Class / Patent application number | Description | Number of patent applications / Date published |
347023000 | Responsive to condition | 33 |
20080204503 | Fluid-ejection device service station - A service station for use with a fluid ejection device having a fluid-ejection mechanism with at least one nozzle includes a housing configured to attach to the fluid-ejection mechanism and to remain attached to the fluid-ejection mechanism during the fluid-ejection operation. A shutter arranged within the housing includes at least one opening, and is selectively moveable between a closed position and an open position with respect to the nozzle. In the open position the opening exposes the nozzle and in the closed position the nozzle is covered. An actuation mechanism separate from the housing is positioned to selectively couple with the shutter, such that activation of the actuation mechanism causes the shutter to move between the open and closed positions. | 08-28-2008 |
20080218551 | INK JET PRINTING METHOD AND INK JET PRINTING APPARATUS - Time for which an ejection port surface of a print head has been exposed to the exterior since the end of the last cleaning operation is predicted and accumulated as an accumulated exposure time. A cleaning timing is set to be a timing when the accumulated exposure time coincides with a set time set according to the ambient temperature and humidity of an area in which a label printer is installed. In principle, a cleaning operation is performed at the cleaning timing. However, when the cleaning timing comes during the current consecutive printing operation, the cleaning operation is not performed during the current consecutive printing operation but at a time before the start of the current consecutive printing operation or a time after the end of the current consecutive printing operation. | 09-11-2008 |
20080238982 | Image Forming Apparatus - An image forming apparatus comprising: a recording head having a nozzle configured to eject a liquid drop of recording liquid so as to form an image on the recording-medium with a liquid drop ejected from the nozzle of the recording head; a conveyer configured to electrostatically hold and convey a recording-medium by a charge provided to the conveyer; and a cleaning device configured to clean a nozzle face of the recording head based on a tolerance threshold value of contamination of the nozzle face generated by the ejection of a liquid drop and the number of liquid drops ejected from the recording head for image formation. | 10-02-2008 |
20080238983 | Image forming apparatus - An image forming apparatus is provided. The image forming apparatus includes a carriage comprising a recording head that ejects a liquid toward a recording medium, the carriage configured to reciprocate along a travel path in a widthwise direction of the recording medium; a receiving unit disposed in a position opposed to the recording head so as to receive a fluid which is flushed from the recording head; and a movement device configured to move the receiving unit below the travel path of the carriage to a position which is outside and proximate to an edge in the widthwise direction of the recording medium. | 10-02-2008 |
20080252682 | Apparatus and Methods for Servicing 3D Printers - The invention relates to apparatus and methods for producing three-dimensional objects and auxiliary systems used in conjunction with the aforementioned apparatus and methods. The apparatus and methods involve 3D printing and servicing of the equipment used in the associated 3D printer. | 10-16-2008 |
20090051725 | INK-JET PRINTING APPARATUS, CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR, PROGRAM, AND STORAGE MEDIUM - An object of this invention is to prevent prolongation of the time taken for a suction recovery operation while suppressing wasteful consumption of ink in the suction recovery operation. An ink-jet printing apparatus includes a plurality of caps which, when a plurality of nozzles of an ink-jet head are divided into a plurality of nozzle groups, are arranged one by one for the respective nozzle groups, and cap the respective nozzle groups, a suction pump which generates a negative pressure in the plurality of caps to suck ink from the plurality of nozzles, and is arranged commonly for the plurality of caps, and a control unit which controls the suction pump so as to make the negative pressure by the suction pump act on all the caps when a common negative pressure is generated in the plurality of caps, and make different negative pressures by the suction pump act sequentially on the plurality of caps when different negative pressures are generated in the respective caps. | 02-26-2009 |
20090066747 | PRINT ELEMENT DE-PRIME METHOD - An image forming device comprises an ink reservoir that contains a reservoir ink. The ink reservoir is arranged to provide the reservoir ink to an included print element by means of an included ink supply channel. A print element ink thus is supplied to the print element. When a fault condition is detected that indicates a likelihood of a freezing of the print element ink, the print element is de-primed by forcing the print element ink to evacuate, discharge, withdraw or flow from the print element by means of the ink supply channel. The fault condition comprises any of a loss of power, a power-down process or a print element temperature being less than or equal to a threshold value. | 03-12-2009 |
20090079785 | FLUID EJECTING APPARATUS AND EJECTING HEAD MAINTENANCE METHOD - A method for maintaining a fluid ejecting apparatus including an ejecting head that has an ejecting surface in which a plurality of ejecting ports that eject fluid are formed, and a maintenance portion that performs maintenance processing to recover the ejection of fluid from the ejecting ports and that has a cap member and a wiping member. The method includes performing capping processing to put the cap member on the ejecting surface and to suck, and then wiping processing to wipe the ejecting surface with the wiping member, and performing the capping processing again and then waiting a predetermined time without performing the wiping processing. | 03-26-2009 |
20090167813 | METHODS AND APPARATUS TO PROVIDE USER-CUSTOMIZABLE FLUSH PATTERNS IN AN INK-BASED PRINTING SYSTEM - Methods and apparatus for user customization of flush patterns in an ink-based printing system. Features and aspects hereof provide for user input to define a flush pattern and to define a location at which the flush pattern is to be placed on sheetside images. By integrating the flush pattern as defined by the user into the sheetside images, the flush pattern may convey useful information or may at least be aesthetically acceptable as compared to prior flush pattern definitions. The user may select among a plurality of standard, pre-defined patterns and locations or may define a fully customized pattern to be placed at a fully customized location. Text or other potentially useful patterns may be defined by the user. Analysis of the sheetside images may permit the user to define placement of the pattern so as to avoid occluding information imprinted on the sheetside images. | 07-02-2009 |
20090231385 | METHOD AND APPARATUS OF DOT COUNTING IN AN IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS - A method and apparatus of dot counting. The apparatus includes a nozzle portion having a length corresponding to a width of a printing medium, a dot counting unit to group head nozzles by position and to count a discharged dot count per line for each group, a control unit to determine whether the group has been used to print using the discharged dot count per line, a counter to count a number of times that the group is used to print based on the determination result, and a memory to store a sum of the counted numbers of times, in which the control unit controls the counter to count the number of times that the group is used to print with respect to each line of image data when the image data is created by a head chip, and a sum of the counted number of times is stored in the memory. | 09-17-2009 |
20090237443 | PRINT HEAD SERVICING FOR A PAGE WIDE ARRAY PRINTER - A page wide array printer comprises a print head bar which carries an array of print nozzles, and which is static during a printing operation. A carriage has print head service elements. The print head bar is movable perpendicularly to the plane of the print medium beneath the print head, between a lowered print position and a raised service position. The carriage is moveable along the print head to perform a service operation when the print head is in the raised position. | 09-24-2009 |
20090256884 | IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS - An image forming apparatus includes a recording head to eject ink droplets through a nozzle onto a recording medium, a replaceable ink cartridge to contain ink to be supplied to the recording head, a replaceable waste-ink tank to store waste ink ejected from the recording head, a cartridge mounting portion provided on a front side of the image forming apparatus and configured to accommodate the ink cartridge, including a first opening through which the ink cartridge is inserted, a tank mounting portion provided on the front side of the image forming apparatus, adjacent to the cartridge mounting portion, and configured to accommodate the waste-ink tank and to include a second opening through which the waste-ink tank is inserted, and an openably closable cartridge cover disposed on the front side of the image forming apparatus, configured to cover both the first opening and the second opening. | 10-15-2009 |
20090289987 | Printing apparatus - A printing apparatus is provided. The printing apparatus includes a first medium holder and a second medium holder, at least one print head, at least one print head drive unit, at least two holder drive units, at least one ink cartridge, and a cooperation controlling system to control printing operations in the printing apparatus. The printing operations include a first printing operation, a first pre-print operation, a first after-print operation, a second printing operation, a second pre-print operation, and a second after-print operation. One of redundant behaviors included in the first after-print operation and the second pre-print operation is omitted by the cooperation controlling system when the second printing operation is conducted successively to the first printing operation. | 11-26-2009 |
20100026753 | Fluid Droplet Discharge Device And A Head Cleaning Control Method For A Fluid Droplet Discharge Device - A fluid droplet discharge device executes a head cleaning process to quickly remove bubbles that have entered the fluid supply path when it is likely that bubbles have entered in a flushing process. If the ink cartridge cover | 02-04-2010 |
20110148982 | INKJET RECORDING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MAINTENANCE OF INKJET RECORDING APPARATUS - An image forming apparatus includes a recording head having a nozzle and configured to discharge droplets of a recording fluid via the nozzle onto a recording sheet in an image forming operation; a sheet transport unit configured to transport the recording sheet in a sheet transport direction; and a maintenance unit configured to perform a maintenance operation for the recording head. The maintenance unit is configured to be moved in a forward direction corresponding to the sheet transport direction and a backward direction opposite the forward direction. The maintenance unit performs the maintenance operation when the maintenance unit is moved in the backward direction. | 06-23-2011 |
20110242202 | INKJET PRINTING APPARATUS AND A METHOD OF TRANSFERRING A WETTING LIQUID - There are provided an inkjet printing apparatus and a wiping method which are capable of reducing the load on a wiper. A wetting liquid retaining unit | 10-06-2011 |
20110292118 | INKJET RECORDING APPARATUS - An inkjet recording apparatus includes a carriage configured to hold a recording head having a plurality of discharge ports from each of which ink is discharged, and to move in a first direction, and a platen configured to support a sheet moving downstream in a second direction intersecting with the first direction. The platen has a receiver configured to receive ink discharged towards an outside of the sheet, and a hole provided in an inside of the receiver to suction air therefrom. The hole is provided at a position at which an airflow is generated in a vicinity of a sheet edge so that each record band formed on a sheet with ink discharged from the plurality of discharge ports by movement of the carriage is expanded to at least one of an upstream side and a downstream side in the second direction. | 12-01-2011 |
20110310167 | PRINTING APPARATUS - The invention prevents and suppresses wasteful expenditure of ink which occurs when recovering nozzles. In greater detail, a plurality of head units arranged in a direction which intersects a transportation direction of a printing medium is provided, a plurality of cleaning units is disposed to face the plurality of head units, and at least one of the plurality of cleaning units is selected and moved so as to be in close contact with the corresponding cleaning unit. By such a method, only the cleaning head unit which faces the head unit of which nozzles need to be recovered is selected and is brought into contact with the head unit, and liquid is sucked in from the nozzles of the head unit. | 12-22-2011 |
20120019590 | INKJET PRINTER AND INKJET HEAD MAINTENANCE METHOD - An inkjet printer | 01-26-2012 |
20120086752 | RECORDING APPARATUS - A recording apparatus includes: a feeding unit which feeds a recording medium in a feeding direction; a recording head which discharges ink onto the recording medium for recording; and a first cleaning unit which performs first cleaning on at least one of a side surface on an upstream side of the feeding direction in the recording head, a side surface on a downstream side thereof, and side surfaces on both sides of a width direction of the recording medium with respect to the feeding direction. | 04-12-2012 |
20120268522 | PRINTING DEVICE AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING A PRINTING DEVICE - A printing device has a print unit that ejects fluid from ejection nozzles and prints; an ejection test unit that checks if fluid is ejected from the ejection nozzles; a cleaning unit that performs a cleaning process in either a timed cleaning mode that performs a cleaning process at a predetermined interval, or an ejection test cleaning mode that performs a cleaning process based on a test result; a decision unit that determines whether to use the timed cleaning mode or the ejection test cleaning mode based on an operating condition of the print unit; and a mode changing unit that switches the mode between the timed cleaning mode and the ejection test cleaning mode according to the decision by the decision unit. | 10-25-2012 |
20130100200 | INKJET PRINTING APPARATUS AND PRELIMINARY EJECTION METHOD - In a case where a temperature of the print head at a cap closing time is 35° C. or more and the cap closing time is less than six hours, a predetermined preliminary ejection is performed and the ejection number is set to 4000. That is, the predetermined preliminary ejection is, in a case where it is determined that the temperature of the print head at a cap closed time is lower than 35° C., performed by the ejection number larger than the ejection number of other preliminary ejection having the same cap closing time of six hours as that in the predetermined preliminary ejection. Therefore in a case where the temperature of the print head at a cap closing time is a predetermined relatively high temperature or more, the preliminary ejection more accurately reflecting the degree of the ink thickening in the print head at that time is performed. | 04-25-2013 |
20130182033 | LIQUID EJECTION APPARATUS - A liquid ejection apparatus includes: a head including an ejection face inclining an ejection opening region having ejection openings; a capping unit for selectively establishing a sealing state or an open state; an air supply opening and an air discharge opening; a humidification unit for performing a humidifying maintenance; a recording control unit for performing image recording; and a flushing control unit for performing flushing. The flushing control unit controls the head to perform the flushing such that an amount of the liquid discharged from each of a discharge-side ejection-opening group and a supply-side ejection-opening group is greater than that of the liquid discharged from the other ejection-opening group. | 07-18-2013 |
20130293631 | PRINTING APPARATUS AND CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR - The invention has been made to prevent ink adhesion or an ink discharge failure caused by ink adhesion due to evaporation of volatile components of ink which occurs when the ink receptor of a printhead is exposed to air for a long time. If an inkjet printhead and an ink tank containing ink to be supplied to the printhead are attached to a carriage, the ink supply port of the ink tank is pressed to the ink receptor of the printhead. In this arrangement, the presence/absence of attachment of the ink tank to the carriage is detected. If it is detected that the ink tank is not attached to the carriage, a suction operation for the printhead is performed and controlled to suck out ink from the nozzles of the printhead. | 11-07-2013 |
20130328965 | Liquid Discharging Apparatus and Method of Discharging Liquid - A liquid discharging apparatus, which discharges liquid from a nozzle of a liquid discharging head on the basis of data, includes a controller and a member. When the controller is in a standby state where the liquid is not discharged from the nozzle on the basis of the data or after the controller has received a power OFF instruction, the controller performs a drawing operation in which the liquid is drawn to a side opposite to a discharge direction in which the liquid is discharged so as to at least form a space at a distal end portion of the nozzle. After the controller has performed the drawing operation, the member covers an opening of the nozzle. | 12-12-2013 |
20140009529 | INKJET PRINTING APPARATUS AND INKJET PRINTING METHOD - An ejection complement process is performed during which both a usual ejection failure and a sudden ejection failure can be appropriately coped with, without being accompanied by a frequent maintenance process. In a case wherein sequential printing is not currently being performed, the first detection process is performed with a high accuracy while being accompanied by the maintenance process, and in a case wherein sequential printing is currently being performed, the second detection process that requires only a small process load is performed at a predetermined timing without being accompanied by the maintenance processing. At this time, when the number of ejection failed nozzles detected in the second ejection process has reached a predetermined value or greater, the maintenance process is performed, and only the information for the ejection failed nozzle, detected in the second detection process, is reset. | 01-09-2014 |
20140092169 | ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND LIQUID EJECTION APPARATUS - An electronic device includes: a device body; a power supply circuitry which supplies electric power to the device body; and a real-time clock which measures a current time. The power supply circuitry includes: a transformer which converts electric power input to a primary side of the transformer and outputs the converted power to a secondary side of the transformer; a switching element disposed on the primary side to perform switching of a current to be supplied to the primary winding; and a switching controller disposed on the primary side. The real-time clock is disposed on the primary side to receive electric power. The device body includes; a main controller disposed on the secondary side to control the electronic device that receives electric power on the secondary side; and a circuit which couples the main controller and the real-time clock to allow communication therebetween in an electrically insulated state. | 04-03-2014 |
20140240392 | DYNAMIC DROP REDIRECTION FOR DROP ON DEMAND PRINTING - Systems and methods selectively remove flush drops from a plurality of ink drops ejected by a print engine when printing data for a print job. One embodiment comprises a control system of a printing system. The control system receives a flush pattern for flushing an ink jet print engine of the printing system, and receives a sheetside bitmap for printing to a print medium. The control system merges the flush pattern and the sheetside bitmap to generate a composite sheetside bitmap. The control system directs the print engine to eject a plurality of ink drops toward the print medium based on the composite sheetside bitmap, and identifies a subset of the ink drops based on the flush pattern. The control system then directs a drop deflection system of the printing system to selectively prevent the subset of ink drops from impinging the print medium. | 08-28-2014 |
20140292906 | METHOD OF MANUFACTURING LIQUID EJECTION APPARATUS AND LIQUID EJECTION APPARATUS - A liquid ejection apparatus includes: a head having ejection-opening groups and ejection-passage groups; caps for covering the respective ejection-openings groups; and suction passages connecting between the interiors of the respective caps and a sucking device. A method of manufacturing the liquid ejection apparatus includes: a step of classifying, as a first group, an ejection-opening group corresponding to an ejection-passage group having a resistance value not less than a first value and classifying, as a second group, another ejection-opening group corresponding to an ejection-passage group having a resistance value less than the first value; and a step of assigning at least one suction passage having a resistance value less than a second value to the ejection-opening group as the first group and assigning another at least one suction passage having a resistance value not less than the second value to the ejection-opening group as the second group. | 10-02-2014 |
20150062239 | Liquid Ejecting Apparatus and Control Method for Liquid Ejecting Apparatus - A liquid ejecting apparatus includes an ejection head capable of ejecting a solution, a rotating member having an outer surface capable of receiving the solution ejected from the ejection head, and a scraper that wipes off the solution adhering to the outer surface by sliding along the outer surface when the rotating member rotates, the rotating member carrying out a first rotational operation of rotating after flushing, in which the ejection head ejects the solution toward the outer surface, has been performed, and a second rotational operation of rotating from when the first rotational operation ends to when the next flushing is executed. | 03-05-2015 |
20150077466 | LIQUID DROPLET INJECTION APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR RECOVERING NOZZLE OF LIQUID DROPLET INJECTION APPARATUS - A liquid droplet ejection apparatus including a head | 03-19-2015 |
20150091976 | Inkjet Recording Apparatus - A controller of an inkjet recording apparatus executes, after receiving a recording instruction, first flushing by controlling a recording head to idly eject ink toward a cap from which the ink is discharged by a pump to a detachable waste ink tank. After executing the first flushing, the controller executes image recording by controlling a conveying unit and a recording head to repeat a unit action in which the recording head ejects ink onto a recording medium conveyed by a predetermined line feed length in a conveying direction. After detecting arrival of a flushing timing during the image recording both when a threshold time elapses and when one of repeated unit actions is completed, the controller executes second flushing by controlling the recording head to idly eject ink toward a fixed ink receiving member. | 04-02-2015 |
20190143698 | LIQUID JETTING APPARATUS | 05-16-2019 |