JPS60206656A - Manufacturing of recording head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily manufacture recording heads with different numbers of jet unit elements by picking up a recording head composition material which has a desired unit jet element from a continuous material of recording heads and by installing related components of recording heads on the above stated continuous material. CONSTITUTION:On a flexible substrate 214 an electrothermal converter layer 205A in advance, and then, a selective electrode layer 209A and a common electrode layer 210A are continuously installed one after another by evaporation, and by the use of a rotary exposure material the electrothermal converter bodies 205 at certain distances, and additionally, electrodes 209 and 210 respectively as patterns are formed by etching. The above flexible substrate 214 is installed on a supporting substrate 204 of plastics by adhesion and holes 212 for supply of ink are perforated and a substrate material 224 is obtained. Subsequently, a peripheral wall 215 of a dry film is provided to the substrate 214, and by forming an ink flow course and a liquid chamber 217 and by installing a discharge plate 203 in which orifices 202 are formed at certain distances by adhesion, and the manufacturing of a continuous body 220 for heads is completed. Then, a recording head composition material is picked up and related components are installed thereon, thereby constituting recording heads.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a recording head, and more particularly to a method of manufacturing a recording head in which a plurality of recording head unit jetting elements are arranged in a longitudinal direction on a substrate.

[Prior art]

Liquid jet recording methods such as the inkjet recording method generate very little noise during recording, which can be ignored.
It has recently attracted attention because it is capable of high-speed recording and can be recorded on plain paper without the need for special processing such as fixing.

Among them, for example, the liquid jet recording method described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 54-51837 and German Publication (DOL S) M2843O64 applies thermal energy to a liquid to generate a driving force for ejecting droplets. It has a different feature from other liquid jet recording methods in that it can obtain the following.

In other words, according to the recording method disclosed in the bulletin of the dish body,
The liquid subjected to the action of thermal energy undergoes a state change accompanied by a sudden increase in volume, and based on this state change, the liquid is ejected from the orifice at the tip of the recording head due to the action force. Recording is performed by attaching the formed flying droplets to a recording member.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a recording head of such a conventional liquid jet recording apparatus. In this figure, 101 is a droplet, 102
1 is an orifice from which a droplet 101 is ejected; 103 is a discharge plate on which an orifice 102 is formed; 104 is a substrate;
05 is an electric heat exchanger provided in the liquid flow path 10B, and 107 is a liquid supply path.
is configured.

In the liquid jet recording head 100 configured in this way,
Liquid is supplied from the liquid supply path 107 to the liquid flow path 10B,
Electrothermal converter 105 of heat acting section 108 in liquid flow path 106
The heated liquid flows through the liquid flow path 1013 into droplets 10
1 and is discharged from the orifice 102.

If the number of orifices 102 in such a recording head 100 is increased, it becomes a full multi-printer, and one in which the number of orifices 102 arranged is about 24 to 32 is used as a printer head for a word processor.

However, in the conventional recording head 100, the number of orifices 102 is set in advance.
05, a photorin mask (not shown) for forming an electrode, and a photorin mask (not shown) for forming an orifice 102, it was necessary to replace them one by one according to the number of orifices.

Therefore, in order to mass-produce many types of heads, it was necessary to install multiple types of photorin lines or to replace all the photorin masks, which increased manufacturing costs.

Also, it is possible to create a large number of heads 100 on one substrate and cut them later, but if there are too many cutting points, fragments generated by cutting may enter the orifice 102 and cause nozzle clogging. , orifice +02 may be chipped.

〔the purpose〕

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing an inkjet recording head that eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks, is suitable for mass production, and can be obtained at a low price that is sufficiently profitable even when disposable.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing a recording head that can eliminate inconveniences that occur during cutting by improving the materials such as the substrate material and the orifice forming material as well as the cutting method. .

Furthermore, another object of the present invention is to provide a fluid flow path, a liquid injection orifice and an electrothermal converter provided in the liquid flow path in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of a strip-shaped rectangular substrate member;
A continuous recording head, wherein a pair of electrodes electrically connected to the electric transducer are arranged to constitute a unit ejection element of the recording head, and a plurality of unit ejection elements are arranged in the longitudinal direction of the rectangular substrate member. A method for manufacturing a recording head comprising: forming a recording head continuous body, and then cutting the recording head continuous body in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the substrate member to form a main part of the recording head having a desired unit ejection element. It is about providing.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing a recording head/end, in which a material with a low melting point of t± is used for the substrate member, and the recording head/end continuum is cut by irradiating a laser beam. be.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below based on the drawings.

FIG. 2(A) shows one embodiment of the present invention, where 204
is a substrate, and in this example, a selection electrode 209, an electrothermal converter (not shown), an orifice 202, and a liquid flow path (not shown) corresponding to each orifice 202 are arranged in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction on this substrate 204. A discharge plate 203 having orifices 202 arranged in a row on two sides is provided with a common electrode and a common liquid chamber (not shown) common to each electric transducer. was established.

Here, 200 is one recording head component (hereinafter referred to as a head chip) obtained by cutting the recording head continuum 220 obtained as described above;
30 is the next bed tip 200 from the head continuum 220
The laser cutter is shown cutting.

Note that the substrate 204 is made of plastic material, and the discharge plate 2
It is suitable to use a low melting point material such as dry film for 03. In this example, in order to secure the desired number of nozzles, the length was cut to the desired number of nozzles + 4, but the number of additional nozzles was Of course, the number is not limited to four.

Furthermore, the material of the substrate 204 and the like is not limited to the above-mentioned materials, and may be any material that does not scatter fragments when cut, such as soft plastic, and the cutting means may also be laser cutting. Needless to say, it is not necessary.

Further, when using a laser device with a high areal density of processing energy, it is also possible to use other high melting point materials in place of the above-mentioned materials.

In this way, the cut hand chimp 200 as shown in FIG. 2(A) is integrated with the ink tank 211 as shown in FIG. 2(B), thereby creating a recording hand unit that can be mounted on a carriage (not shown) to increase the number of issues. I got it.

Next, the procedure for creating the continuum 220 as shown in FIG. 2(A) will be described with reference to FIG. 3(A).

Here, 214 is a flexible substrate provided on the support substrate 204, and for example, a polyimide film having a thickness of 50 to 500 IJ-m is suitable, or in this example, a 60 cm long polyimide film having a thickness of 24 pm was used. Therefore, before attaching this flexible board 214J to the board 204, the electrothermal converter 20 is pre-tightened.
For example, the heating resistor layer 205A made of tantalum alloy, the selection electrode 209 and the common electrode 21 are used to form the electrode 5.
Electrode layer 209A made of, for example, gold alloy to form 0
and 210A were successively deposited.

Thus, using a rotary exposure material, the electrothermal transducer 205, which has a diameter of 12 mm/mm, at a predetermined interval, and further the selective electrode 209 and the common electrode 210, is formed.
A photolithography/etching method was used in which each pattern was exposed and etched.

In this way, the flexible substrate 214 on which the electrothermal transducer 205 and electrodes 209 and 210 are formed is attached to the completed plastic support substrate 204, and further Q, Im
A substrate member 224 was obtained by drilling holes 212 for ink supply using a drill of size m.

Next, the peripheral wall 21 is covered with a dry film on the substrate member 214.
5 to form an ink flow path 216 and a liquid chamber 217, and furthermore, orifices 20 are formed at a predetermined pitch (12/mm).
Dry film discharge plate 203 (53g
220 was completed by pasting a sheet (m thick) on its two sides.

↓ Figure 3 shows a state in which the bed chip 200 obtained by cutting from such a continuous head body 220 is fitted and adhered to the end of the side wall of the ink tank 211 as shown in Figure 2 (B). After that, an electrical mounting part (not shown) was attached to obtain a completed product as a recording head.

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the present invention, in which an ink tank 411 is incorporated into the structure of the recording head! The case of river record hend is shown. Therefore, in this example, the head unit 400 including the tank is cut from the rectangular recording head structure continuum 420 that is integrated with the ink tank 411 using a laser 230, and side plates (not shown) are attached to both sides of the head unit 400 and then glued together. Implement it and make it a finished product.

In addition, in such a structure, the basic structure is as shown in FIGS. 2(A) and (B), except that the side plate 412 and the member 413 for supporting the flexible substrate 214 are added.
) is the same as in the case of ), therefore, the explanation of the manufacturing order, etc. will be omitted.

〔effect〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, a unit ejection element of a recording head, that is, one liquid flow path, and a liquid flow path provided in this flow path are provided on a rectangular strip-shaped substrate in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction. A recording head in which an orifice, an electrothermal transducer, and a pair of electrodes electrically connected to the electrothermal transducer are arranged as a set, and a plurality of such unit ejection elements are arranged in the longitudinal direction on a substrate. A recording head continuum is created, a recording head component having a desired unit ejection element is cut out from this recording head continuum, and related members of the recording head are attached to the recording head component to constitute a recording head unit. Therefore, in the past, when creating a recording head with a different number of ejection unit elements, it was necessary to either provide the number of photolithography lines corresponding to the type or completely replace the photolithography mask. To obtain a product that can be carried out extremely easily by cutting out one recording head continuum, and furthermore, by selecting the constituent material of the head and the cutting method, the orifice etc. will not be clogged by fragments. I can do it.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view schematically showing an example of the configuration of a conventional recording head, and FIG. 2A is a perspective view showing the operation of cutting a head chip from a recording head continuum according to the present invention. 2(B) is a perspective view showing a state in which the hent tip is attached to an ink tank, FIG. 3(A) is an exploded perspective view showing an example of the configuration of a recording head continuous body according to the present invention, 31Δ(B) is a partial sectional view of a recording head unit obtained by the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing another form of recording head continuous body to which the present invention is applicable and its cutting operation. 100, 200... Recording head, +01... Droplet, 102, 202-... Orifice, 103, 20
3...Discharge plate, 104, 204-...Substrate, 105, 05-...Electrothermal converter, 205A...
Resistor layer, 108, 2013...Liquid flow path, 107, 212...Liquid supply path, 108...Heat action part, 208...Selection electrode, 210...Common electrode, 20!3A, 21OA...electrode layer. 211... Ink tank, 214... Flexible substrate, 215... Peripheral wall, 216... Liquid flow path, 217... Liquid chamber, 220-... Recording head continuous body, 224-... Substrate member, 230--Laser, 411--Ink tank, 412--Side plate, 413--Supporting member, 420--Recording head structural continuum. Patent applicant Canon Co., Ltd. Representative Patent attorney Yoshi Tani - 01 216 Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) A fluid flow path, a liquid injection orifice and an electrothermal converter provided in the liquid flow path, and an electrical conversion element in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of a strip-shaped rectangular substrate member. A pair of electrodes electrically connected to the body are arranged to constitute unit ejection elements of the recording head, and a plurality of unit ejection elements are arranged in the longitudinal direction of the rectangular substrate member to form a recording head continuous body. and then cutting the recording head continuous body in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the substrate member to form a main part of the recording head having a desired unit ejection element. Method. 2. In the method for manufacturing a recording head according to claim 1, a low melting point material is used for the substrate member, and the recording head continuum is irradiated with a supervisory beam to cut it. A method for manufacturing a recording head, characterized in that: (Hereafter, margin)