Ink jet printer with intermediate drum

Claim 1

An ink jet printer having a printhead with a linear array of nozzles for ejecting and propelling liquid ink droplets on demand to form information on a receiving surface, comprising: a rotatable intermediate drum having a thermally conductive surface for receiving ink droplets ejected from the printhead nozzles, the drum having an axis about which the drum is rotated, said drum surface being a suitable film-forming silicone polymeric material having a high surface energy and having a surface roughness to prevent movement of the droplets after receipt by the drum surface; said array of nozzles adjacently confronting the drum surface and being spaced a predetermined distance therefrom in a plane which is parallel to a tangent line to the drum surface, so that the ink droplets impact the drum surface normally producing a large contact angle between the droplet and drum surface, the drum surface roughness in combination with the larger contact angle controlling droplet spread after impact, the droplets on the intermediate drum surface forming reverse reading information for subsequent transfer to a recording medium, whereupon the transferred information will be right reading; means for rotating the drum surface past first and second spaced printer process locations, the droplets forming information on the drum surface at the first location, and the information being transferred from the drum surface to a recording medium at the second location, so that the spacing of the locations prevent contaminating particles from the recording medium at the second location from reaching the printhead nozzles at the first location; and means for heating the drum surface to dehydrate the ink droplets forming the information on the drum surface to minimize print quality degradation after transfer of the information to a recording medium, said drum surface material enabling substantially complete transfer of the dehydrated ink droplets therefrom to the recording medium, so that substantially no residual ink is left on the drum surface.

Claim 9

A method of producing information on a recording medium with an ink jet printer having a printhead which ejects ink droplets on demand from an array of nozzles therein, so that the information does not degrade or cause the recording medium to wrinkle because of absorption of the ink droplets into the recording medium, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a rotatable intermediate drum with a surface between and adjacent an information printing location and an information transferring location in said printer, the drum surface being a suitable film-forming silicone polymeric material with suitable surface energy and surface roughness to prevent ink droplets received thereby from the printhead nozzles from moving or spreading; (b) locating the printhead at the information printing location, the nozzles being confrontingly adjacent the drum surface, so that the ink droplets from the printhead nozzles impact the drum surface normally forming a large contact angle therewith, the large contact angle and the drum surface roughness controlling droplet spread or movement on the drum surface prior to transfer to the recording medium; (c) rotating the drum during or after the printing of information on the drum surface to the transferring location; (d) heating the printed ink droplets forming the information on the drum surface during the rotation of the drum surface from the printing location to the transferring location to dehydrate the ink droplets; and (e) transferring the dehydrated ink droplets forming the information to a recording medium at the transferring location, the drum surface material enabling substantially a complete transfer to the information produced by the dehydrated ink droplets from the drum surface to the recording medium without degradation of the information on the recording medium, so that cleaning of the drum surface is not required.

Claim 10

A method of producing information on a recording medium with an ink jet printer having a printhead which ejects ink droplets on demand from an array of nozzles therein, so that the information does not degrade or cause the recording medium to wrinkle because of absorption of the ink droplets into the recording medium, comprising the steps of: (a) providing a rotatable intermediate drum with a surface between and adjacent an information printing location and an information transferring location in said printer, the drum surface being a suitable film-forming silicone polymeric material with suitable surface energy and surface roughness to prevent ink droplets received thereby from the printhead nozzles from moving or spreading; (b) locating the printhead at the information printing location, the nozzles being confrontingly adjacent the drum surface, so that the ink droplets from the printhead nozzles impact the drum surface normally forming a large contact angle therewith, the large contact angle and the drum surface roughness controlling droplet spread or movement on the drum surface prior to transfer to the recording medium; (c) rotating the drum during or after the printing of information on the drum surface to the transferring location; (d) heating the printed ink droplets forming the information on the drum surface during the rotation of the drum surface from the printing location to the transferring location to dehydrate the ink droplets; and (e) transferring the dehydrated ink droplets forming the information to a recording medium at the transferring location, the drum surface material enabling substantially a complete transfer to the information produced by the dehydrated ink droplets from the drum surface to the recording medium without degradation of the information on the recording medium, so that cleaning of the drum surface is not required.