GB2474429A

GB2474429A - Printing electroluminescent illuminated media

Info

Publication number: GB2474429A
Application number: GB0917878A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Anthony Miles; Robert Glyn Miles
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2009-10-13
Filing date: 2009-10-13
Publication date: 2011-04-20
Also published as: GB0917878D0

Abstract

An electroluminescent (EL) display is printed and constructed using a printing device comprising a photoreceptor drum, a corona wire, a laser writing assembly and several hopper systems to hold and apply the electroluminescent mixtures and conductive material. Printable media is used comprising two parts, a clear sheet of material coated on one side with a layer of clear conductive material, and a sheet of clear insulating material. A software program is provided to obtain printing co-ordinate information from a provided graphic, specifically for the purpose of printing an electrolumine scent representation of the graphic and to extrapolate from this data the printing positions for the connections to the EL graphic.

Description

Electro Luminescent Display Manufacturing Device PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: Electro luminescent materials are extensively used to provide backlighting for LCD displays, novelty lighting and guide lighting for emergency egress, and recently for multi lamp advertising displays.

The multi lamp panels used for advertising displays and the like are normally constructed using several electro luminescent lamps positioned in such a manner that different areas of the overlaid display panel are backlit at different times to provide an active display.

The manufacture of multi lamp electro luminescent devices is a complex process requiring that the EL lamps to be used, are positioned on the media in such a manner as to' backlight' the sections of the graphic overlay required to be illuminated Before the coloured graphic overlay is positioned, many electrical connections have to be made, to enable the sequential or otherwise controlled, illumination of the lamps.

There are methods of printing the EL materials that are well known in the art, such as screen printing but these are time consuming and inflexible.

This invention describes a software program, device, and method to construct an electro luminescent display panel with one or many lamps.

To provide a device and a system comprising a device to apply an electro luminescent material to a media and also apply the electrical interconnections required to operate the electroluminescent material to a media, and a software program to determine the position and density of the electroluminescent material and electrical connections from a supplied graphic in such a manner as to construct the required graphical and electrical connection representation on the media.

Electro luminescent technology

A Brief introduction

Electro luminescent materials have long been known to science, but have only recently come to the forefront of technology with the requirement for thin economical display screens and backlights.

The EL lamp is the basic building block for all of the systems.

An EL lamp may be considered as an imperfect capacitor consisting of two plates separated by an electrolyte containing electro luminescent particles. Fig 2 (attached) When an alternating current is applied to these plates an alternating charge is applied to the electro luminescent particles which give off a photon at change of state. This process, when applied to many particles, provides useful light at low energy consumption.

The advent of this technology has allowed the manufacture very thin coloured screens by using many of these EL lamps.

The invention described in this document shows a novel method of manufacturing EL lamps, EL panels and EL graphics with out the cumbersome printing and manufacturing methods used at present.

The invention enables a single manufacturing system using a software program and manufacturing device.

Statement of the invention

The invention consists partly, of a software program, running on a computing device. This software is designed to interpret information obtained from a graphical representation previously loaded into the computing device and output this data to a printing device.

This data will contain the required graphical and electrical connection position layout, extrapolated from the preloaded graphic. This data is then transmitted to the printing device for printing and construction of the display device.

The printing device consists of a photo receptor drum, a corona wire, a laser writing assembly, several hopper systems to hold and apply the Electro Luminescent mixtures and conductive material.

The printing device will also contain a media feeding system capable of feeding the several types of media substrate required in the correct order.

A heater and compression roller to fix the applied material.

A discharge lamp to pre condition the photo receptor drum.

A laminating system with auto stack capability.

An electronic control system.

The printable media consists of two parts.

1: A clear sheet of material coated on one side with a layer of clear conductive material 2: A sheet of clear insulating material.

The printing marking compound The printing marking compound is composed of a mixture of electroluminescent powders and low melting point binder the conductive print material is an electrically conductive compound in a low melting point binder Basic operation of the system for one embodiment of the invention Ref drawing 1 (attached) 1. The multiple media feed system (0) (1) is loaded with the clear insulated sheet and the conductive material coated sheet.

2. The multiple printing material dispensers (2) is loaded with the electro luminescent compound(s) and the electrically conductive compound(s).

3. A graphic is loaded into to computing device running the bespoke program. The program will then design the required patterns of the graphic and electrical circuit.

This information is then transmitted to the printing device.

4. The multiple media feed system (0) will then load the media with the transparent electrically conductive coating on one side into the laser print mechanism.

5. The print mechanism is well known in the art of laser printing and as such will not be described further 6. The electro luminescent material is then applied by the print mechanism to the electrostatically charged sections of the photoreceptor and printed to the media on the non conductive surface.

7. The media then passes through the fuser (8) where the heat and pressure will fuse the electro luminescent compound to the media Basic operation of the system for one embodiment of the invention 9 The media then passes to the stacking mechanism (12) where it will wait for the next sheet The clear insulating media is now fed into the print mechanism by the multiple media feed system (1).

11 The clear insulating material is now printed on one side with the electrical connections required for the graphic 12 The electrically conductive compound is now fused to the clear insulating material by the fusing system (8) and placed on top of the previously printed sheet 13 The stacking system then transports the layered media to the protective layer dispenser (10) where the media and clear protective layers are laminated by laminator (10).

14 The media laminate now passes through a cutting system (11) that trims the edges and bottom of the laminated media and exposes the electrical connections to the finished EL display The embodiment described above is illustrative, rather than limiting, to the present invention.

Alternative embodiments may be apparent to people skilled in the art on reading the above description, but may nevertheless fall within the scope of the invention.

Claims

Claims 1 A software program designed to obtain printing co-ordinate information from a provided graphic, specifically for the purpose of printing an Electro luminescent representation of the graphic, and to extrapolate from this data the printing positions for the connections to the Electro luminescent graphic.
2 A device to manufacture an electro luminescent illuminated media from information provided by the software program of claim 1.
3 A software program as claim 1 where the program extrapolates information from the supplied graphic to enable the colour and luminosity information from the supplied graphic to be sent to the device of claim 2 to be printed to the media.
4 A software program as claim 1 where the program extrapolates information from the supplied graphic to enable the electrical connection information from the supplied graphic to be sent to the device of claim 2 to be printed to the media.
A printing material constructed from an electro luminescent material and a carrier designed to be applied by the printing device of claim 2.
6 A printing material constructed from a conductive material and a carrier designed to be applied by the printing device of claim 2.
7 A device as in claim 2 where the print mechanism uses inkjet printing technology to apply the electroluminescent material.
8 A device as in claim 2 where the print mechanism uses inkjet printing technology to apply the conductive material.
9 A device as in claim 2 where the print mechanism uses laser printing technology to apply the conductive material.
A device as in claim 2 where the print mechanism uses laser printing technology to apply the electroluminescent material.
11 A software program as in claim 1 that calculates the dimensions of the electrical conductor required to be printed depending on the area of the electro luminescent material to be supplied with electrical current.