Sony Corporation

Shinichi Horii

Hiroshi Tokunaga

Masato Nakamura

Shigeyoshi Hirashima

Yuji Yakura

Takumi Namekawa

Atsushi Nakamura

Shota Nishi

Makoto Ando

Takeo Eguchi

Yuichiro Ikemoto

Kenji Suzuki

Kazuyasu Takenaka

Shinji Kayaba

Takaaki Murakami

Toshio Fukuda

Minoru Kohno

Masayuki Takakura

Masayoshi Koyama

Tooru Tanikawa

Masaki Kishimoto

Hiroyasu Uchida

Yasuo Yukita

Akihito Miyazaki

Kenji Okamoto

Soichi Kuwahara

Hiromitsu Takeda

Yasushi Hirumi

Yoshiaki Haba

Takanori Takahashi

Shoto Nishi

Takeo Eguehi

Yoshihiro Nishio

Katusyuki Ogura

A head cartridge and a liquid ejection apparatus in which cleaning is performed using a liquid absorbing force of a wiping member produced along with restoration of temporarily increased elastic displacement of the wiping member.

Head cartridge and liquid ejection apparatus

The present invention provides a droplet discharging apparatus including a discharge head for deflectively discharging droplets through one discharge port at a plurality of pixel areas in adaptive fashion. The discharge head is controlled to discharge droplets at an object. A storage unit stores status information about the discharge head. A communication unit communicates with an information processing apparatus located outside so as to transmit the status information to the information processing apparatus.

Head unit, droplet discharging apparatus, droplet discharging system, information processing apparatus, information processing method, status information notifying method, status information updating method, faulty position detecting method, and programs

An image forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording medium is disclosed. The image forming apparatus includes a print head () having an ink emitting surface () in which there are formed a plural number of ink emitting openings (). An ink is emitted from the ink emitting openings () for forming an image on a recording medium. The image forming apparatus also includes an emission controller () for controlling the ink emission from the ink emitting openings () formed in the ink emitting surface (). The emission controller () is responsive to an input image signal to control the quantity of preliminary ink emission from one or more of the ink emitting openings () or to select one or more of the ink emitting openings (). In this manner, the quantity of the preliminary ink emission from the ink emitting openings () is controlled, or one or more of the ink emitting openings () is selected, responsive to the image signal, to diminish the wasteful ink emission and to clean the ink emitting openings () or the vicinity without damaging the ink emitting surface ().

Image forming apparatus and controlling method therefor

A printer is provided which sprays ink from nozzles to print recording paper P. It includes a paper feed/delivery mechanism () to carrying the paper P to which the ink is to adhere, nozzles () to spray the ink as droplets, an ink-spraying head () to spray the ink from the nozzles toward the paper P having been carried to a position opposite to the nozzles, an ink-spraying controller () to control the ink-spraying head () to spray the ink from the nozzles in predetermined timing, a temperature sensor () to detect the ambient temperature and/or humidity when spraying the ink from the nozzles, a speed discrimination unit () to judge whether the carrying speed of the paper P has been changed, a memory () having stored therein ink-spraying control data intended for controlling the spraying timing correspondingly to the type of the paper P, and a controller () to delay, when the carrying speed of the paper P has been increased in the process of printing, the timing of spraying ink in other color than black based on the temperature detected by the temperature sensor and ink-spraying control data for the type of the paper P, pre-stored in the memory, in relation to that which is before the carrying speed of the paper P is increased, thereby projecting the other ink than the black ink to a position to which the black ink is to be projected.

Liquid spraying apparatus and method

A remaining-liquid-amount apparatus for displaying an amount of conductive liquid (ink) remaining in a container includes electrode units which are arranged along a direction in which the liquid level falls when the amount of liquid in the container decreases and which conduct current when the electrode units are in contact with the liquid, a voltage source (pulse generator) which applies a voltage to the electrode units, a liquid detector (DFFs) which detects the presence/absence of the liquid at positions of the electrode units on the basis of whether or not the electrode units conduct current when the voltage is applied by the voltage source, and a remaining-liquid-amount display unit (LEDs) which displays, in steps, the amount of liquid remaining in the container on the basis of the detection result of the presence/absence of the liquid at positions of the electrode units obtained by the liquid detector.

Remaining-liquid-amount display apparatus and remaining-liquid-amount display method

A head cartridge and a liquid ejection apparatus are provided in which cleaning performance of cleaning means is improved using a liquid absorbing force of a wiping member produced along with restoration of temporarily increased elastic displacement of the wiping member. An elastic displacement h (height of a projection) of a cleaning roller temporarily produced by the projection arranged at a position in the foreground of ink ejection nozzles in the cleaning direction of a nozzle surface is established to satisfy the following condition:&#x3e;()(/2&#x2212;&#x3c6;/2),where the restoring speed of the elastic deformation of the cleaning roller is denoted as Vu; the moving speed of the cleaning roller is denoted as Vr; the movement distance of the cleaning roller from a restoring initiation point of the elastic deformation to the center of the liquid ejection nozzles is L; the contact width between the cleaning roller and the nozzle surface is n; and the diameter of the ink ejection nozzle is &#x3c6;.

A connection apparatus is disclosed which includes a connection source and a connection destination. The connection source includes information about a predetermined connection destination; and a connecting element for making a connection request to the predetermined connection destination based on the information about the connection destination and, given a permission, for automatically connecting to the connection destination. The predetermined connection destination includes a receiving element for receiving the connection request from the connection source, a judging element which, upon interpreting the connection request, judges whether the connection source is a predetermined connection source or not, and a permission granting element which, if the judging element judges the connection source to be a predetermined connection source, then grants connection permission to the connection source.

Connection apparatus, connecting method, and storage medium for storing computer-readable program having connecting functions

A cleaner of a liquid discharge head having a nozzle surface provided with a liquid discharge nozzle for discharging a predetermined liquid cleans the nozzle surface by moving relative to the liquid discharge head. It includes a cleaning roller for wiping the nozzle surface, the surface of the cleaning roller which comes into contact with the nozzle surface being formed of a fibrous absorbing member.

Cleaner of liquid discharger head and liquid discharger

A printer performs a printing operation by driving a cartridge to discharge ink. The ink in the printer is billed according to the amount of actual use of ink. In a service center, the head ID is first input. Then, the head ID is verified against the user ID. The amount of the use of ink is checked. Then, the billing amount for the actual use of ink is determined. The user is requested to pay for the cost.

Accounting apparatus, accounting method, and computer-readable program storage medium for storing program having accounting function

Connection apparatus for connecting a source over a network to a predetermined destination, connecting method, and storage medium for storing computer-readable program having connecting functions

A printer head with overlapping nozzles. A plurality of head chips are formed in an array pattern on the printer head wherein a plurality of nozzles are associated with each head chip. Nozzles associated with one head chip and nozzles associated with an adjacent head chip partly overlap to form an overlapped area. When an ink-ejecting mechanism drives across a print object, the nozzles of the one head chip and the nozzles of the adjacent head chip respectively eject inks which are mixed in the overlapped area to reduce dot density differences on the print object.

Printer and printer head

Growing community of inventors

Kanagawa, Japan

Shinichi Horii