JPH0639168B2 - Inkjet recording device - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus having a plurality of ink cassettes.

[Prior art]

The ink jet recording apparatus is characterized by less noise and is suitable for high-speed printing as compared with a wire-dot type or heat-sensitive type, and moreover it is easy to perform color printing, and is an output device (printer for electronic devices such as a computer. ) Or used in Huaximiri.

This ink jet recording apparatus is configured to guide the ink in an ink container to a recording head and to eject the ink toward a recording material by driving a plurality of nozzles provided in the recording head according to a print pattern signal. There is.

In a recording apparatus for color printing, for example, four colors of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow are used, and four recording heads and four ink containers are mounted according to the number of colors.

In this type of recording apparatus, when the ink solvent evaporates from the openings such as the nozzles and becomes highly viscous during the stand-by state, or when dust or the like adheres to the ink supply system, the nozzles are clogged and printing defects occur. Therefore, as a method of recovering the ink property, a recovery operation of performing idle ejection of ink in the same direction as during recording is performed prior to the recording operation. The ink discharged from the nozzle in this recovery operation is collected in the waste ink container.

Generally, the ink container and the waste ink container are detachably mounted and can be replaced with a new one after use, and a waste ink container having an ink absorber installed therein is used.

By the way, in a conventional recording apparatus of this type, when a plurality of ink containers for color printing are mounted, a waste ink container is provided separately from these ink containers, and the waste ink from all the recording heads is set to 1 It was configured to lead to individual waste ink containers.

For this reason, the capacity of the waste ink container (or the absorption capacity of the ink absorber) must be adjusted to the total amount of ink in each ink container, resulting in a large size.

Further, even in the case of an independent waste ink container, it is possible to put this together with an ink container of a certain color to form an integrated structure, and to combine the ink containers of the remaining colors into an integrated structure. If the used ink container is used up at an early stage, the waste ink container that can be used must be replaced at the same time, and the waste ink container is wasted.

〔Purpose〕

The object of the present invention is to solve the problems of the conventional structure,
An object of the present invention is to provide an ink jet recording apparatus provided with an ink recovery mechanism having an excellent balance between the ink consumption of an ink cassette and the reduction of waste ink absorption capacity.

[Summary]

The present invention has been made in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, and a plurality of ink tanks respectively storing a plurality of inks independently and waste ink for collecting unnecessary inks attached to each of the plurality of ink tanks. Each recording head for improving the ink ejection state of a plurality of ink cassettes configured to be attachable to and detachable from an apparatus including an ink tank, and a plurality of recording heads ejecting ink supplied from the ink cassettes. And a recovery device for discharging the unnecessary ink from the recording head while covering the discharge port surface of the waste ink, and a waste ink reservoir for collecting the unnecessary ink discharged by the recovery device, The unnecessary ink once collected in the ink reservoir is distributed to each waste ink tank of the ink cassette and collected. Characterized in that a distribution channel.

As a result, the waste ink discharged from the recording head can be temporarily collected in the collecting unit and then distributed to the waste ink tanks of the ink cassettes to be collected, and the unnecessary ink can be collected in a good balance.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

1 to 3, four recording heads 3 and four ink containers (ink cassettes) 4 for supplying ink to the respective recording heads 3 are arranged on a carriage 2 which moves along the platen rolls 1, 1. It is installed. As shown in FIG. 3, the platen rolls 1 and 1 back up the recording material (paper) 5 and feed it. The carriage 2 is supported on a guide shaft 6 and a guide rail 7 provided on the main body of the recording apparatus, and the left end position in FIG. 1 is set to the home position (standby position).

A recovery device 8 is provided near the home position of the main body. If the ink solvent evaporates during standby, the ink becomes highly viscous, resulting in printing failure. Also, if foreign matter such as dust adheres to the printing surface of the recording head 3 (the surface where the nozzles open), the ink ejection operation will malfunction and printing will occur. breaking bad. The recovery device 8 is for preventing such a printing failure, and moves forward when the carriage 2 is at the home position to cover the printing surface of the recording head 3 and at the time of recording before the recording operation. It is configured to discharge ink in the same direction as.

At the time of recording operation, as shown in FIG. 3, the ink 9 in the ink container 4 is introduced into the common liquid chamber 11 of the recording head 3 through the ink supply pipe 10, and the plurality of nozzles 12 provided in the recording head are used for printing pattern signal. Ink is ejected from a predetermined nozzle toward the recording material 5 by being driven according to the above.

The four ink containers 4 are filled with black, cyan, magenta, and yellow inks, for example, and the inks are supplied to the recording head 3 that prints the corresponding colors.

These ink containers 4 are replaceably mounted, and an ink supply hollow needle 13 and a ventilation needle 14 are fixed to the container mounting portion on the carriage 2. The ink supply hollow needle 13 is connected to the ink supply pipe 10.

The ink container (ink cassette) 4 is shown in FIGS.
As shown in the figure, the ink absorber 1 is divided into upper and lower chambers, ink 9 is stored in the lower chamber (ink tank portion), and resin fiber or the like is molded in the upper chamber (waste ink tank portion).
5 is stored.

In the illustrated example, each ink container 4 is mounted from above, and the ink receiving hollow needle 13 is pierced into the receiving port 16 at the bottom to form an ink taking-out port, and at the same time, two receiving ports 1 are formed.
By piercing the ventilation needles 14 at 7 and 18, a ventilation passage for communicating the ink reservoir (lower chamber) with the atmosphere is formed. In the illustrated example, the ventilation port 19 is formed in the upper chamber of the container, and the lower chamber (ink reservoir) is formed by the passage formed in the ventilation needle 14.
An air passage is formed by connecting the upper chamber with the vicinity of the inner end of the vent hole 19 in the upper chamber. Further, in this mounted state, the ink absorber 15 is arranged close to the outer opening of the ventilation needle 14.

On the other hand, the waste ink discharged from each nozzle 12 by the recovery operation or the like is returned from the recovery device 8 to the waste ink discharge pipe 20.
Through the ink is discharged into the waste ink reservoir 21 provided on the carriage 2. The ink absorber 2 is placed in the waste ink retainer 21.
2 are installed.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the upper chamber of each ink container 4 is provided with a downward opening 23 on its front side so that a part of the ink absorber 15 inside is exposed to the outside.

Further, an opening 24 is provided on the carriage 2 on the rear side of the waste ink retainer 21, and the ink absorber 2 is provided in the opening.
2 is exposed. Therefore, on the carriage 2, ink is absorbed for distribution which comes into contact with the exposed portions of the ink absorber 22 in the waste ink reservoir 21 and the exposed portions of the ink absorbers 15 in the upper chambers of the four ink containers 4. The body 25 is installed. That is, the waste ink ejection pipe 2 of the recovery device 8
The waste ink that has flowed into the waste ink retainer 21 on the carriage 2 through 0 is first indicated by an arrow, and first, the ink absorber 2
2 and then into the ink absorber 25 for distribution that comes into contact therewith, and is distributed to the ink absorber 15 in the upper chamber of each ink container 4 through the ink absorber 25.

According to the embodiment described above, the following effects can be obtained.

(i) Since the ink absorber 15 is mounted in the plurality of supply ink containers 4 and the waste ink from each recording head 3 is distributed to these absorbers, a separate waste ink container must be provided. Therefore, the structure can be simplified and the device can be downsized.

(ii) Since the waste ink is distributed to each ink container 4 as described above, even if only a specific ink container is consumed early, it is possible to eliminate the waste of replacing the entire usable waste ink container as in the conventional case. You can

In the illustrated embodiment, the case where a plurality of ink containers 4 are mounted on the carriage 2 is illustrated, but the present invention can be similarly applied to a case where these ink containers are mounted on a place other than the carriage such as the apparatus main body. . The ink absorber 25 for distribution may be integrated with the ink absorber 22 in the waste ink retainer 21.

〔effect〕

As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, a plurality of ink tanks respectively storing a plurality of inks and a waste ink tank attached to each of the plurality of ink tanks for collecting unnecessary ink are provided. A plurality of ink cassettes configured to be attachable to and detachable from the provided device, and ejection port surfaces of each recording head for improving ink ejection states of a plurality of recording heads ejecting ink supplied from the ink cassettes. And a recovery device for discharging unnecessary ink from the recording head and a waste ink reservoir for recovering the unnecessary ink discharged by the recovery device, and the waste ink reservoir Distribution path for distributing and collecting the collected unnecessary ink to each waste ink tank of the ink cassette Since the configurations with, it is possible to balance the ink consumption and waste ink storage amount of the plurality of ink cassette, an ink jet recording apparatus which does not cause waste of the waste ink tank when replacing the ink cassette is obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a main part of an ink jet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view taken along line II-II in FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a vertical sectional view taken along line III-III in FIG. 2 ... Carriage, 3 ... Recording head, 4 ... Ink container, 5 ... Recording material (paper), 8 ... Ink recovery device, 9
...... Ink, 12 ...... Nozzle, 15 ...... Ink absorber (ink container), 20 ...... Waste ink discharge nozzle, 21 ...
... Waste ink retainer, 22 ... Ink absorber (waste ink retainer), 25 ... Ink absorber (for waste ink distribution).

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location B41J 2/185 2/21 8306-2C B41J 3/04 101 A 8306-2C 102 Z

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An apparatus comprising: a plurality of ink tanks each independently storing a plurality of inks; and a waste ink tank attached to each of the plurality of ink tanks for collecting unnecessary ink. In order to improve the ink ejection state of the plurality of ink cassettes configured and the plurality of recording heads that eject the ink supplied from the ink cassette, the ejection port surface of each recording head is covered and unnecessary ink is ejected from the recording heads. In an ink jet recording apparatus including a recovery device for discharging, a waste ink reservoir for recovering unnecessary ink discharged by the recovery device, and an unnecessary ink once recovered in the waste ink reservoir are stored in the ink cassette. An ink jet printer characterized by having a distribution path for distributing and collecting the waste ink tanks. Tsu door recording device.