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ABSTRACT
For the first time an electronic fountain pen is presented
equal in size with conventional pens. It can be regarded
as the first fully functional, highly integrated,
miniaturized and self-sustaining microdosage system of
its kind operating under real world conditions. The main
components are a liquid level sensor, a microvalve and a
bubble- and particle tolerant fluidic system. The pen has
been optimized with respect to minimum energy
consumption. It contains a programmable ASIC and is
powered by two standard watch batteries ensuring
operation over a period of 2 years under standard
conditions. Fig. 1: Photo of the electronic pen (145mm x 12 mm).
INTRODUCTION
The operating principle of fountain pens has been know minimum and in consequence reduces the problems
for more than 100 years and has since been used without involved in such joints.
any remarkable change. Primarily it is based on a
capillary transfer of ink from a cartridge to the paper via
a nip. Reduced pressure inside the cartridge prevents
leakage while an integrated system of capillary buffers is
responsible for ensuring a constant ink flow. Fountain
pens offer the highest quality of type face and are used
e.g. to sign important documents. The main
disadvantages of this concept are the dependence of
temperature and ambient pressure shifts as are
experienced e.g. in aircraft cabins at high altitude. This
pressure shift causes the gas inside the cartridge to
expand and in consequence results in leakage of the pen.
In order to overcome this problem and to achieve an
outstanding writing performance at a constant high
quality a new fountain pen was developed in
collaboration with two renowned companies in the pen Fig. 2: Integrated liquid level sensor [2].
industry. The result of the development is depicted in
figure 1 showing a completely new concept presenting a
fully operational microdosing system developed using SYSTEM CONCEPT
the full range of available technologies from thin-film The presented dosing system guarantees perfect writing
technology to injection-molding. conditions by providing a well-defined small amount of
The presented system consists of a number of elements ink in the microliter range directly beneath the nip. The
namely a valve, a series of capillaries, a level sensor and remaining ink, typically in the milliliter range, is held
a venting system for a cartridge, all of which are back and stored inside a cartridge. This is achieved
integrated on one platform. This allows the reduction of independent of ambient conditions by using a closed-
the number of fluidic and electrical interconnects to a loop control system consisting of a liquid level sensor
140
120
0,09
100
spread on
80 claimed the basis of 0,08
60 flowrate 50 µl/min tolerances valve simulation
Simulation: v15
0,07
40
0,06 valve measure
20 B Ventil A: symm
0 0,05
-20 0,04
-20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
actuator voltage U / V 0,03
0,02
0,01
Fig. 6: Flow characteristic of the whole system.
0
-0,01
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150
For this purpose Santoprene® (ESa= 2-3 N/mm2 ) [8] was
chosen as valve lip material versus a thermoplast piezo voltage [V]
material (ABS). Santoprene®, also a thermoplastic
elastomer (TPE), is capable of sustaining the given Fig. 8: Characteristic of the valve, measured and simulated by
FEM
conditions of pH-levels from 1 to 9, also the material is
FDA approved and would therefore allow the application
components. Here in particular the reproducibility of the
actuation voltage and the resulting displacement were
found to be problematic as shown in figure 8. This
problem is dealt with by appropriate packaging means,
yet still to be addressed by the piezo suppliers.
MEASUREMENTS
The complete dosing system was tested with respect to
the reproducibility of its performance. For this purpose
several identical systems were actuated at defined
voltages and the resulting flow-rates between the
cartridge and the buffer were measured optical in a
capillary (velocity of gas bubble). The results are shown
in figure 6 and indicate two important aspects. The first
is the altering deflection of the intentionally identical
Fig. 7: Sealing lip fabricated in injection molding technology actuators, a problem mentioned above. The deflection
defines the width of the opening inside the valve.
The second was the change in flow-rate with identical
of the valve for medical applications as also worked on actuator deflection, measured using a laser
at the authors’ facilities. The “soft to hard” contact of the interferometer. The reason for this behavior is to be
valve lip and seat greatly increases the particle tolerance found in partial system clogging, likely to be caused by
of the system and ensures a low leakage rate [4]. The bubbles or dirt particles as they move through the
only known disadvantage using this material is an system. Nevertheless a complete clogging, i.e. zero flow,
insignificant fluid diffusion across the valve that is not was encountered in none of the tests. Here particle
encountered in silicon. Although polymers have been tolerance achieved using the CHIC-concept [6] proved
experimented with in thin-film technology [9], a hybrid its feasibility.
100
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
flowrate q [µl/min]
80 valve open
& c l o s e with
The authors wish to thank the project partners for
60 stiff housing enabling them to work on the project. The project
MIKRODOS is funded by the German Federal Ministry
40
of Research and Technology BMBF under 16SV736.
20
-20
-300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300