Liquid ejection apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10569539-B2
Application number	US-201816194746-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 19, 2018
Priority date	Nov 22, 2017
Publication date	Feb 25, 2020
Grant date	Feb 25, 2020

Abstract

A liquid ejection apparatus has a liquid ejection head that has nozzles for ejecting liquid, a liquid container that has a liquid replenishing port through which the liquid is replenished from the outside, a plug member that can close the liquid replenishing port by being positioned at a closing position and open the liquid replenishing port by being positioned at an open position, a carriage configured to arrange the liquid ejection head and the liquid container, a cap configured to cap the nozzles so as to cover the nozzles, and a control unit, assuming that a state where the nozzles are covered by the cap is a capping state and a state where the nozzles are not covered by the cap is a non-capping state, configured to bring the nozzles and the cap into the non-capping state before removing the external container from the liquid replenishing port.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A liquid ejection apparatus comprising:
a liquid ejection head that has a nozzle configured to eject a liquid;
a liquid container that has a liquid replenishing port that is in communication with the liquid ejection head, and through which the liquid is replenished from an external container;
a plug member that can close the liquid replenishing port by being positioned at a closing position and open the liquid replenishing port by being positioned at an open position;
a carriage configured to arrange the liquid ejection head and the liquid container;
a cap configured to cap the nozzle so as to cover the nozzle; and
a control unit, assuming that a state where the nozzle is covered by the cap is a capping state and a state where the nozzle is not covered by the cap is a non-capping state, configured to bring the nozzle and the cap into the non-capping state before removing the external container from the liquid replenishing port.

2. The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the carriage is configured to reciprocally move in a first direction, and
before removing the external container from the liquid replenishing port, the control unit moves the carriage in the first direction to a position at which the nozzle and the cap come into a non-capping state.

3. The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 ,
wherein, before removing the external container from the liquid replenishing port, the control unit further moves the carriage or the cap in a second direction that intersects the first direction, to a position at which the nozzle and the cap come into a non-capping state.

4. The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 , further comprising:
a housing that interferes with at least a portion of the plug member in the capping state in order to hinder opening/closing of the plug member, and does not interfere with the plug member in the non-capping state.

5. The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 1 ,
wherein the carriage is configured to reciprocally move in a first direction, and
before removing the external container from the liquid replenishing port, the control unit moves the carriage or the cap in a second direction that intersects the first direction to a position at which the nozzle and the cap come into a non-capping state.

6. The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a timer that counts a non-capping time during which the nozzle and the cap are in the non-capping state,
wherein the control unit determines whether or not it is necessary to clean the nozzle and a cleaning intensity according to the non-capping time counted by the timer, and executes cleaning.

Assignees

• Seiko Epson Corp

Inventors

• Hirasawa Yusuke
• Kimura Naomi
• Kudo Shoma

Classifications

• B41J2/16535

  using wiping constructions (B41J2/16552 takes precedence) · CPC title

• B41J2/16508

  connected with the printer frame · CPC title

• B41J2/14032 Primary

  Structure of the pressure chamber · CPC title

• B41J2/16511 Primary

  Constructions for cap positioning (B41J2/16547 takes precedence) · CPC title

• B41J2002/16514

  Operations & Transport · mapped topic