The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 08, 2015
Filed:
Aug. 06, 2014
Takayuki Ito, Kanagawa, JP;
Naoki Nakano, Kanagawa, JP;
Takayuki Ito, Kanagawa, JP;
Naoki Nakano, Kanagawa, JP;
Ricoh Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An image forming apparatus includes: a recording head having a first nozzle row and a second nozzle row that are adjacent to each other in a direction perpendicular to a conveying direction of a recording medium, a plurality of nozzles being arrayed in the conveying direction in each of the first nozzle row and the second nozzle row, each of the nozzles ejecting one of p types of droplets including a predetermined specific type of droplets, the p being an integer equal to or greater than three; a moving unit that relatively reciprocates the recording medium and the recording head in a direction perpendicular to the conveying direction; and a control unit that controls ejection of the p types of droplets from the nozzles, wherein the nozzles in each of the first nozzle row and the second nozzle row are divided into (p−1) nozzle groups in the conveying direction, first nozzles of the nozzles in a k-th nozzle group (1≦k≦p−1) in the conveying direction and in one of the first nozzle row and the second nozzle row ejects the specific type of droplets, and second nozzles of the nozzles in the k-th nozzle group in the conveying direction and in other one of the first nozzle row and the second nozzle row ejects one of the p types of droplets other than the specific type of droplets, nozzles of each of the (p−1) nozzle groups that do not eject the specific type of droplets ejects different one of the p types of droplets other than the specific type of droplets, nozzles of one of the (p−1) nozzle groups ejecting the specific type of droplets at first in the conveying direction and nozzles of other one of the nozzle groups (p−1) ejecting the specific type of droplets at second in the conveying direction belong to different nozzle rows, and the control unit controls to eject, in one of directions of the reciprocal movement, the p types of droplets other than the specific type of droplets from the nozzles of the each of the (p−1) nozzle groups that do not eject the specific type of droplets and to eject the specific type of droplets from the nozzles of the one of the (p−1) nozzle groups ejecting the specific type of droplets at first in the conveying direction and from the nozzles of the other one of the (p−1) nozzle groups ejecting the specific type of droplets at second in the conveying direction, and controls to eject, in other one of the directions of the reciprocal movement, the p types of droplets other than the specific type of droplets from the nozzles of the each of the (p−1) nozzle groups that do not eject the specific type of droplets.