Fujifilm Corporation

Fuji Photo Film Company, Limited

Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

Shin-etsu Polymer Co., Ltd.

Hirofumi Saita

Kazuo Sanada

Yasuhiko Kachi

Kazuaki Okamori

Toshiyuki Makuta

Kenji Suzuki

Takaaki Terashita

Yoshiaki Inoue

Ichirou Miyagawa

Yoshirou Yamazaki

Hiroshi Sunagawa

Toru Shimizu

Akio Nakamura

Kyohei Mochizuki

Osami Hayashi

Shuji Tahara

Naoki Kodama

Provided are an image forming apparatus and an image forming method capable of coping with a medium exceeding a transport limit of a pair of rollers in image formation in which the medium is transported with the medium interposed between the pair of rollers. In a case where a medium exceeding a transport limit of first transport means to which medium transport using a first roller and a second roller is applied is used, second transport means is used to assist in the medium transport performed by the first transport means. The driving of second driving means for driving the second transport means is controlled using a driving signal applied to the driving control of the first driving means for driving the first transport means. Medium transport in which synchronization is taken between the first transport means and the second transport means is realized.

Image forming apparatus and image forming method

An inkjet recording method of the present invention includes preparing an inkjet recording apparatus having an inkjet head that has N (N&#x2267;4) nozzle arrays, so as to respectively discharge inks of at least four colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, having nozzles arranged in a first direction at a predetermined pitch P for discharging a curable ink which is cured by providing active energy, each of the nozzle arrays is arranged to be shifted in the first direction so as to have distances of more than 0 among each virtual line extending from each nozzle in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, in which the viscosity of any of the respective inks at 25&#xb0; C. is 10 to 30 mPa&#xb7;s.

Inkjet recording method using nozzle arrays and printed material obtained by the inkjet recording method

An inkjet recording apparatus for forming an image by discharging an ink including an ink pigment and a polymerizable compound containing at least an N-vinyl lactam, in which the 90% diameter in cumulative volume distribution of the particle diameters of the ink pigment is equal to or less than 500 nm and the content of N-vinyl lactam is 3% to 24%, from nozzles of an inkjet head, which includes nozzle arrays having nozzles each of which discharges a curable ink cured by applied active energy and which are arranged in the first direction at a pitch P, the nozzle arrays being N (N&#x2267;4) nozzle arrays of every color, which respectively discharge thick inks of at least four colors and which nozzle arrays are arranged to be shifted by P/N away from each other in the first direction.

Inkjet recording apparatus and inkjet recording method

According to an aspect of the present invention, by switching off the provisional curing device on the rear side in the direction of travel of the scanning direction, droplet ejection is carried out without performing provisional curing of the ink immediately after droplet ejection. The provisional curing of the ink is carried out by the provisional curing device on the front side in the direction of travel of the scanning direction, during scanning in the opposite direction to that during droplet ejection.

Curing processing is realized according to differences in absorption characteristics of activation light among inks and characteristics of layers to be formed with the inks. A scanning device reciprocally moves in a first direction an inkjet head including a first nozzle array ejecting a first ink and a second nozzle array ejecting a second ink; a relative movement device relatively moves a recording medium in a second direction with respect to the head; an ejection control device divides the nozzle array into regions in the second direction and controls ink ejection for each unit of the divided nozzle region; an activation light irradiation device irradiates the inks deposited on the medium with the activation light; an irradiation region dividing device divides an irradiation range into divided irradiation regions corresponding respectively to the divided nozzle regions; and a light quantity control device controls light quantities respectively for the divided irradiation regions.

Inkjet recording apparatus

In an inkjet head which has nozzle rows having nozzles each of which ejects curable inks cured by imparted activation energy and which are arranged in a first direction at a pitch P, the nozzle rows being N (N&#x2267;5) nozzle rows of every color which eject, respectively, thick inks of four colors including cyan, magenta, yellow and black, and at least one light ink among light inks similar in color tone to the thick inks, the nozzles in each of the nozzle rows are arranged so as to be shifted by P/N from each other in a first direction, a nozzle of an ink with lowest cure sensitivity is arranged on the most upstream side in a direction of relative movement of a recording medium in the first direction, and further the nozzle of light ink is arranged in between the nozzles of two different thick inks.

Inkjet recording apparatus and method for controlling the same

An inkjet recording apparatus and an image forming method in which ink curing defects caused by differences in the activation energy absorption characteristics due to differences in the inks are avoided, and a desirable curing process can be achieved.

Inkjet recording apparatus and image forming method

The image recording apparatus includes: a recording head in which a plurality of recording elements are arranged over a length corresponding to a recordable width of a recording medium; a conveyance device which performs conveyance to cause the recording head and the recording medium to move relatively to each other one time only in a conveyance direction, a reference line being arranged on the conveyance device; an image output device which records a prescribed image on the recording medium through the recording head; a sensor which reads the reference line on the conveyance device, and reads the prescribed image on the recording medium recorded by the image output device; and a displacement evaluation device which evaluates a displacement between the reference line and the recording head in accordance with a result of reading the reference line by the sensor and a result of reading the prescribed image by the sensor.

Image recording apparatus and method of adjusting recording head in image recording apparatus

An inkjet printing apparatus includes: an inkjet head having nozzles which eject ink; a first conveyance device which moves at least one of an image formation medium and the inkjet head during image formation by the inkjet head; a second conveyance device which conveys the image formation medium along a conveyance path after the image formation by the inkjet head; an imaging device; a test pattern printing control device which controls ejection of the inkjet head; an ejection failure nozzle detection processing device; an expansion-contraction reference mark printing control device; an expansion-contraction deformation amount measurement device; an image deformation processing device which applies image deformation processing corresponding to the amount of deformation due to expansion and contraction, to image data to be printed on the second surface; and a print control device which carries out the printing on the second surface on a basis of the image data which has been corrected through the image deformation processing.

Inkjet printing apparatus and printing method of inkjet printing apparatus

An image forming apparatus includes: a recording head which has a plurality of nozzles for ejecting an ink onto a recording medium; a movement device which causes relative movement between the recording head and the recording medium; an image forming controller which controls the recording head according to image data in such a manner that an image corresponding to the image data is formed on the recording medium; an ejection abnormality detection device which detects ejection abnormality including at least one of non-ejection and ejection direction deviation of the plurality of nozzles; a compensation device which compensates an image defect caused by the ejection abnormality; and a determination device which determines whether or not the head is in a state where the compensation device can compensate the image defect, according to detection result of the ejection abnormality detection device.

Image forming apparatus, image forming method, remote monitoring system, and method of providing maintenance service

An inkjet recording apparatus includes: a treatment liquid deposition device which deposits a treatment liquid insolubilizing or aggregating inks of a plurality of colors, onto a recording medium; a recording head which has a plurality of nozzles ejecting the inks onto the recording medium on which the treatment liquid has been deposited; a data acquisition device which acquires density data of an image with respect to each color, the density data corresponding to the plurality of colors; a higher-order color correction device which corrects the density data, wherein when the inks of different colors are ejected in ejection order so that a preceding ink ejected precedingly to form a lower layer and a subsequent ink ejected subsequently to form an upper layer overlap each other, the higher-order color correction device corrects the density data for a nozzle ejecting the subsequent ink according to the density data for a nozzle ejecting the preceding ink; and an ejection controller which controls ejection of the inks from the recording head according to the density data that the higher-order color correction device has corrected in such a manner that the image is formed on the recording medium.

Inkjet recording apparatus, color correction method and computer-readable medium

An image formation device that inspects for image irregularities caused by joining of inkjet head modules. The image formation device is equipped with a belt conveyance unit, a recording head, a print sensor and a system controller. The belt conveyance unit moves paper in a conveyance direction. At the recording head, modules including plural recording elements that eject ink droplets are joined up to a length corresponding to the width of the paper. The recording head ejects ink droplets at the paper being conveyed to form an image. The print sensor reads the image recorded on the paper, while moving in the width direction of the paper. On the basis of the image that is read, the system controller inspects the quality of the image recorded on the paper.

Image forming device

An inkjet recording apparatus includes: a head having a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink onto a recording medium; a conveyance device which conveys the recording medium in a prescribed direction along a conveyance path; an investigation pattern generation device which generates a thinned-out investigation pattern that is to be output by causing the nozzles other than a portion of the plurality of nozzles of the head to eject the ink; a reading device which is provided on the conveyance path and which reads in the investigation pattern output onto the recording medium; and a checking device which performs comparison between data of the investigation pattern read in by the reading device and data of the investigation pattern generated by the investigation pattern generation device, wherein a determination rate of ejection failure nozzles is found from result obtained by outputting the investigation pattern generated by the investigation pattern generation device onto the recording medium from the head, reading in the output investigation pattern by the reading device, and performing the comparison between the data of the investigation pattern thus read in and the data of the investigation pattern generated by the investigation pattern generation device.

Inkjet recording apparatus and method of investigating ejection failure determination performance

An inkjet recording apparatus has: a head having a plurality of nozzles which eject an ink onto a recording medium; a conveyance device which conveys the recording medium; a droplet ejection control device which controls ink ejection of the head; a test image forming device that forms a test image on the recording medium by causing the ink to be ejected from every n (where n is a natural number equal to 2 or higher) nozzles in an X direction perpendicular to a direction in which the recording medium is conveyed, and causing the ink to be ejected so as to form vertical lines forming n columns which shift by one nozzle in the X direction and each extend continuously in terms of a Y direction parallel to the direction in which the recording medium is conveyed; and a reading device which is provided on a conveyance path of the recording medium, reads in a test image on the recording medium and has an image reading structure covering a length corresponding to full width of the recording medium in a breadthways direction which is perpendicular to the direction in which the recording medium is conveyed, wherein in the test image, an arrangement pitch in the X direction of the vertical lines is equal to or exceeding a reading pitch in the X direction of the reading device, an arrangement pitch in the Y direction of the vertical lines is N times a reading pitch in the Y direction of the reading device (where N is a natural number), and an interval corresponding to variation in a conveyance of the recording medium is provided between the vertical lines in such a manner that a length in the Y direction of each of the vertical lines is less than the reading pitch in the Y direction of the reading device.

Inkjet recording apparatus, test image forming method, and computer-readable medium

A laser beam emitted from a semiconductor laser is guided to a sensitive recording medium on a drum by a focusing optical system and an optical anisotropic element. The optical anisotropic element separates the laser beam along its optical axis to produce a laser beam having two focused positions for thereby increasing the depth of focus. With the increased depth of focus, it is possible to record a highly accurate image on the sensitive recording medium even if the sensitive recording medium is displaced because the drum has its outer circumferential surface not concentric with its axis or the sensitive recording medium is lifted off the drum.

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Kanagawa, Japan

Hirofumi Saita