Deposition of fixer and overcoat by an inkjet printing system
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsBrooke Smith, Jeff Rutland, Dave Debellis
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Abstract
A printing system includes a fixer printhead, an overcoat printhead and at least one ink printhead. The at least one ink printhead depositing drops of a colored ink on a medium. The fixer printhead deposits drops of a fixer onto the deposited drops of the colored ink. The overcoat printhead deposits drops of an overcoat onto the deposited drops of the colored ink.
Claims33
An inkjet printing system comprising:
- at least one ink printhead for depositing drops of a colored ink on a medium;
- a fixer printhead for depositing drops of a fixer onto the deposited drops of the colored ink;
- an overcoat printhead for depositing drops of an overcoat onto the deposited drops of the colored ink;
- a processor for sending swath data to the ink, fixer and overcoat printheads during printing;
- wherein active ink ejection elements of each printhead are logically divided into M contiguous groups, where integer M>1;
- and
- wherein at least one group of each printhead is unused for printing.
An inkjet printing apparatus, comprising:
- a carriage assembly movable, in a scanning direction, for carrying at least one ink printhead, a fixer printhead, and an overcoat printhead;
- a processor programmed to generate swath data for at least one ink printhead, a fixer printhead and an overcoat printhead during printing;
- and
- wherein the carriage assembly provides a staggered arrangement of the printheads such that the fixer and overcoat are deposited in substantially different rows of a print medium from the colored ink as the carriage assembly moves in the scanning direction.
Apparatus comprising a processor programmed to generate swath data for an ink printhead, a fixer printhead, and an overcoat printhead, such that the swath data causes the ink printhead to deposit drops of a colored ink, the fixer printhead to deposit drops of a fixer onto the colored ink, and the overcoat printhead to deposit drops of an overcoat onto the colored ink;
- and
- wherein the processor always generates null swath data for a group of ink ejection elements in each printhead.
A method of using ink, fixer and overcoat printheads to print on a print medium, the method comprising:
- sending swath data to the ink printheads during a first pass, the swath data causing the ink printheads to deposit ink on the medium during the first pass;
- sending swath data to the fixer and overcoat printheads during a second pass, the swath data causing the ink printheads to deposit ink on the fixer and the overcoat during the second pass;
- and
- generating swath data for N groups of ink ejection elements, wherein N=4 and the 4 groups contain the same number of ink ejection elements;
- wherein null swath data is always generated for the third and fourth groups of ink printhead ink ejection elements;
- and wherein null swath data is always generated for the first and second groups of fixer and overcoat printhead ink ejection elements.
A method of printing an image with an inkjet printer, comprising:
- depositing drops of a colored ink on a medium;
- depositing drops of a fixer onto the deposited drops of the colored ink;
- depositing drops of an overcoat onto the deposited drops of the colored ink;
- the overcoat and fixer reacting to form a protective coating for the ink;
- determining a media type associated with the medium;
- and
- performing the steps of depositing drops of the fixer and depositing drops of the overcoat only if the media type is plain paper.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.