Now, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
It is to be noted that the term “ink” in this specification is assumed to include any liquid which may be used for formation of images, designs, patterns, and the like, a treatment of the printing medium, or the processing of ink (such as coagulation or insolubilization of a pigment in the ink to be applied to the printing medium), by being applied to a printing medium.
In
The holder unit 50 is mounted to the carriage 102. Moreover, the head unit 30 is attached to the holder unit 50. In this way, an inkjet head is fixed to the printing apparatus body, and the ink tank attachment section 100 is accomplished. Here, the ink tank attachment section 100 may be configured so that the holder unit 50 is detachable or non-detachable to the carriage while the head unit 30 is detachably attached to the holder unit 50.
The head unit 30 includes an inkjet head 31 which has nozzles for ejecting ink arrayed in a direction different from the x direction, for example, in the y direction. The inkjet head 31 is integrally formed in a position defined as a bottom section of a head holder 32 in a state of being used. Multiple nozzle arrays are prepared so as to correspond to the number of ink color tones used therein. In this embodiment, the inkjet head 31 is assumed to include the nozzle array for the ink corresponding to each of the colors, black, cyan, magenta, yellow, and photo black.
Meanwhile, a black ink tank 10a for containing black ink is attached to the head unit 30 on the back side (on the right side viewed from the y direction) of the drawing. Moreover, a color ink tank containing color ink for four colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and photo black is attached to the front side (on the left side viewed from the y direction) of the drawing. Then, a partition wall 34 is integrally provided on the bottom wall of the head unit 30 in order to divide regions for attaching these ink tanks 10a and 10b (which will be collectively designated by reference numeral 10 when it is not necessary to discriminate these ink tanks). This partition wall 34 includes gently inclined slope configured to reduce its level gradually in the y direction.
Further, ink receiving pipes 33, which correspond to ink supply ports 14 for the respective colors formed on an ink tank 10 to be described later, are formed in a protruding manner on the head unit 30. That is, a single ink receiving pipe for the black color is formed on an attachment section for the black ink tank 10a while four ink receiving pipes corresponding to cyan, magenta, yellow, and photo black colors are formed on an attachment section for the color ink tank 10b. Moreover, the respective ink receiving pipes 33 communicate with the nozzle arrays prepared for the ink in the respective color tones through unillustrated ink supply passages.
A sealing member 36 made of an elastic material, such as rubber, is attached around each of the ink receiving pipes 33. This sealing member 36 is configured to cover a surrounding area of each of the ink supply port 14 when the ink tank 10 is attached, thereby retaining a hermetically sealed state of an ink supply system and preventing leakage and evaporation of the ink. Meanwhile, a filter 37 for preventing invasion of foreign bodies including dusts and bubbles into the ink receiving pipe 33 is disposed to an end face of the ink receiving pipe 33.
At the time of an operation to attach the ink tank 10 to be described later, an attachment guide section 15 on the ink tank 10 is allowed to move while sliding on the partition wall 34. In this way, the ink tank 10 is guided while avoiding contact with the ink receiving pipes 33. That is, the partition wall 34 functions also as a breakage prevention guide for the ink receiving pipes 33 at the time of the operation to attach the ink tank 10.
Moreover, two of first fitting sections 35 functioning as hinges at the time of the operation to attach the ink tank and as fixation sections for the respective ink tanks at the time of attachment are provided on the back side (the left side in the drawing) in the y direction of the head unit 30. In this embodiment, the first fitting sections 35 are formed into concave sections while engagement sections (first engagement sections) located in corresponding positions on the ink tank 10 are formed into convex sections so that these constituents can be coupled together. The above-described relation may, however, be inverted.
In the meantime, a second fitting section 51 for fixation at the time of attaching each of the ink tanks 10 is located on the front side (the right side in the drawing) of the holder unit 50. This second fitting section 51 is also formed into a concave shape and can be coupled with an engagement section (a second engagement section) formed into a convex shape in a corresponding position on the ink tank 10.
Moreover, the holder unit 50 includes contact units 53 respectively provided with contact pins 52 to be electrically connected to memory elements of the ink tank 10 to be described later. The contact units 53 are connected to a control unit of the printing apparatus body through unillustrated cables. Accordingly, in the attached state of the ink tank 10, it is possible to communicate data between the control unit of the printing apparatus body and the memory elements through the contact units 53.
Next, a configuration of the ink tank will be described.
The ink tanks 10a and 10b basically have the same internal structure except a difference in the number of colors of the inks to be contained. Hence, the color ink tank 10b will be described here as the example.
The ink tank generally includes a housing 11 having an upper end face formed into an opening and a lid member 12 for occluding the opening of the housing 11. These constituents collectively define ink containers. The lid member 12 includes air communication ports 13 for guiding air into the ink tank, and ribs 19 which are structures for forming buffering spaces for preventing ink leakage out of the air communication ports 13 in the event of an environmental change. Second ink retaining members 21 and first ink retaining members 20 for impregnating and retaining the yellow, magenta, cyan, and photo black inks and first ink retaining members 20 for ink supply are housed in spaces of the respective ink containers.
The configuration will be described more concretely by using
On the bottom face of the housing 11, the ink supply ports 14 for ink supply are located in positions corresponding to the ink receiving pipes 33 formed on the head unit 30. In spaces between the second ink retaining members 21 and the bottom wall of the ink tank, the first ink retaining members 20 are disposed to closely contact to the second ink retaining members 21 and to occlude the ink supply ports 21 from inside.
While both of the first ink retaining member 20 and the second ink retaining member 21 are configured to impregnate and retain the ink, an ink retaining force (a capillary force) of the first ink retaining member 20 is rendered higher than an ink retaining force of the second ink retaining member 21. In this way, the ink retained in the second ink retaining member 21 is efficiently guided to the first ink retaining member 20, and consumption efficiency of the ink retained in the second ink retaining member 21 is thereby improved.
In the ink tank of this embodiment, ink capacities are set as described below in light of usage frequencies:
For this reason, when the partitions inside the housing are observed from above the ink tank, it is apparent that the partition walls do not have the shape of intersections of two straight lines. That is, as shown in
In this embodiment, the ink retaining members 20 and 21 are formed by use of fiber assemblies that are made of polyolefin-based thermoplastic resin. In addition, the housing 11 and the lid member 12 are also made of a polyolefin-based thermoplastic resin material similar to the ink retaining members. Therefore, it is possible to improve recycling efficiency and reuse efficiency and thereby to offer the environment-friendly ink tank.
A latch lever 16 includes the second engagement section 23 which is formed into a protrusion so as to correspond to the second fitting section 51 for ink tank fixation provided on the holder unit 50. Moreover, first engagement section 22 formed into protrusions so as to correspond to first fitting sections 35 for ink tank fixation are provided on an opposite face with the latch lever 16.
In this embodiment, the first engagement sections are located in two positions on the face on the back side in the direction of inserting the ink tank whereas the latch lever for the ink tank including the second engagement section is located in a position near the center of the opposite face with the face on the back side. That is, the engagement sections for tank attachment are arranged to form a triangular shape. In the following description, the face provided with the latch lever 16 will be referred to as a front face of the ink tank.
Moreover, a bevel is formed in a region beside a base of the latch lever 16 within a corner area where the bottom face of the ink tank 10 meets the front face thereof. Moreover, a board 24, which mounts an information storage medium and includes a contact pad (not shown) that constitutes a contact for achieving electric connection to a contact pin provided on the holder unit, is attached to this bevel. Meanwhile, a board attachment positioning section 25 is located on the bottom face of the ink tank close to the position for attaching this board 24.
When the ink tank 10 is attached to the inkjet printing apparatus, contents stored in the information storage medium (information to be provided for achieving necessary management of the ink tank including expiration dates of use of the ink, amounts of ink inside the ink tank, and colors of the ink, for example) can be provided to the inkjet printing apparatus. In this way, it is possible to promote replacement of the ink tanks by alarming the expiration dates of use and thereby to forestall printing errors attributable to discoloration or thickening of the ink. Moreover, by detecting correct attachment of the ink tank through a success or a failure of information communication, it is possible to prevent defective printing attributed to incomplete attachment of the ink tank.
The information storage medium may apply various aspects including a magnetic medium, a magneto-optical medium, an electric storage medium, a mechanical switch such as a dual in-line package (DIP) switch, and the like as long as such a medium can offer the information by means of mechanical contact with a contact section on the inkjet printing apparatus. For example, it is possible to apply a flash memory or to apply a write-at-once type magnetic medium. Alternatively, it is possible to apply an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) when it is desirable that the printing apparatus be able to add, modify or delete information (such as information on ink residual amounts or ink consumption amounts based on measurement of image data).
Next, the aforementioned operation to attach the ink tank to the printing apparatus body will be described.
In this state, when an upper face of the ink tank 10 is pressed in a direction indicated with an arrow P in
In the last stage of the attachment operation, the first engagement sections 22 are engaged with the corresponding first fitting sections 35 on the head unit and the second engagement section 23 is engaged with the corresponding second fitting section 51 on the holder unit. That is, the ink tank 10 is locked in three positions of the two first fitting sections 35 and the single second fitting section 51, and the mechanically locked state is therefore completed. As a consequence, it is possible to supply the ink inside the ink tank to the nozzles of the inkjet head through the ink receiving pipes and the ink supply passages.
In the process of the attachment operation, the guide section 15 formed on the ink tank 10 slides on the partition wall 34 of the head unit, whereby a drop of the ink tank 10 into the attachment section is restricted. In the case of the color ink tank 10b shown in
Next, a structure for positioning the board at the time of attaching the ink tank will be described below.
When attaching the ink tank, if a reactive force associated with touch of the board 24 of the ink tank on the contact unit 53 of the holder unit 50 is transmitted to the attachment section of the ink tank, there is a risk of deviation of a position to attach the ink tank or a position to attach the inkjet head to the body. Accordingly, in this embodiment, the contact unit 53 is provided separately from the holder unit so as not to transmit the reactive force, which is incurred by touch of the contact unit 53 on the board 24, to the positioning engagement sections and the like. To be more precise, the board attachment positioning section 25 formed as the protrusion provided near the board 24 of the ink tank 10 is engaged with a positioning section on the contact unit 53 so as to determine a layout between the board and the contact unit independently of positioning a point of attachment of the ink tank itself.
A mechanism (hereinafter referred to as a board positioning mechanism) to achieve the above-described configuration will be described more in detail.
First, as shown in
On the other hand, the board-contact positioning section 54 provided on the holder unit on the printing apparatus body is formed of a base member 54 which includes a concave section which is configured to be engaged with the convex section of the board attachment positioning section 25, and the contact unit 53 is integrally provided on this base member 55. The board-contact positioning section 54 and the base member 55 are supported movably in a horizontal direction relative to the holder unit 50, and an unillustrated flexible cable for electrically connecting the printing apparatus body to the contact unit is mounted thereon. Here, the board-contact positioning section 54 may be urged toward a position shown in
As shown in
Accordingly, the contact pins 52 gradually approach the board 24 provided on the bottom face of the tank. Then, as shown in
Next, layouts of the ink supply ports of the color ink tank constituting a characteristic feature of this embodiment will be described in details.
As apparent in
The ink supply ports 14 are two-dimensionally arranged as follows. First, as apparent in the drawings, the abutting centers of the respective ink supply ports 14 are arranged so as to be mutually shifted relative to the y direction. To be more precise, in terms of the y direction, the abutting center 26 of the photo black ink supply port, the abutting center 29 of the cyan ink supply port and the abutting center 27 of the magenta ink supply port are located from the backmost position in this order. Then, the abutting center 28 of the yellow ink supply port is located in the position closest to the front face. Meanwhile, there are two rows of ink supply ports in terms of the x direction (a width direction of the ink tank) orthogonal to the y direction. Specifically, one row is defined by the abutting centers 26 and 27 of the photo black and magenta ink supply ports while another row is defined by the abutting centers 28 and 29 for the cyan and yellow ink supply ports. These rows are located so as to sandwich a center line 61 in the width direction of the ink tank.
By arranging the ink supply ports so as to disperse the abutting centers 26 to 29 in this way, the photo black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink supply ports are connected to the corresponding ink receiving pipes in this order when the ink tank is rotated and attached as described above. In addition, the ink tank will receive the reactive forces from the ink receiving pipes via the ink supply ports in the order of the ink supply port located on the left side of the center line, the ink supply port located on the right side, the other ink supply port on the left side, and the other ink supply port located on the right side.
Therefore, it is possible to avoid reception of the reactive forces as an attaching force at one time by the ink receiving pipes. Moreover, it is possible to achieve stable attachment while suppressing excessive inclination of the tank at the time of attachment.
Here, in this embodiment, concerning relations among the abutting center 26 of the photo black ink supply port located on the backmost side in the direction of attaching the tank, the abutting center 29 of the cyan ink supply port, and the abutting center 27 of the magenta ink supply port, layout intervals are gradually widened in this order. That is, as shown in
As described above, the ink tank is rotated when it is attached. Therefore, as a place is closer to the engagement section located on the bask side, i.e. a rotating center at the time of attachment, it is possible to reduce an operating force at the time of attaching the ink tank due to the principle of leverage. For this reason, it is desirable to decrease the interval between the ink supply ports located near the rotation center and to increase the interval between the ink supply ports on the front face side or in a position away from the rotation center because such a configuration can reduce the operation force to be applied by the user and to maintain this force substantially constant.
However, since the ink supply ports are dispersed on the left side and the right side relative to the center line 61 in the width direction of the ink tank, it is conceivable that an inclination of the ink tank be increased at the time of the attachment operation along the increase in the interval between the abutting centers. For this reason, it is desirable to reduce the interval between the ink supply ports on the front face side, i.e. the region located in the most distant position from the rotation center, in light of suppression of rattles from side to side when completing attachment of the tank so as to achieve attachment of the tank reliably.
To be more precise, in this embodiment, the interval between the abutting center 27 of the magenta ink supply port and the abutting center 28 of the yellow ink supply port is set narrower than the rest of the intervals between the abutting centers of other ink supply ports. That is, assuming that the interval between the abutting center 27 of the magenta ink supply port and the abutting center 28 of the yellow ink supply port is defined as c, the values a, b, and c satisfy a relation of c<a<b as shown in
Furthermore, in the ink tank of this embodiment, the ink supply ports are two-dimensionally arranged so that all the ink supply ports overlap on lines 62 defined by connecting fixing positions to attach the tank to the body (the two first engagement sections 22 and the second engagement section on the latch lever 23). This design is desirable for stabilizing the state of attachment because it is possible to receive all the reactive forces applied from the respective ink receiving pipes to the respective ink supply ports efficiently in the fixing positions to attach the tank.
It is to be noted that the present invention is not limited only to the above-described embodiment, and the invention may apply various other modifications.
For example, the above-described embodiment employs the latch lever in order to attach the ink tank. However, the present invention is effectively applicable to other aspects configured to rotate and attach the ink tank. Accordingly, it is not always necessary to employ the latch lever.
Meanwhile, the embodiment has described the ink tank using the ink absorbers made of the fiber assemblies in order to impregnate and retain the ink and to generate a preferable negative pressure that balances with meniscus retaining forces of the nozzles. However, the ink absorbers are not limited only the fiber assemblies. Meanwhile, it is also possible to separate the ink container into a container chamber including the above-described ink absorber and a container chamber configured to store the ink directly. Moreover, instead of using the ink absorber as negative pressure generating means, it is possible to fill the ink directly into a bag-like member made of an elastic material such as rubber designed to generate tension in a direction of expanding a volume, and to apply a negative pressure to the ink inside by use of the tension generated by this bag-like member. Further, it is also possible to form at least part of an ink containing space by use of an elastic member, then to put only the ink into the space, and to generate a negative pressure by applying a spring force to the elastic member.
Furthermore, the embodiment has described the ink tank configured to contain the yellow ink, the magenta ink, the cyan ink, and the photo black ink. Here, it is needless to say that the number of types of tones (the colors and densities) of the ink used therein are not limited to this configuration. In addition to the above-mentioned types of the ink, it is also possible to apply other light-tone ink, red ink, green ink, blue ink, and so forth. Particularly, the increase in the number of types of the ink may cause larger problems of an attachment property and a connection property. In this context, it is likely that the preset invention is even more effective to prevent such problems. In addition, in the case where the ink tank is configured to contain only one tone of the ink, the present invention is also applicable to such a configuration as long as multiple ink supply ports are provided therein.
Moreover, the color tone layouts and ink capacities of the ink containers are not limited only to the above-described configuration. Particularly, the aforementioned layouts of the ink supply ports may be determined irrespective of the ink capacities or the dimensions and shapes of the containers. For example, it is possible to arrange the ink supply ports as described above even in the case of using the ink containers provided for the above-mentioned four colors which have the same capacity and the same dimensions.
In addition, the embodiment has described the aspect in which the ink engagement section is separated into the head unit having the inkjet head and the holder unit formed on the body. However, it is possible to render the ink tank detachable only by use of the head unit. Alternatively, it is also possible to fix the head unit to the printing apparatus.
Incidentally, when the above-described ink tank 10 is attached to the holder unit 50, it is expected to slip the side of the ink tank 10 provided with the first engagement sections 22 below a guide plate formed above an inner wall face on the back side of the holder unit and then to push the latch lever into the holder, for example. Here, the guide plate is an overhanging member disposed at the back side provided with the first fitting sections so as to hang over an attachment space of the ink tank. However, as a result of confirmation of various operations to attach the ink tank supposed to be carried out by users, it is made clear that the attachment may be unexpectedly incomplete occasionally.
Such a state is illustrated in
By providing the latch lever with this step section 110, the step section 110 of the latch lever 16 will abut an upper part of a wall face of the holder unit 50 as shown in
To allow the operator to clearly recognize that the attachment of the ink tank 10 to the holder unit 50 is incomplete, it is preferable to provide the step section 110 close to the base of the latch lever 16 so that the ink tank 10 floats when the attachment is incomplete.
While the present invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. The scope of the following claims is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent structures and functions.
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application Nos. 2006-227175, filed Aug. 23, 2006, and 2007-207156, filed Aug. 8, 2007 which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2006-227175 | Aug 2006 | JP | national |
2007-207156 | Aug 2007 | JP | national |