Printing bead spacers on LCD substrates

摘要

An apparatus for printing spacers on a substrate of an LCD includes a spacer supply roller having a plurality of recesses formed in its exterior surface. A plurality of uniform volumes of an ink containing the spacers is loaded into the recesses and then transferred from the supply roller onto a transfer belt that is arranged to move tangentially with respect to the supply roller by means of a transfer roller and an auxiliary roller. The LCD substrate is then moved tangentially with respect to the moving transfer belt such that the ink volumes on the transfer belt are transferred onto the substrate at selected locations thereon. The continuously rotating components of the apparatus enable it to accommodate LCD panels of any size without the need for large spacer supply substrates and transfer rollers and prevent the inadvertent deposition of multiple layers of spacers on the substrate.