Printhead with variable nozzle firing sequence

• US 7,578,569 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2007
• Issued: 08/25/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Memjet Technology Ltd. (Memjet Limited)
• Original Assignee: Silverbrook Research Pty Limited
• Inventors: Silverbrook, Kia
• Primary Examiner(s): Do; An H
• Application Number:
  US11/927,163
• Publication Number:
  US 20080079760A1
• Time in Patent Office: 666 Days
• Field of Search: 347 11- 13
• US Class Current: 347/13
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04505 aiming at correcting alignment
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04516 preventing formation of satellite drops
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04518 reducing costs
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/0452 reducing demand in current or voltage
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04528 aiming at warming up the head
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04541 Specific driving circuit
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04543 Block driving
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04553 detecting ambient temperature
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04563 detecting head temperature; Ink temperature
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04565 detecting heater resistance
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/0457 Power supply level being detected or varied
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04571 detecting viscosity
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04585 controlling heads based on thermal bent actuators
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04588 using a specific waveform
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/0459 Height of the driving signal being adjusted
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04591 Width of the driving signal being adjusted
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04593 Dot-size modulation by changing the size of the drop
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04596 Non-ejecting pulses
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/04598 Pre-pulse
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/14427 Structure of ink jet print heads with thermal bend detached actuators
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/155 : for line printing
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1623 : bonding and adhesion
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1628 : dry etching
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1629 : wet etching
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1631 : photolithography
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1632 : machining
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1635 : dividing the wafer into individual chips
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1639 : sacrificial molding
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1642 : thin film formation by CVD [chemical vapor deposition]
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1646 : thin film formation by sputtering
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2/1648 : Production of print heads with thermal bend detached actuators
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 2002/14491 : Electrical connection
• CPC Class Codes: B41J 25/005 : for serial printing movements superimposed to character- or line-spacing movements
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 15/102 : using ink jet print heads
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 29/49401 : Fluid pattern dispersing device making, e.g., ink jet

Abstract

A printhead for an inkjet printer, the printhead comprising: an array of ink ejection nozzles; a plurality of actuators arranged such that one of the actuators corresponds to one of the nozzles respectively in order to eject ink therethrough; a drive circuitry for receiving print data from a print engine controller and distributing fire signals to the actuators; wherein during use, the array of nozzles are fired in a firing sequence determined by the drive circuitry such that the firing sequence for one line of print is different to the firing sequence for the subsequent line of print.

Claims

1. A printhead for an inkjet printer, the printhead comprising:

an array of ink ejection nozzles;

a plurality of actuators arranged such that one of the actuators corresponds to one of the nozzles respectively in order to eject ink therethrough;

a drive circuitry for receiving print data from a print engine controller and distributing fire signals to the actuators;

wherein during use,

the array of nozzles are fired in a firing sequence determined by the drive circuitry such that the firing sequence for one line of print is different to the firing sequence for a subsequent line of print,

wherein the drive circuitry has nozzle enable latches for each of the actuators respectively, each nozzle enable latch holding a fire signal for the nozzles selected to fire in the next line of print, and shift registers for loading the fire signals to the latches in accordance with the print data received from the print engine controller, the shift registers being configured to load the latches of the selected nozzles for one line of print while the nozzles selected for the previous line of print are firing.

2. A printhead according to claim 1 wherein the array of nozzles is supplied with different colored inks and the drive circuitry determines that nozzles of the same color selected to fire in one line of print, are maximally spaced from each other.

3. A printhead according to claim 2 wherein the nozzles of the same color selected to fire in one line of print are fired simultaneously.

4. A printhead according to claim 1 wherein the nozzles, the actuators and the drive circuitry are all fabricated on a single monolithic wafer substrate.

5. A printhead according to claim 4 wherein the printhead is a pagewidth printhead.

6. A printhead according to claim 4 wherein the array has more than 1000 nozzles.

7. A printhead according to claim 6 wherein the shift registers load the latches of the nozzles selected for printing the next line of print in less than 200 microseconds.

8. A printhead according to claim 2 wherein the drive circuitry ensures that a minimum spacing of five nozzles between simultaneously firing nozzles of the same color.

9. A printhead according to claim 2 wherein the drive circuitry divides the nozzles of the same color into groups of less than twenty, and only allows a maximum of one nozzle in each of the groups to fire when printing a single print line.

10. A printhead according to claim 9 wherein the drive circuitry indexes through all the nozzles in each group before firing any nozzle in one group twice.