Keeping it Working
Ink supply & printhead maintenance

Thursday 11th - Friday 12th July 2002
£650 or Eur.1,045 per registrant, including one nights accommodation and all meals

This course is designed to give a broad overview of ink supply and maintenance techniques. We expect the audience to be principally printer developers, but naturally anyone is welcome. The course is mainly based on extensive patent research, combined with observation and experience with some major ink jet product vendors. The course will explain many of the design rules and issues involved in ink supply and maintenance station design, illustrated by many of the ideas that have been commercially implemented and those that haven’t! Course attendees should go away with a good understanding of the issues involved and be able to work to practical design solutions for their own products.

Mike Willis
Managing Director
Pivotal Resources Limited
Cambridge, England

Mike Willis is the founder and Managing Director of Pivotal Resources, an international marketing and technical consultancy specialising in electronic printing and the graphic arts. In addition he is the publisher of Directions, a service which monitors patents, research papers and significant product launches in the electronic printer market.

During the past 20 years Mike has been based in Cambridge working as an engineer and consultant for a large number of clients in a variety of roles. For 8 years he was Consultant, then Group Leader of Digital Printing at Cambridge Consultants, a subsidiary of Arthur D Little. He has led several major development contracts for electrophotographic printers based on LED and light valve imaging systems, and for the development of a major new office ink jet technology.

In May 1990 Mike was a founder member of Xaar, a company set up to exploit high resolution piezo ink jet technology. He graduated from the Polytechnic of Central London, in 1976 with Honours in Photographic Sciences.
 Hans Moret
General manager
TSI B.V.
Woerden, The Netherlands

Hans Moret has worked in the digital printing industry for over 4 years. Based on the experience of his team TSI is now a main supplier of these technologies to both major companies and smaller companies active in the industry.

Prior to TSI, Hans was Product Manager within a privately owned Dutch trading company, in which position he built up his experience in Business Development. Hans graduated with a B.Sc. Honours degree in Commercial Technologies from the Haagse Hogeschool in The Hague (The Netherlands).

TSI specialises in designing, engineering, prototyping, plastic moulding, assembling and serial manufacturing of new technologies, instruments and parts for the Automotive, Window Decoration and the Digital Printer industry such as ink jet printers and plotters. For a fast growing number of companies TSI is the partner for ink jet related systems such as ink delivery, head adapting, maintenance systems as well as system integration.

Since November 2001 TSI is also the distributor for the Image Analysis Systems from QEA (USA) for Europe and the Middle East.
oCourse Outline
Thursday, 11th July 2002

11.00 am - 1.30 pm Registration

1.30 pm Opening session

Welcome & Introductions

Alvin G. Keene, President
Information Management Institute, Inc.
Mike Willis
Pivotal Resources Ltd

INK JET TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW
o Printhead types
- Thermal ink jet
- Piezo ink jet
o Ink types
o Requirements
- Ink Supply
- Nozzle maintenance
o Product examples

PART 1 INK SUPPLY

 Introduction to ink supply design
o Basic requirements
o Variables
o Problems
o Components
o Active and passive supplies

 Basic options
o On-board ink supplies
o Off-board, service station
o Off-board, connected

 Ink storage
o Ink containment
o Connection
o Venting
o Maintenance of head pressure
o Pressure regulation
o Continuous flow through
o Deaeration
o Multiple printheads

Supply line
o Damping
o Gas diffusion

 System issues
o Bubble removal
o Pressure purging
o Filtering
o Purging

Ink level detection
o Capacitive
o Acoustic
o Inertial
o Optical
o Memory chips
o Out of ink detection

System operation

5.00 pm Adjournment

7.30 pm Dinner

Overnight accommodation at Clare College
 Friday, 12th July 2002

8.15 am -9.00 am Breakfast

9.00 am

Part 2 Printhead maintenance

 Introduction to maintenance station design
o Basic requirements
o Variables
o Problems
o Components
o Active and passive purging
o Laws of housekeeping

Capping
o Requirements
o Decap time and latency
o Vented and sealed caps
o Cap types
o Wet capping

Wiping
o Design issues
o Blade types
o Multi-blade designs
o Lubrication

Non-blade cleaning methods
o Cleaning tapes
o Vacuum cleaning
o Washing

Recovery systems
o Passive
- Spitting
- Spitoon design
- Spit-shine
- Mopping
o Active
- Suction purging
- Washing

 Operating sequences
o Desk-top printers
o Industrial printers
o Adaptive housekeeping

Example designs
o Scaning heads
o Fixed heads
o Arrays

12.30 - 1.30 pm Lunch
 1.30 pm

Part 3 Practical designs & examples
Hans Moret, TSI

Commercial design examples
o Desk-top printers
- Siemens
- Francotyp Postalia JetMail
o Industrial printers
- Aprion Digital Ltd

4.00 pm Adjournment