A high-quality image is printed with reduced bleeding in colors that may appear at a boundary between a black image and a color image. A head for ejecting black ink and a head for ejecting color ink perform three times of scanning while feeding is carried out therebetween for moving the printing medium by four pitches of ejection openings arranged on the heads, different ejection openings are caused to correspond to a scanning area, which corresponds to the four pitches, and multi-pass printing is performed to complete printing on the area. The black head completes printing of the black image, and then, the color head completes printing of the color image adjacent to the black image. The arrangement of ejection openings is determined so that between last scanning for completing printing of the black image and the first scanning for printing of the color image, scanning with no performing printing exists.

Ink jet printing apparatus and ink jet printing method

An ink-jet recording head includes a discharge-port portion including a first discharge-port portion continuing from a discharge port, and a second discharge-port portion communicating the first discharge-port portion with a bubble generation chamber. The second discharge-port portion has an end surface that includes a border portion bordering the first discharge-port portion and is parallel to a main surface of an element substrate. The cross-sectional area of the second discharge-port portion, anywhere from an opening surface facing the bubble generation chamber to an end surface facing the first discharge-port portion, that is parallel to the main surface of the element substrate, is larger than the area of the border portion. The cross section of the opening surface of the second discharge-port portion has a length in a direction perpendicular to an arrangement direction of the discharge ports that is greater than its length in a direction parallel to the arrangement direction.

Ink jet recording head

A printer that enables required data, such as a remaining quantity of each ink, to be written securely even when a storage device having a relatively low allowable frequency of rewriting is applied for a storage element mounted on an ink cartridge. An ink cartridge that is detachably attached to the printer. In the printer, a sequential access-type EEPROM having a relatively low allowable frequency of rewriting is applied for storage elements incorporated in both a black ink cartridge and a color ink cartridge. A print controller in the printer has a memory, for which an EEPROM (or a DRAM) is applicable. Data relating to each ink cartridge, such as a remaining quantity of each ink in the ink cartridge, are stored into both the EEPROM of the print controller and a memory cell included in the storage element of the ink cartridge. The writing operation of data into the EEPROM of the print controller is carried out at every time the remaining quantity of each ink is calculated, whereas the writing operation into the memory cell in the storage element of the ink cartridge is carried out restrictedly in response to a power down instruction. This arrangement causes the frequency of writing into the storage element of the ink cartridge to be lower than the frequency of writing into the EEPROM of the print controller. This accordingly fulfills the requirements, that is, the sufficient reliability of data and the restriction of the allowable frequency of rewriting.

Printer and ink cartridge attached thereto

The present invention is directed to methods for removing CO2 from air, which comprises exposing sorbent covered surfaces to the air. The invention also provides for an apparatus for exposing air to a CO2 sorbent. In another aspect, the invention provides a method and apparatus for separating carbon dioxide (CO2) bound in a sorbent.

Removal of carbon dioxide from air

A method and apparatus for sorting particles moving through a closed channel system of capillary size comprises a bubble valve for selectively generating a pressure pulse to separate a particle having a predetermined characteristic from a stream of particles. The particle sorting system may further include a buffer for absorbing the pressure pulse. The particle sorting system may include a plurality of closely coupled sorting modules which are combined to further increase the sorting rate. The particle sorting system may comprise a multi-stage sorting device for serially sorting streams of particles, in order to decrease the error rate.

Method and apparatus for sorting particles

In a complimentary printing by bi-directional scanning of a head (1) or by a plurality of heads, a plurality of patterns in which a print start timing is shifted by a predetermined amount are printed with respect to a reference dot, e.g. formed by the forward scan of the bi-directional scanning or by one of the plurality heads (S1). In these patterns, an area factor by the dots formed by printing of the patterns is designed to be varied depending upon shifting amount. An average density is read from each of the plurality of patterns, optically (S2). The timing at which the maximum one among average densities read from the patterns is obtained, can be set as the printing registration condition (S3, S4). Further, a processing including a coarse adjustment (S104, S105, S108) to a fine adjustment (S107, S109) is performed in a series of algorithm. By these processings, printing registration between a forward and a reverse scan of a print head or printing registration between a plurality of print heads in a printing apparatus can be performed simply and with high accuracy, without operating by a user.

An adjustment method of dot printing positions and a printing apparatus

Each nozzle of an ink-jet head has heaters having different heating capacities, and in accordance with the heater driven, a diameter of an ink dot formed by ink which is discharged from the nozzle is changed, thereby printing a large dot or a small dot. When multi-value image data is inputted, the multi-value image data is modulated such that a pixel having high density is printed with both the large dot and small dot. On the basis of the modulated print data, any of the heaters included in each nozzle of the ink-jet head is driven, whereby printing an image having tones based on the multi-value image data.

Ink-jet printing method and apparatus therefor

In an ink jet printing apparatus using many types of inks to execute bidirectional printing, if ejection opening rows for yellow, magenta, and cyan inks are symmetrically arranged, ejection opening rows for a black ink are arranged adjacent to the most inside ejection opening rows for the yellow ink Thus, a difference in color between forward scanning and backward scanning is determined by a difference in coloring between the black ink and the yellow ink In this case, a possible color drift attributed to bidirectional printing can be suppressed by selecting the inks so that the difference in coloring between the black ink and the yellow ink is smaller than that between the black ink and the other color inks

Ink jet printing apparatus

A printing apparatus and a printing registration method permits printing registration between a forward and a reverse scan of a head cartridge between a plurality of head cartridges without troubling a user and simply. By forward and reverse scan of the head cartridge, a plurality of patterns, in which a print start timing of the reverse scan is shifted per a predetermined amount relative to that of the forward scan, are printed. These patterns may vary an area factor by the dots formed by printing depending upon offset amount. On the other hand, the plurality of patterns are optically read an average density. By this, the timing, at which the read average density is maximum is set as the printing registration condition.

Hitoshi Nishikori

Papers

Ink jet printing apparatus and ink jet printing method

An adjustment method of dot printing positions and a printing apparatus

Ink-jet printing method and apparatus therefor

Ink jet printing apparatus

Printing apparatus and printing registration method