1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ink cartridge attachment/detachment device that loads an ink cartridge into the main body of a recording apparatus by sliding the ink cartridge into. The invention also relates to a recording apparatus and a liquid ejecting apparatus, which are provided with the ink cartridge attachment/detachment device.
Here, examples of the liquid ejecting apparatus include not only a recording apparatus, such as an ink jet recording apparatus, a photocopier, or a facsimile machine, that ejects ink from a recording head, serving as a liquid ejecting head, to perform recording onto a recording target material, such as recording paper sheet, but also an apparatus that ejects a liquid for a specific purpose, instead of ink, from a liquid ejecting head, which corresponds to the above-mentioned recording head, onto an ejected-liquid target material corresponding to the recording target material, to attach a liquid to the ejected-liquid target material. In addition to the above described example recording head, examples of the liquid ejecting head include a color material ejecting head used for manufacturing a color filter for a liquid crystal display, or the like, an electrode material (conductive paste) ejecting head used for forming an electrode for an organic EL display, a field emission display (FED), or the like, a bio-organic material ejecting head used for manufacturing a bio-chip, a sample ejecting head that ejects a sample in the same manner as a precision pipette, and the like.
2. Related Art
An existing ink cartridge attachment/detachment device loads an ink cartridge by pivoting a lever using the principle of leverage, which is described, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-157094. When the ink cartridge is ejected, a link lever, which is interlocked with the rotation of the lever, is engaged with the ink cartridge to move the ink cartridge in a direction in which the ink cartridge is ejected. However, because a large-capacity multicolor ink cartridge is used, the size and weight of the ink cartridge are large. Hence, a load required for ejecting the ink cartridge is also large. To assist the ejection of ink cartridge, the main body of the attachment/detachment device is provided with an ejection lever that always urges the ink cartridge in the ejecting direction using the urging force of a spring.
Because the ejection force of the ejection lever for the ink cartridge needs to exceed an ejecting resistance, such as a frictional resistance, or the like, generated between the ink cartridge and the main body of the attachment/detachment device, the urging force of the ejection lever employs a strong spring force. Accordingly, when the ink cartridge is loaded into the attachment/detachment device, a strong ejection force owing to the strong spring is retained by the attachment/detachment device. If such an existing structure is used as it is, in a trying environment, for example, at the temperature of 85 degrees C. or 105 degrees C. in an in-vehicle environment, members such as an ink cartridge, and the like, may be gradually deformed (so-called creep) under the influence of the retained strong ejection force. In addition, such creep may also occur at room temperature.