Printer and printer control method
AssigneeSeiko Epson Corporation
InventorsKoji Kawasaki, Shuhei Kurotobi, Ichimi Masuda
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A printer capable of preventing clogging the printhead nozzles due to paper dust produced from sprocket holes in continuous paper, and preventing the printhead from ejecting ink droplets except on the continuous paper, has a printhead that ejects ink droplets toward continuous paper having sprocket holes formed along both sides of the paper width; a cover member that covers the edge part of the width of the continuous paper where sprocket holes are formed in the range of the printhead in the conveyance direction of the continuous paper, and can move in the paper width direction; and a detection mechanism that detects the position of the cover member in the paper width direction.
Claims3
A printer comprising:
- a printhead that ejects ink droplets toward continuous paper having feed holes formed therein in a conveyance direction along both edge parts of the paper width;
- a cover member that covers an edge part of the continuous paper where the feed holes are formed at least in a printhead installation area, wherein the cover member can move in a paper width direction;
- a detection mechanism that detects a position of the cover member in the paper width direction;
- a paper edge position detection means that determines the position of an edge of the continuous paper in the paper width direction based on the detected position of the cover member in the paper width direction;
- a carriage on which the printhead is mounted and which can move in the paper width direction;
- the detection mechanism being disposed to the carriage;
- a plurality of platen sections that are disposed in the printhead installation area in the conveyance direction and separated in the paper width direction;
- a cover reflector that reflects light and is disposed on the cover member;
- and
- a platen reflector that reflects light and is disposed on a platen section,
- wherein the width of the cover reflector in the paper width direction and the width of the platen reflector in the paper width direction are different, and
- the detection mechanism is a reflective photodetector including a light-emitting device and a photodetection device that detects light emitted from the light-emitting device and reflected by the cover reflector or the platen reflector.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.