Liquid ejection apparatus, control method of liquid ejection apparatus, and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12479224-B2
Application number	US-202218063448-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 8, 2022
Priority date	Dec 10, 2021
Publication date	Nov 25, 2025
Grant date	Nov 25, 2025

Abstract

The liquid ejection apparatus includes a liquid ejection section that ejects liquid onto a medium, a transport belt that transports the medium, a cleaning member that cleans the transport belt by coming into contact with the transport belt, the cleaning member being capable of switching between a contact state in which the cleaning member comes into contact with the transport belt and a separation state in which the cleaning member is separated from the transport belt, and a control section that controls an ejection operation of the liquid, a rotation operation of the transport belt, and switching a state of the cleaning member, when a cleaning operation of cleaning the transport belt by the cleaning member is executed, the control section executes a preliminary ejection that ejects in advance liquid from the liquid ejection section to the transport belt based on preset cleaning control information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A liquid ejection apparatus comprising:
a liquid ejection section that ejects liquid onto a medium; a transport belt that faces the liquid ejection section and transports the medium; a cleaning member for cleaning the transport belt by coming into contact with the transport belt, the cleaning member being capable of switching between a contact state in which the cleaning member comes into contact with the transport belt and a separation state in which the cleaning member is separated from the transport belt; and a control section that controls an ejection operation of the liquid by the liquid ejection section, a rotation operation of the transport belt, and switching of a state of the cleaning member, wherein: when the control section performs a cleaning operation of cleaning the transport belt by the cleaning member, the control section executes, based on preset cleaning control information, a preliminary ejection that ejects liquid from the liquid ejection section to the transport belt in advance, and as a preliminary ejection execution condition, the preset cleaning control information includes one or more of ejection duty at the time of erroneous ejection, humidity, temperature, and an elapsed time after the erroneous ejection.

2 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein
at least one of a first event in which ejection duty is lower than a first ejection duty, a second event in which humidity is lower than a first humidity, a third event in which temperature is higher than a first temperature, and a fourth event in which elapsed time is longer than a first elapsed time, affects execution of preliminary ejection.

3 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein:
the cleaning control information includes ejection duty and humidity as preliminary ejection execution conditions, and the control section executes a preliminary ejection when a first event and a second event occur simultaneously and does not execute a preliminary ejection when a first event and a second event do not occur simultaneously.

4 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein:
the control section adjusts, based on ejection amount adjustment information set in advance, a liquid ejection amount when executing a preliminary ejection.

5 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein:
the ejection amount adjustment information includes one or more of ejection duty, humidity, temperature, and elapsed time as adjustment conditions of the liquid ejection amount, and at least one of decrease in ejection duty, decrease in humidity, increase in temperature, and increase in elapsed time affects an increase in the liquid ejection amount of the preliminary ejection.

6 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 5 , wherein:
the ejection amount adjustment information includes ejection duty as a determination condition of the liquid ejection amount and the control section calculates an ejection duty for each region defined along a width direction, which is a direction intersecting a traveling direction of the transport belt, and adjusts the liquid ejection amount for each region.

7 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein:
the control section executes a preliminary ejection so that a preliminary ejection region contacts the cleaning member before a region where liquid landed due to an erroneous ejection on the transport belt.

8 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein:
the control section executes a preliminary ejection so as to avoid a portion of the transport belt on which liquid landed due to an erroneous ejection.

9 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein:
when a preliminary ejection is executed, the control section selects, based on ejection region setting information set in advance, a first ejection mode in which liquid is ejected so as to avoid a portion where liquid landed due to an erroneous ejection on the transport belt or a second ejection mode in which liquid is ejected toward a portion where liquid landed due to an erroneous ejection and a portion where liquid did not land due to an erroneous ejection on the transport belt.

10 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein:
the ejection region setting information is set to cause the control section to select the first ejection mode when humidity exceeds a reference humidity and to cause the control section to select the second ejection mode when humidity is equal to or lower than the reference humidity.

11 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein:
the control section rotates the transport belt while maintaining the cleaning member in the separation state until the cleaning member faces a region where liquid landed on the transport belt, and switches the cleaning member from the separation state to the contact state when the cleaning member faces the region where liquid landed on the transport belt.

12 . The liquid ejection apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the preliminary ejection intentionally ejects liquid from the liquid ejection section to the transport belt in advance of the cleaning operation in order to improve a slipperiness between the transport belt and the cleaning member during the cleaning operation.

13 . A control method of a liquid ejection apparatus, the liquid ejection apparatus including a liquid ejection section that ejects liquid onto a medium;
a transport belt that faces the liquid ejection section and transports the medium; and a cleaning member that cleans the transport belt by coming into contact with the transport belt, the cleaning member is capable of switching between a contact state in which the cleaning member comes into contact with the transport belt and a separation state in which the cleaning member is separated from the transport belt, the method of controlling the liquid device comprising: when the transport belt is cleaned by the cleaning member, a preliminary ejection is performed in which liquid is ejected from the liquid ejection section to the transport belt in advance, wherein as a preliminary ejection execution condition, preset cleaning control information includes one or more of ejection duty at the time of erroneous ejection, humidity, temperature, and an elapsed time after the erroneous ejection.

14 . A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program that is executed by a control section of a liquid ejection apparatus,
the liquid ejection apparatus including a liquid ejection section that ejects liquid onto a medium; a transport belt that faces the liquid ejection section and transports the medium; and a cleaning member that cleans a transport belt by coming into contact with the transport belt, the cleaning member being capable of switching between a contact state in which the cleaning member is in contact with the transport belt and a separation state in which the cleaning member is separated from the transport belt, the program having a step of, when the transport belt is cleaned by the cleaning member, executing a preliminary ejection in which liquid is ejected in advance from the liquid ejection section to the transport belt, wherein as a preliminary ejection execution condition, preset cleaning control information includes one or more of ejection duty at the time of erroneous ejection, humidity, temperature, and an elapsed time after the erroneous ejection.

Assignees

• Seiko Epson Corp

Inventors

• Sumii Atsushi

Classifications

• B41J29/17 Primary

  Cleaning arrangements · CPC title

• B41J13/0027

  in the printing section of automatic paper handling systems · CPC title

• B41J13/08

  {Conveyor} bands or like feeding devices · CPC title

• B41J29/38

  Drives, motors, controls or automatic cut-off devices for the entire printing mechanism · CPC title

• B41J11/007

  Conveyor belts or like feeding devices · CPC title