JP2932978B2 - Multi-nozzle head for electrostatic suction type inkjet apparatus and method of manufacturing the same - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a multi-nozzle head mounted on an electrostatic suction type ink jet apparatus and a method for manufacturing the same.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 5 schematically shows a recording apparatus using an electrostatic suction type ink jet apparatus. In this apparatus, a multi-nozzle head 21 having a large number of nozzles 22 is provided.
And a back electrode substrate 23 provided with a back electrode corresponding to the nozzle position of the multi-nozzle head 21 at a close position sandwiching the conduction path of the recording medium 25, and opposed to each nozzle 22 and the back electrode substrate 23. A high voltage is selectively applied in accordance with the image signal, and the ink K is electrostatically sucked from the nozzles 22 to form the ink K.
Is printed over the recording medium 25 by printing.

In this case, a high printing voltage V is selectively applied to a head substrate (not shown) supporting the multi-nozzle head 21 between the head substrate and a back electrode, and ink K is individually supplied from each nozzle 22. In order to fly, an electric circuit pattern 26 such as an electrode pattern line 27 connected to the nozzle electrode and a driver IC 28 for controlling the switching.
Is provided.

[0004]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional apparatus, it is pointed out that the whole apparatus, particularly, the structure of the nozzle head 21 is large and complicated in structure.

In a conventional apparatus in which a printing voltage required for the nozzle 21 and the back electrode 23 is driven and controlled by an electric circuit pattern 26 provided on a head substrate supporting the multi-nozzle head 21, a multi-nozzle head is used. It is necessary to incorporate the number of the electric circuit patterns 26 corresponding to the number of nozzles into the head substrate on which the
If the printed dots are to be densely packed, an increase in the area occupied by the circuit pattern is inevitable, and the entire substrate must be large and structurally complex, and at the same time, the multi-nozzle 22 and the circuit pattern 26 are integrated. Because of this structure, it is difficult to manufacture the nozzle head 21. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, a nozzle head 21 having a multi-nozzle and an ink tank 29 are separately provided, and the ink head K is sequentially supplied from the ink tank 29 to the nozzle head 21 by controlling the head pressure and viscosity. This is usually done, but this increases the number of parts and the number of assembling steps, resulting in a complicated structure of the multi-nozzle head 21 and an increase in cost.

In view of the above problems, the present invention proposes an ink tank integrated type multi-nozzle head for an electrostatic suction type ink jet apparatus which can be manufactured at a low cost with a simple structure, together with a method of manufacturing the same. is there.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, there is provided a martino device.
The spill head is located on the bottom of the bottom of the plastic container.
And then drill a small hole to form a nozzle hole at the bottom of the container.
Conductive metal coating on the inner surface of the container including the inner surface of the small hole
The above resist applied to the bottom surface of the bottom of the container
Which is obtained by removing This multi-nozzle head is particularly useful for an electrostatic suction type ink-jet apparatus in which an electric circuit pattern for driving control of a printing voltage required for ink-jet is not provided on the nozzle head side.

In the above multi-nozzle head, in order to reduce the fluctuation of the water head pressure in the longitudinal direction when the head is tilted, it is preferable that the ink reservoir inside the container is partitioned into a plurality of parts in the longitudinal direction by partition walls.

In the multi-nozzle head integrated with an ink tank, a resist is applied to the lower surface of the bottom of a plastic container, and then a small hole for forming a nozzle hole is formed in the bottom of the container. It can be easily manufactured by plating a conductive metal film including the peripheral surface and then removing the resist applied on the lower surface of the bottom of the container.

[0010]

FIG. 1 shows an outline of a recording apparatus having an electrostatic suction type ink jet apparatus constructed by incorporating an ink tank integrated type multi-nozzle head according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a multi-nozzle head integrated with an ink tank in which a number of nozzles 2 are opened in a predetermined arrangement, and 3 denotes a back surface provided with a back electrode 4 corresponding to the nozzle position of the multi-nozzle head 1. An electrode substrate is shown, both of which are opposed to each other at a close position sandwiching a conduction path of the recording medium 5.

Here, the multi-nozzle head 1 is formed of a plastic container integrally provided with an ink tank 1a at the top, and a plurality of nozzles 2 for ejecting the ink K are provided at a container bottom 1A forming a nozzle plate. Have been. These nozzles 2 avoid electrostatic interference and
In order to improve the accuracy of the printing impact from the container, they are provided so as to protrude from the bottom surface of the container. In addition, at least the inner surface of the container including the inner peripheral surface of the nozzle hole 2a, and in the case of this embodiment, the portion of each nozzle 2 and the inner surface of the container are formed of a conductive coating 9 such as nickel. This conductive coating 9
Serves as an electrode for electrically conducting each nozzle 2,
A bias voltage described later is equally applied to each nozzle 2 through the coating 9.

In the ink jet apparatus equipped with the multi-nozzle head 1, a high voltage is selectively applied to each of the nozzles 2 and the back electrode 4, so that the ink K is electrostatically sucked from the nozzles 2, and An electric circuit pattern 6 for causing K to fly over a recording medium 5 for printing is provided not on the side of the nozzle head 1 but on the back electrode substrate 3 supporting the back electrode 4.
Side. That is, each back electrode 4 has
Electrode pattern lines 7 are respectively connected on the substrate 3,
A predetermined printing voltage V1 is applied via a switching element such as a driver IC8.

On the other hand, in the multi-nozzle head 1 having the ink tanks 1a connected in series, a constant bias voltage (superimposed on the printing voltage V1 on the back electrode side) is applied to each nozzle electrode through the conductive coating 9 formed on the inner surface thereof. -V0) is applied. Incidentally, the bias voltage (-V0) on the nozzle side is set to about -700 to -3000V, and the printing voltage V1 on the back electrode side is 150 to 1000V.
Is set to

Thus, in this apparatus, the printing voltage V1 required for ink jet between the nozzle 2 and the back electrode 4 is
Can be controlled by the electric circuit pattern 6 provided on the back electrode substrate 3 side. In other words, there is no need to connect an electric circuit pattern having a complicated structure on the side of the multi-nozzle head 1, so that the structure of the nozzle head 1 is significantly simplified, and the ink tank integrated type can be applied without any trouble. If the multi-nozzle head 1 integrated with the ink tank is used, the number of parts is smaller than that of a conventional separate or assembled product, and a troublesome assembling or joining process is not required. This can contribute to downsizing.

By the way, in the multi-nozzle head 1 integrated with the ink tank, in order to stabilize the flight of the ink K from the nozzle 2, the head difference between the nozzle surface and the ink liquid surface is set within a certain range (10 to 10). It is important to keep it at about 20 mm). This is because if the head pressure is low (10 mm or less), a convex meniscus required for printing is not obtained in the nozzle 2, and if the head pressure is high (20 mm or more), ink leakage may occur. However, in the case of a long head having a large number of nozzle arrays, for example, assuming a multi-nozzle head 1 corresponding to an A4 width, the head length reaches 200 mm at that time, and as shown in FIG. Depending on the inclination, a very large head difference H at both ends in the longitudinal direction (for example, tan 5 ° × 200 mm = about 17.5 mm at a tilt of 5 °)
Harmful to printing characteristics.

In the present invention, as a countermeasure, as shown in FIG. 2, a partition 1b for partitioning the ink reservoir into a plurality of pieces in the longitudinal direction is provided inside the container constituting the multi-nozzle head 1. If this divided structure is adopted, the water head difference h due to the inclination of the nozzle head 1 can be suppressed (h << H).

Next, a method for manufacturing the above-described ink tank integrated type multi-nozzle head 1 will be described.

Referring to the process chart shown in FIG.
First, a plastic substrate (container) 1 having a shape in which a portion corresponding to the nozzle plate 1A and a portion corresponding to the ink tank 1a are prepared, and a resist film is laminated on the bottom lower surface or a resist material is applied. Then, a resist 10 is applied to a thickness of about 0.1 to 2 mm (a). In this laminated plate, small holes of 0.05 to 1 mm corresponding to the nozzle holes 2a are perforated in a desired distribution by a drilling machine or a laser processing machine at the bottom of the container corresponding to the nozzle plate 1A (b).

Next, a coating 9 of a conductive metal such as nickel is coated on the inner surface of the laminated board including the inner peripheral surface of the small holes.
Electroless plating is performed to a thickness of 03 to 0.4 mm. At the time of this plating treatment, as a pretreatment, a film can be formed in a thickness of angstrom unit by sputtering, vapor deposition or ion plating (c). Thereafter, the resist 10 attached to the lower surface of the container is removed by dipping in a chemical that dissolves the resist substance or by mechanical peeling. Then, an ink tank integrated type multi-nozzle head 1 corresponding to FIG. 1 in which a large number of nozzles 2 are projected from the bottom surface of the container and the inner surfaces of each nozzle 2 and the container are formed of the conductive coating 9 is provided (d).

According to the above-described manufacturing method, the intended multi-nozzle head 1 integrated with the ink tank can be provided in a small number of steps and at low cost.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, a multi-nozzle head mounted on an electrostatic suction type ink jet apparatus can be manufactured at a low cost with a simple structure and contributes to downsizing of the apparatus. A head was realized. In addition, the problem of head imbalance when the head is tilted, which is raised in the multi-nozzle head integrated with the ink tank, can be solved by adopting a divided structure in which the ink storage section is partitioned in the longitudinal direction by partition walls. Further, according to the manufacturing method of the present invention, an intended multi-nozzle head integrated with an ink tank can be provided at a relatively simple process at a low cost.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a recording apparatus showing an embodiment of a multi-nozzle head mounted on an electrostatic suction type inkjet apparatus.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a multi-nozzle head showing an embodiment in which a part is improved.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a multi-nozzle head showing a comparative example of FIG. 2;

FIGS. 4 (a), (b), (c) and (d) are cross-sectional views showing steps of manufacturing a multi-nozzle head.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a recording apparatus showing a conventional example of an electrostatic suction type inkjet apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Multi-nozzle head (plastic container) 1A Nozzle plate (bottom of container) 1a Ink tank 1b Partition wall 2 Nozzle 2a Nozzle hole (small hole) 3 Back electrode substrate 4 Back electrode 5 Recording medium 6 Electric circuit pattern 7 Electrode pattern line 8 Driver IC 9 conductive film 10 resist K ink

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) B41J 2/06 B41J 2/16

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A resist is provided on the lower surface of the bottom of a plastic container.
And then drill a small hole to form a nozzle hole at the bottom of the container.
Conductive metal coating on the inner surface of the container including the inner surface of the small hole
The above resist applied to the bottom surface of the bottom of the container
A multi-nozzle head of an electrostatic suction type ink jet device, which is obtained by removing the ink. 2. The multi-nozzle head according to claim 1, wherein the ink reservoir inside the container is partitioned into a plurality of parts by a partition wall in a longitudinal direction. 3. A resist is applied to the lower surface of the bottom of a plastic container, and then a small hole for forming a nozzle hole is formed in the bottom of the container. Then, a conductive metal film including the inner peripheral surface of the small hole is formed on the inner surface of the container. A method for manufacturing a multi-nozzle head, comprising plating and then removing the resist applied to the lower surface of the bottom of the container.