- Patent Title: Printhead assembly with light emission devices and photon detectors
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Application No.: US16076339Application Date: 2017-04-21
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Publication No.: US11338517B2Publication Date: 2022-05-24
- Inventor: Ning Ge , Steven J. Simske , Lihua Zhao , David George
- Applicant: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
- Applicant Address: US TX Houston
- Assignee: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
- Current Assignee: HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.
- Current Assignee Address: US TX Houston
- Agency: Mannava & Kang
- International Application: PCT/US2017/028956 WO 20170421
- International Announcement: WO2018/194680 WO 20181025
- Main IPC: B29C64/393
- IPC: B29C64/393 ; B29C64/112 ; B29C64/282 ; B29C64/209 ; B29C64/268 ; B33Y10/00 ; B33Y30/00 ; B33Y50/02

Abstract:
According to examples, an apparatus may include a printhead assembly containing a housing supporting a printhead. The printhead may have nozzles that are to fire droplets of a functional agent onto a layer of build material particles along respective flight paths to form sections of a 3D object from the build material particles, an array of light emission devices to direct respective light beams in the respective flight paths, and an array of photon detectors to detect respective light beams directed from a light source of the array of light emission devices, the light emission devices and the photon detectors being supported on the housing. The apparatus may also include a controller to determine whether any of the nozzles is operating improperly based upon whether the photon detectors detected the light beams and to output an instruction regarding an improperly operating nozzle in response to a determination that the nozzle is operating improperly.
Public/Granted literature
- US20210197487A1 PRINTHEAD ASSEMBLY WITH LIGHT EMISSION DEVICES AND PHOTON DETECTORS Public/Granted day:2021-07-01
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