JP2003320679A - Inkjet recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Problem] To provide a recording apparatus capable of easily bending an ink supply tube while maintaining a gas barrier property of ink in ink supply. To provide a recording device capable of reducing the size of the recording device. An ink jet printer includes an ink supply tube that supplies ink from an ink cartridge to a recording head provided on a carriage. The ink supply tube 14 includes movable parts (16a, 16b) that follow the movement of the carriage 17.
The ink supply tube 14 includes a flexible tube 16a having high hardness and a flexible tube 16b having low hardness.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus in which an ink cartridge is arranged on the recording apparatus main body side and ink is supplied from the ink cartridge to a recording head via an ink supply tube.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An ink jet printer as an ink jet type recording apparatus is configured to record print data such as images and characters by ejecting ink drops onto a print medium such as recording paper. An inkjet recording head for ejecting the ink is provided. The recording head is provided, for example, on a carriage that is movable in the width direction of the recording paper.

In an ink jet printer capable of recording on a large-sized recording paper such as A0 size, a large amount of ink is consumed, so that it is necessary to store a large amount of ink. Therefore, it is necessary to use a large capacity ink cartridge. In such a printer, if the ink cartridge storing the ink is mounted on the carriage, the carriage becomes heavy, and not only an excessive load is applied to the carriage drive motor, but also the device is unnecessarily enlarged. is there. Therefore, the following configuration is adopted in which the ink cartridge is mounted on the main body of the inkjet printer.

FIG. 4 is a schematic plan view of a conventional ink jet printer. The inkjet printer 40 includes an ink supply tube 44 that supplies ink from a plurality of ink cartridges 41 to a recording head (not shown) provided on a carriage 47. The carriage 47 reciprocates along the carriage guide 52, and the ink supply tube 44 follows the carriage 47. That is, when the carriage 47 moves from the position shown in FIG. 4A to the position shown in FIG. 4B, the ink supply tube 44 also moves accordingly. A rigid tube 45 is used for a non-movable part of the ink supply tube 44 that is a connection part with the ink cartridge 41 and the carriage 47. The rigid tube 45 is made of a SUS tube or the like.
A flexible tube 46 made of polyethylene or the like is used for the movable portion of the ink supply tube 44. As described above, the rigid tube 45 and the flexible tube 46 are required to efficiently bend the ink supply tube 44 within the limited space of the main body of the inkjet printer 40. Because.

[0005]

However, if a flexible tube having a low hardness is used as the flexible tube, the gas barrier property becomes low. Therefore, there is a possibility that the water content of the ink in the tube is evaporated, the degree of deaeration of the ink inside the tube is lowered, or bubbles are generated inside the tube, and the reliability is lowered.

On the other hand, it is considered to use a flexible tube having a high hardness in order to improve the gas barrier property. However, in such a tube, the tube itself is difficult to bend, and if the radius for bending the tube is made small, the bending durability becomes low and the load of the carriage motor for driving the carriage may increase. Therefore, when a flexible tube having a high hardness is used, it is necessary to design the bending of the tube to be large, which causes a problem that the recording apparatus becomes large.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to make it possible to easily bend the ink supply tube while maintaining the gas barrier property of the ink in the ink supply. To provide a device. It is another object of the present invention to provide a recording device that can be downsized.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 1 supplies ink from an ink cartridge provided on the recording apparatus main body side to a recording head provided on a carriage. Is an ink jet recording apparatus including an ink supply tube for moving the carriage, the ink supply tube having a movable portion that follows the movement of the carriage, and the movable portion of the ink supply tube is flexible in two or more types having different hardnesses. The main point is that it consists of a sex tube.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the ink jet recording apparatus according to the first aspect, the movable portion of the ink supply tube is a flexible tube having a small hardness in the vicinity of the connection portion with the carriage side. The main point is.

A third aspect of the present invention is summarized as the ink jet recording apparatus according to the second aspect, further including guide means for regulating the shape of the flexible tube having a low hardness.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, in the ink jet recording apparatus according to the third aspect, the guide means is provided on the carriage. According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the ink jet recording apparatus according to the first aspect, the movable portion of the ink supply tube has a small hardness in the vicinity of a connecting portion with a non-movable portion connected to the ink cartridge. The gist is that it is a flexible tube.

A sixth aspect of the present invention is summarized as the ink jet recording apparatus according to the fifth aspect, further including guide means for regulating the shape of the flexible tube having the small hardness.

According to a seventh aspect of the invention, in the ink jet recording apparatus according to the fifth aspect, the main body of the recording apparatus is provided with guide means for regulating the shape of the flexible tube having the small hardness. And

The invention described in claim 8 is the ink jet recording apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein:
At least one of both ends of the movable portion of the ink supply tube is connected to the carriage side or the ink cartridge side via a rigid tube.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, an ink supply tube for supplying ink from an ink cartridge provided on the recording apparatus main body side to a recording head provided on a carriage is provided, and the ink supply tube is the carriage. An ink jet recording apparatus having a movable part that follows the movement of the ink supply tube, wherein the movable part of the ink supply tube comprises a flexible tube and a rigid tube.

According to a tenth aspect of the invention, in the ink jet recording apparatus according to the ninth aspect, a plurality of the flexible tubes and the rigid tubes are alternately arranged. (Operation) According to the invention of claim 1, in the movable portion of the ink supply tube, two or more types of flexible tubes having different hardness are used. Therefore, in the portion where the flexible tube having a low hardness is used, the tube can be easily bent. Therefore, it is possible to design the bending radius of the tube to be smaller in the bent portion of the tube, as compared with a flexible tube having a high hardness. Therefore, the length of the entire ink supply tube can be shortened. In addition, the recording device can be downsized depending on the length and position of the flexible tube having low hardness. In addition, in the movable part of the ink supply tube, not only a flexible tube having a low hardness but also a flexible tube having a high hardness is used in combination. Therefore, a higher gas barrier property can be maintained.

According to the second aspect of the invention, a flexible tube having a low hardness is used in the vicinity of the connecting portion with the carriage side. Therefore, the radius for bending the tube can be reduced near the connecting portion with the carriage side. Therefore, the length of the entire ink supply tube can be shortened, and the recording apparatus can be downsized.

According to the third and sixth aspects of the invention, the bending of the flexible tube having a low hardness can be prevented by the guide means.
For this reason, it is possible to prevent the ink supply tube from being blocked or broken, and it is possible to prevent a decrease in reliability.

According to the invention of claim 4, since the guide means is provided in the carriage, the guide means follows the movement of the carriage. Therefore, by this guide means,
The shape of the ink supply tube that follows the movement of the carriage can be efficiently regulated. Further, since the guide means is provided on the carriage, it is not necessary to separately secure a space for configuring the guide means.

According to the fifth aspect of the invention, a flexible tube having a low hardness is used in the vicinity of the connecting portion with the non-movable portion connected with the ink cartridge. Therefore, the radius of bending of the tube can be reduced in the vicinity of the connecting portion with the non-movable portion. Therefore,
The total length of the ink supply tube can be shortened.

According to the seventh aspect of the invention, the guide means is provided in the recording apparatus main body. This guide means can be provided in a recording device in which a flexible tube having a low hardness is connected to a non-movable part connected to the ink cartridge. At this time, in the flexible tube portion having low hardness, the shape of the flexible tube having low hardness can be efficiently regulated.

According to the eighth aspect of the invention, at least one of both ends of the movable portion of the ink supply tube is a rigid tube, so that a good gas barrier property is provided near the connection portion with the carriage side or the ink cartridge side. Can be held.

According to the ninth aspect of the invention, the movable portion of the ink supply tube is composed of the flexible tube and the rigid tube. Therefore, in the rigid tube portion, the gas barrier property of the ink supply tube can be enhanced, and in the flexible tube portion, the tube can be easily bent. Therefore, it is possible to design a small radius for bending the tube in the portion where the tube is bent. Therefore, the length of the entire ink supply tube can be shortened. In addition, the recording device can be downsized depending on the length and position of the flexible tube having low hardness.

According to the tenth aspect of the invention, since a plurality of rigid tubes and flexible tubes are alternately arranged, the flexible tubes are arranged at the portions where the tubes need to be bent,
A rigid tube may be provided for the portion of the tube that does not require bending. Therefore, it is possible to maintain the gas barrier property of the tube while increasing the flexibility of bending the ink supply tube.

[0025]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS (First Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer 10 as an inkjet recording apparatus of this embodiment. FIG. 5 shows an inkjet printer 1 as an inkjet recording apparatus.
It is a schematic conceptual diagram of 0.

As shown in FIG. 5, the ink jet printer 10 supplies the ink in the ink cartridge 11 to the recording head 19 through the ink supply tube 14 and the pressure damper 18 provided on the carriage 17. . The recording head 19 has nozzle openings for ejecting ink droplets, and ejects ink droplets onto a printing medium such as recording paper to record print data such as images and characters. The inkjet printer 10 is configured so that the ink cartridge 11 is not mounted on the carriage 17. As an inkjet printer having such a configuration, for example, there is a printer capable of printing on a large-sized recording paper such as an A0 size printer and needs to store a large amount of ink because the ink consumption is large. In such an ink jet printer, if the ink cartridge 11 storing a large amount of ink is mounted on the carriage 17, the carriage 17 becomes heavy and an excessive load is applied to the carriage drive motor. Further, since it is necessary to use a large capacity ink cartridge 11, there is a problem that the device is unnecessarily increased in size. Therefore, the ink cartridge 11 is not mounted on the carriage 17.

The ink cartridge 11 is housed in an ink cartridge holder 13 arranged on the main body side of the ink jet printer 10. (In this specification, the main body of the inkjet printer (recording apparatus) or on the main body means the area inside the main body of the inkjet printer (recording apparatus) and not at least on the carriage.) Ink cartridge 11 Inside the
The ink pack 12 is provided, and the ink pack 12
Ink is filled inside. Ink cartridge 1
1 is provided for each color of ink, and in this embodiment, cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y),
Four ink cartridges for black (BK) are provided. The needle mounting portion 20 is provided at one end of the ink pack 12.
Is formed, and the needle 21 provided on the ink cartridge holder 13 is configured to be mounted on the needle mounting portion 20. The needle 21 is connected to one end of the ink supply tube 14 and can supply ink to the pressure damper 18. The ink supply tubes 14 and the pressure dampers 18 are also provided in the same number as that of each ink cartridge 11. Details of the ink supply tube 14 will be described later.

As shown in FIG. 1, the carriage 17 is reciprocally mounted along a carriage guide 22 arranged in the same direction as the width direction (main scanning direction) of the recording paper. The leftmost end of the movement range of the carriage 17 is a non-printing area, and is a position where the carriage 17 moves when printing is stopped and during maintenance (see FIG. 1A). Further, the rightmost end is a position that can be moved at the time of printing and is at the maximum distance from the leftmost end (see FIG. 1B).

Inside the carriage 17, the pressure damper 1
8 is attached. The pressure damper 18 suppresses the fluctuation of the ink pressure due to the reciprocating movement of the carriage 17. A recording head 19 is provided on the lower surface of the carriage 17, and an ink flow path is formed so that ink is supplied from the pressure damper 18 to the recording head 19.
The recording head 19 includes a filter, an ink supply pipe, a piezoelectric vibrator, a flow path unit, a nozzle opening, and the like, which are not shown. The recording head 19 ejects ink droplets from the nozzle openings by expanding and contracting the pressure chambers with a piezoelectric vibrator.

In FIG. 5, a cap 23 is provided below the recording head 19. The cap 23 is
The recording head 1 is formed in a bottomed shape, and the upper opening is formed.
It is designed to cap 9. Cap 23
Are arranged in the non-printing area of the inkjet printer 10, and by closing the nozzle openings of the recording head 19 during non-recording, the evaporation of water in the ink is prevented and a cleaning operation for sucking the ink in the recording head 19 is performed. . The bottom portion of the cap 23 is in communication with the suction tube 24, and the suction pump 25 disposed in the middle of the suction tube 24 forcibly sucks the ink from the recording head 19 to the cap 23 side. .
The ink sucked by the suction pump 25 is collected in the waste liquid collection box 26. A plurality of layers of waste liquid absorbing material 27 are provided in the waste liquid collecting box 26 to store the collected ink.

Next, the ink supply tube 14 will be described. The ink supply tube 14 is composed of a non-movable part and a movable part. The non-movable parts of the ink supply tube 14 are composed of rigid tubes 15a and 15b, respectively. For the rigid tubes 15a and 15b, SUS tubes are used as a material having a high gas barrier property. The rigid tube 15 a is connected to the pressure damper 18 of the carriage 17, and the rigid tube 15 b is connected to the ink cartridge 11. The movable portion is composed of two types of flexible tubes 16 having different hardnesses. Both ends of the flexible tube 16 are connected to the rigid tubes 15a and 15b, respectively. In the flexible tube 16, a flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is connected to the rigid tube 15a (on the side of the carriage 17) and a rigid tube 15b (ink cartridge 1).
Flexible tube 1 with high hardness in the connection part with (1 side)
6a are respectively connected. Flexible tube 16
For a and 16b, polyethylene having a high hardness and polyethylene having a low hardness are used. The carriage 17 is provided with a guide member 28 on its right side surface (that is, the surface on the side where the flexible tube 16 is disposed in the inkjet printer 10). This guide member 28
When the carriage moves to the right, the flexible tube 16b having low hardness is guided along the guide member 28.

Next, the operation of this printer will be described. First, with the inkjet printer 10,
Before printing on the recording paper, the carriage 17 is set to the position shown in FIG.
As shown in (a), it is placed at the leftmost end. And
When printing is started, the carriage 17 reciprocates along the carriage guide 22. At this time, ink is supplied from the ink cartridge 11 to the recording head 19 through the ink supply tube 14 and ejected from the nozzle.

The carriage 17 is, as shown in FIG.
When moved to the rightmost end, the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness bends along the guide member 28. The bending radius at this time is smaller than the bending radius of the conventional ink supply tube 14.

In addition, when the use is stopped for a long time,
Since there is a possibility that the quality of the ink has deteriorated in the flexible tube 16b portion having a low hardness, maintenance is performed. For the maintenance work, the ink in the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is sucked by the suction pump 25,
It is discharged from the recording head 19 and stored in the waste liquid collection box 26. Since the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is arranged near the recording head 19, it can be easily discharged from the recording head 19. Therefore, the first
According to the embodiment, the following effects can be obtained.

(1) In the above embodiment, in the movable portion of the ink supply tube 14, the flexible tube 16a having a high hardness and the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness are provided.
Uses a flexible tube of the type. Therefore, in the portion where the flexible tube 16b having low hardness is used, the tube can be easily bent.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 4, the conventional ink supply tube 44 is composed of only the flexible tube 46 having a large hardness in its movable portion. Therefore, when the carriage 47 moves to the rightmost end, as shown in FIG. 4B, the tube itself is hard to bend and the radius for bending becomes large.

On the other hand, in this embodiment, since the flexible tube 16b having a small hardness is used on the carriage 17 side, the tube itself is easily bent, and is bent as compared with the conventional ink supply tube 44 of FIG. 4B. The radius for can be designed smaller. Therefore, as compared with the conventional inkjet printer 40, the inkjet printer 10 can be downsized by the width m1 of the portion shown by the chain double-dashed line in FIG. Therefore, while maintaining good gas barrier properties,
The length of the ink supply tube 14 can be shortened,
The inkjet printer 10 can be downsized.

(2) In the above embodiment, the carriage 17
A guide member 28 for restricting the shape of the flexible tube 16b having a small hardness is provided on the right side of the. Therefore, bending of the flexible tube 16b having low hardness can be prevented.
Therefore, it is possible to prevent the tube from being blocked or broken. Further, since the guide member 28 is provided on the carriage 17, it is not necessary to separately secure a space for forming the guide member 28 in the inkjet printer 10.

(3) In the above embodiment, the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is provided on the carriage 17 side. Therefore, even if deteriorated ink is generated in the flexible tube 16b having low hardness, the ink can be easily discharged from the recording head 19 provided in the carriage 17. Therefore, the quality of the ink in the ink supply tube 14 can be kept good.

(4) In the above embodiment, the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is provided near the recording head 19. Therefore, in order to discharge the deteriorated ink in the flexible tube 16b, it is possible to reduce the normal discharge amount of the ink on the downstream side. Therefore, it is possible to save ink. (Second Embodiment) A second embodiment of an ink jet recording apparatus embodying the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG. Since the second embodiment is configured only by changing the position of the flexible tube having a low hardness and the position of the guide member of the first embodiment, detailed description of similar parts will be omitted. To do.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the ink jet printer of this embodiment. FIG. 2A shows the carriage 17.
Is located at the leftmost end, and FIG. 2B is a view when the carriage 17 is located at the rightmost end. The flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is connected to the non-movable part connected to the ink cartridge. This non-movable part is made of a rigid tube 15b. Also, the rigid tube 15a
The flexible tube 16a having high hardness is connected to the (carriage 17 side). The guide member 29 as guide means is provided on the main body of the inkjet printer 10 and between the carriage guide 22 and the ink cartridge 11. The guide member 29 is provided at a position where it comes into contact with the flexible tube 16b having low hardness when the carriage 17 moves to the leftmost end shown in FIG. The carriage 17 is not provided with the guide member 28 as in the first embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 2A, the carriage 17
When is moved to the leftmost end, the flexible tube 16b having low hardness bends along the guide member 29 installed on the main body of the inkjet printer 10. Therefore, it is possible to prevent bending of the flexible tube 16b having low hardness. The bending radius of the ink supply tube 14 at this time is the same as that of the conventional ink supply tube 4.
It is smaller than the bending radius of 4.

Therefore, according to the second embodiment, the following effects can be obtained. (5) In the above embodiment, the ink supply tube 14 is
Since the flexible tube 16 is composed of two types of flexible tubes 16 having different hardnesses, the gas barrier property can be enhanced as compared with the case where only the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness is used.

A flexible tube 16b having a small hardness is used near the connecting portion with the rigid tube 15b. Therefore, the bending radius of the ink supply tube 14 when the carriage 17 moves to the leftmost end can be designed to be small. Therefore, the length of the entire tube can be shortened while maintaining good gas barrier properties.

(6) In the above embodiment, the flexible tube 1 having a small hardness is provided on the main body of the ink jet printer 10.
A guide member 29 for regulating the shape of 6b is provided. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the flexible tube 16b having a low hardness from being bent and to prevent the tube from being blocked or broken.

(Third Embodiment) A third embodiment of an ink jet recording apparatus embodying the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.
Follow the instructions below. Since the third embodiment has a configuration in which the configuration of the ink supply tube of the first embodiment is only changed, detailed description of the same portions will be omitted.

FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view of the ink jet printer of this embodiment. FIG. 3A shows the carriage 17.
Is located at the leftmost end, and FIG. 3B is a view when the carriage 17 is located at the rightmost end. In the movable portion of the ink supply tube 14, a plurality of flexible tubes 16b having low hardness and rigid tubes 15c are alternately connected. In the present embodiment, the flexible tube 16 having low hardness
Four b are connected and three rigid tubes 15c are connected.
Both ends of the movable portion of the ink supply tube 14 are composed of flexible tubes 16b having low hardness. Therefore, the movable portion bends to another stage and follows the movement of the carriage 17.

FIG. 3A shows the carriage 17 moved to the leftmost end. Since the flexible tubes 16b having low hardness are arranged at both ends of the movable portion of the ink supply tube 14, the ink supply tube 1 at this time is
The bending radius of No. 4 is smaller than that of the conventional ink supply tube 14. FIG. 3B shows a state in which the carriage 17 has moved to the rightmost end. The bending radius of the ink supply tube 14 at this time can be designed to be smaller than that of the conventional ink supply tube 44.

Therefore, according to the third embodiment, the following effects can be obtained. (7) In the above embodiment, the ink supply tube is configured to include the rigid tube 15 and the flexible tube 16b having low hardness. The rigid tube 15 has a higher gas barrier property than the flexible tube 16. Therefore, the ink supply tube 14 can have a high gas barrier property as a whole.

Further, since flexible tubes 16b having low hardness are provided at both ends of the movable portion of the ink supply tube 14, the bending radius of the ink supply tube 14 can be designed to be small. Therefore, as compared with the conventional inkjet printer 40, the width m2 and the width m3 of the inkjet printer 10 shown by the two-dot chain line in FIG.
The size can be reduced accordingly. Therefore, a high gas barrier property can be maintained, and the main body of the inkjet printer 10 can be downsized in the vertical and horizontal directions in the plane.

The above embodiments may be modified as follows. The first and second embodiments may be combined and configured. That is, the movable portion of the ink supply tube 14 may be configured by the flexible tube 16a having high hardness and the flexible tubes 16b provided at both ends thereof and having low hardness.
The flexible tube 16b having low hardness is connected to the rigid tubes 15a and 15b, respectively. Further, both of the guide members 28 and 29 for guiding the ink supply tube 14 thus configured may be provided. According to this structure, it is possible to easily bend the connection portion of the ink supply tube 14 with the rigid tubes 15a and 15b.

In the first or second embodiment, the guide members 28 and 29 may be omitted. In the first or second embodiment, the flexible tube 16b having low hardness may be provided with a guide member so as to regulate the shape of the flexible tube 16b having low hardness.

In the third embodiment, the guide member 2
8 and at least one of the guide members 29 are provided,
The shape of the flexible tube 16b may be restricted. In this case, the guide member 29 is the carriage 1
It is necessary to arrange it at a position where it does not overlap the moving position of 7.

In the first or second embodiment, three or more types of flexible tubes having different hardness may be used. With this configuration, it is possible to obtain an ink supply tube in which flexible tubes having different hardness are appropriately used according to the degree of bending of the ink supply tube 14.

In each of the above embodiments, the flexible tube 16 may be made of a flexible material other than polyethylene. In each of the above embodiments, the inkjet printer 1
Although 0 is a printer or the like that can print on large-sized recording paper such as A0 size, the configuration of each embodiment may be applied to an inkjet printer that can print on a recording medium of a size or material other than A0 size.

Next, the technical ideas that can be understood from the above-described embodiments and other examples will be added below along with their effects. (A) In the ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, the movable portion of the ink supply tube has a small hardness in the vicinity of the connection portion with the carriage side and the connection portion with the non-movable portion connected to the ink cartridge. An ink jet recording apparatus, which is a flexible tube.

Therefore, according to the invention described in (a), since the radius for bending the ink supply tube can be designed small, the tube length can be shortened while maintaining the gas barrier property. The recording device can be downsized.

(B) The ink jet recording apparatus described in (a) above, further comprising guide means for regulating the shape of the flexible tube having a low hardness.

Therefore, according to the invention of (b), by controlling the shape of the flexible tube having a low hardness by the guide means, it is possible to prevent the tube from bending and prevent the tube from being blocked or broken. It will be possible. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the reliability of the tube from being deteriorated.

(C) In the ink jet recording apparatus according to the ninth aspect, the movable portion of the ink supply tube is
An ink jet recording apparatus comprising a flexible tube and a rigid tube of two or more types having different hardnesses.

Therefore, according to the invention of (c), a good gas barrier property can be maintained by interposing the rigid tube or the flexible tube having high hardness. With that,
By interposing the flexible tube having a small hardness, it is possible to design the radius for bending the ink supply tube to be small, so that the recording apparatus can be downsized.

[0062]

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a recording apparatus capable of easily bending the ink supply tube while maintaining the gas barrier property by combining the ink supply tubes having different hardness. . Further, it is possible to provide a recording device that can be downsized.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows the first embodiment of the present invention, (a) is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the leftmost end, and (b) is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the rightmost end.

FIG. 2 shows the second embodiment of the present invention, (a) is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the leftmost end, and (b) is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the rightmost end.

FIG. 3 shows the third embodiment of the present invention, (a) is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the leftmost end, and (b) is a schematic plan view of an inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the rightmost end.

FIG. 4A is a schematic plan view of a conventional inkjet printer in which a carriage is located at the leftmost end. FIG. 7B is a schematic plan view of a conventional inkjet printer in which the carriage is located at the rightmost end.

FIG. 5 is a schematic conceptual diagram of an inkjet printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Inkjet printer as recording device 11 ink cartridges 14 Ink supply tube 15 Rigid tube 16 Flexible tube 16a Flexible tube with high hardness 16b Flexible tube with low hardness 28, 29 Guide member as guide means

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An ink supply tube for supplying ink from an ink cartridge provided on the recording apparatus main body side to a recording head provided on a carriage, and
The ink supply tube is an ink jet recording apparatus having a movable part that follows the movement of the carriage, and the movable part of the ink supply tube is made of two or more types of flexible tubes having different hardnesses. Inkjet recording device. 2. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the movable portion of the ink supply tube is a flexible tube having a low hardness in the vicinity of a connecting portion with the carriage side. Inkjet recording device. 3. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising guide means for regulating the shape of the flexible tube having the low hardness. 4. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the guide unit is provided in a carriage. 5. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the movable portion of the ink supply tube has a small hardness in the vicinity of a connection portion with a non-movable portion connected to the ink cartridge. An inkjet recording apparatus characterized by the following. 6. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising guide means for restricting a shape of the flexible tube having a low hardness. 7. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the guide unit is provided in a main body of the recording apparatus. 8. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein at least one of both ends of the movable portion of the ink supply tube is connected to the carriage side or the ink cartridge side via a rigid tube. An ink jet recording apparatus characterized by being connected. 9. An ink supply tube for supplying ink from an ink cartridge provided on the recording apparatus main body side to a recording head provided on a carriage,
The ink supply tube is an ink jet recording apparatus having a movable part that follows the movement of the carriage, wherein the movable part of the ink supply tube comprises a flexible tube and a rigid tube. Recording device. 10. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 9, wherein a plurality of the flexible tubes and the rigid tubes are alternately arranged.