JPH1044389A - Image recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain an image recorder constituted to perform large size recording through split scanning of a plurality of recording heads and relatively small size recording in an overlapped scanning region common to the split scanning in which jetting operation of the recording head can be recovered well while reducing the size of the image recorder. SOLUTION: Recording head arrays are arranged above a carriage 1 such that heads 5A, 5B jetting a dark ink are arranged on the opposite sides of a head 4C jetting a light ink. In order to perform preliminary jetting of the heads 4A, 4B, a cap 6A and a preliminary jet receiver 9 are arranged on the outside of a region where a large size, i.e.. A3 size, paper is carried. According to the arrangement, the heads 4A, 4B for easily thickening dark ink can perform preliminary jetting even during the recording operation without causing any trouble in the head 4C for light ink which increase the viscosity only slowly even if the preliminary jetting can not be performed due to presence of a paper.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a serial type image recording apparatus for recording characters, images and the like on a recording medium while scanning the recording head while facing the recording medium. The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus capable of dividing a scanning area of each of a plurality of recording heads and performing recording.

In particular, the present invention is suitable for an image recording apparatus which performs recording by applying a color material on a recording medium based on image data, and which performs recording by discharging a liquid recording ink as a color material. It is more suitable for a recording device.

[0003] The present invention also relates to paper, cloth, leather, non-woven fabric, O
The present invention is applicable to all devices using a recording medium such as HP paper and metal, and specific examples of the applicable devices include office equipment such as printers, copiers and facsimile machines, and industrial production equipment. Can be.

[0004]

2. Description of the Related Art A serial type recording system in which recording is performed while scanning a recording head is inexpensive as compared with a system using a so-called full line head which covers the entire width of a recording medium such as recording paper. For that reason, it is generally used in various image recording apparatuses.

[0005] In such a serial type image recording apparatus, as a system for coloring a recording medium with a coloring material, a heating element of a thermal head is applied to a special heat-sensitive paper, or an optical action to a special photosensitive paper is performed. Is known. Further, as a method of performing recording by applying a coloring material to a recording medium by a recording head, an ink ribbon impregnated with a liquid ink as a coloring material is pressed and brought into contact with the recording medium by a printing wire. An impact recording method for transferring ink, a heat-melt transfer recording method or a thermal sublimation transfer method for transferring ink by applying a heating element of a thermal head to an ink ribbon head coated with a solid color material, or a liquid recording ink There is known an inkjet type in which recording is performed by discharging ink.

[0006] In recent years, from the viewpoint of plain paper recording and the like, the latter type of recording method using a coloring material has become mainstream.
In particular, the ink jet system has advantages such as low noise, low running cost, easy downsizing of the apparatus, recording on plain paper, easy colorization, and the like, and is generally used for image recording apparatuses such as printers and copiers. Is what it is.

However, this serial recording method is
A recording head capable of recording only in a relatively small range of a recording element, such as an ejection port provided in the recording head, is arranged on the carriage, and the recording is performed while sequentially scanning, so that the recording speed is reduced. It is relatively difficult to improve the recording speed, and increasing the recording speed has been a conventional problem for the serial system.

On the other hand, to speed up image recording,
Methods of increasing the recording width of the recording head (array range of the recording elements), increasing the carriage speed and the recording frequency to shorten the scanning time, and recording by bidirectional scanning have been proposed and put to practical use. However, each method has its limitations. For example, in order to increase the recording width, it is necessary to improve the head manufacturing accuracy accordingly, which makes the recording head expensive, and increases the capacity of a print buffer for temporarily storing recording data and increases the cost. And the use of heat to develop color or add colorant, especially when the recording width is large, prevents the recording quality from deteriorating or being damaged due to the self-heating of the recording head itself. The need for means for doing so increases. Furthermore, in an ink jet recording system using a liquid recording ink that is not in contact with the recording medium, the use of a head having a large recording width prevents deterioration of recording quality due to swelling (cockling) of the recording medium due to absorption of ink moisture. There is also a problem that the means for performing this is complicated. Also,
When increasing the recording frequency, it is necessary to increase the scanning speed of the carriage in order to maintain a constant pixel density. The recording quality may be degraded due to the ink vibration inside.

One relatively effective method for increasing the speed of a serial type image recording apparatus is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 50-81437.
No. 6,086,045. In this publication, a left print head assembly and a right print head assembly supported by one carriage mechanism are used to simultaneously print the left half and the right half of a print line, respectively, thereby realizing about twice as high speed. It is disclosed that it is possible.
Further, the publication discloses that a higher recording speed can be realized by increasing the number of print head assemblies to two or more or performing bidirectional recording.

[0010]

However, most of the prior arts disclosed in such publications simply divide a scanning area simply from the viewpoint of high-speed recording, and therefore, a plurality of heads overlap. No configuration is disclosed that positively considers the scanning region. That is, from the viewpoint of high-speed printing, the overlapping scanning area should be eliminated as much as possible, and such an area is not used as a printing area different from the printing area including the divided scanning areas.

In the case where a scanning area is divided and recorded by a plurality of heads, recording on a relatively large-sized sheet can be performed at high speed as described above. In this case, a large-sized sheet is used. In some cases, the dispensing apparatus becomes large, which is not desirable.

The present invention has been made from the above-described viewpoints, and performs printing in an area by a divided scanning area of each of a plurality of recording heads and printing in a common overlapping scanning area included in each of the divided scanning areas. An object of the present invention is to provide an image recording apparatus which can be downsized in the configuration to be performed.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an image recording apparatus capable of appropriately performing the ejection recovery processing of each recording head by appropriately arranging a plurality of recording heads having different densities of the ejected ink in the above configuration. Is to provide.

[0014]

According to the present invention, there is provided:
An image recording apparatus that performs recording on a recording medium by using a plurality of recording heads that eject inks having different densities, and a carriage for mounting the plurality of recording heads, wherein the plurality of recording heads is mounted And a carriage disposed at the end of the recording head that discharges higher-density ink, and moving the carriage to form an overlapping scan common to at least two or more of the plurality of recording heads. Scanning means for scanning a divided scanning area including an area, and at least two or more of the plurality of recording heads when the scanning means causes each of the plurality of recording heads to scan the divided scanning area. The first mode printing is performed by using the plurality of print heads, and the at least two or more print heads have overlapping scan areas. When to perform the scanning, characterized in that comprising the said at least two or more recording control means for causing the second mode recording using a recording head, the.

[0015] More preferably, an ink ejection receiver of a recording head disposed at an end in the mounting arrangement of the plurality of recording heads is provided outside a recording area where the recording in the first mode is performed.

[0016] More preferably, suction means capable of sucking ink from said plurality of recording heads is provided corresponding to an overlapped scanning area commonly included in all of said plurality of recording heads. Features.

According to the above arrangement, in the arrangement of the recording heads in the carriage, the heads for ejecting higher-density ink are arranged at the ends, so that the recording heads at the ends are scanned by the divided scanning areas. Can be located outside the maximum recording area composed of the divided scanning areas of a plurality of heads, whereby preliminary ejection during recording can be performed at that position. On the other hand, a head that discharges a lower-density ink may be always at a position facing the recording medium during recording, but even in this case, the density of the dye or the like is low, and the degree of thickening is small. Absent.

Further, since the suction unit is provided at a position in the recording area where the divided scanning areas of all the recording heads overlap, the recovery processing can be performed at a predetermined timing.

[0019]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of an image recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, a divided scanning area of each recording head, and the like.

In the image recording apparatus of the present embodiment, the maximum size of the recording medium that can be used for recording is set to A3, and the maximum sheet passing width is set to 312 mm. Then, in order to enable recording of this A3 size,
For a given printhead, the maximum printable area (2) obtained from these scan areas excluding the ramp-up and ramp-down areas (16 mm each) which are acceleration / deceleration areas.
(98 mm).

On the other hand, the scannable space of the carriage 1 is defined to be 358 mm in order to minimize the size of the entire apparatus while securing the maximum recordable area.

The image recording apparatus according to the present embodiment has the following configuration in accordance with the size of the recording medium such as the recording paper used as described above and restrictions on miniaturization of the apparatus.

In FIG. 1, ink-jet recording heads 4A, 4B and 4C are mounted on a carriage 1 with a head spacing of 72 mm, and tanks 5A and 5B for storing ink supplied to these heads, respectively. And 5C are mounted. Here, the tanks 5A and 5B store dark ink for each color ink as described later, and the tank 5C stores light ink. Therefore, the heads 4A and 4B eject dark ink and the head 4C eject light ink, respectively. The head and the tank are configured to be detachable from the carriage 1 individually. Note that, depending on the type of ink used as described later, the head and the tank are formed integrally, and the integrated head and tank are mounted on the carriage 1.
Can be detachable.

The carriage 1 is slidably supported by the guide rails 2 and engages with a drive mechanism (not shown) such as a belt for transmitting a driving force of drive data (not shown), whereby the guide rails are engaged. 2 for scanning along. As a result, the carriage 1 can move within the scannable space (358 mm) shown in FIG. 1 due to the movement, and at this time, the heads 4A, 4B and 4
Each ink ejection port of C has its own scanning area (186 m).
m). The head 4A scans a recording area (154 mm), which is a divided scanning area on the left side of the drawing, except for a ramp-up area and a ramp-down area that are acceleration / deceleration areas during carriage movement.
B is a recording area (154 m) which is a divided scanning area on the right side in the figure.
m), and the head 4C scans a recording area (154 mm) which is a divided scanning area at the center in the figure.

A part of the scannable space of the carriage 1, that is, below the extending platen 3, a cap 6B corresponding to the ink ejection port of the two heads 4B and 4C.
And 6C are provided. Further, a cap 6A corresponding to the head 4A is provided at the left end of the apparatus separated from the platen 3. Thereby, capping can be performed on each head located at the home position. Further, a pump 7 for sucking ink or the like is connected to a cap 6B provided in the overlapping scanning area of the three heads as described later. As a result, each of the heads 4A, 4B and 4C moves to a position facing the cap 6B at a predetermined timing.
Similarly to the capping operation, the cap 6B moves in the head direction and comes into contact with the head, and in this state, the suction operation by the pump 7 can be performed. In addition, a wiper 8 is provided adjacent to the cap 6B, and the wiper 8 projects at a predetermined timing into the scanning path of the head, so that the wiping can be performed by contacting the ejection opening surface of each head. Further, in the scannable space of the carriage 1, a preliminary ejection receiver 9 is provided at an end opposite to the end where the cap 6A is provided, and the head 4B moves to this position at a predetermined timing to perform preliminary ejection. It can be carried out. The head 4A
Is also enabled by moving the head 4A to a position facing the cap 6A. In addition,
As described above, by providing the configuration for suction recovery in the recording area and also for the dual purpose, or by providing the preliminary discharge receiver at the position opposite to the platen 3 and at the opposite ends, as described above. The size of the apparatus can be made as small as possible for a certain maximum recordable area.

In the image recording apparatus of the present embodiment described above, the head interval (72 mm), which is the distance between the respective ejection openings of the heads 4A, 4B and 4C, is possible by dividing the scanning area of each head. Is set to approximately な る of the maximum recordable area (298 mm). The width of the overlapping scanning area is 154 m.
m. These size settings correspond to the width of A3 (297 mm × 420 mm standard size) size paper (recording medium) whose maximum recordable area is relatively large, while the overlap scanning area is A5 (148 mm × 210 mm). This corresponds to the width of a sheet of the standard size. That is, the width of the maximum recordable area is set to approximately twice the width of the overlap scanning area.

In this embodiment, when printing is performed on, for example, A3 size paper corresponding to the maximum printable area, the same type of ink is ejected from the heads 4A and 4B to print in each divided area. . In contrast,
When printing is performed on, for example, A4 size paper corresponding to the overlapping scanning area, printing is performed using dark and light inks having different densities.

According to the image recording apparatus of the present embodiment shown in FIG. 1, when recording in A3 size, the scanning area is divided by using two heads, so that a fixed recording is performed as compared with the case of recording by one head. Speed gains can be obtained. At the same time, by maximizing the maximum recordable area with respect to the carriage scannable space, the size of the recording apparatus can be reduced.

As the ejection recovery process of each recording head in this embodiment, the preliminary ejection and suction recovery process are roughly as follows, as apparent from the above.

Preliminary ejection performed at a predetermined timing during printing is performed by moving only the heads 4A and 4B to the positions of the cap 6A and the preliminary ejection receiver 9, respectively, and the head 4C does not perform preliminary ejection. This is because during recording, the cap 6C from which the head 4C should eject ink as preliminary ejection is covered with paper, and the head 4C cannot move to the position of the cap 6A or the preliminary ejection receiver 9. . Note that the head 4C keeps the cap 6C unless the paper covers the cap 6C, for example, when performing A5-size printing in the overlapping scanning area or during a printing operation.
Of course, preliminary discharge can be performed for

In this embodiment, according to the configuration of the preliminary ejection, the recording heads in the carriage 1 are arranged such that a head for ejecting light ink is arranged at the center, and heads for ejecting dark ink are arranged on both sides of the head. Like that. This is because the higher the concentration of a coloring material, such as a dye, the higher the viscosity of the ink and the higher the necessity of preliminary ejection. Therefore, during a recording operation using a large-size sheet covering the cap 6C such as an A3 size paper in the conveyance process, the preliminary ejection is not performed for the head 4C that ejects light ink. That is, for the head that discharges the end ink, since the density of the coloring material such as the dye of the ink is low and the degree of thickening is small, there is no problem even if the preliminary discharge is not performed for a certain period.

The dark ink ejected by the heads 4A and 4B on both sides has the density of a commonly used ink. As a result, as described above, in the area where the divided scanning areas of the heads 4A and 4B are combined, the A3 size is used. And the like can be recorded. In this printing, various printing methods can be considered for a portion where both divided scanning areas overlap, but in the present embodiment, the ejection openings used for the heads 4A and 4B are sequentially reduced and increased. Always keep the number of exits constant.

On the other hand, in the recording of the A5 size or the like in the overlapping scanning area, a high gradation image is recorded using the dark ink heads 4A and 4B and the light ink head 4C. Note that, in the recording of the overlapping scanning area, as is clear from FIG. 1, the left side is recorded by the heads 4A and 4C, and the right side is recorded by the heads 4B and 4C with respect to the center of the area. For this reason, in the case of performing the recording by scanning in the right direction in the drawing at the time of the overlap recording, for example, the ejection is performed in the order of the heads 4C and 4A on the left side and in the order of the heads 4B and 4C on the right side. Color unevenness may occur at the center. In the present embodiment, this problem can be solved by performing bidirectional recording. As another method, the above-described ejection order can be made constant by performing recording by the dark ink heads 4A and 4B and the light ink head 4C by different scans. Further, by making the positions of the dark ink heads 4A and 4B and the light ink head 4C different in the paper feed direction, it is possible to perform printing with a different scan as described above.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are schematic diagrams each showing the structure of an ink tank that can be used in the present embodiment.

In the configuration shown in FIG. 2A, the arrangement order of the ink color tanks of both ink tanks 5A and 5B is the same. That is, both tanks 5A and 5B
Are ink tanks 5AK, 5BK; 5AC, 5B in the order of black (K), cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) inks from the top in the figure.
C: 5AM, 5BM; 5AY, 5BY. Thus, for example, by connecting tanks of the same color on both sides, a large-capacity ink tank can be obtained. This configuration avoids the configuration in which the tanks 5A and 5B and the tank 5C are arranged in the horizontal direction in the drawing when the above-described configuration is such that the dark ink head and the light ink head are displaced in the paper feed direction. This is particularly effective because In addition, since the recording positions of the left and right heads in each ink can be made the same in each scan, color matching of the regions shared by the left and right heads can be easily performed.

On the other hand, in the configuration shown in FIG. 2B, as is clear from the figure, the arrangement order of the ink color tanks in the ink tanks 4A and 4B on both sides is reversed.
According to this configuration, the shape of each of the tanks 4A and 4B can be made identical due to the connection configuration with the recording head, and the type of tank for dark ink can be one type.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram related to the driving of the heating element of the recording head 4 (4A, 4B), and shows the black ink K as a representative of the ejection head. Heating element 41
Reference numerals -1 to 41-32 are provided corresponding to the 32 ink ejection ports, respectively, and have a configuration capable of independently generating heat.
When all of the heating elements 41 are driven simultaneously, a large current flows at one time, so that the load on the power supply increases, and the energy supplied to each heating element decreases due to a voltage drop due to wiring resistance or the like, so that normal recording is performed. There is also a concern about adverse effects on image quality, such as the possibility that the image will not be displayed. Therefore, in the head of the present embodiment, the recording head 4 is arranged at a slight inclination, and a known time-division driving is performed in which the ejection is performed by adjusting the image data and the recording timing for each block including a predetermined number of heating elements.

The time-division driving method may be any of various methods proposed and implemented. In the present embodiment, the time-division driving method is divided into eight blocks each having eight discharge ports including eight discharge ports which are intervals between ink colors. The recording head 4 is sequentially ejected at predetermined intervals, and the recording head 4
And discharge is performed while tilting the recording line, thereby preventing a straight line from being recorded due to a discharge time difference.

The ink in the orifice, which is rapidly heated by the heat generated by the heating element 41, forms bubbles due to film boiling, and the ink droplets are ejected toward the recording medium P by the pressure of the bubble generation, and characters are printed on the recording medium. And images can be formed. At this time, the volume of each color ink droplet ejected is about 40
ng. Each of the discharge ports is provided with an ink liquid path including the heating element 40, which communicates with the discharge port, and is provided behind the portion where the ink liquid path is provided for supplying ink to these liquid paths. A common liquid chamber is provided for each color.

The common liquid chamber is connected to the ink tanks 5 (5A, 5B, 5C) of the respective colors via an ink supply furnace so as to supply ink. In the ink liquid passage corresponding to each of the discharge ports, a heating element 41, which is an electric-to-heat converter that generates thermal energy used to discharge ink droplets from these discharge ports, and supplies power to the heat element 41 Electrode wiring is provided. These heating elements 41 and electrode wirings are formed on a substrate made of silicon or the like by a film forming technique. On the heating element 41, the ink and the heating element 4
A protective film is formed so that the contact members 1 do not directly contact each other. Further, the above-described ejection port, ink liquid path, common liquid chamber, and the like are formed by laminating a partition made of resin or glass material on the substrate. As described above, the recording method using the heating element 41 which is an electric-heat conversion element uses bubbles formed by applying thermal energy when ejecting ink droplets.
It is commonly called the bubble jet recording method.

The AND gates 42-1 to 42-32 are provided with a selection signal for time division output from the decoder 43,
The logical product of the drive data output from the latch circuit 44 and the heat enable signal that defines the drive time is calculated, and the drive signal is output to the heating element 41. Shift register 45
Converts the serially input image data into parallel data and outputs it to the latch circuit 44.

As a monitoring mechanism for the recording heads 4A, 4B and 4C, the recording head 4 is further provided with a temperature sensor 46 in this embodiment. Thus, the recording heads 4A, 4A
The recording characteristics are stabilized by, for example, determining the optimum driving conditions of the recording head according to the temperatures of B and 4C, and operating the maintenance mechanism based on the temperature information.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the image recording apparatus of the ink jet system described above. Character or image data to be recorded (hereinafter, referred to as image data) is input from a host computer to a reception buffer of the recording apparatus.
Check that data is being transferred correctly,
Data notifying the operation state of the recording device is transmitted from the recording device to the host computer. The data in the reception buffer is controlled under the control of the CPU 21, is temporarily stored in a print buffer (RAM) 24, and is provided as print data to the print heads 4A, 4B, and 4C. That is, the RAM 24 is configured with the drive data RAM shown in FIG. The paper feeding mechanism unit 26 receives a command from the CPU 21 based on information of the paper monitoring mechanism 25, and
The paper feed roller and the line feed roller are driven by controlling a drive source such as a motor. The carriage driving mechanism 28 is configured to control the CPU 21 based on the information of the carriage position detecting mechanism 27.
The driving of the carriage 1 is controlled by controlling the carriage driving source in accordance with a command from the controller. Recording head maintenance mechanism 30
Can optimize maintenance of the head 4 and optimization of driving conditions in accordance with instructions from the CPU 21 based on information of the print head monitoring mechanism 29 including a sensor for detecting the temperature of the print head and the presence or absence of ink.

[0045]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, in the arrangement of the recording heads in the carriage, the head for discharging the ink with higher density is arranged at the end, so that The print head can be positioned outside the maximum print area composed of the divided scan areas of a plurality of heads by scanning the divided scan area, whereby preliminary ejection during printing can be performed at that position. On the other hand, a head that discharges a lower-density ink may be always at a position facing the recording medium during recording, but even in this case, the density of the dye or the like is low, and the degree of thickening is small. Absent.

Further, since the suction unit is provided at a position in the recording area where the divided scanning areas of all the recording heads overlap, the recovery processing can be performed at a predetermined timing.

As a result, it is possible to provide a recording apparatus having substantially the same size as the maximum scanning area obtained by combining the divided scanning areas of the respective recording heads, and to perform recording on a relatively large-sized sheet. Relative downsizing is possible, and appropriate ejection recovery processing can be performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram for explaining divided recording and overlapping recording when three recording heads are used in an image recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 2A and 2B are diagrams schematically showing an ink tank that can be used in the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing a driving circuit of a recording head that can be used in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a control configuration of the image recording apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Carriage 2 Guide rail 3 Platen 4A, 4B Recording head 5A, 5AK, 5AC, 5AM, 5AY, 5B, 5B
K, 5BC, 5BM, 5BY, 5C, 5CK, 5CC,
5CM, 5CY Ink tank 6A, 6B, 6C Cap 7 Suction pump 8 Wiper 9 Pre-discharge receiver 21 CPU 24 Print buffer (RAM)

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Agency reference number FI Technical display location B41J 3/54 B41J 3/10 101E

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An image recording apparatus that performs recording on a recording medium using a plurality of recording heads that eject inks having different densities, wherein the carriage is configured to mount the plurality of recording heads. In the array equipped with the recording head of
A carriage disposed closer to the end of the print head that discharges higher-density ink; and moving the carriage to include an overlapping scanning area common to at least two or more print heads of the plurality of print heads. A scanning unit that scans the divided scanning region; and the scanning unit uses at least two or more recording heads of the plurality of recording heads when each of the plurality of recording heads scans the divided scanning region. When performing one-mode recording and causing each of the plurality of recording heads to scan the overlapping scanning region of the at least two or more recording heads, the second mode recording is performed using the at least two or more recording heads. An image recording apparatus, comprising: recording control means for performing recording. 2. An ink ejection receiver for a recording head disposed at an end in a mounting arrangement of the plurality of recording heads, outside a recording area where the recording in the first mode is performed. The image recording apparatus according to claim 1. 3. A suction means capable of sucking ink from said plurality of printheads, corresponding to an overlapped scan area which is common to all divided scan areas of said plurality of printheads. The image recording apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein 4. The image recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said suction means is provided so as to be able to advance and retreat with respect to a recording medium conveying path. 5. A wiping means for wiping ink ejection opening surfaces of the plurality of recording heads, corresponding to an overlapping scanning region commonly included in the divided scanning regions of the plurality of recording heads. The image recording apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein: 6. An image recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein said wiping means is provided so as to be able to advance and retreat on a conveyance path of a recording medium. 7. The image recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the ink ejection receivers are provided on both sides of a recording area of the first mode. 8. The image recording apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the ink ejection receiver provided on one of both sides of the recording area doubles as a capping unit of a recording head disposed at the end. . 9. The printing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the suction means has a cap for capping the print head, and also serves as an ink discharge receiver for the print head disposed at the end. Image recording device. 10. An ink discharge receiving and capping means is provided in a divided scanning area of a print head corresponding to a print head arranged at a position other than an end in the mounting arrangement of the plurality of print heads. The image recording apparatus according to any one of claims 2 to 9, wherein: