Ink jet printing apparatus and ink jet printing method
AssigneeCanon Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsHideaki Takamiya, Hitoshi Nishikori, Daisaku Ide, Hiroshi Tajika, Takashi Sato
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Abstract
The present invention provides an ink jet printing apparatus and an ink jet printing method which are capable of stabilizing the amount of ink ejection and of printing a high-definition image by selecting a driving condition with heat conductivity of an electrothermal converter being taken into consideration. The heat conductivity from a heater to ink is classified into heater ranks, and, on the basis of the heater rank, a voltage of a drive pulse to be applied to the heater is changed.
Claims12
An ink jet printing apparatus configured to print an image by using a printing head capable of ejecting ink by utilizing thermal energy generated upon application of a drive pulse to an electrothermal converter, the printing being performed by applying the ink ejected from the printing head onto a printing medium, the ink jet printing apparatus comprising:
- acquiring means for acquiring information on a temperature of the printing head;
- and
- drive controlling means for controlling a voltage and a pulse width of the drive pulse on the basis of the information,
- wherein the drive controlling means executes double-pulse-drive control using a pre-heat pulse and a main heat pulse collectively as the drive pulse until the temperature of the printing head reaches a predetermined temperature, and the drive controlling means executes single-pulse-drive control using a single pulse as the drive pulse after the temperature of the printing head exceeds the predetermined temperature, and
- in the single-pulse-drive control, when the temperature of the printing head is in a first temperature range, a first voltage is used as the voltage of the drive pulse, and when the temperature of the printing head is in a second temperature range higher than the first temperature range, a second voltage higher than the first voltage is used as the voltage of the drive pulse.
An ink jet printing method for printing an image by using a printing head capable of ejecting ink by utilizing thermal energy generated upon application of a drive pulse to an electrothermal converter, the printing being performed by applying the ink ejected from the printing head onto a printing medium, the ink jet printing method comprising the steps of:
- acquiring information on a temperature of the printing head;
- and
- controlling a voltage and a pulse width of the drive pulse on the basis of the information,
- wherein the controlling step executes double-pulse-drive control using a pre-heat pulse and a main heat pulse collectively as the drive pulse until the temperature of the printing head reaches a predetermined temperature, and the controlling step executes single-pulse-drive control using a single pulse as the drive pulse after the temperature of the printing head exceeds the predetermined temperature, and
- in the single-pulse-drive control, when the temperature of the printing head is in a first temperature range, a first voltage is used as the voltage of the drive pulse, and when the temperature of the printing head is in a second temperature range higher than the first temperature range, a second voltage higher than the first voltage is used as the voltage of the drive pulse.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.