machine of these, for example, a liquid ejection recording type image forming using a recording head composed of a liquid droplet ejection head (liquid ejection head) that ejects ink droplets. As an apparatus, an ink jet recording apparatus or the like is known. This liquid discharge recording type image forming apparatus means that ink droplets from an inkjet head are transported on paper (not limited to paper, including OHP, and can be attached to ink droplets and other liquids). Yes, it is also ejected onto a recording medium or a recording medium, recording paper, recording paper, etc.) to form an image (recording, printing, printing, and printing are also used synonymously). A serial type image forming apparatus that forms an image by ejecting droplets while the inkjet head moves in the main scanning direction, and a line type head that forms images by ejecting droplets without moving the inkjet head There are line type image forming apparatuses using

  In the present application, the “image forming apparatus” of the liquid discharge recording method is an apparatus that forms an image by discharging liquid onto a medium such as paper, thread, fiber, fabric, leather, metal, plastic, glass, wood, ceramics, or the like. In addition, “image formation” means not only giving an image having a meaning such as a character or a figure to a medium but also giving an image having no meaning such as a pattern to the medium (simply It also means that a droplet is landed on a medium). “Ink” is not limited to ink, but is used as a general term for all liquids capable of image formation, such as recording liquid, fixing processing liquid, and liquid. DNA samples, resists, pattern materials, resins and the like are also included. In addition, the “image” is not limited to a planar one, but includes an image given to a three-dimensionally formed image, and an image formed by three-dimensionally modeling a solid itself.

  Various types of inkjet heads are known. One typical example of an inkjet head includes a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink droplets, an electromechanical conversion element provided corresponding to each nozzle, and an actuator such as a heating resistor. Then, an actuator corresponding to each nozzle is selectively driven to eject an ink droplet corresponding to the recording signal from the nozzle, thereby forming an image.

  As an example of an inkjet head, a piezo method using PZT which is piezoelectric ceramic (hereinafter referred to as “PZT method”) is known. In the PZT method, a plurality of piezoelectric elements are provided on a substrate, a displacement portion of a vibration plate is joined to the piezoelectric element, and a flow path plate for forming the vibration plate and a liquid chamber is joined. On top, the nozzle plate is joined so that each nozzle corresponds to the displacement portion of the vibration plate, and the piezoelectric element is driven to pressurize the ink in the liquid chamber via the vibration plate, and the ink from the nozzle of the nozzle plate There is something that discharges. In such an ink jet head, in order to perform high density and high quality recording, the components constituting the ink jet head, each fine part such as a nozzle plate, a channel plate, a vibration plate, and a piezoelectric element have high reliability. Need to be assembled.

  From the viewpoint of assembling other fine parts such as a nozzle plate and a flow channel plate with high reliability, the prior arts related to the present application include the inventions described in Patent Documents 1 to 3.

  In Patent Document 1, since the adhesive protrudes from the fine structure forming portion, at least one of the flow path plate and the nozzle plate is bonded to the conventional problem that the bonding reliability is low. A thin portion is provided in the nozzle plate at one joining surface. In addition, it refers to the problem that unattached regions are likely to occur on the bonding surface of the adhesive and the bonding reliability is lowered.

  In Patent Document 2, there is a problem of providing a highly reliable droplet discharge head, a “nozzle plate” and a “substrate” are bonded through a “bonding film”, and the “bonding film” is bonded to a plasma layer. There is a description of a configuration including a Si skeleton that is formed by a legal method and includes a siloxane bond and a random atomic structure, and a leaving group that is bonded to the Si skeleton.

  In Patent Document 3, a “plate-shaped member” having a “penetrating portion” is inserted with a “projecting portion” through the “penetrating portion”, and the tip of the “projecting portion” is fixed to the “head holder” with an adhesive that is cured. It is described that it is done.

  Patent Documents 1 to 3 are considered to describe the technical problem and the means for solving the problem when the members constituting the droplet discharge head are bonded together with an adhesive. However, these documents do not mention the problem that it is difficult to maintain the bonding force when an ink-repellent film having water repellency or ink repellency is formed on the bonding surface of the member. .

  In a droplet discharge head, for example, an ink repellent film is laminated on a nozzle plate in order to stabilize ink discharge. However, the components of the ink repellent film may be diffused to the joint surface with the flow path plate or the head frame when forming the ink repellent film or in the assembly process of the droplet discharge head. In that case, the ink repellent component may inhibit the adhesion between the adhesive and the member, and it may be difficult to maintain the adhesive force.

  Therefore, in view of the above circumstances, the present invention provides an adhesive agent for bonding a member having an ink-repellent film formed on one side and another member among the members constituting the droplet discharge head. An object of the present invention is to provide a droplet discharge head and an image forming apparatus that are bonded with high reliability even when an ink repellent component adheres to the bonding surface.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides, as a first aspect, a plate-like first member having a nozzle from which droplets are ejected, and a surface of the first member on the side from which droplets are ejected. And a second member that is bonded to the first member by an adhesive at a bonding surface that is a back surface of the droplet discharge surface, and the droplet discharge surface of the first member includes An ink repellent film is formed, and an opening penetrating from the joint surface to the droplet discharge surface is formed in an outer peripheral portion of the first member, and the adhesive is used for the second member And between the opening and the outer periphery, between the first member, the opening, the outer periphery of the first member, and the opening and the outer periphery of the droplet discharge surface. The droplet discharge head is provided so as to cover the first rib.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming apparatus having the droplet discharge head.

  According to the present invention, among the members constituting the droplet discharge head, when the member having the ink repellent film formed on one surface and the other member are bonded with the adhesive, the ink repellent surface is bonded to the bonding surface of the adhesive. Even when the components adhere, it becomes possible to perform bonding with high reliability.

It is a figure which shows the example of an external appearance of the inkjet head of embodiment by this invention. It is AA sectional drawing of the inkjet head 1 of FIG. FIG. 3 is a plan view of the flow path plate 12 of FIG. 2 as viewed from above in FIG. 2. It is the top view which looked down at the nozzle plate 11 of FIG. 2 from the upper direction of FIG. It is a figure for demonstrating the concept of the detail of the nozzle plate 11 of FIG. It is a figure which expands and shows a part of BB cross section of the inkjet head 1 of FIG. It is the schematic which shows an example of the image forming apparatus which comprises the inkjet head unit using the inkjet head 1 of FIG. It is the conceptual diagram which looked down at the conveyance belt 100 of FIG. 7 from upper direction. FIG. 5 is a plan view of another configuration example of the nozzle plate 11 of FIG. 2 as viewed from above in FIG. 2.

<Inkjet head>
Hereinafter, an ink jet head according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described.
FIG. 1 shows an example of the appearance of the inkjet head of this embodiment.
In the inkjet head 1 of FIG. 1, a nozzle plate 11 is fixed to a hollow frame 4 in which a liquid chamber unit 2, a drive unit 3 and the like are accommodated so as to cover an opening surface (upper surface of FIG. 1) of the frame 4. It is a configuration. A plurality of nozzle holes 40 for ejecting ink droplets are arranged in the nozzle plate 11 at predetermined intervals. The nozzle plate 11 may be provided with positioning holes 21 used for positioning the nozzle plate 11 and other members of the liquid chamber unit 2. Here, a configuration in which the nozzle holes 40 are provided in one row is shown, but a configuration in which a plurality of rows are provided may be employed.

  The short side direction of the inkjet head 1 when viewed from the top of FIG. 1 is referred to as “channel direction” in this specification. FIG. 2 shows a cross-sectional view of the inkjet head 1 as viewed from the same direction as the channel direction (A-A cross section). FIG. 6 shows a cross-sectional view of the inkjet head 1 as viewed from a direction orthogonal to the channel direction (B-B cross section).

In FIG. 2, the frame 4 is omitted.
As shown in FIG. 2, the inkjet head 1 includes a drive unit 3 and a liquid chamber unit 2 joined to the drive unit 3. First, the drive unit 3 arrange | positions the piezoelectric element 14 on the board | substrate 15, and is joined with the adhesive agent.

  A plurality of piezoelectric element columns 17 arranged in a line are manufactured by slitting the piezoelectric elements 14 using a dicing saw or the like. More specifically, the piezoelectric element column 17 is divided into a drive unit 17a and a support column 17b. The driving unit 17a is disposed to face the liquid chamber 30, and is driven by being supplied with a driving pulse for causing ink to form droplets and fly. On the other hand, the support column 17b is positioned between the drive units 17a and simply supports the liquid chamber unit 2 without being given a drive pulse. As the piezoelectric element 14, for example, a laminated piezoelectric element having 10 or more layers is used. However, as a configuration example of the inkjet head 1 of the present embodiment, an electrothermal conversion element such as another electromechanical conversion element or a heating resistor may be used instead of the piezoelectric element.

  As shown in FIG. 2, an alignment groove, a groove-shaped step surface on which an alignment groove is formed, and the like are formed at both ends of the piezoelectric element 14. These are used for positioning the assembly of the liquid chamber unit 2 and the drive unit 3 with high accuracy and accuracy. Since these are not related to the gist of the present embodiment, the description thereof is omitted.

  The liquid chamber unit 2 is joined to the drive unit 3 via the adhesive 18. The liquid chamber unit 2 includes a nozzle plate 11 having a plurality of nozzle holes 40 for discharging ink droplets, and a flow path plate 12 in which liquid chambers 30 (see FIG. 6 and the like) corresponding to the nozzle holes 40 are formed. In addition, each of the liquid chambers 30 includes a diaphragm 13 that transmits vibration of the drive unit 17a.

  Similarly to the liquid chamber unit 2 and the drive unit 3, the nozzle plate 11 and the flow channel plate 12, and the vibration plate 13 and the flow channel plate 12 are also bonded via an adhesive (not shown).

FIG. 3 shows a plan view of the flow path plate 12 as viewed from above in FIG.
A liquid chamber 30 corresponding to each of the plurality of nozzle holes 40 is formed in the flow path plate 12. A mark 22 is formed at a position corresponding to the positioning hole 21 of the nozzle plate 11 shown in FIG. The mark 22 can be detected optically through the positioning hole 21. When assembling the inkjet head 1, the nozzle plate 11 is bonded to the flow path plate 12 with an ultraviolet curable adhesive (UV adhesive), and then the mark 22 is detected through the positioning hole 21 by the imaging means. The displacement of the nozzle plate 11 is detected by image processing to finely adjust the joining position, and curing is accelerated by ultraviolet light to cure the ultraviolet curable adhesive. In this way, highly accurate positioning is realized.

  FIG. 4 shows a plan view of the nozzle plate 11 as viewed from above in FIG. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the concept of details of the nozzle plate 11.

  As shown in FIG. 4, the opening part 27 is provided in the outer peripheral part of the nozzle plate 11 over the perimeter (In addition, description of the opening part 27 is abbreviate | omitted in FIG. 1).

  As shown in FIG. 5A, the “outer peripheral portion” here refers to a portion corresponding to the edge of the nozzle plate 11 with respect to the central portion of the nozzle plate 11 (even if called “end portion” or “edge portion”). Good). An ink-repellent ink-repellent film is formed on the surface of the nozzle plate 11, but for various reasons, the ink-repellent component diffuses around the back surface (joint surface with the flow path plate 12 and the frame 4). It may be complicated. In the present embodiment, the configuration shown in FIGS. 4 and 6 or the like strengthens the joining of the back surface of the outer peripheral portion, which tends to be weakened by the diffusion of the ink repellent component, and realizes an improvement in the adhesive strength as a whole.

  A rib 28 is provided between the opening 27 and the opening 27 to maintain the rigidity of the nozzle plate 11. In the present embodiment, the width of the rib 28 is narrower than the width of the opening 27 (see FIG. 5A). In other words, it can be said that the physical positional relationship between the opening 27 and the rib 28 is that a large opening provided in the outer peripheral portion is divided into a plurality of openings 27 by the rib 28. The presence of the ribs 28 between the two adjacent openings 27 maintains the rigidity of the nozzle plate 11.

  Further, a positioning hole 21 is formed and used for position confirmation when joining with the flow path plate 12. When joining with the flow path plate 12, the mark 22 formed on the flow path plate 12 can be seen through the positioning hole 21. After detecting the center of the positioning hole 21 and the center of the mark 22, the center of each component of the nozzle plate 11 and the flow path plate 12 is calculated, and the position of the flow path plate 12 is corrected by XYθ with reference to the nozzle plate 11, After the amount of deviation of the center position of each part becomes less than the standard value, it is weighted and temporarily fixed with an ultraviolet curable adhesive or the like.

  Further, a cutting rib 26 is formed on the outer peripheral portion of the nozzle plate 11 to hold the component during processing. The nozzle plate 11 is separated into pieces by cutting the cutting ribs 26 after completion of the component sheet.

  In this embodiment, the position of the cutting rib 26 for separating the nozzle plate 11 into pieces is arranged in the middle of the position where the rib 28 and the rib 28 are provided. The ribs 28 act to maintain the rigidity of the nozzle plate 11 by bridging the central portion and the outer peripheral portion of the nozzle plate 11 shown in FIG. Since the cutting ribs 26 are arranged between the two ribs 28, the deformation of the cutting ribs 26 caused by the cutting is equally applied to the two ribs 28 when the nozzle plate 11 is singulated. Will be absorbed. Therefore, it is possible to minimize the influence of deformation that occurs during cutting for singulation.

  Further, the opening 27 is provided on the outer peripheral portion of the nozzle plate 11, thereby forming a rib 29 between the opening 27 and the outer periphery. As shown in FIG. 5B, since the rib 29 is formed on the outermost side of the end portion of the nozzle plate 11, the end surface of the nozzle plate 11 becomes a part of the rib 29.

  The components constituting the ink jet head 1 described with reference to FIGS. 2 to 4 are assembled to produce the ink jet head 1 as in the appearance example of FIG. FIG. 6 shows a partially enlarged view of the BB cross section of FIG. 1 as viewed from the direction orthogonal to the channel direction.

  As shown in FIG. 6, an ink repellent film 10 is formed on one surface (ink ejection surface) of the nozzle plate 11. However, depending on the process conditions, a small amount may have moved to the joint surface side with the flow path plate 12 or the frame 4. In this case, the bonding strength may decrease.

  In FIG. 6, the ink liquid enters the liquid chamber 30 through the ink supply channel 5. A small amount of liquid droplets are ejected from the nozzle hole 40 by the vibration of the diaphragm 13 that transmits the vibration of the driving unit 17a.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 6, the outer peripheral portion (end portion) of the nozzle plate 11 is fixed with an adhesive 16. The adhesive 16 is applied and cured so as to cover the outer peripheral portion of the nozzle plate 11 from the joint surface and the opening 27 to the ink discharge surface and the end surface. Since the adhesive 16 exists in this manner, the nozzle plate 11 is firmly fixed to the frame 4. This is because the adhesive 16 is caught and fixed to the rib 29 formed by providing the opening portion 27 so as to cover the rib 29 so as to cover the rib 29.

  Various materials can be used as the material of the adhesive 16, but it is preferable that the material is resistant to the composition material of the ink droplets. Among materials that are resistant to the ink droplet composition material, an epoxy adhesive is more preferable because of its high resistance. In this case, in addition to high fixing strength, high resistance to deterioration in an environment exposed to ink droplets can be obtained.

  The application thickness of the adhesive 16 is preferably not more than twice the thickness of the nozzle plate 11. By doing so, it is possible to take a shape such that the adhesive 16 covers the nozzle plate 11 from the opening 27 when the components are joined after application of the adhesive 16.

<Inkjet head unit and image forming apparatus>
An inkjet head unit can be manufactured using at least one inkjet head 1 described above. The ink jet head unit may be a line type liquid droplet ejection head (line head) formed by arranging the ink jet heads 1 and having a nozzle row having a length equal to or longer than the print area width of the recording medium. Further, it may be an ink jet head unit (serial head) having a nozzle row equal to or smaller than the print area width of the recording medium. The serial head forms an image by ejecting ink onto the recording medium while reciprocating in a direction orthogonal to the conveyance direction of the recording medium.

  1 to 6, the PZT method using a piezo element is used as a method for selectively performing ink ejection of the inkjet head 1, but various other methods well known to those skilled in the art, such as a thermal method, are also used. A scheme is available.

  An image forming apparatus can be formed using the line head or the serial head. The image forming apparatus may be an on-demand type ink jet printer. In addition, a so-called continuous discharge type is used to perform high-speed image formation by bending the flight trajectory of ink droplets that are continuously discharged by deflection electrodes. It may be an inkjet printer of the type.

  FIG. 7 shows a main configuration of a typical example of an image forming apparatus having the inkjet head 1 of the present embodiment. The ink jet recording apparatus of FIG. 7 includes a “recording head 103” which is a serial head having a plurality of ink jet heads 1.

  This ink jet recording apparatus stocks an apparatus main body, a paper feed tray 105 loaded on the apparatus main body for loading paper P as a recording medium, and a sheet P on which an image is recorded (formed) mounted on the apparatus main body. And a cartridge loading portion (not shown) that protrudes from the front surface to the front side and is lower than the upper surface, on one end of the front surface of the apparatus main body. An operation unit (not shown) such as operation keys and a display is arranged on the upper surface of the loading unit. A sheet feeding roller (half-moon roller) 106 that separates and feeds sheets P one by one from the sheet stacking unit as a sheet feeding unit for feeding sheets stacked on the sheet stacking unit (pressure plate) of the sheet feeding tray 105; A separation pad 107 made of a material having a large friction coefficient is provided facing the sheet feeding roller 106, and the separation pad 107 is urged toward the sheet feeding roller 106 side.

  Then, as a transport unit for transporting the paper fed from the paper feed unit on the lower side of the recording head 103, a transport belt 100 for electrostatically attracting and transporting the paper P and transport from the paper feed unit A counter roller (not shown) for transporting the paper P fed through the guide 108 while sandwiching it with the transport belt 100, and the transport belt 100 by turning the paper P fed substantially vertically upward by approximately 90 °. A conveyance guide 108 for following the upper side and a tip pressure roller 110 urged toward the conveyance belt 100 by a pressing member 115 are provided. In addition, a charging roller 111 which is a charging unit for charging the surface of the conveyance belt 100 is provided. Here, the conveyance belt 100 is an endless belt, and is configured to be looped between the conveyance roller 116 and the tension roller 113 and to circulate in the belt conveyance direction. The charging roller 111 is arranged so as to contact the surface layer of the conveyor belt 100 and rotate following the rotation of the conveyor belt 100, and applies 2.5N to both ends of the shaft as a pressing force.

  In addition, a guide member 117 is disposed on the back side of the conveyance belt 100 so as to correspond to a printing area by the recording head 103. The upper surface of the guide member 117 protrudes closer to the recording head than the tangent line of the two rollers (the conveyance roller 116 and the tension roller 113) that support the conveyance belt (in FIG. 7, the drawing becomes complicated). To avoid this, this protrusion is not expressed). As a result, the conveyance belt 100 is pushed up and guided by the upper surface of the guide member 117 in the printing region, so that highly accurate flatness is maintained. Further, a plurality of grooves are formed in the main scanning direction, that is, a direction orthogonal to the conveyance direction, on the surface side of the guide member 117 that contacts the back surface of the conveyance belt 100 to reduce the contact area with the conveyance belt 100. The conveyor belt 100 can smoothly move along the surface of the guide member 117. Further, as a paper discharge unit for discharging the paper P recorded by the recording head 103, a separation claw 118 for separating the paper from the transport belt 100, a paper discharge roller 112, and a paper discharge roller (not shown) And a paper discharge tray 114 below the paper discharge roller 112. Here, the height from between the paper discharge roller 112 and the paper discharge roller (not shown) to the paper discharge tray 114 is increased to some extent in order to increase the amount that can be stocked on the paper discharge tray 114.

  Further, a double-sided printing paper reversing unit 109 is detachably mounted on the back surface of the apparatus main body. The double-sided printing paper reversing unit 109 takes in and reverses the paper P returned by the reverse rotation of the transport belt 100 and feeds it again between the counter roller (not shown) and the transport belt 100. In addition, a manual paper feed unit is provided on the upper surface of the double-sided printing paper reversing unit 109.

  FIG. 8 is a schematic view showing the configuration of the conveyor belt 100 of FIG. 7 as viewed from above the carriage 102. As shown in FIG. 8, at the time of image formation by the ink jet recording apparatus, the paper P is conveyed from upstream to downstream in the paper conveyance direction. During conveyance, the carriage 102 reciprocates in the main scanning direction along the guide rod 120 to eject ink droplets from the recording head 103 to form an image on the paper P. Note that the paper conveyance direction may be referred to as a “sub-scanning direction”.

  The “recording head 103” shown in FIG. 8 uses the inkjet head 1 according to the present embodiment described with reference to FIGS.

<Other configuration of inkjet head>
If the ink jet head described above is configured as shown in FIG. 9, the reliability of adhesion and bonding is further improved. 9 is a plan view of another configuration example of the nozzle plate 11 of FIG. 2 as viewed from above in FIG. Compared with the nozzle plate 11 shown in FIG. 4, the nozzle plate 11 shown in FIG. 10 has two rows of openings 27 on the outer peripheral portion and is arranged in a so-called cross-stitch shape. . When arranged in this manner, the reliability of adhesion and bonding is further improved. As a result, it is possible to stabilize the ejection of the inkjet head 1 over a long period of time with high reliability.

  In the above embodiment, the opening 27 has a rectangular shape, but is not limited thereto. The same effect can be achieved with a circular or elliptical shape.

  In the above embodiment, it is described that the nozzle plate 11 and the frame 4 are bonded with high reliability by the adhesive 16, but the scope of the technical idea disclosed by the above embodiment is described in this description. It is not limited. The nozzle plate 11 is an example of a plate-shaped member having a surface (ink ejection surface) on which an ink-repellent film is intended to be formed and a back surface (bonding surface) thereof. The frame 4 is an example of a member that is bonded to the bonding surface by an adhesive 16. By applying the same technical idea as described above, it is possible to join the nozzle plate 11 and the flow path plate 12 with high reliability.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Inkjet head 2 Liquid chamber unit 3 Drive unit 4 Frame 5 Ink supply flow path 10 Ink repellent film 11 Nozzle plate 12 Flow path plate 13 Vibration plate 14 Piezoelectric element 15 Substrate 16 Adhesive 17 Piezoelectric element column 17a Drive part 17b Strut part 18 Adhesive 21 Positioning hole 22 Mark 26 Cutting rib 27 Opening portion 28 Rib 29 Rib 30 Liquid chamber 40 Nozzle hole

JP 2002-052723 A JP 2010-047025 A JP 2008-188879 A

Claims (7)

A plate-like first member having a nozzle from which droplets are discharged;
A second member that is bonded to the first member with an adhesive at a bonding surface that is a surface on the back side of a droplet discharge surface that is a surface on which a droplet is discharged from the first member; Prepared,
An ink repellent film is formed on the droplet discharge surface of the first member,
An opening penetrating from the bonding surface to the droplet discharge surface is formed in the outer peripheral portion of the first member,
The adhesive extends between the second member and the first member, the opening, the outer periphery of the first member, and between the opening and the outer periphery of the droplet discharge surface. The liquid droplet ejection head is present so as to cover the first rib formed between the opening and the outer periphery.   The droplet discharge head according to claim 1, wherein the opening is formed inside along the entire outer periphery of the first member. A plurality of second ribs connecting the outer peripheral portion of the first member and the central portion of the first member;
The droplet discharge head according to claim 2, wherein there are a plurality of openings, and the second rib exists between two adjacent openings.   A cutting rib for holding the first member during processing is formed at a position corresponding to the middle of two adjacent second ribs on the end surface of the first member. Item 4. The droplet discharge head according to Item 3.   5. The droplet discharge according to claim 3, wherein the openings are arranged in two rows and in a staggered pattern inward along the entire outer periphery of the first member. head.   6. The liquid droplet ejection head according to claim 1, wherein a coating thickness of the adhesive is not more than twice a thickness of the first member.   An image forming apparatus comprising the droplet discharge head according to claim 1.

Images