A print head of a continuous ink jet printer, including, in a cover: means for producing at least one ink jet; means for separating drops of jets intended for printing from those that do not serve for printing; a slot, enabling drops intended for printing to get out; a recovery gutter (7) for drops not intended for printing, the recovery gutter comprising an ink recovery volume (12); at least one detection conductor (20), arranged inside the head; means (16) for detecting a variation in impedance of at least one of the detection conductors when ink (21) is present in contact with the conductor or with a dielectric layer (22) in contact therewith.

An inkjet printer includes a maintenance solution supply mechanism. In response to switching of a three-way valve provided in an ink pipe, a maintenance solution is supplied from a maintenance tank to each head through a maintenance pipe. The maintenance tank is a common tank. This suppresses size increase of the printer compared to provision of an individual maintenance tank for each head. The maintenance pipe is connected to the ink pipe at a position downstream of an intermediary tank. This eliminates the need of replacement of ink in the intermediary tank by the maintenance solution during supply of the maintenance solution. This allows reduction in the consumptions of the ink and the maintenance solution.

An inkjet printer includes a maintenance solution supply mechanism. In response to switching of a three-way valve provided in an ink pipe, a maintenance solution is supplied from a maintenance tank to each head through a maintenance pipe. The maintenance tank is a common tank. This suppresses size increase of the printer compared to provision of an individual maintenance tank for each head. The maintenance pipe is connected to the ink pipe at a position downstream of an intermediary tank. This eliminates the need of replacement of ink in the intermediary tank by the maintenance solution during supply of the maintenance solution. This allows reduction in the consumptions of the ink and the maintenance solution.

There is provided a liquid consuming apparatus including: a tank having a liquid storing chamber, an erected wall through which the liquid inside the liquid storage chamber is visible from outside of the tank, and an inlet which is formed to penetrate through the erected wall and via which the liquid is poured into the liquid storage chamber; a liquid consuming section which consumes the liquid stored in the liquid storing chamber; and a cover. A transmitting section and a checking section are formed in an upper surface, of the cover, under a condition that the cover is in the exposure position, the transmitting section configured to transmit information optically to a user of the liquid consuming apparatus and the checking section configured to prevent the liquid moving on a particular surface of the cover from arriving at the transmitting section.

There is provided a liquid consuming apparatus including: a tank having a liquid storing chamber, an erected wall through which the liquid inside the liquid storage chamber is visible from outside of the tank, and an inlet which is formed to penetrate through the erected wall and via which the liquid is poured into the liquid storage chamber; a liquid consuming section which consumes the liquid stored in the liquid storing chamber; and a cover. A transmitting section and a checking section are formed in an upper surface, of the cover, under a condition that the cover is in the exposure position, the transmitting section configured to transmit information optically to a user of the liquid consuming apparatus and the checking section configured to prevent the liquid moving on a particular surface of the cover from arriving at the transmitting section.

In an inkjet printer, when an amount of ink in a supply side sub tank is an appropriate amount and an amount of ink in the discharge side sub tank is an appropriate amount, the ink is supplied from the discharge side sub tank to the supply side sub tank at a constant flow rate by an ink pump. Furthermore, the inkjet printer acquires a first pump driving speed, which is the driving speed of the ink pump at this time, at a predetermined time interval, and compares the first pump driving speed with a predetermined reference speed, and executes a predetermined error processing when the first pump driving speed exceeds a reference speed.

Provided are a printing result inspection apparatus, a method, and a program capable of determining a printing defect caused by a printing step and a printing paper defect caused by printing paper by reading the printing paper once. A defect determination unit determines whether defected regions extracted from a non-image region are the printing defect or the printing paper defect based on a density change amount and a color, and an image feature amount of a defected region determined as the printing paper defect in the non-image region is stored in paper defect information and is accumulated in a paper defect information storage unit. Next, the defect determination unit determines whether defected regions extracted from image regions are the printing defect or the printing paper defect based on the paper defect information.

Provided are a printing result inspection apparatus, a method, and a program capable of determining a printing defect caused by a printing step and a printing paper defect caused by printing paper by reading the printing paper once. A defect determination unit determines whether defected regions extracted from a non-image region are the printing defect or the printing paper defect based on a density change amount and a color, and an image feature amount of a defected region determined as the printing paper defect in the non-image region is stored in paper defect information and is accumulated in a paper defect information storage unit. Next, the defect determination unit determines whether defected regions extracted from image regions are the printing defect or the printing paper defect based on the paper defect information.

An inkjet recording apparatus includes a tank, a recording head, a cover, a monitor, a cover sensor, an operation panel, and a controller. The cover is movable to cover a plurality of injection inlets associated with a plurality of ink chambers and to expose the plurality of injection inlets. The cover sensor outputs signal depending on position of the cover. The controller controls the monitor to display one of inquiry information and notification on the monitor depending on receipt of the signal from the cover sensor.

The invention concerns a method for cleaning an ink circuit of an ink-jet printer, comprising at least one tank (10), referred to as the main tank, at least one ink cartridge (30), a pump (31) for pumping the ink from the cartridge, ducts and valves (32-35, 320, 340, 341, 343, 344) for fluid connection between the ink cartridge and the tank, and control panel (3) for controlling the printer, the method comprising at least: a step of sending solvent, at a pressure P1, to the cartridge (30), by at least a part of the ducts and valves for fluid connection between the ink cartridge (30) and the tank (10), a step of pumping at least a portion of the solvent, sent in step a), towards the main tank (10).