Abstract: Current fluid ejector maintenance techniques do not adequately deal with moveable debris particles present in the fluid supply manifold. Such moveable particles within the fluid supply manifold of a fluid ejector head can cause random ejection defects by clogging, restricting and/or blocking the channel inlets and/or filters present in the channel inlets, causing missed or misfired and/of misdirected drops. At least some of a plurality of fluid ejectors can be fired in a sequential pattern. Sequentially firing the fluid ejectors can move movable particles in the direction of the firing sequence. The moved movable particles can be deposited into non-operative areas within the fluid supply manifold, such as, for example, non-firing fluid ejection locations. The fluid ejectors can be fired in a sequential pattern within blocks of the fluid ejectors. For example, a fluid ejector head with 120 fluid ejectors can fire 1 out of every 20 fluid ejectors.

Abstract: In an ink jet printing process, a desired vacuum is applied to the back side of a print substrate with proper feedback and control. The optimum vacuum exerts a suction force on ink dispersed on the front side of the print substrate to accelerate penetration of the ink into the print substrate and to reduce smear and intercolor bleeding. In addition, the vacuum may be applied in the ink jet printing process in combination with various other techniques including heating of the print substrate at any stage of printing process including before, during, after, and combinations thereof and delaying the time between ink dispersing of two different inks as in the checkerboard printing method. The employment of proper vacuum, inks, and printheads including partial-width or full-width array printheads allows a fast speed multi-color ink jet printing process to be carried out on a print substrate to give high resolution (e.g., 600 spi) multi-color images with good print quality.

Abstract: An ink jet printing system utilizes a heated rotary printing drum for mounting and carrying paper to be printed by one or more thermal ink jet printheads to achieve black or full color printing at high speed. As printing and drying are achieved prior to any transfer of the sheet from the drum, smudging of images is prevented. Such a printing system is capable of producing dried prints that can be immediately stacked and handled without smudging using slow-drying black inks and fast-drying color inks at speeds exceeding 10 pages per minute for color and 20 pages per minute for monochrome black text or images. Hold down of the sheet onto the drum can be achieved using vacuum or electrostatic forces to precisely retain the sheet on the drum until printing and drying are completed. Partial tone printing on multiple passes of the heated drum is provided to eliminate mottle on large solid areas. Heating of the drum can be performed internally or externally.

Abstract: An improved microelectromechanical device, such as a thermal ink jet die or printhead, is formed by the alignment of two planar substrates bonded together by an intermediate thick film layer of patterned polymeric material, such as polyimide. The improved device has a fully cured, patterned thick film layer which is planarized by chemical-mechanical polishing-to improve the bonding strength between the substrates. The planarization removes topographical formations generated during the deposition of the thick film layer and/or during the patterning of the recesses therein.

Abstract: A color ink jet printing device capable of substantially reduced intercolor bleeding includes an ink jet printer having at least one printhead and at least three separate ink supplies in communication with the printhead. A first ink supply contains a slow drying black ink. A second ink supply contains a fast drying black ink. A third ink supply contains a fast drying non-black color ink. Prior to printing, black image potions are determined. The black portions are printed using a pixel priming process, a border substitution process or a combination thereof to reduce intercolor bleed. The pixel priming process first prints a quartertone or halftone pattern using fast drying black ink, followed by subsequent whole tone printing superposed on the primed black image area using a slow drying black ink. The border substitution process analyzes a neighboring matrix of pixels surrounding each black pixel, preferably at least a 5.times.5 matrix, to determine if color pixels other than black are present.

Abstract: A capping device for an ink-jet printhead having a nozzle opening defined in a surface thereof. A deformable member is urged into engagement with the surface at a predetermined pressure, causing a portion of the deformable member to be deformed into the nozzle opening to seal the nozzle opening of the printhead.