Disclosed herein is a substrate cooling unit for use with a duplex aqueous ink jet image forming device. The substrate cooling unit includes a first transport belt that is in contact with a portion of an outer surface of the first cooling roll to substantially sandwich individual sheets of image receiving media between a first cooling roll and the first transport belt. The substrate cooling unit includes a second cooling roll positioned downstream of the first cooling roll in a process direction and a second transport belt that is in contact with a portion of an outer surface of the second cooling roll to substantially sandwich the individual sheets of image receiving media between the second cooling roll and the second transport belt. The second transport belt includes a bottom layer of woven or non-woven fibers and a top rubber layer.

An ink jet printing recording apparatus includes a belt which supports a recording medium; a heating portion which heats the belt; and an ink jet recording head which ejects an ink jet ink composition, the belt is provided with an adhesive layer, the ink jet ink composition contains a heat cross-linking component, and the belt is heated by the heating portion to a temperature lower than a reaction temperature of the heat cross-linking component.

An ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention includes: a conveying unit that conveys a recording medium; a pretreatment unit that performs corona treatment on a surface of the recording medium; an ink image forming unit configured to be able to form an ink image by applying an ink of at least two colors, the ink containing an anionic pigment; a brightness measuring unit that measures brightness of the ink image; and a corona treatment intensity changing unit configured to change a corona treatment intensity of the pretreatment unit based on a result of the brightness measuring unit.

A recording apparatus includes a conveying unit, a supporting unit, and a static elimination unit. The conveying unit conveys a recording medium in a first direction to a recording area where recording is performed by a recording unit. The supporting unit supports the recording medium conveyed by the conveying unit and includes an abutment surface that abuts the recording medium when the supporting unit supports the recording medium. The static elimination unit eliminates static from the recording medium in a static elimination portion. The static elimination portion is not provided at a position opposed to the abutment surface and is provided at a position not opposed to the abutment surface in the supporting unit.

A cleaning device includes a cleaning unit, a movement mechanism, and a unit mounting portion. The cleaning unit includes a cleaning part having a contact surface brought into contact with a surface of a conveyance roller. The movement mechanism moves the cleaning unit between a cleaning position at which the cleaning part comes in contact with the conveyance roller, and a mounting and removing position at which the cleaning part is located below the conveyance roller in a separated manner and the cleaning unit is allowed to be mounted and removed on and from the apparatus body. The unit mounting portion houses the cleaning unit disposed at the mounting and removing position. The cleaning unit is configured such that the cleaning unit in a state of being housed in the unit mounting portion is mounted and removed, together with the processing unit, on and from the apparatus body.

A low cost and low air resistance belt support structure for an endless belt conveyor of an inkjet printer can be achieved with the belt support structure being provided over a suction chamber. The belt support structure includes a plurality of longitudinal, narrow support beams positioned spaced apart from one another and parallel to one another in a transport direction of the belt to define a flat support plane for the belt. The support beams provides a relatively small contact area with the belt, which results in low friction The support beams further allow for a relatively large open area between them to achieve a low air resistance.

An aqueous inkjet printer also ejects drops of UV material on an aqueous ink image and exposes the aqueous ink image and the UV material to UV radiation before passing the aqueous ink image and UV material through a thermal dryer. The exposure to UV radiation pins the UV material to the aqueous ink image and underlying substrate and the thermal dryer fixes the aqueous ink image to the substrate while releasing free radicals from the UV material. Thus, the printer produces textured prints that do not have free radicals that can irritate skin or produce noxious odors.

The present invention seeks to flatten a sheet when transferred onto an endless belt conveyor facing a print head assembly in a simple and/or low costs manner. Thereto a sheet conveyor is provided comprising an endless, air permeable belt and pressing means. The pressing means comprise a plurality of pressing members spaced apart from one another in a lateral direction of the belt, each pressing member comprising a body which body is moveable in a perpendicular direction with respect to the belt as well rotatable or pivotable around an axis in the perpendicular direction independent of the corresponding bodies of other pressing members. This provides a simple and passive sheet flattening means, resulting in low operational and material costs.

A sheet printer includes a sheet conveyor assembly including a first conveyor with a first holding device configured for exerting a holding force on a sheet proportional to a coverage of the sheet on the first conveyor and a second conveyor upstream of the first conveyor including a second holding device configured for holding and releasing the sheet, a print head assembly positioned over the first conveyor, a detector assembly for sensing the transport of the first conveyor, a controller storing on its memory a sheet media catalogue and configured to control a release timing of the second holding device for releasing the sheet partially engaged by the first conveyor based on a media type parameter selected from the media catalogue and to control the print head assembly to commence printing the sheet based on transport information from the detector assembly.

A method is provided that includes acquiring positional information regarding a pallet being translated on a conveyance system with an encoding sensor disposed proximate to the conveyance system. The method also includes receiving, with at least one processor, the positional information from the encoding sensor. Further, the method includes determining timing information using the positional information. The timing information corresponds to when a substrate disposed on the pallet will be in a print zone of a print head. The method further includes controlling the print head to print on the substrate when the substrate is in the print zone and passing beneath the print head.