Head maintenance method, head maintenance device, and printer
AssigneeSeiko Epson Corporation
InventorSusumu Taga
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A head maintenance method for a printing head having ink nozzles capable of ejecting an ink liquid, the method includes: performing a cleaning operation by sucking the ink liquid from the ink nozzles; measuring an elapsed time from when the last cleaning operation is performed; and performing the next cleaning operation in response to a cutting operation for automatically cutting a paper which is printed by the printing head during a printing operation, if the elapsed time extends over a predetermined judgment time.
Claims15
A head maintenance method for a printing head having ink nozzles capable of ejecting an ink liquid, the method comprising:
- performing a cleaning operation by sucking the ink liquid from the ink nozzles;
- measuring an elapsed time from when the last cleaning operation is performed;
- and
- if the elapsed time extends over a predetermined judgment time, performing the next cleaning operation in response to a cutting operation for automatically cutting a paper which is printed by the printing head during a printing operation.
A head maintenance device comprising:
- a printing head that has ink nozzles capable of ejecting an ink liquid;
- a cleaning mechanism that sucks the ink liquid and causes the ink liquid to be ejected from the nozzles of the printing head so as to clean the printing head;
- a cleaning driving control circuit that operates the cleaning mechanism to perform a cleaning operation;
- a cleaning lapse timer that measures an elapsed time from the last cleaning operation;
- a cutting mechanism that cuts a paper automatically after a printing operation by the printing head ends;
- and
- a controller that starts the cleaning driving control circuit for the next cleaning operation in response to the cutting operation by the cutting mechanism, if the elapsed time extends over a predetermined judgment time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.