Appeal No. 2003-0298 Page 10
Application No. 09/497,797
Figure 3 shows a further embodiment of the printing unit of Figure 1. The pipes
7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 8.2, 15.3, 15.4 and sensors 19-21 have been omitted for ease of
illustration. In accordance with this embodiment, blowing sections 23.1, 23.2 are
mounted within the printing unit 1, and connected to a blowing unit 23 via an air
inlet pipe 24.1 and an air exhaust pipe 24.2. The blowing unit 23 includes an air cooling
mechanism and an air heating mechanism, and is coupled to and controlled by the
control unit 18 to maintain the temperature of the water based ink carrying surfaces of
the blanket cylinders 4, 6 at the set point. The blowing devices 23.1 and 23.2 each
include outputs 80 to blow air onto the surfaces of the blanket cylinder 4, 6 carrying the
water based ink films. The blowing devices 23.1 and 23.2 also include suction inputs
81 for sucking the atmosphere surrounding the water based ink carrying surfaces out
through the air exhaust pipe 24.2. In this manner, the water based ink carrying
surfaces of the blanket are cooled or heated from the outside via the blowing unit 23,
and from the inside via the cooling units 8.
Referring to Figure 3A, the control unit 18 monitors the surface temperature of
the upper blanket cylinder (Tb1 and of the lower blanket cylinder (Tb2) via the sensors
20.1, 20.2. If an average of these sensor readings is above the set point, then the
control unit 18 lowers the temperature of the air output from the air inlet 24.1 by an
amount X, waits a time period T, and then monitors the outputs of the sensors 20.1,
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Last modified: November 3, 2007