Patent ID: 6145972
Filing Date: 2000-11-14
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
A container for containing liquid to be ejected, comprising:a negative pressure producing member accommodating chamber for accommodating a negative pressure producing member, said negative pressure producing member accommodating chamber being provided with an air vent for fluid communication with ambience and a liquid supply portion for supplying the liquid to a liquid ejecting head having ejection outlets;a liquid containing chamber substantially hermetically sealed except for a fluid communication path through which said liquid containing chamber is in fluid communication with said negative pressure producing member accommodating chamber;a partition for separating said negative pressure producing member accommodating chamber and said liquid containing chamber, said partition being provided with an ambience introduction path for introducing the ambience into said liquid containing chamber from said negative pressure producing member accommodating chamber, said ambience introduction path forming a capillary force generating portion;wherein the capillary force produced by said capillary force generating portion satisfies the following:H<h.ltoreq.Hs-Hp-.delta.hwhere h is a capillary force defined by dividing the capillary force generating portion by the density .phi. of the liquid to be ejected multiplied by the gravitational acceleration g (the dimension of H is length), that is, h=.delta.Pc/.phi.g, where .delta.Pc is the generated capillary force; H is a potential head difference between the capillary force generating portion and the liquid ejecting head plane including the ejection outlets; Hs is a capillary force defined by dividing the capillary force generated by the negative pressure producing member by the density .phi. of the liquid to be ejected multiplied by the gravitational acceleration g (the dimension of H is length), that is, Hs=.delta.Ps/.phi.g, where .delta.Ps is the capillary force of the negative pressure producing member; Hp is a potential head difference between a gas-liquid interface in the negative pressure producing member and the capillary force generating portion; .delta.h is head loss defined by dividing a pressure loss between the fluid communication path and the liquid supply opening through the negative pressure producing member by the density .phi. multiplied by the gravitational acceleration g (the dimension of .delta.h is length), that is, .delta.h=.delta.Pe/.phi.g, where .delta.Pe is the pressure loss.