JPH07164792A - Pen point cleaning device of drafting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To clean the pen point of a hollow ink pen without caring manually by a method wherein a vibrating mechanism for vertically vibrating the center needle in the hollow ink pen in order to clean the pen point of the hollow ink pen and a pressure generating means for applying pressure on the ink in the hollow ink pen are provided in a drafting device. CONSTITUTION:In a drafting device, in which the controlling of speed to pressure is made possible by a pressure generating unit 12 for applying pressure except air pressure to a hollow ink pen 13 installed on a pen holder 15, by vertically vibrating the center needle in the hollow ink pen 13 within the draftable range with a vibrating mechanism, the pen point of the hollow ink pen 13 is cleansed. Further, to the center needle in the hollow ink pen 13, pressure except air pressure, which is obtained by a pressure generating unit 12, is applied. Furthermore, during the operation of a cleaning means, cleaning is executed under the movement of a carriage. As a result, the long term operation of a hollow ink pen, especially of a fine hollow ink pen having the diameter of 0.1mm or the like, which easily tends to dry, becomes possible without caring manually.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a drawing device, and more particularly to a method for cleaning a pen tip of a hollow ink pen of a drawing device using a hollow ink pen such as a multi-pen XY plotter device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a drawing apparatus that draws on recording paper using a hollow ink pen, paper dust or foreign matter may adhere to the pen tip of the hollow ink pen during drawing, or the ink at the pen tip of the hollow ink pen may dry. However, the drawn line width may not be uniform, or the line may not be drawn at all due to fading. At this time, conventionally, the carriage is occasionally stopped during drawing, and a cleaning paper is used to wipe and remove paper dust, foreign matter, and dry ink adhering to the pen tip of the hollow ink pen.

[0003]

However, if the pen tip of the hollow ink pen is manually cleaned using a cleaning paper, it takes time even for a skilled person, or the pen tip of the hollow ink pen is damaged. Sometimes it is necessary to check whether the lines drawn on the recording paper during drawing are uniform,
The operator is burdened with time and work. The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned points, and an object thereof is to provide a pen tip cleaning method for a drawing apparatus that solves these drawbacks.

[0004]

That is, a means for achieving the object is to provide a drawing device with a vibration mechanism for vertically vibrating the middle needle in the hollow ink pen to clean the pen tip of the hollow ink pen. . In addition to this, a pressure generating means for applying a pressure to the ink in the hollow ink pen is further provided, and by both of them, the pen tip of the hollow ink pen is cleaned by an automatic or manual command immediately before drawing, during drawing, etc. is there. Further, the cleaning can be performed by the above-described method even while the carriage is moving.

[0005]

In this cleaning method, the coil for vertically moving and the permanent magnet are used to perform the up and down operations of bringing the pen carriage and the held pen into contact with the drawing board test area and the up and down operations of not contacting them. ,
By moving the middle needle in the hollow ink pen up and down,
Clog the hollow ink pen's pen tip to remove clogging and sticking, and remove clogging. A sticking object or a pen of a hollow ink pen that is peeled off by ejecting the ink from the pen tip of the hollow ink pen, which is a pressure relief port, by applying pressure from the pressure generating unit to the ink in the hollow ink pen through the pen. It is possible to carry out the paper dust and the foreign matter that have previously adhered together with the ink.

Further, the above-mentioned two items are performed at the same time, and the pen carriage is moved in the X and Y directions to deposit dry ink, paper dust, foreign matter and the like on the unnecessary portion of the cleaning paper or the recording paper. By performing this series of work automatically or manually by the drawing device, the pen tip of the hollow ink pen can be cleaned quickly and accurately, and the line required without the operator's time and work burden. Ink pen drawing that can obtain a width can be performed.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view in which a portion of the present invention is applied to a commonly-used multi-pen type XY plotter. Except for the detailed operation description, the configuration necessary for explaining the present invention will be described in detail. In FIG. 1, the X and Y directions of the XY plotter are indicated by arrows, but the slidable X is provided on both sides of the main body.
An X rail 7 equipped with a cursor 2 is attached. Also, a Y beam 8 is fixed to the X cursor 2 so as to be parallel to the upper surface of the drawing board (only one side is shown in the figure). A Y cursor 9 is slidably attached to the Y rail 1 fixed to the Y beam 8 and can be moved by an X and Y axis drive unit (not shown).

The pen holder gripping mechanism 10 is provided with a vibrating mechanism, is attached to the drawing head 11 mounted on the Y cursor 9, and can be moved up and down by a control signal in a direction of approaching and separating from the upper surface of the drawing board. ing. There are various methods for this vibrating mechanism, and any method may be used as long as it is a method of giving an up / down signal. This pen holder gripping mechanism 10
A pen stocker 5 is provided at the end of the main body at a position opposite to. Further, the pen stocker 5 is configured so that a plurality of pen holders 4 can be attached and detached. The point of gripping these pen holders 4 and controlling the pressure by the air pressure switching device during drawing and at the time of stopping is not the gist of the present invention, so the description thereof will be omitted, but the pressure for each speed will be omitted. Is used to apply a uniform drawing line.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view for explaining the gist of the present invention, and is a sectional view of the pen holder 4 capable of applying pressure to the ink 14 in the hollow ink pen 13. The hollow ink pen 13 is, for example, Germany. , Parts sold by Stettler. The holder has an upper lid 18 for supplying the ink 14, and an O-ring 19 is attached to prevent air leakage from the lid 18. The hollow ink pen 13 is a consumable item and needs to be replaced as appropriate, so that it can be removed. That is, when the bottom sleeve 16 is engaged with the screw at the bottom of the holder 4, the hollow ink pen 13 is brought into contact with the stepped portion of the bottom sleeve 16, and the force of the hollow ink pen 13 is the O-ring 17 fitted in the screw portion of the hollow ink pen 13. It is fixed to the tip of the pen holder 15 through.

A negative pressure is applied from the air pressure switching device 12 at the time of stop to prevent ink from leaking. However, if a high pressure is generated at this time, the ink 14 in the pen holder 4 is
High pressure is applied, and the ink 14 can be discharged from the tip of the hollow ink pen 13. Next, the structure of the hollow ink pen 13 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a state in which the hollow ink pen is fixed to the pen holder, and shows a pen-up state in which the hollow ink pen is held by the pen holder holding mechanism 10 together with the pen holder 4. At this time, the middle needle 20 is brought into contact with the tip of the hollow ink pen 13 by the spring 21, and the middle needle 20 projects from the tip of the hollow ink pen 13 by the dimension A. Needless to say, the hollow ink pen 13 cannot perform drawing without the middle needle 20.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing a state where the hollow ink pen is fixed to the pen holder, and shows a state in which the pen holder 4 and the pen holder holding mechanism 10 hold the pen down.
At this time, the middle needle 20 is designed to lower the pen holder gripping mechanism 10 with a force stronger than the spring 21, so that the portion where the middle needle 20 is protruding from the tip of the hollow ink pen 13 in FIG. 3 is a hollow ink pen.
It is drawn in with the dimension A in 13. Therefore, it can be seen that the middle needle 20 in the hollow ink pen 13 vibrates up and down by repeating up and down as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 by the pen holder gripping mechanism 10.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a state in which the ink 14 is fixed to the tip of the hollow ink pen 13. As shown in FIG. 5, if the ink is left in the pen-up state for a while, it will dry and become incapable of drawing. Or, during drawing with the hollow ink pen 13, dust and paper dust in the atmosphere may adhere to the tip of the hollow ink pen 13 and the necessary drawing line width of the hollow ink pen 13 may not be obtained. In this case, conventionally, the pen holder 4 is once removed from the pen holder gripping mechanism 10, the tip of the hollow ink pen 13 is manually wiped and cleaned, and then the pen holder 4 is attached to the drawing head 11 again for redrawing. However, in the present invention, when the drawing line width abnormality is visually confirmed, the XY plotter is stopped and the "test drawing" switch (not shown) is pushed down to move the drawing head 11 into the test area 6, The up and down operation of the pen holder 4 is repeated several times to crush the fixed ink, and when the tip condition of the hollow ink pen 13 does not change, a high pressure is applied by the air pressure switching device 12 and the fixed ink 14 is hollowed. If the ink is discharged from the tip of the ink pen 13 and still does not play back or ink residue is attached to the tip of the hollow ink pen 13, the above operation is performed. Carried out at the time, in addition to drawing in the test area within 6 head 11
By moving the, the pen tip is reproduced and ink residue is placed on the paper.

In the present invention, an example of the above work is shown by the test area 6, but these works may be performed in the effective drawing area or in an unnecessary portion of the paper. Also, an example in which the vertical movement device makes contact with the paper by the vibration mechanism has been given, but if the vertical movement device uses a moving coil with position control and has a sufficient stroke, vertical vibration does not occur without contact with the paper. It is also possible to crush the fixed ink 14. Further, in the embodiment, a human has found a drawing defect and cleaned the hollow ink pen 13 by a manual operation, but for example, by inputting a program for performing a cleaning operation for each drawing line length automatically, It is also possible to do in.

[0014]

As described above, according to the present invention, a hollow ink pen 13 having a diameter of 0.1 mm or the like, which is thin and easy to dry, is provided.
As for the above, by adopting the cleaning method according to the present invention, unattended operation for a long time becomes possible, and a great effect can be expected.
Also, the various drawbacks described above are eliminated.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a main body of a multi-pen type XY plotter device to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a main sectional view of a pen holder.

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a pen-up state.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing a pen-down state.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a state where ink dregs are attached to the hollow ink pen.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Y rail 2 X cursor 3 Multi-pen type XY plotter device body 4 Pen holder 5 Pen stocker 6 Test area 7 X rail 8 Y beam 9 Y cursor 10 Pen holder gripping mechanism 11 Drawing head 12 Air pressure switching device 13 Hollow ink pen 14 Ink 15 Holder 16 Bottom Sleeve 17 O-ring 18 Lid 19 O-ring 20 Middle needle 21 Spring

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A plotting apparatus capable of controlling speed-versus-pressure by a pressure generating unit capable of applying a pressure other than atmospheric pressure to a hollow ink pen mounted on a pen holder. A pen tip cleaning method for a plotting device, characterized in that a middle needle in the ink pen is vertically vibrated by a vibrating mechanism so that the pen tip of the hollow ink pen can be cleaned. 2. The pen tip cleaning method according to claim 1, wherein a pressure other than the atmospheric pressure obtained from the pressure generating unit is applied to the middle needle in the hollow ink pen. 3. The pen tip cleaning method of the drawing device according to claim 1, wherein the cleaning is performed while moving the carriage while the cleaning means is being performed.