Process control for improvement of print quality and lifetime of bubble-jet printers

Gerhard Beurer; Eberhard P. Hofer; Joachim Patzer

doi:10.1117/12.175294

9 May 1994 Process control for improvement of print quality and lifetime of bubble-jet printers

Gerhard Beurer, Eberhard P. Hofer, Joachim Patzer

Proceedings Volume 2171, Color Hard Copy and Graphic Arts III; (1994) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.175294
Event: IS&T/SPIE 1994 International Symposium on Electronic Imaging: Science and Technology, 1994, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

This paper is concerned with experimental studies on process control for driving the heating elements of bubble-jet printheads. Process control plays a key role for print quality as well as for life time of bubble-jet printers. An experimental set-up was built which allows the automatic registration of a series of video images. With this set-up it is possible to study the influence of the driving signal on the drop formation from bubble nucleation to printing. The pulse width of a square reference signal has been split into a burst consisting of multiple pulses with smaller pulse widths. The delay and the number of the individual pulses have been varied. An optimal drive signal has been determined and applied to a commercial printhead. As a consequence of this optimization, a reduction of the input energy and an increase of the droplet speed of approximately 30 percent compared to the single square pulse have been achieved while the mass of the droplet remained unchanged. As a result, burst pulses with optimally modulated pulse width contribute to a substantial increase of the life time of printheads. Additionally, in case of satellite droplets their size has been reduced and merging with the main droplet occurs faster which improves the print quality.

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Gerhard Beurer, Eberhard P. Hofer, and Joachim Patzer "Process control for improvement of print quality and lifetime of bubble-jet printers", Proc. SPIE 2171, Color Hard Copy and Graphic Arts III, (9 May 1994); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.175294

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