Patent Application
20120224005
This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Application No.2011-046433, filed on Mar. 3, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejection apparatus which ejects liquid onto a liquid ejection surface of an ejection target.
2. Related Art
As a liquid ejection apparatus which ejects liquid onto a target, an ink jet recording apparatus which ejects ink onto a recording medium so as to perform printing has been known. In order to obtain a high-quality image without bleeding with such ink jet recording apparatus, solvent in ink is required to be diffused into the air quickly after the ink has been ejected and has landed onto a recording medium.
As a method of diffusing solvent as described above, a method by heating a recording medium onto which ink has landed or a method by blowing air onto the recording medium has been proposed. For example, a configuration of an ink jet printer using an ink drying method has been disclosed in JP-A-2002-347226. In the ink drying method, a rear surface of a recording medium is heated at a downstream side and an upstream side in a recording medium transportation direction of a line head and a recording surface thereof is heated and dried in a non-contact manner at the downstream side of the line head.
Further, a configuration of an ink jet printer in which a drum for holding and transporting a recording medium is formed by a heating drum has been proposed in JP-A-8-323977.
In addition, a print apparatus which prevents bleeding of a printed matter from occurring by drying a recording medium with an infrared ray irradiation light source and a blower in ink jet printing has been disclosed in JP-A-2001-191507.
As described in JP-A-2001-191507, when the infrared ray irradiation light source and the blower (convection generation unit) are provided on a serial-type printer 10, they can be arranged in a layout as illustrated in
In
Further, the convection generation unit 170 blows air onto the recording medium S onto which ink has landed over the width direction (first direction) of the recording medium S. The convection generation unit 170 is constituted by a plurality of fans 171, an air guide member 172, and an air port portion 173. The plurality of fans 171 are provided so as to be aligned in the first direction. The air guide member 172 guides the direction of the convection generated with rotation of the fans 171. The air port portion 173 blows air guided by the air guide member 172 onto the recording medium S.
A carriage 14 ejects ink from a built-in head while reciprocating along a guide rail 12 provided in the width direction of the recording medium so as to perform printing on the recording medium. The convection generation unit 170 is provided at an upper side of the carriage 14 in a vertical direction. With this, the convection generation unit 170 blows air onto the recording medium S so as to diffuse volatile components quickly from the landed ink.
In the above printer according to an existing example, air blown from the convection generation unit 170 hits an upper surface portion of the carriage 14 at a place where the carriage 14 is located in the first direction so that a direction of the air is changed. Therefore, the air hits the infrared ray irradiation unit 160 so as to cool the infrared ray irradiation light source 161. An infrared radiation ability of the infrared ray irradiation light source 161 is proportional to the fourth power of a temperature thereof. Therefore, if the temperature of the infrared ray irradiation light source 161 is lowered due to the air which hits thereto, a heating ability thereof is largely lowered. As a result, landed ink cannot be heated and dried sufficiently. There arises a problem in that bleeding is generated so as to deteriorate image quality.
An advantage of some aspects of the invention is to provide the following liquid ejection apparatus.
A liquid ejection apparatus according to an aspect of the invention includes a liquid ejection head which has a nozzle for ejecting liquid onto a recording medium, a carriage which holds the liquid ejection head and makes the liquid ejection head relatively scan the recording medium, an irradiation unit which is provided at a vertically upper side of the carriage in a scanning direction of the carriage and irradiates the recording medium with infrared rays, a convection generation unit which is provided at a vertically upper side of the carriage in the scanning direction of the carriage and generates convection on the recording medium, and a separation wall which is provided between the irradiation unit and the convection generation unit.
In the liquid ejection apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, it is preferable that the separation wall be provided integrally with the carriage.
Further, in the liquid ejection apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, it is preferable that the separation wall be provided in the scanning direction of the carriage.
Further, in the liquid ejection apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, it is preferable that the convection generation unit generate convection to apply a positive pressure onto the recording medium.
Further, in the liquid ejection apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, it is preferable that the convection generation unit generate convection which applies a negative pressure onto the recording medium.
Further, in the liquid ejection apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, it is preferable that the carriage and the separation wall have surface layers which reflect infrared rays.
As described above, in the liquid ejection apparatus according to the aspect of the invention, the separation wall is provided between the irradiation unit and the convection generation unit. With the liquid ejection apparatus according to the invention, air which has hit an upper surface portion of the carriage at a place where the carriage is located in the first direction is shielded by the separation wall so as not to hit the irradiation unit. Therefore, convection generated by the convection generation unit does not give an influence on the irradiation unit. Accordingly, a heating ability of the irradiation unit is not lowered so that the landed ink can be heated and dried sufficiently. This makes it possible to suppress bleeding from occurring and realize high image quality.
The invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein like numbers reference like elements.
Hereinafter, an embodiment of the invention is described with reference to drawings.
An infrared ray irradiation unit 160 as illustrated in
As illustrated in
A head unit 150 is mounted on the carriage 14. Nozzles through which inks (liquids) of colors of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C) and black (K) are ejected onto the recording medium S are formed on the head unit 150. The inks of the colors of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C) and black (K) are mainly used as inks for image recording for drawing a predetermined image based on image data received from a computer 1 or the like as a high-level apparatus. It is to be noted that hereinafter, yellow or yellow ink is abbreviated as “Y”, and so on, in some case. Further, in the embodiment, an example in which inks of four colors of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C) and black (K) are used is described. However, color types and the number of colors, which can be used in the head unit 150, are not limited thereto.
The computer 1 transmits image data in accordance with an image to be printed to the printer 10 through a printer driver. Pixel data indicating whether or not ink is ejected for each color of ink for each pixel of a medium is included in the image data.
As the above ink of each color used in the embodiment, for example, ink in which pigment or dye is dispersed in water or organic solvent as solvent can be appropriately used. In addition, as the recording medium S used in the printer 10 according to the invention, various papers such as a plain paper, a recycle paper, and a glossy paper, various fabrics, various nonwoven fabrics, and a recording medium S formed by a material of resin or the like can be applied.
The above head unit 150 is connected to a controller 110 and a signal for controlling ejection of ink is transmitted to the head unit 150. A center portion of a movable range of the carriage 14 corresponds to a recording region on which recording is performed on the recording medium S. A platen 19 which horizontally supports the recording medium S from a non-recording surface side is provided on the recording region.
Further, a recording medium transportation unit 130 (see,
An input operation unit 120 is provided on an upper surface (not illustrated) of a housing of the printer 10. The input operation unit 120 is formed by a touch panel, for example, and displays recording modes which can be selected by a user. A user selects and inputs a displayed recording mode on the input operation unit 120. The input operation unit 120 is connected to the controller 110, which will be described later, and outputs a signal relating to the recording mode selected based on a predetermined operation to the controller 110.
The controller 110 controls the recording medium transportation unit 130, the carriage driving unit 140, the head unit 150, the infrared ray irradiation unit 160, the convection generation unit 170, and the like based on a status such as an operation condition in accordance with the above-described processing program.
The infrared ray irradiation unit 160 is constituted by an infrared ray irradiation light source 161, a reflector 162, and the like at the upper side of the carriage 14 in the vertical direction. The infrared ray irradiation light source 161 is arranged in a width direction (first direction) of the recording medium S. The reflector 162 reflects light emitted from the infrared ray irradiation light source 161. The infrared ray irradiation unit 160 is a device which irradiates infrared rays onto ink ejected onto the recording medium S to heat the ink so as to accelerate diffusion of solvent in the ink. A light emission ratio and a light emission timing of the infrared ray irradiation light source 161 can be controlled through the control from the controller 110. With this configuration, an amount of infrared rays to be irradiated can be also changed in accordance with a type of the recording medium S or an ink type. It is preferable that light emission of the infrared ray irradiation light source 161 be basically in an ON state while ink is ejected onto the recording medium S with the head unit 150.
The convection generation unit 170 blows air onto the recording medium S on which ink has landed or sucks the recording medium S on which ink has landed in the width direction (first direction) of the recording medium S. Further, the convection generation unit 170 is constituted by a plurality of fans 171, an air guide member 172, and the like, at the upper side of the carriage 14 in the vertical direction. The plurality of fans 171 are provided so as to be aligned in the first direction. The air guide member 172 guides the direction of the convection generated with rotation of the fans 171. An air port portion 173 is provided on a bottom of the air guide member 172 and air can be blown or sucked from the air port portion 173.
The plurality of fans 171 are configured such that rotational directions thereof can be changed based on control from the controller 110. With this configuration, the convection generation unit 170 can generate convection to apply a positive pressure onto the recording medium S (that is, blow air), or generate convection to apply a negative pressure onto the recording medium S (that is, suck air).
In addition, the plurality of fans 171 are configured such that the number of rotations thereof can be adjusted based on control from the controller 110. With this configuration, a blowing amount when air is blown by the convection generation unit 170 or a suction amount when air is sucked by the convection generation unit 170 can be adjusted.
Volatile components from the ink landed onto the recording medium S are quickly diffused with the convection generated by the above convection generation unit 170. With this, solvent components can be accelerated to be volatilized from the ink.
The flat plate-like separation wall 20 is provided on an upper surface portion of the carriage 14. The separation wall 20 is provided so as to stand in the vertical direction integrally with the carriage 14. A flat plate constituting the separation wall 20 is formed in parallel with the first direction as the scanning direction of the carriage 14. The flat plate moves between the infrared ray irradiation unit 160 and the convection generation unit 170 with movement of the carriage 14. At this time, the flat plate moves such that a distance between the infrared ray irradiation unit 160 and the separation wall 20 and a distance between the convection generation unit 170 and the separation wall 20 are made constant.
An effect obtained by the above separation wall 20 is described with reference to
As illustrated in
In the above liquid ejection apparatus (printer 10) according to the invention, the separation wall 20 is provided between the infrared ray irradiation unit 160 and the convection generation unit 170. With such liquid ejection apparatus (printer 10) according to the invention, air which has hit the upper surface portion of the carriage 14 at a place where the carriage 14 is located in the first direction is shielded by the separation wall 20 so as not to hit the infrared ray irradiation unit 160. Therefore, the convection generated by the convection generation unit 170 does not give an influence on the infrared ray irradiation unit 160. Accordingly, a heating ability of the infrared ray irradiation unit 160 is not lowered so that the landed ink can be heated and dried sufficiently. This makes it possible to suppress bleeding from occurring and realize high image quality.
The above separation wall 20 and the carriage 14 preferably have surface layers which reflect infrared rays irradiated from the infrared ray irradiation unit 160. Such surface layers desirably reflect equal to or larger than 80% of the infrared rays. To be more specific, this can be realized by using gold, silver, aluminum, stainless, or the like for the surface layers of the separation wall 20 and the carriage 14. The separation wall 20 and the carriage 14 include preferable infrared ray reflection surface layers so that infrared rays reflected by the separation wall 20 and the carriage 14 are irradiated onto the recording medium S therearound. Therefore, the irradiation light from the infrared ray irradiation light source 161 can be efficiently used with no waste.
Next, another embodiment of the invention is described. In the above embodiment, the separation wall 20 is provided integrally with the carriage 14. The embodiment is different from the above embodiment in a point that the separation wall 20 is provided integrally with a housing (not illustrated). Since other points in the embodiment are the same as those in the above embodiment, such different point is described, hereinafter.
Hereinabove, in the liquid ejection apparatus according to the invention, the separation wall is provided between the irradiation unit and the convection generation unit. With the liquid ejection apparatus, air which has hit the upper surface portion of the carriage at a place where the carriage is located in the first direction is shielded by the separation wall so as not to hit the irradiation unit. Therefore, the convection generated by the convection generation unit does not give an influence on the irradiation unit. Accordingly, a heating ability of the irradiation unit is not lowered so that the landed ink can be heated and dried sufficiently. This makes it possible to suppress bleeding from occurring and realize high image quality.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-046433 | Mar 2011 | JP | national |
