Hewlett-Packard Company

Richard A Becker

William Scott Osborne

Paul E Martinson

Arthur King Wilson

W Wistar Rhoads

Patrick J Chase

Long Doan

David C Burney

An inkjet printer with multiple printheads in a carriage divides service station functions between a first service station and a second service station. In a preferred embodiment, a black ink printhead is carried by the carriage to a stop position in the first service station where a wiper dedicated to the black ink printhead moves across a stationary nozzle array in a first wiping procedure, and color ink printheads are carried by the carriage to a second service station to move a nozzle array across stationary wipers respectively dedicated to each color ink printhead. The first service station provides spittoon services to all printheads, and the second service station provides capping as well as priming services to all printheads.

Inkjet printer having multiple printheads and multiple independent

An inkjet printer has a printhead mounted in a carriage which periodically moves along a printhead path in a carriage scan direction to a stop position in a service station where an actuation device imparts translational motion to a wiper blade. The wiper blade moves along a linear wiping path orthogonal to the printhead path and across ink orifices on a nozzle surface of the printhead during a wiping operation. The wiper blade is removably mounted on a base and is split to form a first blade for wiping one column of ink orifices and a second blade for simultaneously wiping another column of ink orifices on a nozzle surface of the printhead. In a preferred form of the invention, the service station provides different sequential wiping steps with successive wiper blades by first drawing ink onto the nozzle surface from the ink orifices with a rounded blade edge of a leading wiper blade, and then wiping the ink from the nozzle surface with a sharp blade edge of a following wiper blade. The sequential wiping steps are repeated twice during a normal wiping cycle--once when the wiper blades leave a parking location to wipe across the stationary printhead, and again when the wiper blades change direction to wipe back across the same stationary printhead to return to the parking location located away from the printhead path.

Translational wiping technique for a stationary inkjet printhead

An inkjet printer has a printhead mounted in a carriage which periodically moves in a carriage scan direction to a stop position in a service station where an actuation device causes a wiper blade to move back and forth across ink orifices on a nozzle surface of the printhead during a wiping operation. The actuation device incorporates a rotating lead screw to impart transtlational motion to the wiper blade in a wiping direction orthogonal to the carriage scan direction. A clutching action prevents further movement of the wiper blade after completion of each wiping step. The actuation device is driven through a gear train from a motor such as a media advance motor. An ink spittoon is incorporated in the same service station for receiving ink generated during a spitting operation, and a scraper in the ink spittoon removes residual ink from the wiper blade.

Actuation mechanism for translational wiping of a stationary inkjet

A method for operating an ink jet printer that includes the steps of performing a printer turn-on printhead service on a printhead cartridge of the printer; resetting a page counter, an uncapped condition time counter, and an ink drop counter, wherein the page counter counts the number of pages printed, the uncapped condition time counter counts the amount of time that the printhead cartridge is in the uncapped condition, and the ink drop counter counts the number of ink drops emitted by the printhead cartridge; printing a plurality of pages of print media; after a page is printed performing a post-prime printhead service if the printhead cartridge was primed during the printing of the page; and after a page is printed performing a print time printhead service if the printhead cartridge was not primed during the printing of the page and if (a) the ink jet printer has printed at least a predetermined number of pages since the page count counter was reset, (b) the printhead cartridge has been uncapped for at least a predetermined amount of time since the uncapped condition time counter was reset, or (c) the printhead cartridge has emitted at least a predetermined number of ink drops since the drop counter was reset.

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Barcelona, Spain

Richard A Becker