Seiko Epson Corporation

Mikuni Shikiso Kabushiki Kaisha

Bunji Ishimoto

Hirokazu Nunokawa

Toru Miyamoto

Masahiko Yoshida

Tatsuya Nakano

Yoichi Kakehashi

Naoki Sudo

Akito Sato

Tomohiro Yuda

Takeshi Tanoue

Yumiko Takeda

Takahide Miyashita

Kazuaki Watanabe

Tsuyoshi Sano

Kiyohiko Takemoto

Shuichi Kataoka

Mai Kubota

Shinichi Kato

Kazuhide Kubota

Hidenori Usuda

Hiroshi Ito

Akira Mizutani

Mitsuaki Yoshizawa

Tatsuo Furuta

Yoshihiko Matsuzawa

Yasuhiro Takeuchi

Naoki Okamoto

Masato Suzuki

Yuji Hatanaka

Katsuhiko Sugiyama

Izumi Yasuda

Tomoyuki Shiraga

Koichi Murayama

Mika Fujimori

Yoshiaki Miyazaki

Syuichi Kataoka

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes: a first nozzle row in which first nozzles ejecting a first liquid are arranged in a predetermined direction; a second nozzle row in which second nozzles ejecting a second liquid are arranged in the predetermined direction; a movement mechanism moving the first and second nozzle rows in a movement direction intersecting the predetermined direction relative to a medium; a transport mechanism transporting the medium in the predetermined direction relative to the first and second nozzle rows; and a control unit repeating an image forming operation of ejecting the liquids from the first and second nozzles while moving the first and second nozzle rows in the movement direction by the movement mechanism and a transport operation of transporting the medium in the predetermined direction relative to the first and second nozzle rows by the transport mechanism. When a first image is formed with the first liquid in a given image forming operation and then a second image is formed with the second liquid on the first image in another image forming operation, the control unit sets the first nozzles forming the first image to the nozzles located on an upstream side in the predetermined direction relative to the second nozzles forming the second image in forming the first and second images at a middle portion of the medium, and sets the first nozzles forming the first image to the nozzles located on a downstream side in the predetermined direction relative to the first nozzles, which form the first image at the middle portion of the medium, in forming the first and second images at an upper end portion of the medium.

Liquid ejecting apparatus and liquid ejecting method

A droplet discharging method includes: forming a plurality of dots on a first region of a medium, on a second region which is positioned in a &#x2212;Y direction from the first region, and on a third region which is positioned in the &#x2212;Y direction from the second region. The dots are formed on the first region by using a first head and a second head to cause a second head use ratio to be constant, the dots are formed on the second region by using the first head and the second head so as to cause the second head use ratio to be increased from a value less than a first set value to a value greater than a second set value greater than the first set value in the &#x2212;Y direction, and the dots are formed on the third region by using the second head.

Droplet discharging method and droplet discharging apparatus

A droplet discharging method includes: forming a plurality of dots on a first region of a medium, on a second region which is positioned in a &#x2212;Y direction from the first region, and on a third region which is positioned in the &#x2212;Y direction from the second region. The dots are formed on the first region by using a first head, the dots are formed on the second region by using the first head and a second head so that a second head use ratio is increased from a value less than a first set value to a value greater than a second set value greater than the first set value in the &#x2212;Y direction, and the dots are formed on the third region by using the first head and the second head to cause the second head use ratio to be constant.

A printing device which prints onto a printing medium comprising: a printing head; a control section which moves the printing head in a scanning direction and relatively moves either of the head or the printing medium in a direction which intersects with the scanning direction; and a discharge control section, wherein the printing head is provided with a plurality of color nozzle rows which are arranged to line up in the intersecting direction and where a plurality of nozzles which discharge the same color of color ink are arranged in the intersecting direction for each of the color nozzles rows, and a black ink nozzle row which is a nozzle row, which is arranged to line up with the color nozzle rows and discharges black ink, and which has a black ink nozzle group of the same number as the number of rows of the color nozzles.

Printing device and printing method

A printing device includes a required ink amount acquisition part, an ejectable amount acquisition part, and a division printing control part. The required ink amount acquisition part is configured to determine a required ink amount based on print data of a bandwidth over which ink is ejected by driving an ink head in a main scanning direction. The ejectable amount acquisition part is configured to determine an ejectable amount based on a residual amount in an ink cartridge. The division printing control part is configured to determine whether a printing for the bandwidth is performed by one time of a main scanning operation, or the printing is performed by dividing into multiple main scanning operations based on the required ink amount and the ejectable amount, and to perform the printing in accordance with the determination.

A fluid ejecting apparatus includes first and second rows of nozzles for ejecting first and second fluids respectively, a mechanism that transports the medium in the row direction, a mechanism that moves the nozzle rows in a direction intersecting the direction of the rows, and a controller that repeats an image formation operation while the medium is transported and the rows of nozzles moved. After forming a first image using the first row of nozzles, a second image is formed on the first image using the second row of nozzles in another image formation operation. For normal image formation, the second nozzles are set further downstream in the nozzle row direction than the first nozzles, and for image formation on a lower end portion of the medium, the second nozzles are set further upstream in the nozzle row direction than they are during normal image formation.

Fluid ejecting apparatus and fluid ejecting method

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes: a first nozzle row in which first nozzles ejecting a first liquid are arranged in a predetermined direction; a second nozzle row in which second nozzles ejecting a second liquid are arranged in the predetermined direction; a movement mechanism moving the first and second nozzle rows in a movement direction intersecting the predetermined direction relative to a medium; a transport mechanism transporting the medium in the predetermined direction relative to the first and second nozzle rows; and a control unit repeating an image forming operation of ejecting the liquids from the first and second nozzles while moving the first and second nozzle rows in the movement direction by the movement mechanism and a transport operation of transporting the medium in the predetermined direction relative to the first and second nozzle rows by the transport mechanism.

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes a liquid supplying unit that supplies the liquid, a head unit that has a nozzle row, in which a plurality of nozzles for ejecting the liquid is aligned, a control unit that forms a raster area, in which a plurality of ejection dots in units of the nozzle rows is aligned in a main scanning direction, an ejection amount calculating unit that calculates ejection amounts of the liquid needed for forming the ejection dots, and a division scanning unit that divides the raster area so as to be formed by performing a plurality of head scanning operations in accordance with a transitional change in the ejection amounts that is formed by aligning the ejection amounts calculated by the ejection amount calculating unit in the order in which the ejection dots in units of nozzle rows are formed.

Liquid ejecting apparatus and method of ejecting liquid

A printing device includes a nozzle row for chromatic ink comprising K nozzles and a nozzle row for achromatic ink comprising (n&#xb7;K) nozzles. In a color region, an image-forming operation is performed m times in which the movement direction of the nozzle rows switches alternately between forward and reverse directions, whereby a region of the image having a predetermined width is formed. The image-forming operation performed m times includes the image-forming operation performed once in which both of the nozzle rows for chromatic ink and for achromatic ink are used, and the image-forming operation performed (m&#x2212;1) times in which only the nozzle row for chromatic ink is used. In a monochrome region, the image-forming operation is performed once in which only the nozzle row for achromatic ink is used, whereby a region of the image having a predetermined width is formed.

Printing device, method for controlling printing device, and computer program

A fluid ejecting apparatus includes first and second rows of nozzles ejecting first and second fluids respectively. A control section repeats an image formation operation ejecting fluid from the first and second nozzles while moving them perpendicularly to the row direction and controls transportation of the medium in the row direction. After formation of a first image layer by the first and second fluids, a second image layer is formed thereon by the second fluid. For normal image formation, the first and second nozzles forming the first image layer are further upstream in the row direction than the second nozzles forming the second image layer, and for image formation of an upper end of the medium, the first and second nozzles forming the first image layer are further downstream in the row direction than the first and second nozzles forming the first image layer in normal image formation.

A fluid ejecting apparatus includes first and second nozzle groups that eject first and second fluids respectively; a third nozzle group that does not eject any fluid; and a controlling section that performs image formation and transportation operations, including ejecting the first and second fluids while moving the first and second nozzle groups in a movement direction, and transporting the medium relative to the first and second nozzle groups in a predetermined direction. The controlling section performs control for forming a first image using the first nozzle group and for forming a second image on the first image using at least the second nozzle group. Relative to the predetermined direction, the first nozzle group is located upstream of the second nozzle group, and the third nozzle group is located downstream of the first nozzle group and is located upstream of the second nozzle group.

An apparatus includes: a first nozzles for ejecting a first fluid are lined up in a predetermined direction; a second nozzles for ejecting a second fluid are lined up in the predetermined direction; and a control unit performs an ejecting operation of ejecting fluid from the nozzles, wherein the control unit forms an image on a medium in one of a first mode of forming a main image with the first fluid and a second mode of forming the main image and a background image with the second fluid to be overlapped, forms the main image using a certain nozzle group in the first nozzles when the main image is formed in the first mode, and forms the main image using the same nozzle group as the certain nozzle group when the main image is formed in the second mode.

A first and a second nozzle array eject a first and a second fluid, respectively. A control section controls the nozzle arrays while relatively shifting a relative position between the nozzle arrays and a medium. When printing normally, the relative position between the nozzle arrays and the medium is shifted towards one side by a transporting distance. When forming a second image using the second fluid over a first image formed using the first fluid, the second image's nozzles are located towards the one side relative to the first image's nozzles. When printing near an edge of the medium, a non-ejection one of the nozzles is located towards the one side of the first image's nozzles, and is located towards the other side of the second image's nozzles. A length of a region to which the non-ejection nozzle belongs is an integral multiple of the transporting distance.

To provide a technique for largely preventing conspicuous banding from appearing in printed images, a print head is provided with three nozzle rows in which a plurality of nozzles are arrayed in a sub-scanning direction, the nozzle rows being spaced apart in a main scanning direction. In two nozzle rows among the three nozzle rows, the positions of the nozzles in the sub-scanning direction are mutually the same, and in one nozzle row among the three nozzle rows, the positions of the nozzles the sub-scanning direction lie between nozzles of the two nozzle rows in the sub-scanning direction. The three nozzle rows can eject ink of the same hue.

Print head, printing device, and printing method

A fluid ejecting apparatus includes a head that is provided with a first-nozzle-row and a second-nozzle-row, a platen that is provided with a plurality of convex-portions, and a control unit repeats an operation of ejecting fluid from the nozzles moving in two directions of a forward-path and a backward-path. The control unit adjusts the ejecting time such that, at the medium of the convex-portions, an amount-of-deviation in the movement-direction of the dots formed on the forward-path and the backward-path by the first-nozzle-row is less than an amount-of-deviation of the dots formed on the forward-path and backward-path by the second-nozzle-row. In the ejection operation, and such that the position in the movement-direction of the dots formed by the second-nozzle-row is a position opposite to the side on which the head moves in the movement-direction with respect to the position in the movement-direction of the dots formed by the first-nozzle-row.

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Matsumoto, Japan

Bunji Ishimoto