JPS61163863A - Manufacture of head for ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To adhere a nozzle plate to a nozzle edge after correct positioning by pressing to a nozzle edge a nozzle plate fitted into a concave part which a convex part meets through a notched part, and bonding a nozzle diffusively to a jointing surface. CONSTITUTION:A nozzle plate 11 is held between the pressing surface of a pressure-contacting block 13 and the jointing surface 18, and a convex part 14a of a block 13 is fitted into a notched part 19a of the plate 11 and a concave part 15a of the nozzle body 12. Consequently, the plate 11 can easily and accurately be positioned to the jointing surface 18 of the nozzle body 12, thus eliminating a slippage of the position of the plate 11 to the jointing 18 of the nozzle body 12. A nozzle 11 is diffusively jointed to the jointing surface 18 by pressing the block 13 to contact the jointing surface 18 of the nozzle body 12 under a prearranged pressure.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing an inkjet printer head that records images such as characters and figures on a recording material by jetting minute ink particles.

[Prior art and its problems]

As shown in FIG. 3, the on-demand inkjet head is composed of a nozzle 31 for ejecting ink particles, an ink reservoir 32 for temporarily storing ink, and a pressure chamber 33 for generating pressure in the ink between these. A corrosion-resistant substrate 30 made of stainless steel or the like comprising one or more injection channel systems is joined to a corrosion-resistant elastic plate 34, and a piezoelectric element 35 is bonded thereon at a position corresponding to the pressure chamber 33. By applying a voltage to the piezoelectric element 35, the elastic plate 34 is deformed inward, and the pressure chamber 33 is
Ink particles 36 are ejected from the nozzle 31 by generating pressure waves in the ink inside. Such on-demand inkjet heads generally have a structure in which a large number of nozzles are arranged. FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of an example of a head already devised by the inventor of the present application. This head has a piezoelectric element positioning hole 20a for positioning the piezoelectric element when bonding it.

Piezo plates 21a each having 20b.

21b, elasticity plates 22a, 22b corresponding to elastic plates, nozzles/Lz 25a, 25b1 pressure chambers 26a, 26b, and ink reservoir 27a.

chamber plates 23a, 23b having 27b;
The reservoir plates 24 having only an ink reservoir 27 are stacked in such a manner that they are sandwiched from both sides. These plates are manufactured by diffusion bonding, which takes advantage of the diffusion phenomenon of atoms in the base material, by bringing the material surfaces into close contact with each other under a predetermined pressure and heating the base material to the recrystallization temperature or higher for a relatively long period of time. Laminate them at the same time using In addition, since the shape of these plates is formed by means such as chemical etching, nozzle groups can be obtained with extremely precise pitch intervals, but due to the nature of chemical etching, there is a problem that highly accurate nozzle cross sections cannot be obtained. Ta. - for example chamber plates 23a, 23;
When the plate thickness of b is 50 μm, the width of the cross section of the nozzles 25a and 25b, that is, the etching width is twice the plate thickness, that is, 100 μm.
If the width is less than μm, a nozzle with a uniform width cannot be obtained.

Therefore, when using multiple nozzles, the diameter of the ink droplets ejected from each nozzle is not uniform (and the flying speed varies. Therefore, there is a limit to the miniaturization of the cross section of the nozzle, and it is difficult to use a printer with high resolution. It was difficult to apply 0.5 sRma to the nozzle end surface.
x or less), the directionality and stability of ink droplet flight will be affected due to uneven wetting of the surface. Therefore, the end face of the nozzle must be polished and finished, and this process poses serious problems in manufacturing and in the properties of the head, such as the formation of burrs on the nozzle and the adhesion of chips. To solve this problem, the cross-sectional dimensions of the nozzle in the head body were made large enough to allow chemical etching.
A method is used in which a nozzle plate having even finer nozzle holes is bonded to the nozzle end face. However, this conventional method involves visually aligning the parts using a microscope, etc., and then joining them with an adhesive, which creates new problems such as increased work time, misalignment, and clogging of the nozzle hole due to the adhesive. , the poor yield made such heads expensive.

[Purpose of the invention]

An object of the present invention is to provide a method for manufacturing an inkjet printer head that can bond a nozzle plate to a nozzle end face with accurate positioning accuracy without using an adhesive or the like.

[Structure of the invention]

The present invention provides a nozzle in which a nozzle end face of an inkjet printer head is provided with positioning recesses at at least two positions on a polished nozzle end face, and positioning cutouts corresponding to the recesses are provided on the nozzle end face. The plate is fitted into the corresponding recess through the corresponding notch using a pressure welding block provided with a convex portion corresponding to the recess and the notch corresponding to the recess. In this way, the nozzle plate is pressed against the nozzle end face of the head, and the nozzle plate is diffusion bonded to the nozzle end face.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining one embodiment of the present invention, and is a perspective view showing the configuration of a nozzle section of a head for an inkjet printer. In the manufacturing method of this embodiment, a nozzle plate is bonded to the nozzle end surface of the head body 12 having the structure shown in FIG. 15a and 15b are provided. These recesses can be easily formed by making notches in the glue server plate 24 before lamination by etching or other means. A flow path (nozzle) 2 that has such a recess for positioning and is formed with a generous cross-sectional dimension by chemical etching.
The nozzle surface including 5a and 25b is polished to a flat surface to form a joint surface 18. In this case, the surface roughness may be approximately several μm.

On the other hand, the nozzle plate 11 of a predetermined thickness to be bonded to the joint surface 18 of the head body 12 is processed by electrical discharge machining, laser machining, electron beam machining, etc. so as to correspond to the flow paths 25a and 25b of the nozzle body 12, respectively. Nozzle holes 16a and 16b each having a diameter of several tens of micrometers are formed by means such as press working.

This nozzle plate 11 has a notch 19a for positioning that corresponds to the recesses 15a and 15b on the nozzle end face of the nozzle body and has the same dimensions and shape as these recesses.
, 19b are formed by means such as etching and pressing.

In the present invention, such a nozzle plate 11 is bonded to the bonding surface 18 of the nozzle body 12 using a diffusion bonding method.

A pressure welding block 13 is prepared to apply a certain pressing force during joining. As the material of this pressure-welding block 13, a material having a predetermined hardness such as a horizontal alloy and easily forming a tough oxide film on the surface is used. This oxide film is
Nozzle plate 11 and pressure welding block 13 during diffusion bonding
This is to prevent the atoms of the materials from diffusing into each other, that is, to obstruct the diffusion phenomenon, and serves as a bonding prevention film. As shown in FIG. Convex portion 14a for positioning.

14b (.

When the nozzle plate 11 is diffusion bonded to the joint surface 18 of the nozzle body 12 using such a press block 13, the nozzle plate 11 is bonded to the press block 13.
sandwiched between the pressing surface of the nozzle body 12 and the joint surface 18 of the nozzle body 12,
The convex portion 14a of the press block 13 is connected to the nozzle plate 11.
The convex part 14b of the press block 13 fits into the notch 19a of the nozzle plate 11 and the concave part 15a of the nozzle body 12
Make sure it fits into 5b. By doing this, the nozzle plate 11 can be attached to the joint surface 18 of the nozzle body 12.
Since the nozzle plate 11 can be easily and accurately positioned with respect to the joint surface 18 of the nozzle body 12, no displacement occurs. And pressure welding block 1
3 is pressed against the joint surface 18 of the nozzle body 12 with a predetermined pressing force, the nozzle 11 is diffusion-bonded to the joint surface 18 of the nozzle body 12. At this time, the press block 13 is not diffusion bonded to the nozzle plate 11 due to the effect of the oxide film formed on its surface, and therefore can be easily removed from the nozzle plate 11 after press contact. Therefore, the press block 13 can be used repeatedly in such a manufacturing method.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present invention is not limited to this embodiment, and it goes without saying that various modifications and changes can be made within the scope of the present invention. For example, the number of positioning recesses formed on the joint surface of the head body is not limited to two, and may be more than two. In this case, a notch in the nozzle plate and a convex part in the press block are formed correspondingly. In addition, recesses, notches,
The shape of the convex portions may be any shape as long as they can fit together.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, the nozzle plate can be bonded to the bonding surface of the head body with high precision in the corresponding position of the nozzle hole of the nozzle plate and the flow path of the head body without having to perform alignment with the human eye using a microscope or the like. . Further, according to the present invention, since the nozzle plates are joined by diffusion bonding without using an adhesive or the like, there is no clogging of the nozzles, and the nozzle plate has a strong joining force, making it possible to use an inexpensive inkjet printer with high mass productivity. This makes it possible to manufacture heads for various purposes.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration of a nozzle part of an inkjet printer head for explaining an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the configuration of the main body of an inkjet printer head, and FIG. FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the principle of an inkjet printer head. 11... Nozzle plate 13... Pressure welding blocks 14a, 14b... Convex portions 15a, 15b... - Concave portions 19a, 19b... Notches 21a, 21b... Piezo plates 22a, 22b... Eras Unity plates 23a, 23b...Chamber plate 24...Reservoir plate j, Fig. 1 - Fig. 2 it/υ Fig. 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A nozzle plate in which the nozzle end face of an inkjet printer head is provided with positioning recesses at at least two positions on the polished nozzle end face, and positioning notches corresponding to the recesses are provided. using a pressure welding block provided with a convex portion corresponding to the concave portion and the notch portion corresponding to the concave portion, the convex portion fitting into the corresponding concave portion via the corresponding notch portion; A method of manufacturing an inkjet printer head, characterized in that the nozzle plate is pressed against the nozzle end face of the head, and the nozzle plate is diffusion bonded to the nozzle end face.