Aspirated ink jet printer head

摘要

Disclosed is an ink jet printer head employing an ink droplet aspirator which includes a housing having a tunnel therein spaced from an ink jet nozzle which emits a stream of ink droplets which pass through the tunnel. A gas stream is also directed through the tunnel at substantially the same velocity as the ink stream. While the upper and lower walls of the aspirator tunnel are formed of sintered metal thereby forming the deflection electrodes, the sidewalls of the tunnel are formed of a dielectric material and are made movable, for example by collapsing toward and away from the tunnel top and bottom walls (deflection electrodes) so as to inhibit sidewall contamination during start up and shut down of the ink stream.