| 摘要 |
Electrical wires and other continuous, elongate, flexible members having a three-dimensional exterior printing surface are marked with alpha-numeric characters by longitudinally feeding the wire past an electronically controlled ink jet printing head assembly that forms the characters by directing a positionable jet of ink onto the exterior surface of the wire. A wire feed transport receives the electrical wire from a storage reel and longitudinally feeds it through aligned guides establishing a wire guide path. The guide path carries the wire past a printing station at which the printing head assembly ejects a jet of electrostatically charged ink drops which are selectively deflected in a dimension transverse to the wire and in synchronism with the rate of longitudinal travel of the wire as established by the transport so that the ink drops impinge on the exterior three-dimensional wire surface in patterns which form the desired characters. The printing head assembly and wire guide are adjustably mounted for achieving precise registration between the ink jet and wire surface. Control means including a drive for the transport, a wire travel encoder, a printing head control unit, a data input terminal and an interface circuit cooperate to receive predetermined alpha-numeric indicia and to automatically operate the transport and ink jet printing head assembly to repetitively mark the wire with an identifying, multi-character code, wherein the code is repeated at selected, longitudinally spaced intervals along the wire. After being marked, the wire is automatically coiled in a coiling pan disposed at the discharge end of the wire guide path.
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