Design and Fabrication of a Piezoelectric Bend Mode Drop-on-Demand Inkjet Printhead with Interchangeable Nozzle

Abstract:

The drop-on-demand (DOD) inkjet printing technology has been widely used in many fields and several types of droplet generators are developed. This paper presents the design, fabrication and tests of a piezoelectric bend mode drop-on-demand inkjet printhead with interchangeable nozzle. A disk-type PZT is actuated to push the liquid out of inkjet printhead by a function generator, and a droplet is formed because of surface tension. The interchangeable nozzle design enables the same printhead to be fitted with nozzles of different orifice size, thus a clogged nozzle can be easily removed for cleaning or replacement. An experimental platform for micro-droplet jetting is built in this paper. The droplet formation is recorded by a CCD camera as pictures, which can be used to measure the droplet dimension. The experiments are carried out by using the self-developed bend mode piezoelectric inkjet printing system. The influence of the drive parameters on the droplet quality is also studied by dispensing water.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volume 819)
• Pages: 311-316
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.819.311
• Online since: September 2013
• Authors: Sen Yang Wu, Yong He, Jian Zhong Fu, Hui Feng Shao
• Keywords: Drop-on-Demand, Inkjet Printing, Interchangeable Nozzle, Piezoelectric Droplet Generator

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