Inkjet head and inkjet printer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9694577-B2
Application number	US-201615202699-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 6, 2016
Priority date	Jul 6, 2015
Publication date	Jul 4, 2017
Grant date	Jul 4, 2017

Abstract

In accordance with an embodiment, an inkjet head comprises a pressure chamber configured to house ink; an actuator configured to be arranged corresponding to the pressure chamber; a plate configured to have a nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber; and a driving circuit configured to drive the actuator, wherein the drive circuit applies an auxiliary pulse signal which contains an expansion pulse for expanding the volume of the pressure chamber and a contraction pulse for contracting the volume of the pressure chamber in such a degree as not to eject an ink drop from the nozzle to the actuator before enabling the ink drop to be ejected from the nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber by applying the expansion pulse and the contraction pulse as a drive pulse signals.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An inkjet head, comprising:
a pressure chamber configured to house ink;
an actuator configured to be arranged corresponding to the pressure chamber;
a plate configured to have a nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber; and
a driving circuit configured to drive the actuator, wherein
the drive circuit applies an auxiliary pulse signal which contains an expansion pulse for expanding the volume of the pressure chamber and a contraction pulse for contracting the volume of the pressure chamber in such a degree as not to eject an ink drop from the nozzle to the actuator before enabling one ink drop and even continuous multiple ink drops to be ejected from the nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber by applying a drive waveform which contains the expansion pulse and the contraction pulse as a drive pulse signal once or for multiple times to the actuator, in this way, the ejection speed in a case of ejecting one ink drop is almost equal to that of the second drop in a case of continuously ejecting two ink drops.

2. The inkjet head according to claim 1 , wherein
there is a plurality of the pressure chambers, a plurality of the actuators and a plurality of the nozzles, at least one part of the actuators are used in the plural pressure chambers in common, and the actuator includes a hysteresis characteristic.

3. The inkjet head according to claim 2 , wherein
the driving circuit outputs the expansion pulse as the auxiliary pulse signal at the beginning, and then, outputs the contraction pulse after an interval.

4. The inkjet head according to claim 1 , wherein
the driving circuit outputs the expansion pulse as the auxiliary pulse signal at the beginning, and then, outputs the contraction pulse after an interval.

5. The inkjet head according to claim 4 , wherein
the driving circuit sets a pulse center interval between the expansion pulse and the contraction pulse of the auxiliary pulse signal as a resonance period of the pressure chamber with the ink.

6. The inkjet head according to claim 1 , wherein
the driving circuit equalizes the pulse width of the expansion pulse and that of the contraction pulse of the auxiliary pulse signal.

7. The inkjet head according to claim 1 , wherein
the auxiliary pulse signal is applied in a case in which the number of the continuous ink drops is equal to or smaller than N (N is equal to or greater than 1 and equal to or smaller than “the maximum number of the drops−1”).

8. The inkjet printer, including:
an inkjet head; and
a conveyance mechanism configured to convey an image recording medium to a printing position by the inkjet head, wherein
the inkjet head further comprising:
a pressure chamber configured to house ink;
an actuator configured to be arranged corresponding to the pressure chamber;
a plate configured to have a nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber; and
a driving circuit configured to drive the actuator, wherein
the drive circuit applies an auxiliary pulse signal which contains an expansion pulse for expanding the volume of the pressure chamber and a contraction pulse for contracting the volume of the pressure chamber in such a degree as not to eject an ink drop from the nozzle to the actuator before enabling one ink drop and even continuous multiple ink drops to be ejected from the nozzle communicating with the pressure chamber by applying a drive waveform which contains the expansion pulse and the contraction pulse as a drive pulse signal once or for multiple times to the actuator, in this way, the ejection speed in a case of ejecting one ink drop is almost equal to that of the second drop in a case of continuously ejecting two ink drops.

9. The inkjet head according to claim 8 , wherein
there is a plurality of the pressure chambers, a plurality of the actuators and a plurality of the nozzles, at least one part of the actuators are used in the plural pressure chambers in common, and the actuator includes a hysteresis characteristic.

10. The inkjet head according to claim 9 , wherein
the driving circuit outputs the expansion pulse as the auxiliary pulse signal at the beginning, and then, outputs the contraction pulse after an interval.

11. The inkjet head according to claim 8 , wherein
the driving circuit outputs the expansion pulse as the auxiliary pulse signal at the beginning, and then, outputs the contraction pulse after an interval.

12. The inkjet head according to claim 11 , wherein
the driving circuit sets a pulse center interval between the expansion pulse and the contraction pulse of the auxiliary pulse signal as a resonance period of the pressure chamber with the ink.

13. The inkjet head according to claim 8 , wherein
the driving circuit equalizes the pulse width of the expansion pulse and that of the contraction pulse of the auxiliary pulse signal.

14. The inkjet head according to claim 8 , wherein
the auxiliary pulse signal is applied in a case in which the number of the continuous ink drops is equal to or smaller than N (N is equal to or greater than 1 and equal to or smaller than “the maximum number of the drops−1”).

Assignees

• Toshiba Kk
• Toshiba Tec Kk

Inventors

• Nitta Noboru
• Komai Yasuhito

Classifications

• B41J2/04595

  Dot-size modulation by changing the number of drops per dot · CPC title

• B41J2/04588 Primary

  using a specific waveform · CPC title

• B41J2/04581 Primary

  controlling heads based on piezoelectric elements · CPC title

• B41J2/04596

  Non-ejecting pulses · CPC title

• B41J2/04541

  Specific driving circuit · CPC title