Kyocera Document Solutions Inc.

Jun Nakano

Hiroomi Nakatsuji

Noriaki Furukawa

Issei Nakano

Takuma Araki

Takashi Somete

Chikara Ishihara

Hiroyuki Ueda

Yasutaka Inui

Aiichiro Otana

Masato Usui

Naoko Kawashima

Hiroki Tanaka

Hiroki Sakane

Yuko Yano

An inkjet recording apparatus includes a recording head, a conveyance belt, a control portion, an ink receiver, an ink discharging flow path, and a liquid supply mechanism. The recording head includes a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink. The conveyance belt has a plurality of first openings and conveys a recording medium. The control portion executes flushing in which the ink is ejected through the nozzles of the recording head to pass through any of the plurality of first openings. The ink receiver is opposite disposed to be opposed to the recording head via the conveyance belt and receives the ink that has passed through the first openings during execution of the flushing. The ink discharging flow path is connected to the ink receiver. The liquid supply mechanism supplies a liquid capable of dissolving the ink into the ink receiver.

Inkjet recording apparatus

An ink-ejection-malfunction-nozzle detecting unit sets nozzle groups such that each nozzle group includes nozzles with a first interval, prints a first test pattern that includes first bands (including thin lines) corresponding to the nozzle groups, sets nozzle subgroups such that each nozzle subgroup includes nozzles with a second interval in each of the nozzle groups, prints a second test pattern that includes second bands (including thin blank lines) corresponding to the nozzle subgroups such that a correction process is performed for adjacent pixels of the thin blank lines, detects a first band including density defect in a scanned image of the first test pattern, detects a second band not including density defect in a scanned image of the second test pattern, correspondingly to the detected first band, and detects an ink ejection malfunction nozzle on the basis of the thin blank line in the detected second band.

Image forming apparatus

In image forming apparatus, a control unit determines nozzles corresponding to the image to be printed, correspondingly to a position of a print sheet, and causes a recording head to eject ink from the nozzles. A correction processing unit performs a correction process corresponding to each of plural ink ejection malfunction positions in the image. If the number of the ink ejection malfunction positions detected with a predetermined ink droplet size exceeds a predetermined upperlimit value, the correction processing unit prints a test pattern using the control unit with an ink droplet size larger than the predetermined ink droplet size, determines as a preferential ink ejection malfunction position an ink ejection malfunction position that ink ejection malfunction is also detected in the test pattern on the basis of a scanned image of the test pattern, and preferentially performs the correction process for the preferential ink ejection malfunction position.

An inkjet recording apparatus includes a recording head including a plurality of nozzles for ejecting ink, a conveyor belt that has a plurality of apertures and conveys recording media one by one, a control unit, an ink receiver, and a pipe-shaped ink discharge flow path. The control unit controls drive of the recording head and the conveyor belt to perform flushing, in which the ink is ejected from the nozzle of the recording head to pass through one of the apertures, at a timing different from a timing contributing to image recording. The ink receiver is disposed to face the recording head sandwiching the conveyor belt therebetween, to receive the ink after passing through the aperture when the flushing is performed. The ink discharge flow path is connected to the ink receiver. When the flushing is performed, a predetermined amount of liquid is stored in the ink receiver.

The inkjet recording apparatus includes a conveyance belt, a conveyance plate, a suction unit, an inkjet head, and a cleaning unit. The conveyance belt has a plurality of through holes. The suction unit causes the conveyance belt to suck the sheet. The conveyance plate includes a plurality of through holes formed in bottom portions of the plurality of recessed portions. The inkjet head includes a head main body and a head end portion adjacent to the head main body, and faces an upper surface of the conveyance plate via the conveyance belt. The cleaning unit removes ink adhering to a lower surface of the head main body. A ratio of the recessed portions per unit area in a facing region of the conveyance plate facing the head end portion is smaller than a ratio of the recessed portions per unit area in a region other than the facing region.

The inkjet recording apparatus includes a conveyance belt, a conveyance plate, a suction unit, an inkjet head, and a cleaning unit. The conveyance belt has a plurality of through holes. The conveyance plate includes a plurality of through holes formed in bottom portions of the plurality of recessed portions. The suction unit is configured to suck the sheet to the conveyance belt. The inkjet head includes a head main body and a head end portion adjacent to the head main body, and faces an upper surface of the conveyance plate via the conveyance belt. The cleaning unit removes ink adhering to a lower surface of the head main body. A depth of the recessed portion in a facing region facing the head end portion of the conveyance plate is shallower than a depth of the recessed portion in a region other than the facing region.

An image processing apparatus includes a halftone processing unit and a multi-level gradation processing unit. The halftone processing unit is configured to perform a halftone process for a target image and generate a binary image corresponding to the target image. The multi-level gradation processing unit is configured to (a) set a target pixel as a dot pixel in the binary image, (b) determine whether a dot exists on plural first periphery pixels with a predetermined first distance from the target pixel and plural second periphery pixels with a predetermined second distance from the target pixel or not, (c) derive a gradation level of the target pixel among predetermined three or more gradation levels on the basis of a number of dots on the plural first periphery pixels and a number of dots on the plural second periphery pixels and thereby generate a multi-level gradation image.

Image processing apparatus and image forming apparatus

An ink jet recording apparatus includes a recording head, a wiper member, a cleaning liquid supply device, and a controller. The recording head includes an ink ejection surface having an ink ejection port from which ink is ejected. The cleaning liquid supply device includes a cleaning liquid supply surface having a cleaning liquid supply port from which cleaning liquid for wiping the ink ejection surface with the wiper member is supplied, and is located upstream of the ink ejection surface in a wiping direction. The controller controls a cleaning operation including squeezing out the cleaning liquid containing bubbles from the cleaning liquid supply port, and moving the wiper member carrying the cleaning liquid containing bubbles, in the wiping direction from a movement start position to an end position ahead of the ink ejection surface.

Ink jet recording apparatus

An inkjet recording apparatus includes a recording head, a wiper member, a cleaning liquid supply device, a cleaning liquid flow path, and a controller. The cleaning liquid flow path includes a vertical tubular member connected to the cleaning liquid supply device and extending upward, and a horizontal tubular member connected to an upper end of the vertical tubular member and extending in a horizontal direction. The controller extrudes a cleaning liquid in at least a part of the cleaning liquid flow path from a cleaning liquid supply port before control of a cleaning operation for wiping an ink ejection surface of the recording head, thereby performing control of an air bubble release operation of the cleaning liquid flow path.

In an image forming apparatus, a controller performs development of toner patterns corresponding to a first halftoning method and a second halftoning method. One of the toner patterns contains first patch images for the first halftoning method, and another one contains second patch images for the second halftoning method. The controller performs development of only one out of both a first patch image (one of the first patch images) and a second patch image (one of the second patch images) if an absolute value of a difference between the number of dots in the first patch image and that in the second patch image is equal to or less than a predetermined value and an absolute value of a difference between the number of dot-level edges in the first patch image and that in the second patch image is equal to or less than a predetermined value.

In the image forming apparatus, the partial image data for gradation adjustment is threshold conversion data of a partial image, the partial image is a part of a base pattern image with a predetermined size and does not contain any sides of the base pattern image, and the base pattern image is an image generated in an error diffusion method; and the patch image generator unit generates an image of a toner pattern by arranging the partial image of the partial image data repeatedly, and forms the toner pattern.

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Osaka, Japan

Jun Nakano