JPS61146560A - Liquid jet recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain stabilized good liquid droplets discharge condition all the time by providing a stand-by time setter to set up the stand-by time of recording signals after recording treatment according to environmental conditions and a controller means 220 to drive and join a capping means for the liquid jet recording unit when no next recording signals are input even after lapse of set time after the recording treatment. CONSTITUTION:Provided are a liquid jet recording unit 100 for recording a recording material P, a recording unit controller 110 to supply electrical signals to form liquid droplets to a discharge energy generator 102 according to the input of recording signals SA, a heater 120 for liquid, a capping means 180 to be joined with the unit 100, and a stand-by time setter 222 to set up the stand-by time of signals SA after the recording treatment according to environmental conditions. When no next recording signals SA are input even after the lapse of set time after recording treatment, the means 180 is operated and joined with the unit 100 by a controller 220 is provided.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a liquid jet recording apparatus 1 that forms a discharged droplet by discharging a liquid and applying the discharged droplet to a forming liquid;
-tlnodeJ・ [Prior art] In the liquid jet recording method (inkjet recording method), recording is performed by forming ejected droplets of recording liquid using various methods and attaching the droplets to a recording material such as paper. It is a recording method.

Among recording devices N (printers) that apply such recording methods, a type that uses heat as energy to form ejected droplets is a device with a structure suitable for high-density multi-orifice recording heads. Examples include liquid jet recording devices (hereinafter referred to as inkjet printers).

Inkjet printers that use heat as the energy for ejecting droplets typically heat the recording liquid to give it a displacement that causes a sudden increase in volume.

A droplet forming means for forming droplets of recording liquid ejected from an orifice (droplet discharge hole) of a nozzle part, and an electric heat generating means that generates heat by applying an electric signal to heat the recording liquid. It is equipped with a recording head that accommodates an energy conversion element (hereinafter referred to as an ejection heater).

On the other hand, the recording liquid used when recording with an inkjet printer has different recording properties.

Water-based recording liquids are mainly used for safety reasons.

This aqueous recording liquid is generally formed of a recording agent such as a pigment or dye, and a solvent component mainly consisting of water or water and a water-soluble organic solvent for dissolving or dispersing the recording agent.

In the above-mentioned printers that use heat as droplet ejection energy and other printers that apply droplet formation methods, the orifice provided at the tip of the nozzle from which recording liquid is ejected is constantly It is often open to the outside air outside the device.

For this reason, if recording is not performed for a long period of time, water and volatile organic substances, such as water and volatile organic Solvent components such as solvent evaporate from the orifice into the outside air, and recording agent components and solvent components that are difficult to volatilize remain in the recording liquid, increasing the viscosity of the recording liquid retained in this area, and as a result, the recording liquid Immediately after restarting recording, a droplet ejection failure is likely to occur in which droplets are not ejected even though an ejection signal is applied, and recording There is a problem in that defects occur in the initial printed portion of the image.

Additionally, some printers cap the ejection surface on which the orifice is installed when the device is not in use, such as when the power is off, but even with this type of capping, the orifice is not completely isolated from the outside air. Since there is no,
The above problem also occurs in such printers.

On the other hand, in order to obtain a good droplet ejection condition even when the viscosity of the recording liquid increases at low temperatures, the temperature of the recording liquid can always be maintained within a predetermined range.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-18 discloses a recording method in which an electric signal at a level at which no recording droplets are ejected is constantly applied to an ejection heater to heat the recording liquid even when no droplet ejection signal is applied.
Known by No. 384.

However, even in printers using this method, an electric signal is applied to the ejection heater so that the recording liquid is always kept at a high temperature even during a relatively long recording pause or stop period. A problem may arise in that the solvent component in the recording liquid evaporates more easily, and the droplet ejection failure described above is more likely to occur when recording is restarted. In addition, in this method, the area around the ejection heater is constantly heated, which may impair the durability of the parts surrounding the ejection heater, or cause accumulation of heat around the ejection heater during the recording pause period. The physical properties of the recording liquid itself may change due to heat, which may cause problems such as discoloration of the recording liquid or the formation of precipitates in the recording liquid, clogging the orifice and causing droplet ejection failure. Ta.

Therefore, an inkjet printer is known in which the orifice is covered with a cap so that the orifice cannot be fully opened to the outside air when printing is not performed.

For example, in such a printer, after a recording pause, the recording liquid in the orifice may return to the home position and be capped after a certain period of time during which the viscosity does not exceed the ejectable viscosity range. After that, the time required for the recording liquid in the orifice to exceed the range of viscosity that can be ejected varies depending on environmental conditions, particularly the temperature of the recording liquid. This time tends to become shorter as the temperature decreases,
If you set a certain period of time to move on to the capping operation after stopping recording, if the temperature of the recording liquid is low, it will not be possible to maintain the temperature within the range suitable for recording due to the temperature change corresponding to that certain period of time. Ejection failure immediately after resuming recording is likely to occur, and conversely, if it is high, unnecessary capping operations will be performed frequently, so if you continue to repeat recording at short intervals, it is necessary to reduce the recording speed and avoid unnecessary capping operations. Problems arise, such as a decrease in reliability due to operation.

[Purpose] The present invention has been made in order to eliminate such conventional problems, and it is possible to always obtain a good droplet ejection condition, especially when restarting recording after a long recording pause or stop time. An object of the present invention is to provide a liquid jet recording device that can always obtain a good and stable droplet ejection state under any environmental temperature.

[Structure of the Invention] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention, as shown in FIG. Generating means 1 (liquid jet recording unit having 12 and performing recording on recording material P by discharging the formed flying droplets))
100, a recording unit control means 110 that supplies an electric signal to cause the ejection energy generation means 102 to form flying droplets in response to the input of the recording signal SA; heating means 120 to
and a liquid jet recording unit) 10G, a cap means 1110, and a standby time setting means 2 for setting the standby time of the recording signal SA after one recording process according to the environmental conditions.
22, and when the next recording signal SA is not input even after a set time has elapsed after the first recording process, the capping means 18G is driven to perform bonding to the liquid jet recording unit 10G. It is characterized by:

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows an example of the configuration of the recording section of an inkjet printer to which the present invention can be applied. This example shows the present invention applied to an inkjet printer in which a head unit is mounted on a carriage that moves in a predetermined direction with respect to the recording surface. It was applied. In addition, FIGS. 3(A) and (B) are, respectively,
3 is an enlarged view of the head unit in FIG. 2, and a further enlarged view of its nozzle portion. FIG.

In these figures, IU is a liquid ejecting unit mounted on a carriage C, and can be provided with a number corresponding to the ink color used. FC is a flexible cable that collects signal lines and the like for controlling ink ejection by the liquid jet recording unit (HU).

The carriage C is fixed to a belt or the like, for example, and is moved in the S direction in the figure by a driving means such as a motor.

R is a guide rail that guides the movement of the carriage C in the S direction.

In addition, P is a recording material such as paper that is conveyed in the f direction in the figure,
PL is a platen that forms the recording surface of the recording paper P. That is, the carriage C is driven by the guide rail R by the driving means.
It is possible to move along the S direction in the figure and perform recording on the recording surface.

ST is a sub-tank provided in the carriage C, TBI and TB2 are ink supply pipes that communicate the main tank (not shown) and the sub-tank ST, and the sub-tank S, respectively.
T and the liquid chamber inside the head unit HU! This is an ink supply pipe unit that communicates with R.

CAP is a cap member, and the liquid jet recording unit H is located at the home position H of the carriage C in the S direction.
When the carriage C is at the home position, the cap member CAP is moved toward the liquid jet recording unit Hυ by a driving means such as a motor and comes into contact with the ejection surface of the liquid jet recording unit Hυ. can. SP is a collection member that comes into contact with the ejection surface of the liquid jet recording unit MU to collect ink, and is made of, for example, a water-absorbing porous material.

In Fig. 3 (A), BP is the supply pipe unit TB2.
, a liquid chamber IR, a nozzle part NZ, a flexible cable FC, etc. are arranged, a base plate for supporting these, BSH is an elastic member for supporting the periphery of the nozzle part, and FP is a front plate. TS is a temperature sensor such as a thermistor for temperature detection, HTR is a heater consisting of an electrothermal transducer such as a positive temperature coefficient thermistor installed in the head unit (III) to heat the ink from the outside, and
is a heat conductive plate.

Further, in FIG. 3(B), OR is an orifice as an ink discharge hole, and in this example, a predetermined number of orifices OR are arranged in the nozzle part NZ in the vertical direction. ICH is a liquid flow path communicating between the orifice OR and the liquid chamber IR, and ET is an ejection heater serving as an ejection energy generating element that provides thermal energy for ejection to the ink in the liquid flow path ICH.

To perform recording using this device, first, ink is supplied from the main tank to the eight sub-tanks via the supply pipe unit B1, and then to the liquid chambers via the supply pipe unit TB2. R
A flexible cable FC is connected to the liquid droplet ejection signal generating means described later to fill the recording liquid into the liquid flow path ICH.
An electric signal is applied through the discharge heater ET to energize the discharge heater ET. As a result, the ejection heater ET generates heat, and thermal energy is applied to the recording liquid in the liquid flow path ICH near the ejection heater ET.

At that point, bubbles are generated in the recording liquid accompanied by an instantaneous increase in the volume of the recording liquid, and the recording liquid downstream of the discharge heater ET is discharged from the orifice OR, causing the recording liquid to A droplet is formed. Recording is performed by making droplets of the recording liquid adhere to a recording material P such as paper that has been sent in front of the nozzle section.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the configuration of a control device for an inkjet printer of the present invention. This control device receives print data from, for example, a host computer, stores print data for one line, and controls the head unit/) HU. The controller controls the print head to perform printing.

First, l is a programmable peripheral interface (hereinafter referred to as PPI), which functions to receive print data sent from the host computer of the printer according to this example in parallel and send the print data to the MPU 2; 2 is a microprocessing unit (hereinafter referred to as MPU) that controls each part in the printer and performs the processing procedure described below. RAM as line buffer memory that stores one line
, 4 is ROM for the font of printout characters, 5 is M
This is a control ROM that stores processing procedures (FIGS. 5 to 7) executed by the PU2. These units 1 to 5 are connected via an address bus AB and a data bus DB.

Reference numeral 6 represents a console having a keyboard switch, a display lamp, etc., and 7 represents a home position sensor provided near the home position of the carriage C. 8 is a cap mode switch for detecting the state of the cap member CAP, that is, opening/closing of the cap with respect to the head HU; 9 is a paper sensor for detecting the absence of printing paper.

IO is a head unit controller that latches print data and print output time, and starts print output in response to a command from the MPU 2. That is, in this example, the controller 10 is used as a dedicated IC circuit to speed up the processing. As this controller 10, for example, the one disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 1132802/1983 by the same applicant can be used. In addition,
Once the print data is latched, if there is no need to change it, a driver drives the output as it is, and 13 is a protection circuit for the head unit Hu. 14 is Head Units IH
The switch for driving the ink heating and heat retention heater HTR provided at 1l is a switch for instructing switching of printing fonts. 17 is a temperature comparison circuit 15. This is a signal input switching device for the switch 16 and is controlled by the MPU 2.

Reference numeral 18 denotes a dry bay for driving a motor M3 for moving the cap member CAP relative to the head unit (HU). Reference numerals 22 and 24 are drivers for driving the paper feeding motor M2 and the carriage moving motor M2, respectively. Further, 20 and 21 are a solenoid for a valve used for venting air in the head unit HU, and its driver, respectively.

Here, in this example, an overview of the processing in the inkjet printer shown in FIGS. 2 to 4 according to this example will be described.
When the power of the printer is turned on and when printing is started, the head unit (HU) is subjected to preliminary heating processing and preliminary ejection processing to improve the ink ejection condition. Furthermore, in connection with these processes, capping of the HU is appropriately controlled. During the preliminary heat treatment, external heat treatment and/or internal heat treatment shall be performed.

Here, external heating refers to heating the ink in the head unit HU from the outside by driving the heater HTR, and internal heating refers to the ejection energy of the print output pulse in the range in which ink is not ejected from the head unit HU. During internal heating, which means heating from inside the head by supplying it to the generating element, a print output start signal is sent to the head unit controller 10 at each set frequency.

When performing preheating, especially internal heating.

Although it is preferable to apply a print output with an appropriate pulse width, frequency, and voltage to the head unit Hυ, by using the head controller 10, sufficient processing is possible even at the processing speed of a normal MPU.

That is, according to this example, the parameters of each print output can be freely changed and set as necessary, so that optimal head heating and software simplification and speeding up can be achieved.

Also, when performing preliminary ejection, it is preferable to similarly apply an appropriate print output using pulse width, frequency, and voltage as parameters to the head unit (HU). In this example, these parameters and the number of ejections are changed depending on the environmental conditions.

According to this example, such a case can be easily handled by software, and optimal preliminary ejection becomes possible. In addition, in this example, the print output during preliminary ejection was set to "1" for all dots using the head controller IO.
Regarding the print data in this case, it is not necessary to change the print data each time, so it is possible to simplify the software and speed up the processing.

The print state optimization process in this example will be described below.

FIGS. 5A and 5B show an example of a printing condition optimization processing procedure according to the present invention.

Immediately after the printer is powered on, as an initial process.

The hardware initializes the 1tPP 11 and the head unit controller 10, and the software initializes the line buffer memory RAM 3, checks the operation of the control ROI 5, and initializes each parameter used in processing ( Step S1).

After this initial processing is completed, while monitoring the cap mode switch 8 by the MPU 2, the head cap motor M
3 to open the head cap (step S2), and while monitoring the home position sensor 7, operate the front of the carry 2 motor to move the carriage C and position it at the home position H (step S2).
3) Then, while monitoring the cap mode switch 8, operate the cap motor N3 and turn on the head unit H.
Perform head cap closing processing for ■ (step S0
, and further drives the motor Ml to feed the paper by one line, for example. After these processes, initial processing for the head unit (2) is performed.

In the initial process, first, preliminary heating process (step SH) of the head unit HU is started.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a preliminary heating process procedure for performing external heating and internal heating. As mentioned above, internal heating is performed by controlling the controller 10 to output pulse widths, voltages, and high frequencies within a range in which ink is not ejected. In addition to the head unit, )) IU, external heating refers to generating heat inside the head unit. In step S old, external heating is started, and in step 5) 12 the head unit controller 10 is set to external heating mode. The output is set to "l" and internal heating is started in step SH4.During this internal heating, the pulse width and voltage of the print output are adjusted as described below.

Make sure to set the frequency appropriately.

Once you start preheating the head like this.

The temperature of the head unit Hυ is measured, and if the temperature of the HU is equal to or higher than a certain temperature on the high temperature side (step 5H5), the preheating is ended. If preheating is started and the high temperature does not exceed a certain temperature even after a certain period of time has elapsed (step 5ue), an internal heating stop command is sent to the controller 1G in step SH7 to prevent thermal damage to the head. The internal heating is stopped, and then, in step 5) 18, the driver 14 is turned off to stop the external heating. That is, at this time, the preheating is stopped and the process returns to step SB in FIG. 5(A). It should be noted that the constant temperature on the high temperature side refers to the upper limit temperature for operation of the head unit 12 (for example, 42° C.), and it goes without saying that the order of starting and stopping external heating and internal heating may be any order.

Referring again to FIG. 5, after stopping the preheating, for a predetermined period of time,
After waiting, the temperature distribution inside the locally heated heft unit (HU) is averaged (step S8), and after this waiting, a preliminary ejection process (step SJ) is performed. When heat treatment is performed, the waiting time may be set to a relatively long time, and in this case, it can be set to, for example, 500 hours.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the preliminary ejection processing procedure. Here, first, in step SJI, the head unit controller 1
The ejection conditions are set to 0, and then in step SJ2 the print output for all dots is set to l''.Then, in step Sj3, the print output is added to the head unit (HU) and ejection is performed. This process is repeated a specified number of times through the process of SJ4, and after the process is completed, step S in FIG.
Returns to IG and shifts to print standby state. That is, the initial processing for the head unit HU is completed, and the procedure shifts to a print standby state from the host computer. Note that the parameters of the prescribed number of ejections and the ejection conditions can be appropriately set depending on the environmental conditions as described later.

When a print signal is supplied from the host computer in the print signal standby state (step 510), the print data is P
RAM3 latched to PII and used as a line buffer
will be forwarded to. Therefore, the temperature comparison circuit 15 detects a signal from the temperature detection element TS provided in the head unit MU, and determines whether or not the temperature is higher than a certain temperature on the low temperature side, for example, 20 degrees Celsius or higher (step 5ll). If the determination is affirmative, the head cap motor N3 is driven to perform cap opening processing (step 512), and then the controller 10 is set to the normal printing mode to perform preliminary ejection (see FIG. 7 in step S). If it is determined that the low temperature is lower than the certain temperature, the cap is opened (step 513), and then the preheating treatment (step SH; see FIG. 6) is performed.
After performing and waiting for a predetermined time (step S15),
Further, the discharge conditions and the number of discharges are set in the controller 10 to perform preliminary discharge (see FIG. 7 for step S).

Note that the standby time in this case can be made shorter than the above-mentioned standby time when rapid heating is not performed such as during startup. Note that the constant temperature on the low-temperature side refers to the head unit Hu.
This is called the lower operating temperature limit.

After the preliminary ejection process is completed, the printing state is entered, that is, the heating process is not performed during the printing operation performed by driving the carriage motor N2. Note that the constant temperature on the low-temperature side is referred to as the lower limit temperature for operation of the head unit and the head unit.

When printing is started and, for example, - character printing is performed and the carriage motor N2 is stopped (step 820).
, setting the printing standby time according to the temperature conditions (step ST: described later); determining whether the temperature of the head unit (HU) is equal to or higher than a certain temperature on the low temperature side (step 521);
If the judgment is positive here, the process moves to the next step, and if the judgment is negative, the driver 14 is turned on and external heating is started (
The process proceeds to step 522). That is, it is determined whether or not the temperature of the head unit (2) is higher than a certain temperature on the high temperature side (step 923).
S) After waiting (step S20), external heating is stopped (step 525).

Next, as shown in FIG. 5(B), the paper feed motor M1
is driven to feed the paper (step 93G), and the print data is printed within the printing standby time set in step ST.
Determine whether the PII is latched (step S4
G, 541), if the determination is affirmative here, the process moves to step 5ill in FIG. 5(A). On the other hand, if the judgment is negative,
After driving the carriage motor M2 to position the carriage C at the home position H (step 543), and then driving the cap motor M3 to perform cap closing processing (step 544), step SIG in FIG. 5(A) is performed. to return to.

In this way, in this example, after the preliminary heating process, the preliminary ejection process of ejecting droplets that are not used for recording is performed, so the recording pause or stop period becomes very long, and the evaporation of the solvent component Even if the viscosity of the recording liquid increases significantly due to the above, it is possible to optimize ejection during printing. That is, first, the high-viscosity portion of the recording liquid is heated by the preheating process, and its temperature is increased, and the viscosity of the recording liquid is lowered to a level where droplets can be ejected.

By performing the preliminary ejection process in this state, the recording liquid in this area is ejected out of the liquid flow path ICH.
A recording liquid whose viscosity is within a suitable range for ejection is supplied near the ejection heater E, and a good recording liquid ejection condition can be obtained from then on.

In addition, in this example, in order to prevent printing defects when restarting recording after a long recording pause, the carriage C is positioned at the home position during the recording pause, and the orifice OR is covered by the cap member CAP. The time from when the recording is stopped until the capping operation starts is controlled by the temperature information of the head unit (HU) detected by the temperature detection element TS.

The relationship between the temperature of the head unit III and the capping transition time is, if the orifice OR is left open at that temperature, how long will it take for the ink in the nozzle near the orifice OR to become impossible to eject? It is determined based on whether the viscosity increases until

In the following, in order to determine the relationship between the temperature T of this head unit (HU) and the capping transition time t, we measured the number of non-ejected droplets immediately after recording was resumed by changing the standing time under each temperature environment. An example will be explained. The liquid jet recording device used for the measurements was an inkjet printer configured as shown in Figures 2 to 4.
Z has an orifice on the 24 side (orifice diameter 50 x 4G
g■) are arranged in a line vertically at an interval of 0.141 m, and an electrothermal energy converter ET is used as an energy converter.
It uses This inkjet printer was filled with ink having the composition shown below, and lO”020
%RH, 15℃20%RH, 20℃20%RH, 30℃
Under each environment of 20% RH, the recording pause time was varied from 10 seconds to 5 minutes, and the voltage was 23.5 V when recording resumed.
, a droplet ejection electric signal with a pulse width of 104 g and a frequency of 2 KHz is supplied to the electrothermal transducer ET to perform recording, and the recording signal is measured until the ink droplets used for recording are ejected from all 24 orifices. The number of non-ejected droplets was counted. The results are shown in Table 1.

The composition of the recording liquid used for recording was as follows.

[Recording liquid composition] C, 1, Direct Black 19 2 parts by weight diethylene gelcol 30 parts by weight water
70 parts by weight 1st
As shown in Table 1, as the environmental temperature decreases, the time during which recording can be stopped becomes shorter. Therefore, when the capping transition time under each environment is determined based on the results shown in Table 1, the results are shown in Table 2. In making this decision, we set the pause time as long as possible within the range where the number of non-ejected droplets after restarting recording is zero, and if we adopt the capping transition time shown in Table 2, it is possible to Even after the recording is stopped, good recording can be performed from the first printing pulse. Note that since the inkjet printer according to this example performs preliminary ejection and preliminary heating when restarting recording, it is also possible to further lengthen the capping transition time shown in Table 2.

Table 2, FIG. 8(A) shows an example of the configuration of the temperature comparison circuit 15 used for such time setting. Here, the resistance value of the temperature detection element TS is converted into a voltage by a resistance value voltage converter RV. Four temperature comparison elements COMPI-GOMP4 are provided to convert and detect each of 10°C, 15°C, 20°C, and 30°C, and the capping transition time is reduced by supplying temperature information to the MPU2 via the input selector Is. was controlled.

Figure 8 (B) shows the temperature comparison circuit 1 used for time setting.
In the example shown in Table 2 and FIG. 8 (A), which show other configuration examples of 5, four temperature detection points are set, but if you want to set the relationship between the recording pause time and the capping transition time more precisely, If the method of providing as many temperature comparison elements as the number of detection points as shown in FIG. 8(A) is adopted, the device will become larger. Therefore, by using an A/D converter A/D as shown in FIG. 8(B), temperature detection at a large number of temperature detection points can be realized with a simple device.

FIG. 9 shows an example of the relationship between the environmental temperature T and the capping transition time t in this case.

In the example, a positive characteristic thermistor with a relatively high resistance and sudden change in temperature was used as the heater HTR for external heating, and a thermistor as the temperature detection element TS was used in combination so that the ink temperature was 20°C to 42°C. But the appropriate temperature,
For example, when performing open-loop temperature control using a positive temperature coefficient thermistor with a sudden resistance change temperature of about 20°C, the temperature control shown in Figure 5 (A
) and (B) can be performed as follows.

That is, for example, a procedure is provided to stop external heating immediately before printing processing (step 520), and depending on the temperature conditions, immediately after one paper feed processing (step 530), external heating is started and then waiting for a printing start signal (step 540). ), and then after a set time has elapsed (step 541
) may also include a procedure for stopping external heating.

In the embodiment, an inkjet printer in which a head unit is mounted on a carriage has been described; however, the present invention can also be applied to a so-called full multi-type inkjet printer that is equipped with a plurality of head units in the width direction of recording paper. Of course.

In addition, when setting each parameter in the preliminary heating treatment, each parameter in the preliminary discharge treatment, and the number of discharges,
In addition to being adapted to the temperature conditions as in the example,
For example, it can be adapted to environmental conditions such as humidity and pressure.

[Effect] As explained above, according to the present invention, the time after capping after recording is stopped can be set to the longest time under the environmental conditions within a range in which there are no non-ejected droplets after recording is resumed. Therefore, a good and stable droplet ejection condition can always be obtained, and unnecessary capping operations are eliminated, which has the effect of preventing a decrease in recording speed and improving reliability and durability.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an example of the configuration of an inkjet printer according to the present invention, and FIGS. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of the internal circuit configuration of the inkjet printer according to the present invention; FIG. Flowchart showing an example of a processing procedure. FIGS. 6 and 7 are flowcharts showing an example of a preliminary heating processing procedure and an example of a preliminary ejection processing procedure in the process shown in FIG. 5, respectively. FIGS. 8(A) and 8(CB) are block diagrams showing two examples of the configuration of a temperature comparison circuit used for setting the capping transition time. FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of the relationship between environmental temperature and capping transition time. H■...Liquid injection unit/ ) (head unit), C...Carriage, R...Guide rail. TBI, TB2...supply pipe, FC...flexible cable, ST...subtank, CAP...cap member, P...recording material, PL...platen, S...carriage running direction , f...recording material conveyance direction, H...home position, NZ...nozzle section, FP...front plate. IR...liquid chamber. IGH...Ink flow path, OR...Orifice. TS...Temperature detection element, HTR...Heater for external heating, ET...Heater for discharge. Ml, 12. M3...Motor, l...Programmable Peripheral Interface (PPI), 2...Microprocessing unit (MPU). 3... Line buffer RAM, 4... ROM for font generation, 5... ROM for control, 6... Console, 7... Home position sensor, 8... Cap mode switch. 9...Paper sensor, 10...Head unit controller, 11.14,
18, 21, 22. 24... Driver, 13... Protection circuit, 15... Temperature comparison circuit, 16... Font selection switch. 17...Input selector, RV...Resistance value voltage converter. coxpt~COMP4...Temperature comparison element, IS...
・Input selector. A/D...A/D converter. Figure 6 Figure 8 (A) 1 electric Figure 8 (B)

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) It has an ejection energy generating means capable of forming flying droplets by applying energy to the liquid in response to the supply of an electric signal, and ejects the formed flying droplets. a liquid ejection recording unit that performs recording on a recording material using a recording medium; a recording unit control means that supplies the electric signal to the ejection energy generating means to form the flying droplets in response to input of a recording signal; and the liquid A heating means provided in the jet recording unit to heat the liquid; a cap means connectable to the liquid jet recording unit; and a standby time for setting a standby time for a recording signal after one recording process according to environmental conditions. A control means 220 having a setting means and driving the cap means to perform bonding to the liquid jet recording unit when the next recording signal is not input even after the set time has elapsed after the first recording process.
A liquid jet recording device characterized by comprising: 2) A liquid jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the environmental condition is the temperature of the liquid.