High speed digital fabric printer

Claim 2

A digital printing system for printing on fabric material, said printing system comprising: (1) means for moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; (2) a digital print head assembly located along said transport path, said print head assembly including: (a) a plurality of drop-emitter nozzles extending across the web transport path, (b) a body of ink associated with said nozzles, (c) a pressurizing device adapted to subject ink in said body of ink to a pressure of at least 2% above ambient pressure, at least during drop selection and separation to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface, (d) drop selection apparatus operable upon the air/ink interface to select predetermined nozzles and to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles, and (e) drop separation apparatus adapted to cause ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and (3) a control adapted to operate said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 3

The invention defined in claim 1 wherein: the integral array of print nozzles includes a plurality of web width rows of nozzles; and said body of ink supplies a plurality of different color inks respectively to different nozzle rows.

Claim 4

The invention defined in claim 2 wherein said array comprises a monolithic silicon printing head having nozzles and driver circuitry fabricated thereon.

Claim 5

The invention defined in claim 2 wherein said control comprises: an image formation work station; a raster image processor adapted to produce digital halftone binary image data from said work station data; and digital memory associated respectively with each print head array for storing actuation data from said processor to be repeatedly addressed to said nozzle arrays during pattern printing.

Claim 6

A digital printing system for printing on fabric material, said printing system comprising: (1) means for moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; (2) a digital print head assembly located along said transport path, said print head assembly including: (a) a plurality of drop-emitter nozzles extending across the web transport path, (b) a body of ink associated with said nozzles, said body of ink forming a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle, (c) drop selection apparatus operable upon the air/ink interface to select predetermined nozzles and to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles, and (d) drop separation apparatus adapted to cause ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles, said drop selection apparatus being capable of producing said difference in meniscus position in the absence of said drop separation apparatus; and (3) control means for operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 7

A digital printing system for printing on fabric material, said printing system comprising: (1) means for moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; (2) a digital print head assembly located along said transport path, said print head assembly including: (a) a plurality of drop-emitter nozzles extending across the web transport path, (b) a body of ink associated with said nozzles, said body of ink forming a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle, (c) drop selection apparatus operable upon the air/ink interface to select predetermined nozzles and to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles, and (d) drop separation apparatus adapted to cause ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles, said drop selection apparatus being capable of producing said difference in meniscus position in the absence of said drop separation apparatus; and (3) control means for operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 8

A digital printing system for printing on fabric material, said printing system comprising: (1) means for moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; (2) a digital print head assembly located along said transport path, said print head assembly including: (a) a plurality of drop-emitter nozzles, (b) a body of ink associated with said nozzles, said body of ink forming a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle and said ink exhibiting a surface tension decrease of at least 10 mN/m over a 30° C. temperature range, (c) drop selection apparatus operable upon the air/ink interface to select predetermined nozzles and to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles, and (d) drop separation apparatus adapted to cause ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and (3) control means for operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 9

A digital printing system for printing on fabric material, said printing system comprising: (1) means for moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; (2) a digital print head assembly located along said transport path, said print head assembly including: (a) a plurality of drop-emitter nozzles, (b) a body of ink associated with said nozzles, said body of ink forming a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle and said ink exhibiting a surface tension decrease of at least 10 mN/m over a 30° C. temperature range, (c) drop selection apparatus operable upon the air/ink interface to select predetermined nozzles and to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles, and (d) drop separation apparatus adapted to cause ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and (3) control means for operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 10

A process for printing on fabric material, said process comprising the steps of: moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; providing a body of ink associated with said nozzles; subjecting ink in said body of ink to a pressure of at least 2% above ambient pressure to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface; operating upon the air/ink interface of selected nozzles to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles; causing ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 11

A process for printing on fabric material, said process comprising the steps of: moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; providing a body of ink associated with said nozzles; subjecting ink in said body of ink to a pressure of at least 2% above ambient pressure to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface; operating upon the air/ink interface of selected nozzles to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles; causing ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 12

A process for printing on fabric material, said process comprising the steps of: moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; providing a body of ink associated with said nozzles to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle; selecting predetermined nozzles by operation on its air/ink interface to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles; causing ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles, said drop selecting means being capable of producing said difference in meniscus position in the absence of said drop separation means; and operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 13

A process for printing on fabric material, said process comprising the steps of: moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; providing a body of ink associated with said nozzles to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle; selecting predetermined nozzles by operation on its air/ink interface to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles; causing ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles, said drop selecting means being capable of producing said difference in meniscus position in the absence of said drop separation means; and operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 14

A process for printing on fabric material, said process comprising the steps of: moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; providing a body of ink associated with said nozzles to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle, said ink exhibiting a surface tension decrease of at least 10 mN/m over a 30° C. temperature range; selecting predetermined nozzles by operation on its air/ink interface to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles; causing ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.

Claim 15

A process for printing on fabric material, said process comprising the steps of: moving a fabric web of uniform width along a transport path from a supply to a take up station; providing a body of ink associated with said nozzles to form a meniscus with an air/ink interface at each nozzle, said ink exhibiting a surface tension decrease of at least 10 mN/m over a 30° C. temperature range; selecting predetermined nozzles by operation on its air/ink interface to generate a difference in meniscus position between ink in selected and non-selected nozzles; causing ink from selected nozzles to separate as drops from the body of ink, while allowing ink to be retained in non-selected nozzles; and operating said print head assembly, in timed relation with the movement of said web and under the control of pattern data, to print predetermined fabric patterns.