An ink jet printer with blade cleaning mechanism and method of assembling the printer

摘要

An ink jet printer with wiper blade cleaning mechanism, and method of assembling the printer. The printer comprises a print head (60) having a surface (95) thereon surrounding a plurality of ink ejection orifices (90). The orifices are in communication with respective ones of a plurality of ink channels (70) formed in the print head. A solvent delivering wiper (210) has a first passageway (220) therethrough alignable with the surface. The first passageway delivers a liquid solvent to the surface to flush contaminant (165) from the surface. Contaminant residing on the surface is entrained in the solvent while the wiper flushes contaminant from the surface. The wiper also includes a plurality of wicking channels (230) alignable with the surface and a second passageway (240) in communication with the wicking channels. A vacuum pump (290) is in communication with the second passageway for vacuuming the solvent and entrained contaminant from the surface, along the wicking channels and through the second passageway. Moreover, a piping circuit (250) is associated with the print head for filtering the particulate matter from the solvent and for recirculating clean solvent into the first passageway and thus onto the surface of the print head. <IMAGE>