Inkjet Printing Device and Method for Printing Multi-Coloured Images

Ink jet printing device (1) for printing multicoloured images with an essentially horizontally disposed conveyor mechanism (2) for moving items to be printed (3) lying on it in a forward feed direction (4), and with a print head arrangement (5) disposed above the conveyor mechanism (2) which is disposed stationary relative to the conveyor mechanism (2) during the printing process, and the print head arrangement (5) comprises several print heads (6) each with several nozzles disposed in a nozzle row (26), and the nozzle rows (22) have a printing range width (24) as measured perpendicular to the forward feed direction (4) by means of which a total printing range width (27) of the print head arrangement (5) is formed corresponding to the number of print heads (6), and the print head arrangement (5) is disposed so that it can be moved vertically on a guide (10) and a nozzle rinsing device (14) which can be positioned underneath the print head arrangement (5) as and when necessary is provided, wherein the nozzle rinsing device (14) has a funnel row (101) for every print head row (26) and the funnel rows (101) are each connected via a separate line (108) to a tank (13) corresponding to the respective colour for supplying the print heads (6), and an ink cleaning device (110) is respectively provided between the funnel rows (101) and the tanks (13), and the nozzle rinsing device (14) has another funnel row (103), which other funnel row (103) is connected to a waste tank.

Ink jet printing device (1) for printing multicoloured images with an essentially horizontally disposed conveyor mechanism (2) for moving items to be printed (3) lying on it in a forward feed direction (4), and with a print head arrangement (5) disposed above the conveyor mechanism (2) which is disposed stationary relative to the conveyor mechanism (2) during the printing process, and the print head arrangement (5) has a print head row (26) extending perpendicular to the forward feed direction (4) for each of the colours to be printed, made up of several print heads (6) each comprising several nozzles disposed in a nozzle row (22), and the nozzle rows (22) have a printing range width (24) as measured perpendicular to the forward feed direction (4) by means of which a total printing range width (27) of the print head arrangement (5) is formed corresponding to the number of print heads (6), and the nozzle rows (22) are disposed obliquely so that the nozzles of the print head row (26) extend across a printing range length, wherein the print head arrangement (5) co-operates with an image data circuit, which image data circuit has a respective buffer circuit (203) for each of the colours to be printed which temporarily stores the corresponding colour separations of the image data of an image, and each of the buffer circuits (203) has several memory banks (204) for temporarily storing the corresponding colour separations of the image data of several images.