Abstract: A printer cartridge that has a body configured for user insertion in and removal from an inkjet printer. The cartridge has at least one printing fluid reservoir and a printhead attached to the body. Also attached is a blotter for absorbing the fluid when the cartridge is inserted into the printer. The cartridge allows simultaneous insertion and replacement of the printhead the printing fluid reservoir and the blotter.

Abstract: Mask patterns to be used for multi-pass printing make it possible to make a print with a higher quality at a higher speed. Specifically, by performing a swapping process with adjacency forbiddance, two points in the horizontal direction, or the scanning direction of a printing head, are selected in a buffer in which codes for each scan pass are set depending on printing ratios of a gradation mask. Subsequently, codes are swapped between the two points. By this swap, adjacencies between print permitting areas are eliminated in the mask pattern. As a result, when driving frequencies set for the printing head is kept constant, the scanning speed can be doubled at minimum.

Abstract: A system for detecting failures in a sensitive region of an inkjet printhead is described. The system includes an inkjet printer that uses a printhead for printing an image on a substrate. The image has a sensitive portion that is more sensitive to printing failures than the rest of the image. The printhead includes a first portion that prints an area of the substrate corresponding to the sensitive portion of the image. A radiant energy source is used with a photodetector located downstream from the printhead to detect background florescence from the substrate in the area of the substrate corresponding to the sensitive portion of the image that should be quenched by printing of the image. If background fluorescence is detected, a failure is indicated.

Abstract: A method including performing correction of an ink ejection amount for a certain area based on a correction value for a first type row region, and performing correction of an ink ejection amount for another area. The certain area includes a plurality of the first type row regions adjacent to each other in a transport direction. The other area is located on the upstream side in the transport direction from the certain area, and includes a plurality of second type row regions and a plurality of the first type row regions in the transport direction. The second type row region is a region in which a dot row is formed in the movement direction by performing the movement-and-ejection operation another predetermined number of times that is more than the predetermined number of times. A ratio of the second type row regions increases as the distance from the certain area increases.

Abstract: A method of purging ink from an inkjet printhead is provided. The printhead is in fluid communication with an ink reservoir via an ink conduit. The method comprises compressing part of the ink conduit using a hammer mechanism, thereby purging ink from the printhead and flooding an ink ejection face of the printhead.

Abstract: A printing method includes performing correction of an ink ejection amount for a certain area based on a correction value for a first type row region, and performing correction of an ink ejection amount for another area based on another correction value. The certain area includes a plurality of the first type row regions adjacent to each other in a transport direction of a medium. The other area is located on the downstream side in the transport direction from the certain area, and includes a plurality of second type row regions and a plurality of the first type row regions in the transport direction. The other correction value is obtained by increasing a degree of the correction based on the correction value for the first type row region as a distance from the certain area decreases.

Abstract: In a method of controlling drive of a function liquid droplet ejection head in which a plurality of nozzle arrays are arranged, the nozzle arrays have function liquid droplet ejection amounts which are different from each other per unit nozzle. The drive of the plurality of nozzle arrays is controlled by using a single drive signal having a plurality of ejection pulses corresponding to the plurality of nozzle arrays in one print cycle. Thus, even if a plurality of nozzle arrays having function liquid droplet ejection amounts which are different from each other per unit nozzle are disposed in one function liquid droplet ejection head, easy drive control is possible without lowering printing throughput.

Abstract: An ink container which includes an ink supply port for supplying ink to a recording head, and is formed with a flexible member shaped like a bag, which deforms in accordance with an amount of remaining ink contained therein, the ink container including: a sensor module serving as vibration activating and detecting unit, provided on one of the surfaces of the ink container, for emitting a vibration to the ink; and a rigid member provided on a location of the other surface of the ink container, which is opposed to the sensor module; wherein an amount of remaining ink is detected based on a vibration characteristic of the vibration activating and detecting unit which depends on a distance between the vibration activating and detecting unit and the rigid member.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for regulating energy delivered to a load includes: determining a quantity of energy that has been delivered to the load during a time interval; comparing the quantity of energy delivered with a threshold value; and delaying delivery of additional energy to the load until the time interval has expired if a magnitude of a difference between the threshold value and a sum of the quantity of energy and the additional energy exceeds a predetermined value.

Abstract: An ink jet recording head includes: an actuator including: a plurality of energy generators; and a plurality of terminals arranged in arrays; and a wiring material superimposed on a surface of the actuator, and including a plurality of lands which are arranged in arrays; and a plurality of wiring patterns which are connected to the plurality of lands respectively and are led out in a lead out direction, wherein: lands of the plurality of lands in adjacent arrays are arranged staggered with respect to each other; a distance between at least two adjacent land arrays on a led out side is greater than a distance between adjacent ones of the other arrays of lands; and the wiring pattern has a bend portion, which extended at an angle to the led out direction, at a position between two adjacent discrete lands in the at least two adjacent land arrays.

Abstract: A printer cartridge for an inkjet printer including an ink storage reservoir; a printhead in communication with said ink storage reservoir; a refill port in communication with the ink storage reservoir and arranged to receive refill ink for replenishing the ink storage reservoir; and an integrated circuit assembly arranged to store information relating to the properties of at least one of the refill ink and the ink stored in the ink storage reservoir.

Abstract: An inkjet printer that has a printhead and a plurality of printing fluid reservoirs, each of the printing fluid reservoirs storing a different type of printing fluid. A refill interface on the printer allows the printing fluid reservoirs to be refilled by docking with a range of refill dispensers. Each of the refill dispensers in the range contains one of the types of printing fluid stored in one of the printing fluid reservoirs. The docking interface has docking formations for engagement with complementary formations on each of the refill dispensers in the range respectively such that the refill interface can dock with only one of the refill dispensers at any one time.

Abstract: An apparatus has a plurality of printing cartridges to reproduce an image, wherein each printing cartridge prints a portion of the image onto a substrate. The apparatus further includes a media transport for moving the substrate parallel to a first dimension. The printing cartridges are disposed on a carrier in a two dimensional pattern such that the plurality of printing cartridges are able to print on the substrate a line that is perpendicular to the first dimension. Fewer than half of the plurality printing cartridges that print segments of the line that abut each other are adjacent to each other along the first dimension.

Abstract: An inkjet head includes an ink passage unit, an actuator unit; a printed circuit board; a metallic bond for electrically connecting a land to a terminal, the metallic bond being disposed in at least one of a region between the land and the terminal and a region extending over the land and the terminal along the peripheries of the land and the terminal; and a protrusion disposed on the connecting portion between a main electrode portion and the land.

Abstract: An ink supply system for an inkjet printhead is provided. The system comprises: (a) an ink reservoir for storing ink, the ink reservoir being contained in a pressurizable chamber; (b) an ink conduit providing fluid communication between the ink reservoir and the printhead; (c) a pressure device for positively pressurizing the chamber, the pressure device comprising an air compressor in fluid communication with the chamber; and (d) a valve in the ink conduit for controlling a supply of ink to the printhead.

Abstract: A method for generating a reference signal for use in an imaging apparatus having an encoder system that supplies an original encoder signal includes selecting one of a plurality of encoder signal conditioning algorithms corresponding to a plurality of desired functions, each encoder signal conditioning algorithm of the plurality of encoder signal conditioning algorithms being directed to facilitating a specific predefined function of the plurality of desired functions relating to a modification of the original encoder signal; reading values into the selected encoder signal conditioning algorithm to generate at least one programming parameter; and programming a hardware reference unit using the at least one programming parameter to generate a synthesized encoder signal representing the modification of the original encoder signal.

Abstract: Disclosed is a print apparatus including a rotating unit rotating a printed object, a print head printing visible information by ejecting ink droplets onto the printed object being rotated by the rotating unit, and a control unit generating ink ejection data based on the visible information and controlling the print head based on the ink ejection data. In the print apparatus, the control unit converts the visible information, which is expressed using biaxial perpendicular coordinate data, to polar coordinate data and carries out dot density correction that applies a correction weighting calculated in accordance with the number of dots per unit area for each dot in the polar coordinate data to a luminance value of each dot to generate the ink ejection data.

Abstract: A printing apparatus is provided which uses, as a print head, a thermal head having heating elements arrayed in a line perpendicular to the traveling direction of a printing medium. Correspondingly pixel data, at either end, or near the end, of each line of image data going to be printed, data on heat storage in the thermal head (108) is calculated for each line on the basis of data on heat storage in the print head for a preceding line, and the data on heat storage in the print head for each line is compared with predetermined-temperature data. When any of the stored-heat data is larger than the predetermined-temperature data, energy to the heating element (113) is decreased. The image data is printed on the printing medium (104) with the energy for application to the heating element (113) being kept decreased.

Abstract: A negative pressure ink supply system includes (1) a primary ink cartridges, (2) a secondary ink cartridges, which are connected by means of an ink tubes with the negative pressure ink cartridge assemblies provided between the secondary ink cartridges and the jet head. The ink, pumped from the primary ink cartridge, is put into the secondary ink cartridge, wherein it is supplied to the negative pressure ink cartridge and then in turn from the negative pressure ink cartridge to the jet head. The liquid level in the secondary cartridge is lower than the jet head surface and adjustable. The negative pressure ink supply system is suitable for image-printing equipment by supplying liquid ink, such as large format machines, portrait machines, plotters, etc.

Abstract: The object of the present invention is to easily select a file when a user prints. In order to achieve this object, according to this invention, an information processing method in an image forming apparatus which stores a printing history in a print process, includes the steps of displaying accessible files stored in a predetermined storage location, selecting one of the displayed files (step S701), extracting, based on the printing history, a file related to the selected file (steps S703 to S706), and printing an arbitrary file of the selected and extracted files (steps S708 and S709).