JPH08217155A - Packing material for ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a packing material for an ink jet printer which reduces the operation of packing and the load of controlling stock, eliminates the need to be disposed of after unpacked, and therefore can be recycled, by making the packing material out of a material which is excellent in ink absorption, and by integrating an ink absorber into the packing material so that it is freely separable. CONSTITUTION: This packing material 20 is made of an expanded polyethylene which has excellent ink-absorption, and a spare ink-absorber 22 taken out of the main body of a packing material 20 has the same shape as an ink absorber. Therefore, the spare ink-absorber 22 can be used as a spare for the ink absorber. This absorber 22 is held by the main body of the packing material 22 at its two connecting parts 23.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink jet printer having a purging device for sucking and recovering defective ink inside an ink jet type print head by a suction pump, and to a packing material used for packing necessary for shipping. In particular, it is made of a material that is excellent in recovering defective ink sucked in the purging device, and the ink absorber used in the purging device is integrally provided in a separable manner so that the ink absorber can be separated from the packaging material body as needed. The present invention relates to a packaging material that can be easily taken out and used as a replacement for an ink absorber.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a printing recording apparatus such as a copying machine, a facsimile or a printer for a personal computer, which records a dot pattern image on a printing medium such as paper or a plastic sheet based on the transferred printing information. in use. In a print head mounted in a print portion of an ink jet printer, which is one of these print recording devices, a small ink jet is ejected from an ejection port and ejected to adhere to a paper or the like as a printing medium for printing. A printhead is used.

In such an ink jet print head, air bubbles may be generated in the ink inside the print head during use, resulting in defective ink ejection. Further, ink droplets, dry ink, foreign matter such as paper powder, etc. may adhere to the ejection port to cause clogging, resulting in defective ink ejection. Therefore, it is necessary to periodically perform cleaning for removing these causes of defects and recovering to a good discharge port state. For this reason, a purging operation for sucking the defective ink from the ejection surface of the print head to remove the foreign matter is regularly performed.
A purging device including a suction pump that generates a negative pressure for the purging operation and a drive motor thereof is provided.

The defective ink sucked by the suction pump is discharged and collected in an ink absorber in a separately provided container. After that, when the absorbing capacity of the ink absorber approaches the limit and needs to be replaced, the ink absorber in the container is refilled to deal with it. Therefore, such an ink absorber is one of the consumable items that need to be replaced, and the user does not have to store an ink absorber as a spare (hereinafter referred to as "spare ink absorber") in preparation for the replacement time. must not.

Such a spare ink absorber may or may not be included in a packaging box of an ink jet printer. When it is included in the package, a new storage space is provided in a part of the packaging box and the package is stored in that location. Therefore, the user can already prepare several preliminary ink absorbers when purchasing the inkjet printer. FIG. 5 shows an example of packing a conventional inkjet printer.
The main body 61 of the inkjet printer includes two packing materials 6
After assembling 2, 63 from the left and right, they are put in the packaging box 60. Next, the instruction manual 66 and the spare ink absorber 68 are stored in the space between the side surface of the packing box 60 and the packing materials 62 and 63, and the paper feed cassette 64, the manual paper feed section 65, the spare parts 67, etc. are inkjetted. The lid of the packaging box 60 formed on the main body 61 of the printer is placed in the space between the packaging materials 62 and 63, and then the lid of the packaging box 60 is closed. On the other hand, if they are not included in the package, the user needs to separately purchase and prepare several spare ink absorbers as replacement parts for consumables.

[0006]

However, in any of the above cases, there are problems described below. That is, when the auxiliary ink absorber is included in the package, the number of steps of the packing work increases, which causes a problem of increasing the burden of the packing work. Further, when the spare ink absorber is not included in the package, it is necessary to store a considerable number of spare parts, which causes a problem of further complicating inventory management of the spare parts. Furthermore,
After unpacking the inkjet printer from the packaging box, the packaging materials are often discarded, so that the packaging materials cannot be effectively used and resources are wasted.

Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and a packing material used for packing an ink jet printer is formed of a material having excellent ink absorbability, and the ink absorber Integrally separable components make it possible to use the ink absorber taken out from the packaging material as a spare part, and reduce the number of packages and the number of spare parts to reduce the burden of packaging work and inventory management. An object of the present invention is to provide a packaging material for an inkjet printer that can be reused without being discarded after unpacking.

[0008]

[Means for Solving the Problems] An ink jet type print head that ejects ink from a discharge port onto a printing medium to perform printing, a recovery unit that sucks and recovers ink from the discharge port of the print head, and a recovery unit. In a packaging material used for packaging an inkjet printer having an ink absorber that collects the sucked ink, the packaging material is formed of a material having excellent ink absorbency, and the ink absorber is included in the packaging material. It is configured so as to be separably integrally provided.

[0009]

The packing material having the above construction is used when packing an ink jet printer. Also,
The inkjet printer to be packed is one that prints by ejecting ink from the ejection port of the print head onto the printing medium. In order to prevent defective ejection of ink, the defective ink inside the print head is sucked by the recovery means, The sucked ink is collected in an ink absorber.
Such a packaging material is formed of a material excellent in absorbing ink, and an ink absorber is separably integrally formed in a part of the packaging material, which makes it easy to remove the ink absorber from the packaging material. Since it can be taken out, the ink absorber taken out from the packaging material can be used as a replacement part of the ink absorber already mounted in the inkjet printer.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A packing material according to the present invention will be described below in detail based on embodiments embodying the present invention with reference to the drawings. First, an inkjet printer packed using the packing material of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of an inkjet printer. In FIG. 1, a manual paper feed unit 3 is provided in the front part of the main body frame 2 of the inkjet printer 1, and the print head 10 shown in FIG. 2 is provided behind the manual paper feed unit 3 and above the main body frame 2. A sub-frame 4 incorporating a recovery mechanism RM and a paper feed mechanism LM is placed.
A paper feed cassette 5 for storing a plurality of printing papers is detachably attached to the upper rear part of the sub-frame 4.

FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of the sub-frame 4 of the ink jet printer 1, the print head 10 incorporated in the sub-frame 4, the recovery mechanism RM, the paper feed mechanism LM and the like.
In FIG. 2, a cylindrical platen roller 6 is arranged behind the sub-frame 4. The platen roller 6 conveys the print paper supplied from the paper feed cassette 5 or the manual paper feed unit 3 while facing the print head 10, and forms a part of the paper feed mechanism LM. The platen roller 6 is driven via a platen gear 7 by an LF motor (not shown). Above the platen roller 6,
A pressure roller 8 is provided to bring the printing paper into close contact with the platen roller 6.

A carriage 9 is provided in front of the platen roller 6. The carriage 9 has an ink jet type print head 10 mounted thereon, and the platen roller 6
It is movable along a carriage shaft 11 provided in parallel with. This is for moving the print head 10 along the platen roller 6. A CR motor 12 that drives the carriage 9 is arranged on the right rear surface of the subframe 4. The CR motor 12 drives the carriage 9 via the belt 13 and uses a step motor or a DC motor. A tape-shaped position gauge 14 with a scale is provided along the belt 13.

A recovery mechanism RM for the print head 10 is disposed on the left side of the platen roller 6. The ink jet type print head 10 causes ejection failure due to, for example, bubbles generated inside during use or droplets of ink adhering to the ejection surface. Therefore, this is restored to a good ejection state. This is because. As the recovery mechanism RM, the purging device 1
8 etc. are provided. A cap 15 is provided at the tip of the purging device 18. The purging device 18 is configured to generate a negative pressure by the purge pump when the print head 10 is covered with the cap 15 to suck and recover defective ink inside the print head 10. Purge device 1
The pump 8 is driven by an LF motor (not shown) via a pump cam gear 19. The sucked defective ink is ejected and collected on the ink absorber in the container, which does not appear in FIGS. When the absorption capacity of the ink absorber approaches the limit and needs to be replaced, the spare ink absorber is refilled instead of the ink absorber in the container. The ink absorber is made of a porous material having excellent ink absorbency.

Next, the packing material of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing the packaging material according to the present invention. On the front side surface of the packing material 20, a recess 21 into which one side of the main body of the inkjet printer 1 is fitted is formed. Further, a spare ink absorber 22 of the same size as the ink absorber is formed on the top of the packing material 20 so as not to overlap the recess 21, and is held by the main body of the packing material 20 at two points of the connecting portion 23. Has been done. The connection portion 23 can be easily cut with a cutter knife or the like, which allows the preliminary ink absorber 22 to be easily taken out.

If expanded polystyrene, which is the material of the usual packing material, is used as the material of the packing material 20, it is not suitable as the material of the packing material of the present invention because the ink absorbency is not good.
Therefore, the material of the packing material 20 is excellent in absorbing the defective ink sucked by the purging device 18, and also has sufficient functions such as impact relaxation, lightness, resilience, and strength as the packing material. Foamed polyethylene is used as a material that can be achieved. Therefore, the taken-out preliminary ink absorber 22 has the same shape as the ink absorber and is excellent in absorbing ink, and thus can be used as a spare of the ink absorber.

The shape of the packing material actually used is designed in consideration of the shape of the main body of the ink jet printer 1, the paper feed cassette 5, an instruction manual, etc., and the strength of the packing material. Therefore, it rarely has a simple shape as shown in FIG. 3, and the packing material 3 shown in FIG.
It often has a complicated shape such as 1, 32.

Next, a packing operation using the packing material of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of packing the inkjet printer 1 using the packing material 31 according to the present invention. As described above, the packing material 31 has a complicated shape because the packing material 20 of FIG. 3 is applied to the conventional packing, and two spare ink absorbers 35 are provided on the packing material 31. Is forming.

To pack the ink jet printer 1, the recesses 36 of the packing material 31 and the recesses 37 (not shown in FIG. 4) of the packing material 32 are assembled from the left and right sides of the main body 100 of the ink jet printer 1, and then the packing box. It is paid in 30. Next, the front side surface of the packaging box 30 and the packaging materials 31, 3
2, the instruction manual 33 is stored in the space of 2, and the paper feed cassette 5, the manual paper feed unit 3, and the spare parts 34 are provided on the main body 100 of the inkjet printer 1 with the lid of the packing box 60 and the packing material 31, 32, and then the lid of the packaging box 30 is closed. Therefore, compared to the conventional packing operation shown in FIG. 5, the number of packing items can be reduced by two. Two
This is because the individual spare ink absorbers 35 are formed on the packing material 31.

As described in detail above, the packing material 31 used for packing the ink jet printer 1 according to this embodiment is made of polyethylene foam which is a material sufficiently satisfying the ink absorbency and the function of the packing material. A preliminary ink absorber 35 having the same size as the ink absorber is formed on the upper side surface of the packing material 31 so as to be easily taken out. Therefore, the spare ink absorber 35 can be used as a spare part of the ink absorber which is a consumable item.

Further, since the preliminary ink absorber 35 is formed integrally with the packing material 31, the number of the preliminary ink absorbers 35 can be reduced as compared with the conventional case. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the burden of packing work due to the decrease in the number of packaged items, and it is possible to reduce the number of items that must be stored as spare parts, so the burden of inventory management of spare parts can be reduced. Becomes

Further, since the packing materials 31 and 32 are made of foamed polyethylene, the main body of the packing materials 31 and 32 can be easily formed into a shape that can be delivered into a container in which defective ink is ejected. Like the preliminary ink absorber 35 formed on the packaging material 31, it can be used as a substitute for the ink absorber. Therefore, even after the inkjet printer 1 is taken out from the packing box, the packing materials 31 and 32 are not discarded and can be used as a spare ink absorber.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and it goes without saying that various improvements and modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0023]

As described above, according to the present invention, the packaging material used for packaging the ink jet printer is formed of a material having excellent ink absorbability, and the ink absorber is provided integrally so as to be separable. It becomes possible to use the ink absorber taken out of the material as a spare part,
By reducing the number of items to be packed and the number of spare parts, it is possible to reduce the burden of packing work and inventory management, and to provide packaging materials for inkjet printers that can be reused without being discarded after unpacking. The effect that it plays in industry is great.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of an inkjet printer.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a recovery mechanism, a paper feeding mechanism and the like of the inkjet printer.

FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically showing a packing material according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of packaging an inkjet printer using the packaging material according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of packaging an inkjet printer using a conventional packaging material.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Inkjet Printer 10 Print Head 18 Purging Device 20, 31, 32 Packing Material 22, 35, 68 Spare Ink Absorber 23 Connection Section 30, 60 Packing Box 61, 100 Inkjet Printer Main Body 62, 63 Conventional Packing Material RM Recovery mechanism

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ink jet type print head for printing by ejecting ink from a discharge port onto a printing medium, and a recovery means for sucking and recovering ink from the discharge port of the print head,
In a packaging material used when packaging an inkjet printer having an ink absorber that collects the ink sucked by the recovery means, the packaging material is formed of a material having excellent ink absorbency, and the packaging material includes the ink. A packaging material for an ink jet printer, wherein an absorber is detachably provided integrally.