JPS62101483A - Ink jet recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To record clear images of the same quality at high speed on a general- purpose recording medium, by rapidly drying a recording ink through heat transfer by radiation and heat transfer by air flow. CONSTITUTION:A recording head 1 is moved in the direction of an arrow I while being guided by a carriage guide 2 to perform ink jet recording on a recording paper 3. Radiations from a heat source lamp 10 are focused on the surface of the recording paper 3 in a heating range 15 covering the recorded part in the recording direction, thereby heating the recorded part through heat transfer by radiation. In addition, an air flow fed from a blower 7 passes through an air feeding-in passage 8 as indicated by arrows I, II, is fed into a lamp house part constituted of a reflector 9, reflective side plates 11a, 11b and a transparent protective glass 12, and cools the lamp 10 and the lamp house part. The air flow served for cooling then passes through an air- discharging passage 13 as indicated by arrows IV, V, and is discharged toward the recording surface of the paper 3 through an air-ejecting port 14, whereby the convection heat and conducted heat generated by the lamp 10 are transferred to the surface of the paper through air flow.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an inkjet I recording apparatus that uses heating and drying means for recording ink.

[Prior Art] As a conventional means for drying ink recorded in an ink shed using a heat source lamp as a heat source, there is a method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 57-12.
0447, 58-107345, which rapidly heats and dries the ink on the recording paper surface after inkjet recording by radiant heat transfer by irradiating it with a far-infrared lamp xenon lamp, resulting in high-speed, clear image recording and shortening of ink fixation time. This realized the prevention of paper wrinkles caused by the ink and stains caused by unfixed ink.

[Problems to be Solved by the Present Invention] The radiant heat transfer means can be efficiently transferred from the recording surface side of the recording paper, but the convective heat and conductive heat generated by the heat source lamp are transferred to the recording head of the inkjet recording device. This causes clogging of the recording ink and thermal trouble in the drive mechanism of various parts, so it is removed to the outside of the apparatus by natural cooling or forced cooling means without being used to dry the recording ink.

In addition, since heating starts after recording, on recording paper with a low size and a short ink absorption time, the ink will be absorbed before drying begins, resulting in unnecessarily widening the dot diameter and causing the fibers to move in the λ11 direction. Uneven bleeding may occur and the image quality may be impaired.

Furthermore, when recording on an uncoated OHP sheet 1-, immediately after recording, the surface tension of the ink on the recording surface causes adjacent dots to come into contact or spread more than necessary, making it impossible to record an image.

As described above, the conventional technology has the problem that the heat generated by the heat source lamp is not effectively utilized, and it is not possible to record clear images of the same quality on various general-purpose recording papers.

The present invention is intended to solve this problem, and its purpose is to effectively utilize the heat generated by the heat source lamp to dry recording ink, and to achieve the same effect on general-purpose recording media such as commercially available high-quality paper and non-coated OHP sheets. This realizes inkjet recording that can record high-quality, clear images.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The inkjet recording apparatus of the present invention has a heat source lamp equipped with a reflector, and has a radiation heat source that focuses heat rays emitted from the lamp onto the recording surface of the recording medium. Preheating and heating the recording portion of the recording medium before and after printing by using a combination of a transmission means and a blowing heat transfer means that transmits convective heat and conductive heat generated by the lamp to the recording surface of the recording medium by blowing air, The recorded ink is heated and dried.

[Function] According to the inkjet recording apparatus of the present invention, the recording ink dries more rapidly than before due to the radiant heat transfer and the air blast heat transfer. Clear, high-speed image recording of the same quality can be achieved on general-purpose recording media.

[Example] FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

The recording head 1 is guided by a carriage guide 2 and moves in the direction of the arrow, and performs inkjet recording on a recording paper 3 that is fed by intermittent line feeds in synchronization with the recording head 1 by a platen 4 and guide rollers 5. On the other hand, is it heat source lamp 10? ) is condensed and irradiated onto a heating range 15 that covers the recording area on the surface of the recording paper 3 before and after recording by a reflecting plate 9 having a curved surface such as a paraboloid, ellipsoid, or hyperboloid, and is heated by radiation heat transfer. Heat. Further, the air flow sent from the blower 7 passes through the air inlet path 8 as indicated by arrows II and III, and passes through the reflecting plate 9, the reflecting side plates 1.1. a, 1
1b and a transparent protective glass 12, and cools the heat source lamp 10 and the lamp house with air. After cooling, the air flow passes through the air exhaust passage 13 IV,
J of (2): The air is discharged from the air outlet 14 toward the recording surface of the recording paper 3, and the convection heat and conductive heat generated by the heat source lamp 10 are transferred to the recording paper surface.

The recording head 1 has a plurality of ink ejection ports 1 as shown in FIG.
6 is provided to form a dot image on the recording paper 3 and record the image using ink ejection control means such as piezoelectric element control, electric field control, and charge control.

In this example, a piezoelectric element is used, and the pitch is 0.635 mm.
Nine ink ejection ports in a row are turned on to eject water-based ink droplets with a diameter of about 120 μm.

The heat source lamp 7 is an incandescent lamp such as a halogen lamp, a xenon lamp, or an infrared lamp, and in this example, a rod-shaped halogen lamp with a power of 200 W and a total length of 250 mm is used. The recording width of the recording paper 3 is 220III+, and a lamp having an effective light emitting section at least longer than this length is required. The heat source lamp 7' is set at a distance of 60 mm from the platen 4, and heats the heating range 15 by radiation as described above. As shown in Fig. 2, the heating state of the recording paper 3 is detected by a temperature sensor 17, compared with the set temperature by a comparison circuit built in the light amount control circuit 18, and the light amount is fed back until the temperature of the recording paper 3 is almost the set value. It is maintained as follows. Although the temperature sensor 17 is provided on the front side of the recording paper 3 in FIG. 2, it may be provided on the back side of the recording paper 3. Further, the user can freely control the set temperature according to the paper quality.

The blower device 7 is a narrow air fan with an air flow rate of about 3 m''/min.The air flow from the air outlet 14 is directed in such a way that it does not affect the ejection of recording ink.The light-shielding cover 6 is attached to the recording head. ] is prevented from being directly hit by light radiation, and the recording head is prevented from being overheated in the morning.
The transparent protective glass 12 is connected to the heat source lamp 10 and the plate 9
Prevents dust from adhering to the surface.

An example of the temperature of the recording paper due to heating is shown in FIG. 3. In FIG. This is a case where heat transfer is used in combination, and 1) in the same figure shows a case where only the radiation heat transfer described above is used. ■1 indicates the ventilation heating range, ■ indicates the morning heating range, and V[[I indicates the printing timing. In addition, the recording paper is a general-purpose paper. The temperature near Vllll is higher in the case of a, and the preheating effect of the recording paper due to the heat transfer of the air is clear.

Inkjet recording device of the present invention! Recording paper c by 2/
FIG. 4 shows the relationship between the recording paper heating temperature and the ink fixing time when recording was performed on , d, and e (all commercially available 1-Y paper). Compared to FIG. 5 of JP-A-58-1.07345, the ink could be fixed in a shorter time at a lower heating temperature, and the effect of preheating on shortening the ink drying time is clear. Further, FIG. 5 shows the relationship between the recording paper heating temperature and the dot diameter after fixing when recording was similarly performed using recording papers c, d, and e. The dot diameter after fixing includes uneven bleeding in the direction of the paper fibers. When the heating temperature is high, the diameter of the dots converges to about 200 μm, making it possible to record clear images of the same quality regardless of the quality of the recording paper. On the other hand, with the device of the present invention, the heating temperature was 100°C.
It has been found that good images can be recorded on non-coated OHP sheets, and good images can be recorded not only on commercially available high-quality paper but also on various general-purpose recording media such as non-coated OHP sheets. Ta. Furthermore, since the heat source lamp is cooled by air, the halogen cycle becomes smoother, and halogen gas leakage from the gas sealing part that occurs at high temperatures can be prevented, resulting in an approximately 10% increase in lamp life.

In the previous example, the air transfer heat was used to preheat the recording paper, but the same effect as in the previous example can also be obtained when the morning transfer heat is used to preheat the recording paper and the air transfer heat is used for post-recording heating. Good image recording was possible. Further, although this embodiment is a monochromatic recording, it is obvious that it can also be applied to color recording.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, clear infusiera recording of the same quality can be performed on various general-purpose recording media such as commercially available high-quality paper and non-coated OHP sheets.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the overall structure of an embodiment of an inkjet recording apparatus of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a side view of FIG. 1 and a circuit diagram showing a temperature control method. FIG. 3 is a graph showing an example of temperature increase of recording paper due to heating in this apparatus. FIG. 4 shows recording paper heating j1. Graph showing the relationship between hair density and ink fixation waiting time. FIG. 5 is a graph showing the relationship between recording paper heating temperature and dot diameter after fixing. 1... Recording head 2... Carriage guide 3...
..... Recording paper 4 ..... Platen 5 ..... Guide roller 6 ..... Light-shielding cover 7 ..... ...Blower device 8...Air inlet path 9...Reflector plate 10...Heat source lamp 1], a, b... ...Reflection side plate 12...Transparent protective glass 13...Air discharge path 14...Air discharge port 15...Heating Range 16...Ink discharge port 17...Temperature sensor 18...Light amount control circuit or higher

Claims (1)

[Claims] In an inkjet recording device that ejects ink from a nozzle to record a dot image on a recording medium, a heat generating lamp equipped with a reflector is provided and heat rays emitted from the lamp are focused on the recording surface of the recording medium.Radiant heat transfer An inkjet recording apparatus comprising: a means for heating and drying recorded ink; and a means for heating and drying recorded ink, which is used in combination with a blowing heat transfer means for transferring convective heat and conductive heat generated by the lamp to the recording surface of the recording medium by blowing air.