A study of integration of LIGA and M-EDM technology on the microinjection molding of ink-jet printers' nozzle plates

摘要

Common processes to manufacture nozzle plates of ink-jet printer heads are electroplating or laser machining. In order to reduce the production cost and improve the performance of nozzle plates, a new approach, microinjection molding, is introduced to manufacture nozzle plates in this study. The micro mold was made by integration of the LIGA and M-EDM technology to improve the positioning and alignment accuracy. After assembling the micro mold, microinjection-molding technique was applied to produce four nozzle plates in one shot. There are 60 micro through-holes on each plate. The diameters were measured by an optical microscopy and in the range of 101 ± 1 microns. Experiment and simulation result indicated that the most significant factor for molding these thin films with micro through holes is the mold temperature. This work recommends the mold temperature during filling of the vario-thermal mold system is about 10～15℃ higher than the glass transition temperature of the polymer. The manufacture procedures proposed in this study are believed to be more accurate and economical.