Seiko Instruments Inc

Masayuki Yamada

Yuji Hosoi

Masayuki Andoh

Morihiko Yamada

Masao Gomi

Syoji Tozaki

An ink jet printer has an ink jet head having nozzles for discharging ink into a recording medium to perform printing, and a cap connectable to the ink jet head to cover the ends of the nozzles. To prevent ink from drying on surfaces of the nozzles, the nozzle ends are covered with the cap after completion of printing, and the interior of the cap is filled with ink a predetermined period of time after covering the nozzle ends with the cap. After the elapse of another predetermined period of time from filling the interior of the cap with ink, the interior of the cap is again filled with ink to replenish ink lost from the cap through evaporation. The interior of the cap is filled with ink when power to the ink jet printer is turned off or when no printing is performed for a fixed period time.

Ink jet head maintenance mechanism and ink jet printer equipped with the mechanism

A printer for intermittely feeding printing sheets to which a photoconductive microcapsule is applied in a sheet feeding direction and printing images on the printing sheets, includes a frame, an exposure head which is supported by the frame and irradiates light to the sheets to form a latent image thereon; and a pressing and developing head which is supported by the frame so as to reciprocate in a scanning direction intersecting the sheet feeding direction on the downstream side of the exposure head with respect to the sheet feeding direction and applies pressure to the latent image forming part of the sheet in cooperation with a sheet supporting means disposed on the rear surface side of the sheet to develop a latent image. The pressing and developing head is supported by a support base supported on the frame main body and extending in the scanning direction of the sheet independently of the exposure head so as to apply a pressing and developing force to the sheet and can reciprocate in the scanning direction on the support base.

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Chiba, Japan

Masayuki Yamada