JPH1081024A - Printer ink tank - Google Patents

Abstract

[PROBLEMS] To reliably and smoothly supply ink impregnated in a porous material to a recording head. SOLUTION: A tank container 40 provided with an ink supply port 3 is compressed by a lid 50 so as to be in contact with the ink supply port 3 and accommodates an ink impregnated member 60 to supply ink from the ink impregnated member. The ink is sucked into the mouth and discharged to the recording head.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink tank for a printer that performs recording using ink.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, JP-A-50-9936 and JP-A-55-9936
No. 42874, U.S. Pat.No. 3,441,950.In a recording apparatus using ink, in order to prevent ink leakage, an ink tank is filled with a porous material to form a porous material. The ink is impregnated and held by the capillary force of the porous material.

[0003]

However, in these ink tanks, the ink is held in the entire porous material by the capillary tube. Therefore, when the ink is consumed by printing and the amount of ink in the tank decreases, the ink is supplied from the ink supply port. It is difficult to discharge the distant ink to the ink supply port, and there is a problem in that the supply of the ink to the print head is delayed, which causes a problem in printing. The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and a purpose thereof is to use an ink held in a porous material,
An object of the present invention is to provide an ink tank for a printer that can reliably and smoothly discharge a recording head.

[0004]

According to the present invention, an ink impregnating member made of a porous material is accommodated in a tank container, and an ink supply for connecting the tank container to a recording head is provided. In an ink tank of a printer for supplying ink to the recording head through a port, an ink tank body having an ink supply port on a surface facing an opening, a lid, and the ink supply compressed by the lid. An ink-impregnated member housed in the ink tank body in a state of being in contact with the mouth.

[0005]

Since the ink impregnating member near the ink supply port is resiliently pressed and comes into contact with the ink supply port, the ink of the ink impregnation member can be drawn to the ink supply port and discharged to the recording head.

[0006]

1 and 2 show one embodiment of an ink-type wire dot printer using an ink tank according to the present invention. In this embodiment, a four-color color printer plotter is shown. Black, red,
A green and blue ink system and one recording wire for each color are provided for each of them. For this reason, when one or both of the head and the recording paper are moved to project a wire corresponding to a desired color of the recording head to a predetermined position on the recording paper, a dot is formed on the recording paper, and characters and figures are formed. I can draw.

[0007] An ink tank 2 of the present invention is detachably disposed above the head. The ink tank 2 has a two-body structure including an ink tank 2b for black ink and a tank 2a for the color ink, which is divided into three parts. The ink is impregnated in an ink impregnating member 60 made of a porous material filled in the ink tank 2.

The ink supply port 3 for supplying ink from the ink immersion member 60 to the head is provided on a surface that is lower when the head is mounted on the head and at a position deviated to one side from the center in the longitudinal direction. When the ink guide member 12 communicating with the head is inserted here, the ink guide member 12 projects into the tank as shown in FIG. The ink guide member 12 has an ink guide hole 12b extending in the axial direction.
Is provided, and the ink flows into the recording head 1 through the guide hole 12b. The width and the depth of the ink guide hole 12b are set to appropriate values that can be supplied stably from the ink impregnated member 60.

The ink guide member 12 has an annular guide member 12a at the front thereof, and has an ink guide hole 12b and an inner guide 12a.
It communicates with c. A wire guide 13 is incorporated in the annular guiding member 12a, and A and A
A gap indicated by B is provided. Further, since the gap between the wire 11 and the wire guide hole 13a of the wire guide 13 is small, the ink is transferred from the ink tank 2 to the ink guiding member 1a.
The ink is guided to the distal end of the wire 11 through gaps A and B between the second ink guide hole 12b and the wire guide 13.

In the wire driving device, a yoke 18 having a coil core 16 wound with a coil 17, a yoke plate 19 and a plunger 15 form a magnetic circuit, and the movement of the plunger 15 is transmitted to the wire 11 via the clapper 14. Is configured. Further, the wire driving device includes a cover 21.
And the operating length of the clapper 14 is regulated. At the time of standby, the wire 11 has its distal end face located deeper than the distal end face of the wire guide 13 and the wire guide hole 13a.
The length is set so as to be covered by the meniscus of the ink formed at the front of the.

Next, the operation will be described. FIG. 2 shows a state in which the coil 17 is energized.
Is sucked. As a result, the clapper 14 to which the plunger 15 is fixed rotates, and the wire 11 engaged at the tip of the clapper 14 protrudes. The front end surface of the wire penetrates the ink meniscus and collides with a recording paper (not shown) with the ink attached to the front end surface to transfer the ink to the recording paper. On the other hand, in the state where the wire is waiting, the wire 1
1 is located inside the end face of the wire guide 13, it is located in the ink meniscus formed before the tip face of the wire, and therefore the wire 11
The ink is sequentially attached to the front end of the wire by projecting and retracting.

The details of the ink dot printing operation such as the transfer of the ink to the tip of the wire described above are described in JP-A-57-678.
Since it is described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3 (Kokai), detailed description thereof is omitted.

The ink remaining on the front surface of the wire guide 13 is drawn by capillary force into a recovery groove 13b formed as a V-shaped narrow groove provided on the front surface and side surfaces. It is refluxed.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of an ink tank characterized by the present invention.
The ink supply port 3 is provided on one surface so as to be biased toward one side, and a plurality of narrow grooves 45a, 45b, 45c are formed on the bottom surface as shown in detail in FIG. A rib 46 is provided on the inner surface of the side wall 40c of the ink tank body 40.
a and 46b are formed. (See FIG. 4, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the impregnated member is formed such that the first porous material 62 having a small average pore diameter is a lower layer, and the second porous material 61 having a large average pore diameter is an upper layer. .)

On the other hand, the ink impregnating member 60 accommodated in the ink tank main body 40 is configured such that the front part 60a and the rear part 60b that are in contact with the ink supply port 3 of the ink tank main body 40 have different thicknesses. The thickness H of the portion 60a on the ink supply port 3 side is set to be larger than the depth D of the tank body 40.

For this reason, when the ink impregnating member 60 is accommodated in the ink tank body 40, only the front portion 60a, that is, the vicinity of the ink supply port 3 is resiliently pressed by the tank lid 50 to the ink supply port 3 to be in contact therewith. Become. Further, since the ink supply port 3 is formed so as to be deviated to one wall of the ink tank main body 40, the spread of the ink impregnating member 60 due to the compression is restricted by the three walls.

Therefore, even if the ink impregnated member 60 is made of a porous material having a uniform average pore diameter, the ink impregnated member 60 has a front 60
a, that is, the average hole diameter in the vicinity of the ink supply port 3 becomes smaller than the original hole diameter due to the compression, and is accommodated in the tank body 40 in a state where the average hole diameter continuously increases as it goes back.

Also, the narrow grooves 45a, 45 on one surface 40a
A small space is formed between the inner surface of the tank main body and the ink impregnated member 60 by the b, 45c and the ribs 46a, 46b. As a result, the ink overflowing from the ink impregnating member 60 due to the temperature change is removed from the narrow grooves 45a, 45b, 45c,
And can be accommodated in the space formed by the ribs 46a and 46, thereby preventing leakage of ink from the tank due to temperature change.

When the ink tank constructed as described above is mounted on the recording head, the ink guide member 12 is in contact with the ink impregnating member 60 so as to repress the ink impregnating member 60 as shown in FIG. The ink supplied to the recording head 1 from the port 3 and the ink located far from the ink supply port 3 are also drawn by the capillary force of the ink impregnated member 60,
The ink impregnated in the ink impregnating member 60 can be smoothly supplied to the recording head 1.

[0020]

As described above, in the present invention, the ink impregnated member made of a porous material is accommodated in a tank container,
In an ink tank of a printer that supplies ink to a recording head through an ink supply port that connects a tank container and a recording head, an ink tank body having an ink supply port on a surface facing the opening, a lid, The ink impregnated member housed in the ink tank body while being compressed by the lid and in contact with the ink supply port. The separated ink can be drawn to the ink supply port by the capillary force of the ink impregnation member, and even if the ink impregnation member has an extremely large bottom area compared to the diameter of the ink supply port, the ink of the ink impregnation member can be reliably discharged. To the recording head.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of an ink type wire dot printer head using an ink tank of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing an example of an ink type wire dot printer head equipped with the ink tank of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view showing one embodiment of the ink tank of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective sectional view showing another embodiment of the ink tank of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Recording head 2 Tank 3 Ink supply port 12 Ink guide member 50 Tank lid 60 Ink impregnating member

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An ink tank for a printer, wherein an ink impregnated member made of a porous material is accommodated in a tank container and ink is supplied to the recording head through an ink supply port connecting the tank container and the recording head. An ink tank main body having an ink supply port on a surface facing the opening, a lid, and an ink impregnated member stored in the ink tank main body in a state of being compressed by the lid and in contact with the ink supply port. Printer ink tank consisting of. 2. The ink tank of a printer according to claim 1, wherein said ink supply port is formed so as to be deviated to one wall surface. 3. The ink tank according to claim 1, wherein the ink impregnating member is more strongly compressed in the vicinity of the ink supply port than in other areas. 4. The ink tank according to claim 1, wherein an ink guide hole projects from the ink supply port into the ink tank body.