BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 shows a top perspective view of a prior art printhead assembly;
FIG. 2 shows an exploded view of the printhead assembly shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 shows an inverted exploded view of the printhead assembly shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 shows a cross-sectional end view of the printhead assembly of FIG. 1;
FIG. 5 shows a magnified partial perspective view of the drop triangle end of a printhead integrated circuit module as shown in FIGS. 2 to 4;
FIG. 6 shows a magnified perspective view of the join between two printhead integrated circuit modules shown in FIGS. 2 to 5;
FIG. 7 shows an underside view of the printhead integrated circuit shown in FIG. 5;
FIG. 8 shows a transparent top view of a printhead assembly of FIG. 15 showing in particular, the ink conduits for supplying ink to the printhead integrated circuits;
FIG. 9 is a partial enlargement of FIG. 8;
FIG. 10 is an enlarged view of gas bubbles in the conduits of the LCP moulding;
FIG. 11 is a sketch of the artifacts that can result from bubble contamination of the ink lines;
FIG. 12A is a sketch of the LCP moulding and the printhead IC in a fluidic system of the prior art;
FIG. 12B is a sketch showing the ink line bifurcations in the prior art fluidic system;
FIG. 13A is a sketch of the LCP moulding and the printhead IC in a fluidic system of the present invention;
FIG. 13B is a sketch showing the ink line bifurcations in the fluidic system of the present invention;
FIG. 14 is a schematic cross section of the LCP moulding and the printhead IC in a fluidic system of the present invention;
FIGS. 15A to 15C show the LCP conduit profiling for passive bubble control;
FIGS. 16 to 21 show the various unit operations that are possible with the active control provided by the present invention;
FIG. 22 shows a single pump/four valve implementation of the fluidic system;
FIG. 23 shows a single pump/two valve implementation of the fluidic system;
FIG. 24 is a sketch of another single pump fluidic system;
FIGS. 25A and 25B schematically show the fluidic system FIG. 24 and the initial priming of the printhead IC;
FIGS. 26A to 26E schematically show the operational stages of the fluidic system FIG. 24 moving from standby to print ready mode;
FIGS. 27A and 27B schematically show the fluidic system FIG. 24 moving to a long term power down mode/move printer mode;
FIGS. 28A and 28C schematically show the fluidic system FIG. 24 recovering from long term power down/deprime/gross color mixing;
FIG. 29 is a perspective view of a shut off valve; and,
FIG. 30 is a partial section view of the shut off valve.
Patent Application
20070206050
