Patent ID: 11860180
Assignee: FUNAI ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method for maintaining a fluid droplet ejection cartridge in a digital fluid dispense system, the method comprising:
providing a housing unit and a fluid droplet ejection cartridge disposed in the housing unit, the fluid droplet ejection cartridge comprising one or more fluids and being disposed on a fluid cartridge translation mechanism for moving the fluid droplet ejection cartridge back and forth in an X-direction within the housing unit; a substrate holder for holding the substrate below the fluid droplet ejection cartridge during fluid dispensing of the one or more fluids onto the substrate; and a maintenance station disposed in the housing unit remote from the substrate holder having a removable fluid receptacle having two or more discrete fluid containing segments thereon configured to prevent fluids from mixing together in the fluid receptacle;
periodically moving the fluid droplet ejection cartridge to the maintenance station; and
(i) ejecting fluid from the fluid droplet ejection cartridge for a predetermined period of time into a first segment of the fluid receptacle until the first segment is full, (ii) then indexing the fluid droplet ejection cartridge to a next segment of the two or more segments of the fluid receptacle and ejecting fluid into the next segment until the next segment is full, and (iii) repeating step (ii) until each of the two or more segments of the fluid receptacle are full, then (iv) removing the fluid receptacle from the housing unit, and (v) disposing of the fluid receptacle.