KR100376204B1 - Ink cartridge for an ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an improved structure of an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer, and uses a siphon effect to supply a predetermined amount of ink stored in an ink cartridge to a nozzle. To this end, a lid 3 having an ink storage plastic container 5 connected to the nozzle 7, an air hole 1 formed to cover the upper side of the plastic container 5, and formed in a U shape. And a siphonic conduit 2 connected at one end to the ink ejecting portion of the plastic container 5 connected to the nozzle 7. Therefore, the ink in the ink cartridge is filled in the conduit portion 2 due to the pressure difference between the plastic container 5 and the outside, and moves outward through the nozzle connected to the discharge portion.

Description

Ink cartridge for inkjet printer {INK CARTRIDGE FOR AN INK JET PRINTER}

The present invention relates to an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer, and more particularly, to an ink cartridge for supplying a predetermined amount of ink stored in an ink cartridge to a nozzle using a siphon effect.

In general, an ink cartridge is a component for storing and supplying ink in an inkjet printer, which is made of plastic. The ink cartridge stores ink therein and supplies ink to a nozzle when the printing proceeds.

At this time, when only the ink is stored in the ink cartridge and supplied through the nozzle, there is a problem that ink leaks to the outside in a moment due to the pressure of the ink in the cartridge. In addition, when a large amount of ink is supplied in an appropriate amount, a phenomenon in which the space between the lines is filled when printing fine lines or shapes occurs, and when the ink is undersupplied, printing may not be performed properly due to insufficient ink.

Therefore, in order to supply an appropriate amount of ink to the nozzle, conventionally, a method of inserting a sponge into the ink cartridge is adopted. This is because of the nature of the sponge may contain the ink, so that the ink is discharged at a time through the nozzle at its own pressure to solve the problem such that the ink can be discharged little by little to supply the appropriate amount of ink and most of the currently used Ink cartridges employ this type of structure.

However, in the case of a sponge-based technology, when the quality of the sponge or the affinity between the sponge and the ink is not perfect, there is a problem of under or excessive discharge, and in the manufacturing process, foreign substances are mixed with the sponge, resulting in nozzles. The phenomenon of clogging occurs.

In addition, in the case of ink penetrating the sponge which is located directly above the ink ejection part in the ink cartridge during use, it can be used until the last time, but in the case of the opposite ink, it takes time to move to the ejection part through the sponge to be discharged. If the height of the ink permeating on the sponge is lowered, the discharge of the ink on the lower side opposite the discharge portion is delayed in time. Therefore, in the case of the ink cartridge using the sponge, there may be a difference in the print quality at the time of use after a certain time in the first use.

In addition, in order to inject the ink into the sponge, in order to inject the ink after making the ink cartridge in the vacuum state during manufacturing, as well as using expensive equipment, there is a problem that the injection time is also long.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object thereof is to provide a ink cartridge having a novel structure which can constantly supply the ink stored in the ink cartridge using the siphon principle even until the end use. To provide.

In addition, another object of the present invention is to use a siphon tube or a diaphragm in which the siphon principle is applied to the ink cartridge without using a sponge, a pump or other tools mounted inside the conventional ink cartridge. It is to provide an ink cartridge for a simplified inkjet printer.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer having a plurality of siphonic passages each having a separate diaphragm to provide a plurality of colors using the siphon principle.

1 is a cross-sectional view showing an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing the interior of a second embodiment of an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention.

3 is a diagram showing a third embodiment of the ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a diagram showing the fourth embodiment of the ink cartridge for inkjet printer according to the present invention.

Fig. 5 shows an example of a tube in a siphonic pipe part used in the ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for main parts of the drawings

1 .. air hole 2 .. siphon pipe

3. .cover 5 .. plastic container

7 .. Nozzle 9 .. Ink Bar

10 ... Ink discharge part 15 .. Rubber film

16 .. Pusher 18 .. Ball

20 .. Ink flow prevention part 24 .. Diaphragm

26, 28, 30 ... bulkhead

In order to achieve the above object, an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention comprises an ink storage plastic container connected to a nozzle for supplying ink to the outside, and an air hole formed to cover the upper side of the plastic container. And a siphon duct portion formed in an inverted U shape and connected to an ink ejecting portion of a plastic container having one end connected to the nozzle.

In addition, for color printing, a plurality of different colors of ink must be included, and for such color printing, an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention stores ink connected to a plurality of nozzles for supplying ink to the outside. Plastic container, a plurality of partitions formed perpendicular to the length or width direction of the plastic container, formed to cover the upper side of the plastic container, air holes formed on each surface divided by the plastic container and the plurality of partitions And a siphonic pipe part formed in an inverted U shape in a space formed by the plastic container and the plurality of partition walls and connected to the ink discharge part 10 of the plastic container, one end of which is connected to the nozzle. It features.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings, an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention will be described in detail as follows.

1 is a sectional view showing an embodiment of an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention. As shown in Fig. 1, the ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention is formed with a plastic container 5 for storing ink of a predetermined shape so as to contain ink supplied to the printer, and the plastic container 5 is ink Is mounted on a nozzle (7) which is connected to feed the printer.

In addition, the inside of the plastic container 5 in contact with the nozzle 7 is provided with a rubber packing 6 in order to prevent leakage of ink supplied to the printer and to bring the plastic container 5 into close contact with the nozzle 7. It is fitted and fixed. And the cover 3 is fitted in the upper part of the plastic container 5. An air hole 1 is formed in the cover 3 so that the cover 3 can be smoothly supplied when ink is supplied through the nozzle 7. In the present invention, only one air hole 1 having a hole in the cover 3 is shown for simplicity of explanation. In ink cartridges that are currently commercially available, when the air hole 1 is directly exposed to the outside, ink leakage may occur when the air hole 1 is directly exposed to the outside. After forming a small fine groove to control the flow of air to form a thin wire connecting the groove and the air hole (1) to take the configuration that the air flow through the fine wire occurs.

In order to smoothly supply the stored ink of the plastic container 5 to the printer through the nozzle 7 connected to the ink discharge part 10, a siphonic pipe part 2 using the principle of siphon is formed.

The principle of the siphon used in the present invention is a principle used when emptying the water in the tube by using a tube. When water is contained in the tube, if the pressures on both sides are different, the water moves from the high pressure to the lower side. That is, the pressure acting on the water in the barrel becomes atmospheric pressure + hydraulic pressure, and the pressure acting on one point outside the barrel becomes atmospheric pressure-hydraulic pressure. It means a natural phenomenon. In other words, to draw water out of the siphon, the height of one end of the tube outside the tube is lower than the height of the other end of the tube, and the water is sucked into the tube to fill the other end of the tube outside the tube. This will come out.

By using this principle, the siphon pipe part 2 as shown in FIG. 1 has a nozzle (which is connected to the discharge part 10 constantly with a predetermined amount of ink at a constant pressure on the ink stored in the plastic container 5). One end is connected to the nozzle (7) in order to supply to the printer through 7), the other end is located on the bottom surface of the plastic container (5).

Therefore, the siphon pipe part 2 is connected to the other end and the nozzle which are located on the bottom surface of the plastic container 5, is formed in the center part of the nozzle, and the part to the lower end of the hollow part to which ink is supplied is the whole siphon pipe path. The part 2 will be formed. Thereafter, when the printer is operated, the ink filling the siphon pipe part 2 is discharged to the outside through the nozzle 7 according to the principle of siphon, and the ink filled in the plastic container 5 is filled with the siphon pipe part ( It is discharged to the outside while continuously filling 2). This is because the position of the portion to be printed (print head) in the printer's structure is always lower than that of the ink cartridge, so the principle of siphon acts to continuously supply ink.

In addition, in order to make the best use of the ink in the plastic container 5, the position of the other end of the siphon pipeline 2 is formed in contact with the bottom surface of the plastic container 5, but the ink can be used most efficiently. Direct contact may cause problems in the supply of ink. Therefore, in the present invention, the ink collection portion 9 is formed such that the concave portion is formed so that the bottom surface portion of the plastic container in which the other end of the siphon pipeline part 2 is located is lower than the other portion. The ink may be formed by forming the ink collection portion 9 and placing the point where the other end of the siphon pipeline 9 is located lower than the bottom surface of the plastic container but not in contact with the bottom surface of the ink collection portion 9. It can be used to the maximum.

When the ink is filled in the plastic container 5 as described above, the ink may be completely filled in the container, but preferably lower than the height of the apex of the conduit portion 2 of the inverted U-shaped tube bent as shown in FIG. It is enough to inject to the dotted line 4 part shown in FIG. If the amount of ink filled in the plastic container 5 is higher than the conduit portion 2 in excess of the dotted line 4 portion, in addition to the pressure in the siphon type conduit portion 2, According to this pressure, the amount of ink discharged to the outside may be increased, but this is an initial phenomenon, and when the height of the ink is lowered below the pipe portion 2, the amount of ink discharged is constant.

Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing the inside of a second embodiment of an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer of the present invention. In the case of the ink cartridge in FIG. 1, when it is small in the plastic container, there is little ink rumble during the operation of the printer. However, when the plastic container is large, ink rumble may occur when the operation of the printer is reciprocated at high speed. Of course, even in this case, since the height is relatively low in the ink collection unit 9 in which the other end of the siphon pipeline 2 is located, it is not influenced at all by the ink rumble at the top. If a wave-like squiggle is generated by the reciprocating operation of the printer, ink may not be smoothly supplied to the siphon pipe part, but such a case rarely occurs. However, in order to prevent ink rumble, a plurality of diaphragms 24 may be installed inside to prevent rumble or fluctuation of the ink. At this time, the height of the diaphragm 24 is formed so as not to touch the cover. In addition, the width is also smaller than the width in the width direction of the plastic container and installed at least one or more. In addition, the ink is positioned in the space of the plastic container 5 so as not to contact the bottom and the upper surface so that ink can be freely moved through the upper and lower portions of the diaphragm 24.

3 shows a third embodiment of an ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention. In the third embodiment, the basic configuration is the same as in the first embodiment shown in FIG. In the first embodiment, the ink discharge portion 10 is positioned at one end of the central portion in the longitudinal direction of the plastic container so that the other end is positioned at the other end of the siphon pipeline. In general, in the case of ink, the color is basically composed of a combination of three or more colors, and in recent years, four colors have been used for the printing of clearer colors.

Therefore, in order to use a plurality of colors in combination with each other, they must be separated from each other, and for this purpose, the inside of the plastic container must be separated into a plurality of partitions 26. In each of the spaces separated by the partition 26, the ink discharge portion 10 and the siphon channel portion 2 are formed as in the first embodiment.

Also in the third embodiment in which the plurality of siphonic pipe sections 2 are formed as described above, in order to prevent ink ripples as in the second embodiment, a predetermined height is formed on a space formed by a partition wall for separating the ink by color. The diaphragm 24 can be provided.

Fig. 4 is a diagram showing a fourth embodiment of the ink cartridge for inkjet printer according to the present invention. In the first to third embodiments, various embodiments of an ink cartridge employing a siphon pipeline in the form of a tube are shown. As the method of adopting the siphonic pipe part in the above, the tube is the most common form. However, considering the siphon principle, the same effect can be obtained by forming a pipeline using a partition wall instead of a tube.

That is, as shown in FIG. 4, from the point where the ink discharge part 10 is formed, the 1st partition wall (vertical) and a 2nd partition wall are provided in the vertical direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of a plastic container. Since a kind of pipeline is formed by the first and second partitions, a gap of a predetermined interval is formed at the upper end of the first partition and the lower end of the second partition. The cross section of the space thus formed has a shape such as an inverted U-shaped tube as described in the above embodiments. Therefore, when the ink is discharged to the printer while the ink is filled in the pipeline formed by the partition wall, a constant amount of ink is supplied to the printer as in the first to third embodiments, and printing is performed. At this time, the space | interval of the 1st partition wall 28 and the 2nd partition wall 30 is formed in about the diameter of the tube at the time of using a tube, or less. Although shown in the figure by spaced apart a certain interval for identification of the partitions in the actual fabrication is formed to have a value of a few mm or less.

Fig. 5 shows an example of a tube in a siphonic pipe part used in the ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to the present invention. In the siphon pipe part, the amount of ink supplied through the nozzle 7 may be adjusted by adjusting the diameter of the tube constituting the pipe part 2.

In general, the above ink cartridge is generally installed in an inkjet printer, and in principle, the ink cartridge is not separated from the printer until the ink cartridge is completely replaced. The reason for this is that before the installation, the bottom of the ink discharge portion 10 of the ink cartridge is attached with a vinyl type adhesive paper to prevent leakage of ink to the outside, but when installed in the printer, the plastic adhesive paper is perforated by the nozzles. Supplied to the printer. Therefore, when the ink cartridge in use is separated, a problem may occur that the ink inside flows out due to the pressure difference between the pressure in the plastic container and the outside.

Therefore, the ink flow preventing unit 20 may be formed in the configuration of the conduit for preventing the outflow of ink to the outside as shown in FIGS. 5A to 5C.

FIG. 5A shows the ink flow preventing portion 20 formed at the end portion of the position where the nozzle 2 is inserted, and FIGS. 5B to 5C show the portion through which the nozzle passes.

That is, the ink flow prevention part of FIG. 5A causes the upper end of the nozzle 2 to push the ball upward when the printer is mounted on the printer, so that ink flows from the duct to the printer during mounting, and when the ball is separated, The flow of ink can be blocked by moving down due to weight and blocking its entrance. At this point, the ball is formed to be convex so as to have a space enough to flow the ball in the conduit.

The ink flow preventing part of FIG. 5B has a pusher plate 16 formed therein so that the ink flow prevention part is pushed upward by the upper end of the nozzle 2 when the printer is mounted on the printer. The needle plate 16 may sink to the lower side to block the inlet of the nozzle 7 to block the flow of ink. At this time, the push plate is installed so as to pivot about any one point. Therefore, the upper portion of the conduit through which ink passes around the pusher plate is made slightly larger in diameter than the lower portion.

In addition, the ink flow preventing portion of FIG. 5C formed a rubber film 15 having a center in one portion of the conduit. The rubber membrane is opened in the pipeline according to the insertion of the nozzle, so that ink can be delivered to the printer through the nozzle. When the plastic container is separated from the printer, the rubber membrane is configured to retract naturally by the elastic force of the rubber membrane. It is configured so that ink does not flow down.

In the inkjet ink cartridge configured as described above, even when the ink is injected, the ink is injected onto the sponge while maintaining the vacuum in the cartridge using the sponge as in the prior art. Ink can be injected simply by inserting an ink injection device such as a nozzle into the discharge portion.

As described above, the ink cartridge for an inkjet printer using the principle of the siphon according to the present invention does not use a sponge for holding the ink in the prior art, thereby solving the problem caused when the sponge is inserted.

In addition, the injection of ink into the sponge minimizes the incorporation of foreign substances, and it is possible not only to inject the ink with a simple device, but also to supply ink at a constant pressure to the nozzle at all times, thereby obtaining an optimal print quality. And, it is possible to simply adjust the amount of the discharged ink by adjusting only the diameter of the siphon pipe.

While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to the above embodiments, it has been used for the purpose of illustration and those of ordinary skill in the art, having the spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. Various modifications can be made without departing.

Claims (11)

delete An ink storage plastic container connected to a plurality of nozzles for supplying ink to the outside; A plurality of partition walls formed perpendicular to the length or width direction of the plastic container; A cover formed to cover an upper side of the plastic container, the cover having an air hole formed on a surface divided between the plastic container and the plurality of partition walls; And An ink jet printer formed of an inverted U-shape in a space formed by the plastic container and the plurality of partition walls and connected to an ink discharge part of the plastic container having one end connected to a nozzle; Ink cartridges. 3. An ink cartridge according to claim 2, wherein said siphonic conduit is a tube. 4. An ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to claim 3, wherein said tube connected to said nozzle further comprises means for preventing the flow of ink. 3. The plastic container of claim 2, further comprising: a diaphragm plate on an inner side of the plastic container, the diaphragm plate being vertically formed on a bottom surface of the plastic container, the height of which is inside the plastic container. It is lower than the height of the ink cartridge for inkjet printer, characterized in that the diaphragm is installed so as not to contact the bottom and the upper surface of the plastic container can move the ink up and down. The ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to claim 3, wherein the adjustment of the amount of ink supplied through the nozzle is performed by adjusting the diameter of a portion of the tube that is not connected to the nozzle. The ink flow preventing means of claim 4, wherein the ink flow preventing means includes a ball that is lifted up by an upper end of the nozzle when the nozzle is connected and is lowered when separated from the nozzle to prevent the flow of ink in the tube. And the tube at the point where the ball is located has a space enough for the ball to flow. The ink flow preventing means of claim 4, wherein the ink flow preventing means is lifted up by an upper end of the nozzle when the nozzle is connected, and lowered when separating from the nozzle to prevent the flow of ink in the tube. An ink cartridge for an ink jet printer, comprising a pivot rotatable plate, wherein a diameter of an upper portion of the tube is larger than a lower portion of the tube. The ink flow preventing means of claim 4, wherein the ink flow preventing means is lifted up by an upper end of the nozzle when the nozzle is connected, and lowered when separating from the nozzle to prevent the flow of ink in the tube. An ink cartridge for an inkjet printer, characterized in that the center portion is made of a cracked elastic rubber. 7. The ink cartridge for an inkjet printer according to claim 2, 4 or 6, further comprising an ink collection portion formed concavely in contact with an end of the siphon pipeline in a lower side of the plastic container. An ink storage plastic container connected to a nozzle for supplying ink to the outside; A cover having an air hole formed to cover an upper side of the plastic container; And A first partition wall formed perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the plastic container from the point where the ink ejecting portion of the plastic container is formed; And A second partition parallel to the first partition and closely formed; An ink cartridge for an ink jet printer, wherein gaps of a predetermined interval are formed at an upper end of the first partition wall and a lower end of the second partition wall such that the first partition wall and the second partition wall form a conduit.