Inkjet printer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9604451-B2
Application number	US-201514938232-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 11, 2015
Priority date	Nov 27, 2014
Publication date	Mar 28, 2017
Grant date	Mar 28, 2017

Abstract

An inkjet printer includes: an inkjet head configured to eject ink; an image acquirer configured to acquire an image data indicating a number of drops of the ink for each of pixels and to output the acquired image data via a communication line; and a head controller configured to convert the image data received from the image acquirer via the communication line such that, in a pixel for which the number of drops of the ink in the received image data is one or more, the number of drops of the ink is incremented while a number of gradation steps of the received image data is maintained, and to control drive of the inkjet head based on the converted image data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An inkjet printer comprising:
an inkjet head configured to eject ink;
a communication line;
an image acquirer configured to acquire image data indicating a number of drops of the ink for each of pixels and to output the acquired image data via the communication line; and
a head controller configured to convert the image data received from the image acquirer via the communication line such that, in a pixel for which the number of drops of the ink in the received image data is one or more, the number of drops of the ink is incremented while a number of gradation steps of the received image data is maintained, and to control drive of the inkjet head based on the converted image data, wherein
the image acquirer comprises:
a controller part including a central processing unit, a memory, a hard disk drive, and an external interface, and configured to receive a print job via the external interface and acquire the image data; and
an image control circuit configured to output the acquired image data to the head controller via the communication line,

the head controller comprises:
a head drive control circuit configured to convert the image data received from the image control circuit via the communication line such that, in the pixel for which the number of drops of the ink in the received image data is one or more, the number of drops of the ink is incremented while the number of gradation steps of the received image data is maintained, and to control drive of the inkjet head based on the converted image data; and
a voltage regulation circuit configured to regulate a voltage of an external power supply and supply a drive voltage to the inkjet head, and

the communication line connects the image control circuit and the head drive control circuit to each other.

2. The inkjet printer according to claim 1 , wherein the head drive control circuit is configured to hold a table showing correspondence relationships between the image data before the conversion and the image data after the conversion and convert the image data with reference to the table.

3. The inkjet printer according to claim 1 , wherein the head controller is configured to count a number of drops ejected by the inkjet head based on the converted image data.

4. The inkjet printer according to claim 1 , wherein the communication line includes a wire harness.

Assignees

• Riso Kagaku Corp

Inventors

• Nakamura Hiroyuki

Classifications

• B41J2/04586

  controlling heads of a type not covered by groups B41J2/04575 - B41J2/04585, or of an undefined type · CPC title

• B41J2/04536 Primary

  using history data · CPC title

• B41J2/2054

  by the variation of dot disposition or characteristics, e.g. dot number density, dot shape · CPC title

• B41J2/04551 Primary

  using several operating modes · CPC title

• B41J2/04595

  Dot-size modulation by changing the number of drops per dot · CPC title