JPH04187445A - Ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to wipe away the dust assuredly even when a recording head is moved without adjusting operation by providing flexible cleaning blades constituted of a plurality of protrusions having different lengths in an ink jet printer having a nozzle cleaning device. CONSTITUTION:Between a home position and a platen 1, there is provided a flexible cleaner 7 for wiping away the dust adhered adjacently to a nozzle of a record head 4 and wiping off extra ink. The cleaner 7 has two cleaning blade 7a, 7b formed by protrusions whose lengths differ from each other, which are to locate in front and rear dependent on the direction of rotation of the platen 1. That is, the platen 1 is supported rotatably by a middle frame 21 through a bearing 20. A carriage 3 traverses the fronts of the cleaner blades 7a and 7b so that the dust adhered on the nozzle face are removed and extra ink is removed. Thus, the dust adhered on the front face of the record head can be wiped away assuredly regardless of the position of the record head.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application 1] The present invention relates to a nozzle cleaning device for an inkjet printer, and more particularly to a cleaning blade for wiping the entire surface of a recording head.

[Prior Art 1] A conventional nozzle cleaning device for an inkjet printer has a configuration shown in FIG. 6, as disclosed in Jikai HN61-230940. 51 is a platen, and paper 52 backed up on the platen 51
A guide shaft 53 is installed in front of the recording head 55 , and a recording head 55 is mounted on a carriage 54 that moves along the guide shaft 53 . At the home position HP of the carriage 54, an ink recovery device 56 (the illustrated example is a pump suction type) is provided. This ink recovery device includes a pump 59 that is driven forward and backward relative to the recording head 55 and sucks ink from the ink ejection opening through a capping means 57 that seals the front surface of the recording head (the surface where the ink ejection opening is formed) in the forward position. ing.

A flexible cleaning blade 60 is attached to the side of the capping means 57 (on the right side in FIG. 6) for wiping off the front surface of the recording head 55, that is, the surface where the ink ejection ports are provided. ing. The cleaning blade 60 is attached to the capping means 57 via a leaving device so that it advances to a certain position as the capping means 57 moves forward, and is left at the forward position when the capping means 57 retreats. When the cleaning blade 60 moves forward, the carriage 54 is moved from left to right.
That is, cleaning is performed by moving the recording head 55 from left to right.

The cleaning blade 60 is moved back by unlocking the leaving mechanism when the carriage 54 passes from right to left.

[Problems and Objectives to be Solved by the Invention 1 However, in the prior art described above, only one visible cleaning blade moves forward to a certain position, so as shown in FIG. Since the amount of contact becomes too large and the cleaning blade becomes deflected, there are cases where the entire surface of the recording head and the abdomen of the cleaning blade are used to wipe the recording head. In this case, there was a problem in that it passed over the dust that had adhered to the entire surface of the recording head and left behind the dust. Furthermore, in order to reliably wipe away dust with the tip of the cleaning blade, it is necessary to adjust the position, which increases the number of man-hours and increases the cost. Furthermore, in many inkjet printers, it is necessary to keep the distance between the recording paper and the recording head constant, so a method is used to keep the distance constant by moving the recording head according to the thickness of the recording paper. Therefore, it has been extremely difficult to maintain the optimum amount of contact between the cleaning blade and the recording head.

Therefore, the present invention aims to solve these problems.
The purpose is to provide an inkjet printer having an inexpensive nozzle cleaning means that does not require adjustment and can reliably wipe away dust even when the recording head is moved.

[Means for Solving the Problems 1] An inkjet printer of the present invention is an inkjet printer having a nozzle cleaning device that wipes the entire surface of a recording head with a visible cleaning blade, wherein the flexible cleaning blade has a protruding surface. It is characterized by being composed of multiple pieces of different lengths.

[Example 1 Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the present invention. P in the figure is recording paper. Reference numeral 1 denotes a platen around which recording paper P is wound for printing. There is a carriage 3 facing the platen 1 and guided by a guide member 2 and moving in the axial direction of the platen 1. A recording head 4 is mounted on the carriage 3. The recording head 4 can be selected between a forward position and a backward position by a switching means (not shown) so that an appropriate distance from the recording paper P can be maintained depending on the thickness of the recording paper P. FIG. 1 shows a state in which the carriage 3 is at the home position, and in this state, a cap 5 made of an elastic material covers the nozzle part in order to prevent the nozzle part on the front part of the recording head 4 from drying out. By this, the nozzle portion is kept in a moist state. The cap 5 is connected to a head recovery means (not shown) via a tube 6, and when an ink ejection failure occurs in the recording head 4, the cap 5 recovers the ejection failure by suctioning ink from the nozzles with a pump. It is configured as follows.

Between this home position and the platen 1, there is a visible crease 7 (for example, made of rubber such as NBR) for wiping away dust adhering to the vicinity of the nozzles of the recording head 4 and for wiping off excess ink. Equipped. The cleaner 7 includes two cleaning blades 7a with different protrusion lengths,
7b. The cleaner 7 cleans the platen 1.
It is configured to move forward or backward depending on the direction of rotation. That is, the platen 1 is connected to the middle frame 21 via the bearing 20.
is rotatably supported. At one end of the platen 1 is a friction disk 23 fixed to the platen 1 by a spring pin 22. The bearing 20 and the friction disk 2
3, there are parts in the order from the bearing 20 to the left flat washer 24, the compression coil spring 25, the flat washer cloth 26, and the cleaner opening/closing plate 27. There is an E-ring 28 whose position is regulated. In the system configured in this way, the crease opening/closing plate 2
7 is always pressed against the friction disk 23 by the compression coil spring 25. Now, the spring force of the compression coil spring 25 is F, the average radius of the contact area between the friction disk 23 and the cleaner opening/closing plate 27 is r, and the friction disk 23 is
Letting μ be the coefficient of friction between and the cleaner opening/closing plate 27,
When the platen 1 is rotated in a certain direction by a paper feeding mechanism (not shown), a rotational torque of approximately μrF is generated on the cleaner opening/closing plate 27. As a result, the cleaner opening/closing plate 27 rotates in synchronization with the rotation of the platen 1. Further, if the rotation of the cleaner opening/closing plate 27 is restricted by some method, slippage will occur between the friction disk 23 and the cleaner opening/closing plate 27.

FIG. 2 shows a side view of a configuration in which the friction clutch mechanism as described above is incorporated into the advancing/retracting mechanism of the cleaner 7. In the figure, a chain 111N indicates the nozzle position of the recording head 4,
In the state shown in this figure, the cleaner blades 7a, 7
By crossing in front of b, dust adhering to the nozzle surface and excess ink are removed. Cleaner 7
is fixed to the cleaner support member 8. The cleaner support member 8 is rotatably supported by a shaft 29 fixed to the middle frame 21, and a pin 8a attached to the cleaner support member 8 is used to open and close the cleaner which rotates as the platen 1 rotates. It fits into a groove 27a attached to the plate 27. The groove portion 27a is formed by the crease opening/closing plate 27.
The radius is designed to change in the circumferential direction. In a system configured in this way, when the platen 1 rotates in the counter-paper feeding direction (direction of arrow C in FIG. It becomes smaller. Therefore, the groove 27
The bin 8a of the cleaner support member 8 fitted to the shaft 2a is regulated by the groove 27a and moves, and the cleaner support member 8 is moved to the shaft 2.
9 and moves to the end of the groove 27a of the cleaner opening/closing plate 27.

FIG. 3 shows this state. In this state, the cleaner blades 7a and 7b are moved back to a position where they do not interfere with the nozzle position of the head (indicated by a dashed line N in the figure).
Even if the head crosses in front of it, it will not have any adverse effect on the nozzle. When the platen 1 further rotates, slipping occurs between the crease opening/closing plate 27 and the friction disk 23, as described above, and this state is maintained. Conversely, when the platen 1 rotates in the paper feeding direction (in the direction of arrow C in FIG. 1) in the state shown in FIG. 3, the cleaning blades 7a and 7b are displaced to the state shown in FIG. 2 by a similar mechanism. In this manner, the cleaning blades 7a and 7b can assume the states shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 depending on the rotational direction of the platen 1.

The positional relationship between the cleaning blades 7a, 7b and the front surface of the recording head 4 is set as shown in FIG. In other words, when the recording head 4 is set in the forward position, the cleaning blade 7a does not bend too much and the corner of the cleaning blade 7a always touches the recording head 4.
Similarly, the recording head 4 is in contact with the front surface of the recording head 4.
When the cleaning blade 7b is set in the reverse position, the cleaning blade 7b should be made to contact the front surface of the recording head 4 with the corner of the cleaning blade 7b without being bent too much.
The positions of cleaning blades 7a and 7b are set.

In the configuration described above, the cleaner support member 8 is moved forward and backward by a rocking movement about the shaft 29.
There is no problem even if the cleaner supporting member 8 is provided with a linear guide portion and the cleaning blades 7a, 7b are moved forward and backward by linear movement.

The operation sequence of the inkjet printer cleaning device described above will be illustrated.

The sequence when a head recovery command is received will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1, 2, and 3.

Step 1: Move the carriage 3 from left to right (arrow C in Figure 1)
When the cap 5 reaches the home position, the cap 5 is moved forward to cover the nozzle portion of the recording head 4 (the state shown in FIG. 1).

Step 2: Operate the ink recovery device (not shown),
Ink is sucked from the nozzle.

Step 3: Retract the cap 5.

Step 4: Operate the paper feed motor (not shown) and rotate the platen 1 in the paper feed direction (in the direction of arrow B in FIG. 1) until the cleaning blades 7a and 7b are completely set.

Step 5: Move the carriage from the home position to the left (in the direction of the arrow in FIG. 1) and stop at the position where it passes the cleaning blades 7a and 7b.
Step 6: Operate the paper feed motor (not shown) and rotate the platen 1 in the reverse feed direction (direction of arrow A in FIG. 1) until the cleaning blades 7a, 7b are completely reset.

Step 7: Move the carriage 3 from right to left (arrow C in Figure 1)
direction) and move it to the home position.

Step 8: Move the cap 5 forward to cover the nozzle portion of the recording head 4.

Furthermore, although this sequence describes a method for performing one operation of the cleaning device, it is also possible to operate the cleaning device multiple times by moving the carriage left and right in front of the cleaning blades 7a and 7b while they are set in step 4. The cleaning operation can be performed a plurality of times by performing the cleaning operation or repeating the operations from step 4 to step 7.

In this embodiment, since the recording head 4 has two positions, a forward position and a backward position, two flexible cleaning blades with different protrusion lengths are used. For example, it is effective to increase the number of flexible cleaning blades each having a different protrusion length. Furthermore, even in cases where the distance between the recording head and the recording paper cannot be varied, it is effective to use multiple flexible cleaning blades with different protrusion lengths in order to absorb component tolerances and assembly variations. .

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing another embodiment of the cleaning blade according to the present invention. 16 and 17 are flexible cleaning blades, 18 is a cleaner support member, and 27 is a cleaner opening/closing plate. Cleaning blade 16.17
are fixed to the cleaner support member 18 by a bottle 19 with different protruding lengths. The setting of the length, other structure, and operation are the same as in the previous embodiment. This means that multiple visibility cleaning blades with different protrusion lengths can be cleaned separately.
It is attached to a supporting member. With this configuration, since the cleaning blade can be manufactured by punching, there is an effect that a molding die is not required and the cost can be reduced compared to the case where the cleaning blade is manufactured in one piece.

[Effect of the Invention 1 As described above, according to the present invention, the cleaning blades can be reliably attached to the front surface of the recording head regardless of the position of the recording head by using a simple configuration in which a plurality of cleaning blades with different protruding lengths are provided. This has the effect of making it possible to sweep away trash. Furthermore, since the configuration is simple as described above, it is possible to provide an inkjet printer having an inexpensive nozzle cleaning means.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 are side views showing the advancing and retracting mechanism of the cleaning blade of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a top view showing the state of contact between the recording head and the cleaning blade according to the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a plan view showing another embodiment of the invention. FIG. 6 is a plan view showing a conventional cleaning blade advancing/retracting mechanism. FIG. 7 is a top view showing the state of contact between the recording head and the cleaning blade in a conventional example. 1...Platen roller 4...Recording head 7...Crease 7a, 7b...Cleaning blade 8
...Cleaner support member 23 ...Friction disk 27 ...Cleaner opening/closing plate and above Applicant Seiko Epson Co., Ltd. Representative Patent Attorney Kizobe Meiki and 1 other person l Nibraten 3: Carriage 4: Recording head 5: Cap 7: Cleaner 27: Cleaner opening/closing plate Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 6

Claims (1)

[Claims] An inkjet printer having a nozzle cleaning device that wipes the entire surface of a recording head with a flexible cleaning blade, characterized in that the flexible cleaning blade is composed of a plurality of sheets having different protruding lengths. Inkjet printer.