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US 11,305,544 B2Granted
Cleaning nozzles of a print apparatus
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsAdria Gallart del Burgo, Alex Campa Coloma, Maria Isabel Borrell Bayona, Jordi Bas Ferrer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
There is disclosed a method comprising determining, by a processor, if there are consecutive nozzles of a print apparatus that are occluded by a contaminant; and, when a predetermined number of consecutive nozzles are occluded, automatically triggering a cleaning operation to at least partially remove the contaminant.
Claims15
A method comprising:
- determining, by a processor, if there are consecutive nozzles within a row of nozzles of a print apparatus that are occluded by a contaminant;
- and
- when a predetermined number of consecutive nozzles are occluded, automatically triggering a cleaning operation to at least partially remove the contaminant,
- wherein the cleaning operation comprises:
- moving, along a first axis parallel to the row of nozzles, a wiper blade that is perpendicular to the row of nozzles so that the wiper blade is positioned in-line with just a first nozzle of the consecutive nozzles;
- and
- moving, along a second axis perpendicular to the row of nozzles, the row of nozzles so that the wiper blade moves across just the first nozzle of the consecutive nozzles.
4 more elements
A non-transitory machine-readable medium encoded with instructions executable by a processor and comprising instructions to:
- detect if nozzles of a printhead are at least partially blocked by a contaminant;
- determine if there are consecutive nozzles that are at least partially blocked;
- and
- if a predetermined amount of consecutive nozzles within a row of nozzles are at least partially blocked, automatically trigger a cleaning operation to at least partially remove the contaminant,
- wherein the cleaning operation comprises:
- moving, along a first axis parallel to the row of nozzles, a wiper blade that is perpendicular to the row of nozzles so that the wiper blade is positioned in-line with just a first nozzle of the consecutive nozzles;
- and
- moving, along a second axis perpendicular to the row of nozzles, the row of nozzles so that the wiper blade moves across just the first nozzle of the consecutive nozzles.
5 more elements
A print apparatus comprising:
- a controller, the controller comprising a nozzle monitoring module and a cleaning module, wherein the nozzle monitoring module is to detect if consecutive nozzles of a row of nozzles of a printhead installed in the print apparatus are occluded by a contaminant, and
- if the consecutive nozzles are detected as being occluded by the contaminant, the cleaning module is to trigger a cleaning operation to at least partially remove the contaminant,
- wherein the cleaning operation comprises:
- moving, along a first axis parallel to the row of nozzles, a wiper blade that is perpendicular to the row of nozzles so that the wiper blade is positioned in-line with just a first nozzle of the consecutive nozzles;
- and
- moving, along a second axis perpendicular to the row of nozzles, the row of nozzles so that the wiper blade moves across just the first nozzle of the consecutive nozzles.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.