Liquid residual amount detection apparatus for liquid container

Abstract

A liquid residual amount detection apparatus for a liquid container, includes: a sensor chamber that has a liquid supply port introducing liquid to be delivered from a liquid containing portion, and supplies the liquid to an external liquid consuming apparatus; a diaphragm that defines a part of the sensor chamber and is movable in response to a liquid containing amount in the sensor chamber; a pressure receiving plate that is attached to the diaphragm; a recess portion that is connected to the sensor chamber and is closed by the pressure receiving plate when the liquid containing amount in the sensor chamber becomes a predetermined amount or less; a piezoelectric element that applies vibration to at least a part of the recess portion so as to detect a free vibration state according to the applied vibration; a detection portion that detects an amplitude value or a frequency of a residual vibration waveform of a counter electromotive force by the free vibration state detected by the piezoelectric element; and a calculation portion that calculates a liquid residual amount in the liquid container on the basis of the amplitude value or the frequency of the residual vibration waveform detected by the detection portion.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a liquid remaining amount detection device for a liquid container, and more particularly, to a liquid remaining amount detection device for a liquid container used in a liquid ejection device such as an inkjet recording device. Background technique [0002] Liquid ejection heads of printing and dyeing apparatuses, microdispensers, and commercial recording apparatuses requiring super high-quality printing receive liquid to be ejected from a liquid container. If the recording device is operated without supplying the liquid, that is, when performing dry ejection, the ejection head will be damaged. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the remaining amount of liquid in the container to prevent such damage. [0003] Taking a recording device as an example, various methods for detecting the remaining amount of ink in an ink cartridge serving as a liquid container have been proposed. force and move away from the detection mec...

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Problems solved by technology

[0008] In addition, the following technology has been proposed: Vibration is applied to the sensor chamber in the detection mechanism, and the presence or absence of ink in the sensor chamber is directly detected by detecting the waveform of the residual vibration with a piezoelectric element. However, since the amplitude of the residual vibration is very small, it is difficult Accurately distinguishes the difference in the waveform of residual vibration due to the presence or absence of liquid

[0009] The structure of directly installing the piezoelectric sensor unit on the ink pack of the liquid container in Patent Document 2 has the following difficulty: due to the flexibility of the ink pack, the deformation of the ink pack is not necessarily the same, so the output of the piezoelectric sensor cannot be accurate. Accurately track reductions in remaining ink levels

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