1. Field of the Invention
The embodiments discussed herein relate to a liquid-jet head and a liquid-jet device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical image forming apparatus includes an ink-jet recording device such as a printer, a facsimile machine, a copier, a plotter or a multifunctional peripheral having a combination of these functions. The ink-jet recording device includes a liquid-jet head configured to form an image on a medium such as a sheet by discharging ink drops on the sheet while transferring the sheet. The aforementioned “medium” or the “sheet” indicates any medium or sheet formed of any materials and hence is not limited to a medium or sheet of any particular material. Likewise, and a recording medium including a transitory recording medium and a non-transitory recording medium, a transfer material and a recording sheet may be used synonymously with the aforementioned medium or sheet that is formed of any materials. Further, the image forming apparatus may be any apparatuses that form an image by discharging a liquid on a medium such as paper, thread, fiber, cloth, hide, metal, plastic, glass, wood, ceramics and the like. The aforementioned “forming an image” not only indicates providing an image having meaning of a character or graphics on a medium but also indicates an image having no meaning such as a pattern on a medium by simply discharging a liquid. In addition, “ink” is not limited to those so-called “ink”, but may be any liquid that is in a form of liquid when being discharged. The aforementioned “ink” is used as a generic name of liquids including DNA specimens, resist and a patterning material.
An ink-jet recording head in the ink-jet recording device (an example of the image forming apparatus) includes nozzles to discharge ink drops, a pressurized liquid chamber communicating with the nozzles, an actuator unit to generate energy to increase pressure in the pressurized liquid chamber and a common liquid chamber to supply ink from an ink tank such as an ink cartridge communicating with the pressurized liquid chamber. Hence, pressure in the pressurized liquid chamber is increased by driving the actuator unit to discharge the ink drops from the nozzles while an amount of ink equivalent to a discharged amount of ink drops is supplied from the common liquid chamber to the pressurized liquid chamber. In the ink-jet recording device, air bubbles or foreign particles may sometimes intrude into an ink flow path. When the air bubbles or foreign particles enter the pressurized liquid chamber, the nozzles may be clogged with the air bubbles or foreign particles to cause ink discharge malfunction. Japanese Patent No. 3885226 (Patent Document 1), for example, proposes a technique to prevent such ink discharge malfunction by providing a filter in the ink flow paths between the ink cartridges and the common liquid chamber. In the liquid-jet head disclosed in Patent Document 1, a filter is provided in each of communicating paths communicating between the common liquid chamber and the corresponding pressurized liquid chamber. The filter includes plural openings configured to block the air bubbles or foreign particles while maintaining the communication between the common liquid chamber and the corresponding pressurized liquid chamber.