| 摘要 |
PURPOSE:To positively detect an amount of waste liquid and to form an apparatus into a cartridgelike shape by providing a sensor at a desired detecting level of said waste liquid and outside a recovery container of said waste liquid in the vicinity of a floating position of an element to be detected thereby to detect the approach of said element. CONSTITUTION:When the amount of waste liquid in a drain tank 1 is sufficiently small, a floating body 2 is at a position A. At this time, the floating body 2 is sufficiently spaced from a Hall device 4, and therefore the Hall device 4 can hardly detect magnetism, resulting in no generation of a detecting signal from an electric circuit unit 5. When the waste ink is fully stored in the drain tank 1 and the floating body 2 is raised along a guide 3 to a position B, the Hall device 4 is in the state closed to the floating body 2, with a strong magnetism applied to the Hall device 4. As a result, the Hall device 4 generates a voltage of some level. The voltage signal is converted to a digital signal by the circuit unit 5. Although the tank 1 is necessary to be detached and exchanged, such an erroneous operation resulting from a poor contact as observed in the prior art can be prevented because a lead wire etc. is not used for connection. |
