An electrohydrodynamic printer has a self-cleaning extractor that can cleaning itself during printing. The extractor can be in the form of a metal block or a metal rod along which a layer of cleaning fluid flows from a source of cleaning fluid to a collector. The surface of the extractor along which the cleaning fluid flows can be adjustable between horizontal and any other angle. The self-cleaning extractor eliminates the need to interrupt e-jet printing cycles to clean stray printing fluid from the extractor by continuously keeping the extractor clean during ink extraction and printing.

An apparatus for printing discrete high-resolution high-density features on a surface is provided using an aerosol stream. An aerosol chamber has a transport gas that enters through a port and entrains aerosol in an aerosol chamber to form an aerosol-laden transport gas. A flow cell is provided that has a flow cell channel and sheath gas conduits. The aerosol-laden transport gas passes through the flow cell channel and is surrounded by sheath gas passed through the sheath gas conduits. At least one aerodynamic lens receives the aerosol-laden transport gas surrounded by sheath gas. A method of printing the aerosol droplets from the aerosol-laden transport gas onto the substrate with a mean diameter of 0.5 to 8 microns is also provided.

The invention provides an inkjet marking apparatus and an inkjet marking system enabling it to remotely perform maintenance management including a print head cleaning process and the like. There is disclosed an inkjet marking apparatus equipped with a print head including a nozzle which spouts out ink while the ink turns into particles, a charging electrode which gives charge to ink particles spouted out, a deflecting electrode which deflects the charged ink particles, and a gutter which collects non-used ink; a main unit equipped with an ink supply path to supply ink in an ink container to the print head, an ink collection path to collect ink not used for printing into the ink container, a solvent supply path to supply a solvent in a solvent container to the ink container, and flow rate regulators which regulate flows of the ink and the solvent in these respective paths; a main unit controller which controls operation of the flow rate regulators in the main unit and the print head; and a head receptacle unit including a head holding part to set and hold the print head secured in place and a print head detector which detects that the print head has been set secured in place, wherein the main unit controller starts jetting of the ink from the nozzle when a preset start time comes, provided that it is detected that the print head has been set secured in the head receptacle unit.

An inkjet recording device automatically determines an excitation voltage of a piezoelectric element for formation of ink droplets. An excitation voltage value is applied to the piezoelectric element of a nozzle over a plurality of sweeping events. A charge voltage is applied to ink droplets generated by the applied excitation voltage value in a plurality of arbitrary printing phases to give an electric charge thereto. A charge amount given to the ink droplets is detected by a sensor to obtain a printing phase. When the relationship of a current printing phase to a previous printing phase detected for each sweeping event is reversed from an increasing side to a decreasing side and two decrease determinations of the printing phase are established in succession, an excitation voltage value corresponding to the printing phase of the sweeping event immediately before the first decrease determination is set as a final excitation voltage value.

A print head equipped with a contamination detection device detects ink contamination of a print head of a continuous-type inkjet printer and includes a print head that includes a nozzle that ejects ink droplets, charging electrodes that charge the ink droplets, deflection electrodes that deflect the charged ink droplets with an electric field, and a gutter that collects the ink droplets that are not used for printing, and a contamination detection device that includes a camera that images at least a part of a flight region where the ink droplets ejected from the nozzle fly from a side in a direction in which the ink droplets are ejected from the nozzle or in a direction in which the deflection electrodes face each other, and an information processing unit that performs processing of image data captured by the camera.

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes an ejection section that is configured to eject a droplet from a nozzle communicating with a pressure chamber by driving a drive element according to a supplied drive signal The drive signal includes a at least one ejection pulse including an ejection waveform element that changes an electrical potential to be ejected a droplet from the nozzle, and a residual vibration suppression element that changes an electrical potential to reduce the change in the pressure of the liquid in the pressure chamber, the change in the pressure remaining after the ejection of the droplet according to a natural vibration period of the ejection section. A weight of droplets to be continuously ejected from the nozzle when the drive signal is supplied to the drive element over a period corresponding to two or more drive periods is corrected by adjusting the residual vibration suppression element.

Apparatus for continuous ink jet printing, comprising: an ink system comprising an ink storage tank (15) operable to supply ink to a print head associated with the apparatus; a single cartridge connection (9) for releasable engagement with a fluid cartridge (8), the cartridge connection (9) comprising: a fluid connector (10) for engaging an outlet of a fluid cartridge; and a conduit configured to allow fluid to flow along a fluid pathway from a cartridge engaged with the cartridge connection, via the fluid connector, to the ink storage tank. The apparatus has a first configuration in which a solvent cartridge is engaged with the cartridge connection and in which the apparatus is configured to receive solvent from the engaged solvent cartridge, and a second configuration in which an ink cartridge is engaged with the cartridge connection and in which the apparatus is configured to receive ink from the engaged ink cartridge.

A method for controlling an inkjet recording device includes providing a print head and providing a main body. The method also includes controlling, when the print head is set in the head cleaning unit, the supply of the ink to the nozzle and the recovery of the discharged ink from the gutter, wherein the gutter is located between the nozzle and recovery container. The method also includes providing a plurality of ink circulation path. The method also includes connecting, a pump to the circulation paths, and circulating, using the pump, the ink in a state where the print head is set in the head cleaning unit.