JPH0729426B2 - Inkjet recording method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a method for driving a thermal ink jet printer having a plurality of orifices.

[Prior Art] Originally, the thermal ink jet printer has a great feature that it has a simple structure and is easy to achieve high density and multi-nozzle as compared with other types of ink jet printers. However, as the density and the number of nozzles are increased, the print signals are simply added to the heating elements corresponding to each orifice as in the conventional case. Therefore, unnecessary meniscus vibration due to mutual acoustic influence between adjacent orifices and adjacent However, there is a drawback in that the influence of the heat history of the heating element cannot be ignored and the response frequency is lowered.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

As a method of solving the above-mentioned problem, a physical wall is provided between adjacent orifice / heater pairs to block mutual acoustic influences, and to prevent influence of mutual thermal history between adjacent heat generators. The distance was wide enough. Another solution is to limit the printing speed so that the mutual acoustic effects of the adjacent orifices and the thermal history of the heating element paired with the orifices are sufficiently attenuated before ink is ejected from the next orifice. It was

However, the above-mentioned solution cannot take advantage of the features of the thermal ink jet printer, such as high density and easy multi-nozzle.

Therefore, the present invention solves such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide a method for driving a thermal ink jet printer having high printing quality by increasing the printing speed by increasing the density and using multiple nozzles. It is in.

[Means for solving problems]

The inkjet recording method of the present invention is an inkjet recording method in which n nozzle openings are provided and ink droplets are ejected by supplying a pulse signal to a heating element. In the inkjet recording method, the nozzle openings are divided into a plurality of grapes in the column direction. One nozzle opening belonging to the grape is driven in n cycles, the driving time difference between adjacent nozzle openings is set to two cycles, and the driving timing between each group is shifted by one cycle.

[Action]

According to the above configuration of the present invention, the orifice corresponding to the heating element is added between the printing signals applied to the adjacent heating elements within the repetition period of the printing signals applied to the thermal ink jet printer having the high density and the multi-nozzle type. A delay time is provided so that the mutual acoustic effect between the heat generating elements and the effect of the thermal history between the heating elements converge.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is an example of the configuration of a thermal ink jet printer to which the driving method of the present invention is applied, and it has six orifices.

The select electrodes S _{1 to} S ₆ are connected to one of the heating elements R _{1 to} R ₆ formed on the base substrate 1, and the common electrode C ₁ is connected to the opposite side thereof. Each heating element R _{1 to} R ₆ on the orifice plate 2
The orifices N _{1 to} N ₆ are formed at locations corresponding to.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along S _{3 of} FIG. 1, in which the base substrate 1 and the orifice plate 2 are adhered via a spacer / adhesive 5. Ink is supplied through the supply pipe 4 to the ink chamber 3
Is supplied to the heating element R ₃ through the hair details 6. Therefore S ₃ -R ₃ -C ₁ and the print signal is desired ink droplets from orifices N ₃ is discharged by sudden state change of the ink on the applied R _3.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a conventional applied signal applied to the heating element.
T is a repeating cycle, and this period is divided by the number of heat generating elements to divide into ₆ and the print signals P _{1 to} P ₆ are made to correspond to the respective heat generating elements R _{1 to} R ₆ . At this time, T = 6 × P. In this case, since the print signals P are sequentially applied to the adjacent heating elements in the order of R ₁ → R ₆ , the mutual acoustic effects between the orifices and the thermal history of the heating elements are significantly affected. In order to avoid this, it is necessary to sufficiently widen the distance between the adjacent heating elements or to delay the print signal applied to the adjacent heating elements by a certain value t as shown in FIG. Then, the repetition cycle becomes T = 6 × (P + t), which is longer than that in FIG. However, according to the method described above, high density is hindered, and according to the method described later, the repetition cycle becomes longer as the number of orifices increases, and the increase in printing speed, which is an advantage of multi-nozzle, is impaired.

FIG. 5 shows a print signal (pulse signal) applied to the heating element in the inkjet recording method of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the print signals P1 to P6 are R1 → R4 → R2
→ R5 → R3 → R6 are applied in this order. More specifically, the nozzles are divided in the arrangement direction into a first grape R1 to R3 and a second group R4 to R6.
The time t is provided between the print signals P1 and P2 corresponding to the nozzles R1 and R2 of the second group, and at this time t, the nozzles of the second group
The print signal P4 corresponding to R4 is applied.

By the above method, the repetition cycle becomes T = 3 × (P + t), which is half that in the case of FIG. In this way, the delay time t can be provided between the adjacent orifices without extending the repetition period T, and the mutual acoustic effect and the thermal history effect between the adjacent heating elements can be basically changed by changing the driving method. It can be removed without modifying the circuit.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the driving method of the present invention, in the high density, multi-nozzle type thermal ink jet printer head, the mutual acoustic effect between the adjacent orifices and the effect of the thermal history of the adjacent heating element are reduced. It can be removed, the repetition cycle can be prevented from lowering when the density is increased and the number of nozzles is increased, and the printing speed can be increased.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a thermal ink jet printer having a plurality of orifices to which the driving method of the present invention is applied. FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line S ₃ of FIG. 3 and 4 show examples of conventional print signals. FIG. 5 shows an example of a print signal in the inkjet recording method of the present invention. 1 ...... base substrate 2 ...... orifice plate 3 ...... ink chamber 4 ...... ink supply pipe 5 ...... spacer and the adhesive 6 ...... hair detail C ₁ ...... common electrode S ₁ to S ₆ ...... selective electrodes R ₁ ~ R ₆ …… Heating element N ₁ 〜N ₆ …… Olyphus

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ink jet recording method comprising n nozzle openings and ejecting ink droplets by supplying a pulse signal to a heating element, wherein the nozzle openings are divided into a plurality of groups in the column direction and belong to each group. An ink jet recording method, wherein one nozzle opening is driven in n cycles, a driving time difference between adjacent nozzle openings is set to two cycles, and driving timing between each group is shifted by one cycle.