JPH05330067A - Production of ink jet head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the clogging of nozzle grooves with an adhesive and enhance a production yield and printing quality by providing groove parts other than the nozzle grooves to the bonding surface of a passage plate having the nozzle grooves and applying a bonding agent to the bonding surface of the passage plate to integrally bond a substrate. CONSTITUTION:Escape grooves 4 are provided to a passage substrate 1. Since nozzle grooves 3 and the escape grooves 4 are provided to the passage plate 1, an adhesive 5 flows in the escape grooves 4 when a drive plate 6 is bonded to the passage plate 1 and, therefore, the protrusion of the adhesive to the nozzle grooves 3 is reduced. As mentioned above, since the protrusion of the adhesive is eliminated, the clogging of passage grooves or the nozzle grooves with the adhesive is eliminated and a yield is enhanced. Further, since the protrusion of the adhesive is eliminated, the rigidity with an adjacent passage is reduced and the mutual interference from an aspect of granulation characteristics is reduced and granulation is stabilized and printing quality is enhanced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing an inkjet head, and more particularly to a method for joining flow path plates of an inkjet head. For example, it is applied to joining fine parts.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a method for producing an ink jet recording head, for example, fine grooves are formed in a glass or metal plate by cutting or etching, and the plate in which the grooves are formed is joined to another appropriate plate. Then, a method of forming an ink passage is known. However, in the head produced by this conventional method, the roughness of the inner wall surface of the ink passage to be cut is too large, or the ink passage is distorted due to the difference in etching rate, and it is difficult to obtain an accurate ink passage. However, there is a drawback that the ink ejection characteristics of the manufactured inkjet recording head are likely to vary.

A grooved plate having ink passage grooves,
At the time of bonding with a cover plate provided with a driving element such as a piezoelectric element or a heating element that generates energy that acts on ink,
There is a problem in that it is difficult to perform the respective alignments with high precision, and the mass productivity is lacking.

On the other hand, for example, an ink passage wall made of a cured film of a photosensitive resin is formed on a substrate on which an ink ejection pressure generating element is installed, and then a cover for the ink passage wall is attached. A method has been proposed in which a cover in which a photosensitive resin film is laminated on both sides of a support is attached to a substrate provided with an ink passage and then cured by irradiation with ultraviolet rays. The pressing conditions vary depending on the hardness of the film, the shape of the ink passage wall, etc., and there is a drawback that the sagging of the photosensitive resin into the ink passage or the non-adhesion of the cover to the ink passage wall occurs. .. In order to solve this point, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-183158 proposes a "method for manufacturing an inkjet recording head". In this publication, when the flow path plate and the substrate are joined, the flow path plate is used as a member for transmitting electromagnetic waves, and a photosensitive resin film is laminated, and only the surface layer portion of the photosensitive resin film is not formed. The material is cured while being kept in a cured state, and then bonded to the substrate.

The most important thing in bonding with a fine shape is that the adhesive does not overflow. The protrusion to the adhesive increases the area in contact with the ink or the like and is apt to be eroded by the ink, so that the durability is lowered. Also,
If the amount of protrusion of the adhesive is large, there is a problem in terms of particle formation characteristics of the inkjet. Specifically, in a method using a piezoelectric body, there is a problem that they interfere with each other when a plurality of channels are driven. Although the above publication is effective for this problem, it has a drawback that only a transparent material can be used as an adhesive. Also in the comparison of the bonding strength, it has been experimentally confirmed that the strength of bonding by UV irradiation from the semi-cured state is inferior to that of a liquid or paste adhesive.

6 and 7 are views showing an example of joining flow path plates in a conventional ink jet head. FIG. 6 is a front view of joining and FIG. 7 is a plan view of joining. In FIG. 6, a nozzle groove 13 is provided in the flow path plate 11, and when the drive plate 12 is joined, the adhesive 14 protrudes into the nozzle groove 13 and becomes a fluid resistance, which hinders the ink supply or becomes a particle. It also affects other nozzles in terms of characteristics. Further, in FIG. 7, since the bonding margin is large, the air 15 is entrained during the joining, and an air retention portion is generated, which causes a decrease in strength.

In the conventional screen printing, it has been usual that a pattern to be printed is formed on a screen to be printed and then printed. However, if the shape is fine, it is very difficult to align the shape of the material to be printed with the printing pattern, and the adhesive may not be printed on the material to be printed or may be chipped to cause a bonding failure. .. Further, conventionally, the transfer method has generally been a stamp-like method, which has a drawback that unevenness occurs in the adhesive on the article to be bonded.

[0008]

[Purpose] The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and enables a liquid adhesive to be used to improve strength and enables bonding of an opaque material without protruding.
In addition, it is necessary to apply an actual adhesive that does not cause a bonding failure due to the adhesive not being printed or chipped on the material to be printed. The present invention has been made for the purpose of providing a method for manufacturing an inkjet head capable of forming a uniform adhesive layer on the entire surface without unevenness in the mesh portion.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides (1)
A multi-nozzle recording head for ejecting a recording medium liquid from an orifice is manufactured by joining two substrates having a plurality of grooves on at least one of them. A groove portion other than the groove is provided, and a bonding agent is applied to bond and integrate the substrates. Further, (2) the adhesive agent is applied to the flow path plate by screen printing, and the patterning mask is a solid pattern. And (3) applying the adhesive to form a film of the adhesive on the film-forming substrate, and then scanning the flow path plate relative to the film-forming substrate, Is transferred to the flow path plate. Hereinafter, description will be given based on examples of the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a constitutional view for explaining an embodiment of a method of manufacturing an ink jet head according to the present invention, in which 1 is a flow path plate, 2 is a flow path groove, 3 is a nozzle groove, and 4 is a flow path. The escape grooves 5 are adhesives. In the present invention, as described in FIGS. 6 and 7, in order to solve the conventional problems, the flow channel plate 1 is provided with the escape groove 4. The flow path plate can be easily manufactured by etching using photosensitive glass or Si etching. Also, based on these, electroforming can be performed to mold and resin molding is also possible.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of joining the flow path plates of the ink jet head according to the present invention. Since the nozzle groove 3 and the escape groove 4 are provided in the flow path plate 1, the adhesive 5 flows into the escape groove 4 when the drive plate 6 is joined, so that the adhesive does not leak to the nozzle groove 3. The quality is stable and the yield is improved.

FIG. 3 is a view for explaining a screen printing method for applying an adhesive on the flow path plate, and in FIG.
Is a flow path plate, 22 is an adhesive, 23 is a screen, and 24 is a squeegee. The main points for controlling the film thickness of the adhesive by the screen printing method are the screen pattern, the gap between the flow path plate and the screen, and the pressure of the squeegee. The screen pattern in this shows a large proportion, and when applying it to fine parts such as a flow path plate, reliable application can not be done unless the position accuracy of the place to be applied and the pattern position is improved Even when the adhesive was not applied, there were problems such as ink leaking between the flow channel grooves, and a lack of bonding strength. FIG. 8 shows a conventional mask pattern. Since this mask pattern and the coating position on the flow path plate are the same, a very high positional accuracy of ± 0.01 mm is required. However, since the flow path plate of the present invention having a clearance groove has a wider allowable range for controlling the film thickness of the adhesive, it is possible to apply the solid pattern as shown in FIG.

FIGS. 5A to 5D are views showing another method of applying the adhesive according to the present invention, that is, a transfer joining method.
In the figure, 31 is a film-forming substrate, 32 is an adhesive, 33 is a bar coater, and 34 is a flow path plate. In FIGS. 3A and 3B, a uniform adhesive film is formed on the film formation substrate 31 by the bar coater 33. This film thickness is optimally 5 to 10 μm, which can be selected and controlled by the wire difference of the bar when the gap of the bar coater 33 or the wire bar is used. In FIG. 3C, the flow path plate 3 coated with the adhesive 32
4 is placed and pressed with a force of several hundreds of g to ensure the close contact with the film formation substrate 31. In FIG. 3D, the adhesive 32 is removed by scanning the flow path plate 34 and the film formation substrate 31 relatively.
Transfer to the top. The points here are surely transferred to the entire surface by scanning, so that there is no uneven transfer as in the conventional stamp method.

[0014]

[Effect] As is apparent from the above description, the present invention has the following effects. (1) By providing the escape groove on the flow path plate, the adhesive does not overflow, so that the flow path groove and the nozzle groove are not blocked by the adhesive and the yield is improved. Furthermore, since the protrusion does not occur, the rigidity with the adjacent flow path is reduced, mutual interference in particle formation characteristics is reduced, particle formation is stabilized, and print quality is improved. (2) It is possible to perform screen printing when applying the adhesive. A solid pattern can be used as the screen-printed pattern, which eliminates the need for delicate alignment and improves work efficiency. (3) By transferring the adhesive by moving the two surfaces relative to each other, the adhesive can be uniformly applied to the entire surface, and the bonding strength is improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram for explaining an embodiment of a method for manufacturing an inkjet head according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of joining the flow path plates of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a screen printing method for applying an adhesive onto the flow channel plate of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a mask pattern of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a transfer joining method of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of joining conventional flow path plates.

FIG. 7 is a view showing an example of joining conventional flow path plates.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a conventional mask pattern.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Flow path plate, 2 ... Flow path groove, 3 ... Nozzle groove, 4 ... Escape groove,
5 ... Adhesive.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A method of manufacturing an ink jet head comprising a multi-nozzle recording head for ejecting a recording medium liquid from an orifice, wherein two substrates having a plurality of grooves on at least one of them are bonded to each other. A method for manufacturing an ink jet head, characterized in that a groove portion other than the groove is provided on the bonding surface of, and a bonding agent is applied to bond and integrate the substrates. 2. The method of manufacturing an ink jet head according to claim 1, wherein the application of the adhesive is provided on the flow path plate by screen printing, and the patterning mask is a solid pattern. 3. The adhesive is applied to form a film of the adhesive on the film-forming substrate, and then the flow path plate is relatively scanned by aligning the film-forming substrate and the adhesive is applied to the flow path plate. The method of manufacturing an inkjet head according to claim 1, wherein the ink is transferred to the ink.