Abstract: A liquid dispensing device includes at least one piston pump (7), which sucks liquid to be dispensed from a container in a filling cycle and applies the liquid to a target in an emptying cycle and which is driven by an actuator comprising an actuating element (1) that is arranged to move a piston rod (2) between two extreme positions, and a gripper (3) attached to the actuating means (1), which gripper is able to engage with the piston rod (2) so as to move it along with the actuating element. The gripper (3) is made able to engage with the piston rod (2) only in its first extreme position and arranged to disengage automatically from the piston rod in its second extreme position.

Abstract: An apparatus for preventing the drying of at least one nozzle of a fluid dispensing device includes an element providing moist gas, a supply hose for moist gas and a gas controller which forms a space around the nozzle. Moist gas is led into the space around the nozzle from the elements providing gas through the supply hose. Moist gas leaking out of the space is replaced by new moist gas led into the space.

Abstract: A metthod of generating a set of half-tone screens for color printing using a digital computer and an x-y plotter, including the steps of generating and storing a separate and unique screen function matrix for each of the half-tone screens, each matrix comprising a set of light intensity level values in increments going from zero to a maximum, the sequence of numbers being a predetermined pattern that is different for each matrix, gnerating and storing a picture matrix of values representing the pixel portions and desired levels of color intensity of each basic color at the positions in the picture to be printed, creating each screen by dividing each screen area into a plurality of cells, each cell being formed as a binary matrix of elemental areas that are selectively either clear or opaque, assigning one of said converted numerical values from each of said basic colors from said set to each of said cells in the corresponding screens being created; and setting the binary values for the elemental areas within