Konica-minolta Holdings, Inc.

Konica Minolta, Inc.

Shingo Tsubotani

Takayuki Kato

Akihiro Taguchi

Hiroaki Arakawa

Takashi Muramatsu

Tetsushi Aoki

Minoru Maekawara

Naoya Komada

Nobuya Yamamoto

An object is to provide a head drive unit that prevents an increase in viscosity of inks in nozzles even when a head is present outside an image forming region and also provide an inkjet printer, and the head drive unit includes: a drive signal output devicethat outputs either a discharge signal or a meniscus oscillation signal to each head; a cycle generatorthat generates a cyclic oscillation timing signal for the meniscus oscillation signal; an input interruption detectorthat detects that input of a print timing signal is interrupted; and a drive signal selectorthat selects the meniscus oscillation signal as a drive signal output from the drive signal output device and continuously applies the meniscus oscillation signal to all nozzles of each head in synchronization with an oscillation timing signal when interruption of the input of the print timing signal is detected.

Head drive unit and inkjet printer

An inkjet printer, including a recording head having a nozzle to jet ink droplets, a control section to control jetting of the ink droplets from the nozzle of the recording head at predetermined driving conditions for jetting the ink droplets, a velocity detecting section to detect ink droplets jetting velocity from the nozzle of the recording head, a temperature detecting section to detect temperature of the recording head or ambient temperature of the recording head, a first changing section to change the driving conditions to alter the ink droplets jetting velocity to a targeted velocity based on detected results of the velocity detecting section, and a second changing section to change the driving conditions at a time differing from a time of the first changing section to alter the ink droplets jetting velocity to the targeted velocity based on the detected results of the temperature detecting section.

Inkjet printer

An inkjet recording apparatus includes: exchangeable first and second ink cartridges; a recording head which jets ink to a recording medium; an intermediate tank which receives the ink from the ink cartridge and supplies the ink to the recording head; a detecting sensor which detects whether ink residual quantity of an ink cartridge is not more than predetermined quantity based on ink quantity in the intermediate tank; a switching section which, if the ink residual quantity is not more than the predetermined quantity, switches the ink cartridge for supplying the ink to the intermediate tank; a first detector which detects the reset of the first ink cartridge; a second detector which detects the reset of the second ink cartridge; and a controller which, if the first ink cartridge is reset, controls the switching section to switch the second ink cartridge to the first ink cartridge, for supplying the ink.

Inkjet cartridge detection and switching apparatus

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Kunitachi, Japan

Shingo Tsubotani