Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Masahiko Umezawa

Shinichi Omo

Takayuki Murata

Satoshi Kitai

Yoshiaki Murayama

Akira Kuronuma

Takeshi Murase

Hiroshi Fukui

Kouichi Serizawa

Jiro Moriyama

Hidehiko Kanda

Atsuhiko Masuyama

Hideaki Takamiya

Minoru Teshigawara

Shinsuke Ikegami

Kiichiro Takahashi

Atsushi Takahashi

Tetsuya Edamura

Takatoshi Nakano

Tomoki Kobayashi

Atsushi Sakamoto

Akiko Maru

Takuya Fukasawa

Masashi Hayashi

Yoshiyuki Honda

Yuki Sawai

Kazuya Koizumi

Chikatoshi Okubo

Kouich Serizawa

A printing apparatus prints by discharging ink to a transfer member from a first printhead, discharging a transfer accelerator to the ink from a second printhead, and transferring an image formed on the transfer member to a print medium. When inspecting a discharge state of each of plural nozzles provided in each of the first and second printheads, the apparatus controls the second printhead so as to discharge the transfer accelerator from at least one nozzle of the second printhead to a discharge area of the transfer member to which the ink is discharged by the first printhead for inspection of the discharge states of the plural nozzles of the first printhead, while inspecting a discharge state of a nozzle different from the at least one nozzle of the second printhead by discharging the transfer accelerator from the nozzle.

Printing apparatus and inspection method therefor

A printing apparatus for printing using a printhead including a plurality of nozzles, each configured to discharge ink, and a plurality of sensors, corresponding to the plurality of nozzles, for detecting a discharge state of ink from the plurality of nozzles, judges a discharge state. The apparatus prints, based on print data, an image by driving the printhead under a first drive condition to discharge the ink from the printhead to a first area, discharges ink to a second area different from the first area by driving the printhead, based on inspection data, under a second drive condition different from the first drive condition, and judges a discharge state of each nozzle by monitoring an output from each sensor at a timing of driving the printhead under the second drive condition.

Printing apparatus and method of judging nozzle discharge state of printing apparatus

According to an embodiment of the present invention, to improve processing performance, a printing apparatus that performs printing by using a printhead formed by a plurality of headchips includes one CPU, a table configured to store processing contents set by the CPU, and a plurality of processing units configured to process, in parallel, printing data to be used in each headchip by commonly using the table and in accordance with the processing contents set in the table. In addition, the apparatus includes a plurality of control units configured to wait for the completion of the processing of each processing unit, synchronize the plurality of processing units for next processing, and cause each of the processing units to execute the next processing in accordance with the processing contents set in the table.

Printing apparatus and control method thereof

A recording apparatus includes a recording head having a plurality of recording elements configured to generate energy for discharging ink, a first heating element configured to heat ink in the vicinity of one of said recording elements positioned at a first position, insufficiently to discharge ink, and a second heating element positioned at a second position different from the first position, which are arranged on a same substrate, a heating control unit configured to control the heating operation of the ink by driving the first and the second heating elements by applying voltage to the first and the second heating elements, and a recording control unit configured to control the recording operation by driving the plurality of recording elements, wherein the heating control unit is configured to control the heating operation to drive the first heating element and the second heating element at timings different from each other.

Recording apparatus and recording method

Priority order is updated so that an ejection port that is selected as an ejection port subjected to ejection failure determination in a pixel row in which a previous ejection operation is to be performed has the lowest priority order, which is used for selecting an ejection port subjected to ejection failure determination, in a pixel row in which a subsequent ejection operation is to be performed.

A printing apparatus includes a control unit that, when continuously printing on a plurality of cut sheets of a same size, controls a print unit to cause a transfer member to continue movement, controls the print unit and a supply unit so as to stop supply of a cut sheet by the supply unit based on information concerning a time taken to process image data representing an image of a print target by an image processing unit, and controls the print unit not to form an ink image in a partial area on the transfer member that passes through a transfer area at a timing when the supply of the cut sheet to the transfer area is stopped, and to form the ink image in a remaining area.

Printing apparatus and control method that control movement of a transfer member

An inkjet printing apparatus uses a printing head including a plurality of nozzle arrays each including a plurality of nozzles arrayed in a first direction, the nozzle arrays being arranged in a second direction. A compensating unit compensates for an ejection failure of a defective nozzle by causing a compensating nozzle to eject ink to a predetermined pixel area in a case where the print data corresponding to the defective nozzle indicates ink ejection to the predetermined pixel area. The compensating unit determines the compensating nozzle such that the compensating nozzle satisfies both a first condition that the compensating nozzle is not a defective nozzle and a second condition that the print data indicates that nozzles belonging to the nozzle array including the compensating nozzle do not eject ink to a pixel area corresponding to N pixels (N is a positive integer) around the predetermined pixel area in the first direction.

Inkjet printing apparatus and inkjet printing method

A pixel row in an arrangement direction or an orthogonal direction is divided into processing groups including pixels at every predetermined pixel count in the pixel row. Nondischarge complementary processing is sequentially performed on the divided plurality of processing groups.

Image processing apparatus and image processing method

The ink jet printing apparatus, wherein, to print images on a printing medium, a plurality of print heads, each of which includes an ejection port array provided by arranging multiple ink ejection ports in a widthwise direction of the printing medium, are arranged in a conveying direction of the printing medium, including: a unit for detecting a printing position displacement with respect to a printing position of a reference print head on the printing medium for each of remaining print heads excluding the reference print head which is one of the plurality of print heads; and a unit for adding non-image data corresponding to the printing position displacement to print data to be printed by the plurality of print heads, so as to align the printing positions of the plurality of print heads.

Ink jet printing apparatus and control method thereof

A recording apparatus includes: a recording head having a recording element row in which multiple recording elements are disposed, with recording elements at dispersed positions in the recording element rows as blocks; a scanning unit configured to scan the recording head in a main scanning direction; a time-division driving unit configured to drive the recording elements in increments of blocks; a storing unit configured to store recording data; an obtaining unit configured to obtain information relating to the inclination of the recording element row relative to the main scanning direction; and a changing unit operable to change, in increments of individual recording elements, the storage position in the main scanning direction of recording data stored in the storing unit that is to be provided to recording elements of a group, which is configured of consecutive recording elements in each block in the recording element row, based on the obtained information.

Recording apparatus

A printing apparatus that includes printing element substrates which are provided with printing elements that discharge ink. A plurality of temperature sensors, each of which is provided with one of the printing element substrates, measures a temperature of a corresponding printing element substrate. A selection unit selects any one of the temperature sensors, and a determination unit performs a determination operation to determine a state of the printing element substrate based on the temperature measured by the selected temperature sensor in a case when only the printing elements of a substrate that corresponds to the selected temperature sensor are driven. The determination unit performs the determination operation on a first substrate and then on a second non-adjacent substrate.

Printing apparatus and determination method thereof

This invention reduces an unprinted stripe occurred by edge deviation of a printhead. An inkjet printing apparatus according to this invention can execute a first printing mode in which an image is printed by scanning the printhead in a first region on the printing medium N times and scanning the printhead in a second region adjacent to the first region (N+1) times, and a second mode in which an image is printed by scanning the printhead in the first region M times and scanning the printhead in the second region (M+1) times. The width, in the conveyance direction of the printing medium, of the second region printed in the second printing mode is narrower than the width, in the conveyance direction of the printing medium, of the second region printed in the first printing mode.

To achieve high-quality printing by controlling an ink-travelling direction by an electrostatic force so that the ink can be accurately applied on a printing medium, the ink is landed on a desired position of the printing medium effectively without disturbing the ink ejection, independent of a difference in the thickness of the printing medium. An electric field between a printing head and the printing medium is generated by applying a voltage to a platen of conductive material positioned immediately below the printing medium. At this point, the voltage applied to the platen is adjusted so that the electric field of a preferable intensity can be generated on a face of the printing head where ejection openings are formed irrespective of the thickness of the printing medium.

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Kawasaki, Japan

Masahiko Umezawa