JPH11334065A - Ink jet head and manufacture thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To enhance alignment accuracy between a heater board and a top plate by marking the heater board on the ejection face side at a position aligned with a heater and the top plate. SOLUTION: The position of a heater 1a on a heater board 1 is measured from the upper surface thereof by means of an objective lens 4, an ITV 5 and an image processor 6 for processing the output from the ITV. A stage 10 mounting a heater board 1 is moved such that the measuring position is fixed. The operation is repeated until the deviation falls within a specified dimension. When the measuring position is fixed, a laser 7 is oscillated by delivering a command from a controller 3. The laser 7 uses the second harmonic or basic wave of a YAG laser. Since the laser light is projected to a mask 8 and focused on the ejection face, i.e., the dicing face 1c, of the mask 8, the heater board 1 can be marked at a position aligned with the heater 1a.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an improved ink jet head for ejecting ink used in ink jet recording and a method of manufacturing the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The conventional structure of a heater board of an ink jet head has a heater on a patterned surface,
The ejection surface side had a dicing surface when cut from the wafer. On the heater board, a top plate having a groove is fixed with an adhesive or the like by aligning the groove with the heater.

The positioning of the heater on the heater board and the groove on the top plate has been performed by the following method.

In one method, the position of a heater on a heater board is image-processed to perform position measurement, a top plate is placed on the top, a hole position or a groove position of the top plate is measured, and the position of the top plate is measured. This is for positioning. In this method, since the process cannot be divided, the tact of the apparatus is required.

[0005] Another method is to place a heater board cross section cut at a certain dimension from the heater position on a top plate heater board having a butting surface at a certain dimension position from the groove position, and to make contact with the heater cross section. It hits the surface. In this method, the cutting accuracy of the heater board is required more than necessary, and the alignment is performed at the end face of the top board, so that it is easily affected by the pitch shift of the top board.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an ink-jet head which has improved positioning accuracy between a heater board and a top plate and is less susceptible to a pitch shift of the top plate, and a method of manufacturing the same. It is in.

[0007]

The above object of the present invention is attained by the following ink jet head and a method of manufacturing the same. (1) In an ink jet head in which a top plate having an orifice plate is fixed to a heater board, the heater board is fixed to the discharge surface side thereof in alignment with the top plate in accordance with the position of the heater. Ink-jet head having markings for printing. (2) The ink jet head according to the above (1), wherein the marking is provided substantially at the center on the ejection surface side of the heater board. (3) A method for manufacturing an ink jet head, comprising fixing a top plate having an orifice plate to a heater board, wherein the position of the heater board is aligned with the position of the heater on the discharge surface side of the heater board. A step of performing marking for fixing by adjusting the position of the marking and the groove position of the top plate through a hole in the orifice plate of the top plate placed on the heater board so as to fall within a certain range. And a method of manufacturing an ink jet head. (4) The position of the heater on the heater board is measured using an objective lens, an ITV, and an image processing device that performs image processing on the output of the heater so that the position falls within a certain deviation range from a predetermined position. (3) The method according to (3), wherein the laser beam is used to mark the ejection surface in accordance with the position of the heater. (5) The method according to (3) or (4), wherein the marking is provided substantially at the center on the ejection surface side. (6) Place the top plate on the heater board, and use an objective lens, an ITV, and an image processing device that performs image processing on the output of the top plate to determine the position of the hole in the orifice plate of the top plate.
The method according to any one of the above (3) to (5), wherein the top plate is moved so that an amount of deviation from the marking falls within a predetermined range, and then the top plate is fixed to the heater board.

According to the above-described ink jet head and the method of manufacturing the ink jet head, by marking on the discharge surface side of the heater board, the marking and the hole position can be set to 1 through the light-permeable thin film of the orifice plate of the top plate. Since the image is captured in the image processing of the screen, the alignment accuracy is improved. In addition, since marking can be performed at the center of the top plate by performing marking at almost the center on the discharge surface side of the heater board, the influence of the pitch shift of the top plate can be reduced to half of that when positioning at the end surface of the top plate Can be held down.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS First, FIG. 1 is a front view of an ink jet head according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a front view of a heater board showing markings and holes of a top plate, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the heater board showing a marking position, FIG. 4 is a top view and a front view of the heater board showing a positional relationship between the heater of the heater board and the marking, and FIGS. 5 and 5 are schematic views of a marking device. The marking of the ink jet head of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

The heater board 1 has a heater 1a on an upper surface and a marking 1b on a dicing surface 1c. The position of the marking 1b is substantially at the center of the hole arrangement direction of the discharge surface, at a position matching the position of the heater, and at a position 1 mm from the joint surface of the top plate.
Preferably it is within 00 microns. Since the positioning can be performed almost at the center of the top plate, the influence of the pitch shift of the top plate is reduced by 1 / compared to the case where the positioning is performed at the end surface of the top plate.
This is because it can be suppressed to 2. The shape of the marking is not limited to the illustrated one, but may be any shape. The size of the marking 1b is preferably about 50 microns square. When performing image processing at the time of joining the top plate and the heater board, it is desired that the marking and the hole 2a of the top plate 2 be contained in one screen. To keep the measurement accuracy at about 1 micron, a resolution of 0.5
It is desired to be on the order of microns. At this time, the area of the image processing is 250 microns square in the frame processing. Therefore, the position and size of the marking that falls within this range are required. For example, if a 50-micron square marking is recorded on the discharge surface side of the heater board at a distance of 100 microns or less from the joint surface of the top plate, a single screen can be displayed when performing image processing when joining the top plate and the heater board. Can be accommodated. However, the effect of the present invention is not lost even if the position and size are other than those described above.

Next, a method of performing marking will be described with reference to FIGS.

The position of the heater 1a on the heater board 1 is measured by the objective lens 4, the ITV 5, and the image processing device 6 for performing image processing on the output of the ITV from the upper surface of the heater board 1. The stage 10 on which the heater board 1 is mounted is moved so that the measurement position is at a predetermined position.
This operation is repeated until the displacement reaches a certain size. When a certain position is reached, a command is issued from the control device 3 to the laser 7 to cause the laser 7 to oscillate. As the laser 7, for example, a second harmonic or a fundamental wave of a YAG laser is used. The laser beam is applied to the mask 8, and the light passing through the mask 8 forms an image on the dicing surface 1 c on the discharge surface side of the heater board 1 through the projection lens 9, thereby adjusting the position of the heater 1 a of the heater board 1. The location can be marked.

FIG. 7 is a front view for explaining the bonding between the top plate and the heater board, FIG. 8 is a partial front view of the heater board for explaining the alignment by the image processing apparatus, and FIG. A method for aligning and fixing the top plate and the heater board will be described with reference to FIG. 9 which is a schematic view of an apparatus for aligning the heater board.

After the heater board 1 attached to the aluminum plate 300 is supplied by an automatic hand (not shown), the heater board 1 is positioned by a stopper (not shown) and a pushing mechanism (not shown).
The aluminum plate 300 is clamped by the clamp mechanism 107 and the actuator 108. The top plate 2 is placed on top of it. The top plate 2 is biased by the bending mechanisms 103 and 105 and its cylinders 104 and 106 and is brought into close contact with the surface of the heater board. Then, the top plate 2 sandwiched by the pressing mechanism 120 for pushing the top plate in the hole arrangement direction, the drive system 121 and the support rod 102 supported by the spring 101 arranged on the opposite side is used to drive the top plate 2 by the drive system 121. It is a mechanism that can move the position. Objective lens 202
And the ITV 201, the difference between the position of the hole 2a of the top plate 2 and the position of the marking on the heater board is measured. The difference is transferred to the control device 204, and the control device 204
05 by that amount. This measurement and movement are repeated until the difference falls within a range stored in a memory (not shown). Thereafter, the heater board 1 and the top plate 2 are fixed by applying an adhesive or the like.

The present invention as described above provides an excellent effect particularly in a recording head and a recording apparatus of an ink jet recording system in which a flying droplet is formed by utilizing thermal energy and recording is performed among the ink jet recording systems. Things.

The typical configuration and principle are described in, for example, US Pat. Nos. 4,723,129 and 4,740.
No. 796, and the present invention is preferably performed using these basic principles. This method can be applied to both on-demand type and continuous type.

The recording method will be briefly described. An electrothermal transducer disposed corresponding to a sheet or a liquid path holding a liquid (ink) is provided with a liquid (ink) corresponding to recording information. Heat energy is generated by applying at least one drive signal for providing a rapid temperature rise that exceeds the nucleate boiling phenomenon and causes a film boiling phenomenon, thereby causing film boiling on the heat-acting surface of the recording head. . As described above, since bubbles corresponding to the drive signal applied to the electrothermal converter from the liquid (ink) on a one-to-one basis can be formed, it is particularly effective for an on-demand type recording method. The growth of this bubble,
The liquid (ink) is ejected through the ejection hole by the contraction to form at least one droplet. When the drive signal is formed into a pulse shape, the growth and shrinkage of the bubble are performed immediately and appropriately, so that the ejection of liquid (ink) having particularly excellent responsiveness can be achieved, which is more preferable. Examples of the drive signal in the form of a pulse include those described in U.S. Pat.
Suitable are those described in US Pat. No. 45,262. If the conditions described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,124 relating to the temperature rise rate of the heat acting surface are adopted, more excellent recording can be performed.

The configuration of the recording head is a combination of a discharge hole, a liquid flow path, and an electrothermal converter (a linear liquid flow path or a right-angle liquid flow path) as disclosed in the above-mentioned respective specifications. In addition, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,558,333 and 4,459,600,
The present invention also includes a configuration in which the heat acting portion is arranged in a bent region.

In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 123670/1984 discloses a configuration in which a common slit is used as a discharge hole of an electrothermal transducer for a plurality of electrothermal transducers, or absorbs a pressure wave of thermal energy. The present invention is also effective in a configuration based on JP-A-59-138461, which discloses a configuration in which the opening to be made corresponds to the discharge section.

Further, as a recording head in which the present invention is effectively used, there is a full line type recording head having a length corresponding to the maximum width of a recording medium on which a recording apparatus can record.
The full line head may be a full line configuration by combining a plurality of recording heads as disclosed in the above specification, or may be a single full line recording head formed integrally.

In addition, the print head is replaceable with a print head of a chip type which can be electrically connected to the main body of the apparatus or supplied with ink from the main body of the apparatus, or is integrated with the print head itself. The present invention is also effective when a cartridge-type recording head provided in a fixed manner is used.

It is preferable to add recovery means for the print head, preliminary auxiliary means, and the like to the recording apparatus of the present invention, since the recording apparatus of the present invention can be further stabilized. More specifically, preheating of the recording head by capping means, cleaning means, pressurizing or suction means, an electrothermal transducer or another heating element, or a combination thereof. Means and means for performing a preliminary ejection mode for performing ejection other than printing are also effective for performing stable printing.

Further, the recording mode of the recording apparatus is not limited to a mode for recording only the mainstream color such as black, but may be a mode in which a recording head is integrally formed or a plurality of recording heads are combined. However, the present invention is extremely effective for an apparatus provided with at least one of multiple colors of different colors or full color by mixing colors.

In the embodiments of the present invention described above, the description is made using the liquid ink. However, in the present invention, the ink which is solid at room temperature or the ink which becomes soft at room temperature is used. Can be used. In general, in the above-described ink jet device, the temperature of the ink itself is adjusted within a range of 30 ° C. or more and 70 ° C. or less to control the temperature so that the viscosity of the ink is in a stable ejection range. It is sufficient if the ink is in a liquid state.

In addition, excessive heating of the head or the ink due to thermal energy is positively prevented by using the ink as a state change energy from a solid state to a liquid state, or for the purpose of preventing evaporation of the ink. It is also possible to use an ink that solidifies in a standing state. In any case, by applying heat energy, such as one in which the ink liquefies and is ejected as an ink liquid by applying the heat energy according to the recording signal, or one which already starts to solidify when reaching the recording medium, Use of an ink having a liquefying property is also applicable to the present invention.

Such an ink is disclosed in JP-A-54-568.
No. 47 or Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. Sho 60-71260, in a state where it is held as a liquid or solid substance in a concave portion or a through hole of a porous sheet and faces an electrothermal converter. It is good also as a form.

In the present invention, the most effective one for each of the above-mentioned inks is to execute the above-mentioned film boiling method.

FIG. 10 is an external perspective view showing an example of an ink jet recording apparatus (IJRA) in which the recording head obtained by the present invention is mounted as an ink jet head cartridge (IJC).

In FIG. 10, reference numeral 20 denotes an ink jet head cartridge (IJC) having a nozzle group for discharging ink while facing a recording surface of a recording sheet sent on a platen 24. Reference numeral 16 denotes a carriage HC that holds the IJC 20, which is connected to a part of a drive belt 18 that transmits the driving force of a drive motor 17, and is slidable with two guide shafts 19A and 19B disposed in parallel with each other. By doing so, the reciprocating movement over the entire width of the recording paper of the IJC 20 becomes possible.

Reference numeral 26 denotes a head recovery device, which is an IJC 20
, For example, at a position facing the home position. The head recovery device 26 is operated by the driving force of the motor 22 via the transmission mechanism 23, and I
JC20 capping is performed. In connection with the capping of the IJC 20 by the cap portion 26A of the head recovery device 26, ink is suctioned by a suitable suction device provided in the head recovery device 26 or by an appropriate pressurizing device provided in an ink supply path to the IJC 20. Discharge recovery processing such as removing the thickened ink in the nozzles by performing ink pressure feeding and forcibly discharging the ink from the discharge port is performed. Also, by performing capping at the end of recording or the like, IJC is protected.

Reference numeral 30 denotes a blade disposed on the side surface of the head recovery device 26 and formed of silicon rubber as a wiping member. The blade 31 is a blade holding member 31
A in the form of a cantilever and the head recovery device 12
6, the motor 22 and the transmission mechanism 23 operate to enable engagement with the ejection surface of the IJC 20. Thus, at an appropriate timing in the recording operation of the IJC 20, or after the ejection recovery processing using the head recovery device 26, the blade 31 is protruded into the movement path of the IJC 20, and the ejection surface of the IJC 20 is moved with the movement operation of the IJC 20. To wipe off condensation, wetness, dust, etc.

[0032]

Since the image processing can be performed on the same screen, the accuracy of the alignment is improved. Further, since the positioning can be performed at the center of the top plate, the influence of the pitch shift of the top plate is small, and the positioning accuracy is improved. Further, since it is not necessary to measure the position of the heater in advance, the mechanism of the apparatus is simplified.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of an ink jet head of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the heater board showing markings and holes in a top plate.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the heater board showing a heater position of the heater board and a marking position on a discharge surface side.

FIG. 4 is a top view and a front view of the heater board showing a positional relationship between a heater and a marking of the heater board.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of a marking device.

FIG. 6 is a partial plan view of the marking device of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a front view for explaining joining of the top plate and the heater board.

FIG. 8 is a partial front view of a heater board for explaining alignment by the image processing apparatus.

FIG. 9 is a schematic view of an apparatus for aligning a top plate and a heater board.

FIG. 10 is an external perspective view of an example of an ink jet recording apparatus incorporating the ink jet head of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Heater board (HB) 1a Heater 1b Marking 1c Dicing surface 2 Top plate 2a Hole 2b Groove 3 Control device 4 Objective lens 5 ITV 6 Image processing device 7 Laser 8 Mask 9 Projection lens 10 Stage 16 Carriage 17 Drive motor 18 Drive belt 19A , 19B guide shaft 20 ink jet head cartridge 22 cleaning motor 23 transmission mechanism 24 platen 26 head recovery device 26A cap member 30 blade 30A blade holding member 101 spring 102 support rod 103, 105 deflection mechanism 104, 106 cylinder 107 clamp mechanism 108 actuator 120 Push mechanism 121 Drive system 201 ITV 202 Objective lens 203 Image processing device 203 Control device 205 Stage 300 Aluminum plate Door

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An ink jet head comprising a heater board and a top plate having an orifice plate fixed thereto, wherein the heater board aligns with a top plate on a discharge surface side thereof in accordance with a position of a heater. An ink jet head having a marking for fixing the ink jet head. 2. The ink jet head according to claim 1, wherein the marking is provided substantially at the center on the ejection surface side of the heater board. 3. A method for manufacturing an ink jet head, comprising fixing a top plate having an orifice plate to a heater board, the method comprising:
A step of performing marking for aligning and fixing with the top plate in accordance with the position of the heater, and passing the position of the marking and the position of the top plate through a hole in the orifice plate of the top plate placed on the heater board. An adjusting step of adjusting the deviation of the groove position so as to fall within a predetermined range. 4. The position of the heater on the heater board is measured by using an objective lens, an ITV, and an image processing device for processing the output of the heater, and the position is set within a certain deviation range from a predetermined position. 4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the heater board is moved so as to enter, and then the ejection surface side is marked using laser light in accordance with the position of the heater. 5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the marking is provided substantially at the center on the ejection surface side. 6. Place the top plate on the heater board, and use an objective lens, an ITV, and an image processing device for image processing the output of the top plate to determine the position of the hole in the orifice plate of the top plate. The method according to any one of claims 3 to 5, wherein the top plate is moved so that an amount of deviation from the marking falls within a predetermined range, and then the top plate is fixed to the heater board.