Head assembly for a jet drop recorder

Claim 1

Jet drop recording apparatus comprising: a. a recording liquid supply manifold, b. an elongated orifice plate communicating with said manifold and provided with a plurality of orifice sets each comprising a plurality of uniformly sized and regularly spaced orifices arranged along a placement line extending angularly relative to the main axis of said orifice plate, said placement lines being parallel and having orifices placed therein such that members of a set of evenly spaced spacing lines parallel to said axis each pass through one orifice in each of said orifice sets, c. a charge plate mounted in parallel relation to said orifice plate and provided with a series of charging electrodes in alignment with said orifices, d. drop generating means for causing streams of recording liquid to flow continuously through said orifices and break up into drops at a regular frequency, said stream break-up into drops occurring in the region of said charging electrodes, e. charge control means electrically connected to said charging electrodes for charging selected ones of said drops in accordance with image information to be recorded, f. a deflection electrode assembly comprising angularly extending deflection electrodes arranged parallel to said placement lines and positioned for passage therebetween of the drops generated by streams issuing from said orifice sets, g. means for generating electrical fields between paired sets of said deflection electrodes and creating deflected and non-deflected drop trajectory characterizations corresponding respectively to charged and uncharged drop conditions, and h. catching means for catching all drops having one of said trajectory characterizations while permitting passage of all drops having the other of said trajectory characterizations.