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Ink jet printer

a jet printer and printer body technology, applied in the direction of printing, other printing apparatus, article separation, etc., can solve the problems of scratch resistance, negative effects of light scattering, glossiness of printed images, etc., and achieve the effect of improving image quality

Inactive Publication Date: 2006-08-17
OCE TECH
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007] It is an object of the present invention to improve the image quality of images printed with an ink jet printer of the type indicated above.
[0009] The present invention is based on the observation that the suction holes may retard or accelerate the ink drying process, and that this may have a visible effect on the printed image.
[0010] For example, in a hot-melt ink jet printer, a sheet, e. g. a sheet of paper, is advanced over the sheet support plate while the image is being printed. At room temperature, the hot-melt ink is solid, and it is therefore necessary that the ink is heated in the printer above its melting point, before it can be jetted onto the paper. In order to obtain a suitable and constant amount of spreading of the ink, the temperature of the sheet support plate and hence the temperature of the paper is controlled such that the ink cools down at an appropriate rate. However, at the positions of the suction holes, the properties of the sheet support plate, especially its heat conduction and its heat capacity, differ from the surrounding parts of the plate. Thereby, heat dissipation is reduced at sheet portions that are positioned above the suction holes. This has negative effects on the scattering of light, the scratch resistance and the glossiness of the printed image. Especially the difference in glossiness is visible in the printed image.
[0011] Similarly, in an ink jet printer in which the ink drying process involves evaporation of a solvent, the flow of air drawn-in through the suction holes may give rise to an accelerated evaporation of the solvent.
[0014] The pattern of suction holes may be adapted to the length of the sheet advance steps such that for any two suction holes that are aligned in the sheet advance direction, the mutual distance of the suction holes in the sheet advance direction is a non-integral multiple of the step length. As a result, when an image portion has rested over a suction hole for a certain time in the interval between two sheet advance steps, this image area will not come to rest over the next suction hole after the next advance step, but will be offset from that hole in the sheet advance direction. Thus, as long as the ink has not dried sufficiently, any point of the printed image will either rest over a suction hole only once or will never rest over a suction hole at all, but no point of the image will rest over a suction hole several times, and this may assure a sufficient uniformity of the ink drying process.

Problems solved by technology

This has negative effects on the scattering of light, the scratch resistance and the glossiness of the printed image.

Method used

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Examples

Experimental program
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Embodiment Construction

[0020] As is shown in FIG. 1, a hot-melt ink jet printer comprises a platen 10 which is intermittently driven to rotate in order to advance a sheet 12, e. g. a sheet of paper, in a direction indicated by an arrow A over the top surface of a sheet support plate 14. A number of transport rollers 16 are rotatably supported in a cover plate 18 and form a transport nip with the platen 10, so that the sheet 12, which is supplied from a reel (not shown) via a guide plate 20, is paid out through a gap formed between an edge of the cover plate 18 and the surface of the sheet support plate 14.

[0021] A carriage 22 which includes a number of ink jet printheads (not shown) is mounted above the sheet support plate 14 so as to reciprocate in the direction of arrows B across the sheet 12. In each pass of the carriage 22, a number of pixel lines are printed on the sheet 12 by means of the printheads which eject droplets of hot melt ink onto the sheet in accordance with image information supplied to...

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Abstract

An ink jet printer including: a sheet support plate having suction holes formed in a sheet support surface thereof; a sheet advance mechanism adapted to advance a sheet step-wise in a sheet advance direction over the sheet support surface; and an imaging system adapted to form an image by depositing liquid ink on the sheet, the ink being allowed to dry-out while the sheet is advanced over the sheet support plate, wherein the suction holes are arranged such that their influence on the ink drying process is essentially uniform over the whole area of the image.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to an ink jet printer including: [0002] a sheet support plate having suction holes formed in a sheet support surface thereof; [0003] a sheet advance mechanism adapted to advance a sheet step-wise in a sheet advance direction over the sheet support surface; and [0004] an imaging system adapted to form an image by depositing liquid ink on the sheet, the ink being allowed to dry-out while the sheet is advanced over the sheet support plate. [0005] In an ink jet printer, a sheet support plate containing suction holes is frequently used for supporting an image receiving sheet and holding the sheet flat on the sheet support plate. By applying a subatmospheric pressure via the suction holes to the bottom side of the sheet, the sheet may be drawn against the top surface of the sheet support plate. The suction holes should be evenly distributed over the surface area of the sheet support plate, so that an essentially uniform suct...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): B65H5/04B65H5/02
CPCB41J11/002B41J11/0085B41J11/06B41J11/00242
Inventor KRUIJT, PIETER G.M.
Owner OCE TECH
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