Apparatus and method
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorKenzou Shibuya
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus drives a printhead including a plurality of print elements configured to discharge ink onto a print medium by voltage application. The apparatus includes a control unit configured to assign the plurality of print elements to a plurality of blocks, and time-divisionally drive the plurality of print elements for each block. Upon inspection of the printhead, the control unit is configured to set, for each block, an application time of a voltage applied to the print element.
Claims14
An apparatus that drives a printhead including a plurality of print elements configured to discharge ink onto a print medium by voltage application, the apparatus comprising:
- a control unit configured to assign the plurality of print elements to a plurality of blocks, and time-divisionally drive the plurality of print elements for each block,
- wherein, for inspection of the printhead, the control unit is configured to set, for each block, an application time of a voltage to be applied to the print elements, and
- for inspection of the printhead, the control unit is configured to:
- set, for a first time region of the application time, a number of kinds of the application times for each block in one cycle of the time division driving to a first number of kinds, and
- set, for a second time region of the application time, the number of kinds of the application times for each block in one cycle of the time division driving to a second number of kinds different from the first number of kinds.
A method of driving a printhead including a plurality of print elements configured to discharge ink onto a print medium by voltage application, the method comprising:
- conveying the print medium;
- and
- controlling so as to assign the plurality of print elements to a plurality of blocks, and time-divisionally drive the plurality of print elements for each block,
- wherein in the controlling, for inspection of the printhead, an application time of a voltage applied to the print elements is set for each block, and
- in the controlling, for inspection of the printhead, for a first time region of the application time, a number of kinds of the application times for each block in one cycle of the time division driving is set to a first number of kinds, and, for a second time region of the application time, the number of kinds of the application times for each block in one cycle of the time division driving is set to a second number of kinds different from the first number of kinds.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.