Generating mixed ink in a printing press

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10197950-B2
Application number	US-201515569454-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 31, 2015
Priority date	Jul 31, 2015
Publication date	Feb 5, 2019
Grant date	Feb 5, 2019

Abstract

Generating mixed ink composed of at least two basic inks with a mixing ratio in a liquid electrophotography printing press by: determining (30) a volume of one of the basic inks according to the mixing ratio; calculating (31) an interval for opening a leak valve (17) based on an ink flow in a basic ink connection tube; draining (32) the volume to the mixing ink tank (14) from the basic ink connection tube (12) via a leak tube by opening the leak valve for the calculated interval.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for generating mixed ink composed of at least two basic inks with a mixing ratio in a liquid electrophotography printing press comprising:
using at least two basic ink connection tubes, a mixing ink tank, at least two leak tubes and at least two leak valves, wherein the mixing ink tank is connected with each of the at least two basic ink connection tubes by one of the at least two leak tubes and one of the at least two leak valves;
determining a volume of a respective basic ink of the at least two basic inks according to the mixing ratio;
calculating an interval for opening a respective leak valve corresponding to the respective basic ink based on an ink flow in a respective basic ink connection tube corresponding to the respective basic ink; and
draining the volume to the mixing ink tank from the respective basic ink connection tube via a respective leak tube corresponding to the respective basic ink by opening the respective leak valve for the calculated interval.

2. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising:
using at least two basic ink tanks,
using at least two basic ink developers,
using a mixing ink developer, and
using a mixing ink connection tube; wherein
each of the at least two basic ink tanks is connected with one of the at least two basic ink developers by one of the at least two basic ink connection tubes,
the mixing ink tank is connected with the mixing ink developer by the mixing ink connection tube, and
each of the at least two basic ink connection tubes is connected with the mixing ink tank by one of the at least two leak tubes and one of the at least two leak valves.

3. The method according to claim 1 , further including printing mixed ink on a print medium, wherein generating mixed ink and printing mixed ink are simultaneously performed.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the printing press further comprises a color sensor, and the method further comprises modifying the mixing ratio based on measuring, by the color sensor, color values from patches printed with the mixed ink.

5. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising calculating the mixing ratio based on a color formulation.

6. The method according to claim 5 , wherein the color formulation is associated with a Pantone (R) color matching system.

7. The method according to claim 5 , wherein calculating the mixing ratio is based on a media fingerprint determined by the color sensor.

8. The method according to claim 7 , further including determining a maximum gamut based on the media fingerprint.

9. A liquid electrophotography printing press comprising:
at least two basic ink tanks, at least two basic ink developers, at least two basic ink connection tubes, a mixing ink tank, a mixing ink developer, a mixing ink connection tube, at least two leak tubes and at least two leak valves;
wherein each basic ink tank corresponds to one of at least two basic inks,
each basic ink tank is connected with one of the at least two basic ink developers by one of the at least two basic ink connection tubes, and
the mixing ink tank is connected with the mixing ink developer by the mixing ink connection tube, wherein the mixing ink tank is connected with each of the at least two basic ink connection tubes by one of the at least two leak tubes and one of the at least two leak valves;
the printing press further comprising at least one processor and a memory, wherein the memory comprises executable instructions that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to:
determine a volume of a respective basic ink of the at least two basic inks to be mixed;
calculate an interval for opening a respective leak valve corresponding to the respective basic ink based on an ink flow in a respective basic ink connection tube corresponding to the respective basic ink; and
to cause the volume to be drained to the mixing ink tank from the respective basic ink connection tube via the respective leak tube by opening a respective leak valve corresponding to the respective basic ink for the calculated interval.

10. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , further comprising a color sensor, wherein the memory further comprises executable instructions that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to:
measure, by the color sensor, at least one color value from a patch printed with the mixed ink, and
modify a mixing ratio of the at least two basic inks based on the measured at least one color value.

11. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , the memory further comprises executable instructions that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to calculate the mixing ratio based on a media fingerprint determined by the color sensor.

12. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , further comprising at least one closed cycle ink path including the respective basic ink connection tube.

13. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , further comprising a basic solid ink reservoir with a liquid ink preparation unit connected to each of the basic ink tanks.

14. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , further comprising a spectrometer to determine a gamut for a print medium, the processor to determine the volume of each respective basic ink to be mixed based on output from the spectrometer.

15. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , wherein printing mixed ink on a print medium and generating mixed ink are simultaneously performed by the printing press.

16. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 9 , the processor to calculate a mixing ratio of the two basic inks based on a color formulation.

17. The liquid electrophotography printing press according to claim 16 , wherein calculating the mixing ratio is based on a media fingerprint determined by a color sensor.

18. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor, the machine-readable storage medium comprising:
instructions to determine a volume of a respective basic ink of at least two basic inks to be mixed to form a desired mixed ink;
instructions to calculate an interval for opening a respective leak valve corresponding to each of the respective basic inks based on an ink flow in a respective basic ink connection tube corresponding to the respective basic ink; and
instructions to cause the determined volume of each of the respective basic inks to be drained to a mixing ink tank from the respective basic ink connection tube via a respective leak tube corresponding to the respective basic ink by opening the respective leak valve for the calculated interval to form the mixed ink.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium according to claim 18 , further comprising instructions to measure, by a color sensor, at least one color value from a patch printed with mixed ink, and instructions to modify a mixing ratio of the at least two basic inks based on the measured at least one color value.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium according to claim 18 , further comprising instructions to calculate the mixing ratio of the at least two basic inks based on a media fingerprint determined by the color sensor.

Assignees

• Hp Indigo Bv

Inventors

• Manousakis Stylianos

Classifications

• G03G15/104 Primary

  Preparing, mixing, transporting or dispensing developer · CPC title