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US 8,770,708 B2Granted
Inkjet printer and recovery method for a print head
AssigneeSeiko Epson Corporation
InventorsHirotaka Miyabayashi, Masashi Fujikawa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An inkjet printer including: a print head for printing by discharging ink droplets from nozzles; a recovery process unit that executes a print head recovery process; a clock unit that counts time; a print operation measuring unit that acquires printing frequency per unit time; and a memory unit that memorizes the printing frequency per unit time; wherein the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process based on the printing, frequency per unit time in the memory.
Claims18
An inkjet printer comprising:
- a print head for printing by discharging ink droplets from nozzles;
- a recovery process unit that executes a print head recovery process;
- a clock unit that counts time;
- a print operation measuring unit that acquires a count of a number of print operations that occur during a time period counted by the clock unit, the time period being a length of time in a day;
- and
- a memory unit that memorizes the count;
- wherein
- the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process based on the count in the memory unit;
- the recovery process unit sets a low print demand period so that the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process in the low print demand period;
- and
- the recovery process unit sets the low print demand period corresponding to the time period having a zero count, except when none of the time periods have a zero count, the recovery process unit sets the low print demand period corresponding to the time period having a count that is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold value.
8 more elements
An inkjet printer comprising:
- a print head for printing by discharging ink droplets from nozzles;
- a recovery process unit that executes a print head recovery process;
- a clock unit that counts time;
- a print operation measuring unit that acquires a count of a number of print operations that occur during a time period counted by the clock unit, the time period being a length of time in a day;
- and
- a memory unit that memorizes the count;
- wherein
- the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process based on the count in the memory unit;
- the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process based on the count in the memory unit when the count is less than or equal to a non-zero threshold value;
- and
- the recovery process unit sets the non-zero threshold value based on a previous time period having a lowest non-zero number of printing operations performed by the print head.
8 more elements
A print head recovery method for an inkjet printer having a print head for printing by discharging ink droplets from nozzles and a recovery process unit for executing a print head recovery process, the recovery method comprising:
- (a) acquiring a count of a number of print operations that occur during a time period, the time period being a length of time in a day;
- (b) memorizing the count;
- and
- (c) executing the print head recovery process by the recovery process unit based on the memorized count, the method further comprising
- setting a low print demand period so that the print head recovery process is executed in the low print demand period;
- and
- setting the low print demand period corresponding to the time period having a zero count, except when none of the time periods have a zero count, setting the low print demand period corresponding to the time period having a count that is less than or equal to a predetermined threshold value.
4 more elements
An inkjet printer comprising:
- a print head for printing by discharging ink droplets from nozzles;
- a recovery process unit that executes a print head recovery process;
- a clock unit that counts time;
- a print operation measuring unit that acquires a count of a number of print operations that occur during a time period counted by the clock unit, the time period being a length of time in a day;
- and
- a memory unit that memorizes the count;
- wherein
- the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process based on the count in the memory unit;
- the print operation measuring unit also acquires a count of a number of print operations that occur during each of a plurality of time periods counted by the clock unit;
- and
- the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process at a time after passage of the time period and the plurality of time periods, the time being based on a comparison of the count in the memory unit with the acquired counts for each of the plurality of time periods.
8 more elements
An inkjet printer comprising:
- a print head for printing by discharging ink droplets from nozzles;
- a recovery process unit that executes a print head recovery process;
- a clock unit that counts time;
- a print operation measuring unit that acquires a count of a number of print operations that occur during each of a plurality of time periods counted by the clock unit;
- and
- a memory unit that memorizes each of the counts;
- wherein the recovery process unit compares each of the counts in the memory unit so as to determine which of the plurality of time periods had a lowest number of print operations occurring therein;
- and
- wherein the recovery process unit executes the print head recovery process at a time subsequent to each of the plurality of time periods and corresponding to the time period determined to have the lowest count.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.