There is provided an ink jet recording apparatus including an ink jet head and a drive circuit. The ink jet head forms an image on a recording medium in response to a drive signal applied to multiple piezoelectric elements. The drive signal causes multiple pressure chambers corresponding to the multiple piezoelectric elements to expand or to contract in volume and causes ink in the multiple pressure chambers to be discharged from multiple nozzles. The drive circuit generates a drive signal for discharging multiple liquid droplets to one pixel for combining the multiple liquid droplets together and applies the drive signal to each of the multiple piezoelectric elements of the ink jet head. The drive signal includes multiple discharge pulses which make velocities of tips of respective liquid columns substantially same after a predetermined time from starting of ink discharge from the nozzles.

There is provided a liquid discharge apparatus including: a channel unit having a nozzle surface in which a nozzle is opened; an actuator configured to apply an energy for discharging a liquid from the nozzle; and a controller. Ohnesorge number Oh is in a range from 0.17 to 0.34. The controller is configured to drive the actuator so that a velocity v of the liquid discharged from the nozzle is not more than 8 m/s.

A liquid discharge method of discharging a liquid from a nozzle of a liquid discharge head by applying a drive pulse to a drive element of the liquid discharge head includes an acquisition step of acquiring a state of a dot formed on a recording medium by the liquid discharged from the nozzle, as a recording condition, and a driving step of applying the drive pulse that varies depending on the recording condition acquired in the acquisition step, to the drive element. The drive pulse may include a first potential, a second potential different from the first potential, and a third potential different from the first potential and the second potential. The second potential may be to be applied after the first potential, and the third potential may be to be applied after the second potential.

Provided is an inkjet recording apparatus including: a nozzle configured to eject droplets including a first droplet and a second droplet larger than the first droplet; a moving mechanism that moves a sheet relative to the nozzle; and a processor configured to generate ejection data for the droplets, the ejection data corresponding to a dot image formed by ejecting the droplets from the nozzle on the sheet moved relatively to the nozzle by the moving mechanism, wherein the processor is configured to replace the second droplet for a pixel of interest in an original ejection data for generating the ejection data with the first droplet when the droplets are not ejected for n pixels in a row after the pixel of interest to generate the ejection data, where n is an integer of 2 or more.

A printing apparatus is disclosed. The printing apparatus comprises a printhead and a controller. The printhead is to spit a printing fluid comprising a first mode and a second mode. The first mode corresponds to using a first energy level to spit the printing fluid and the second mode corresponds to using a second energy level to spit the printing fluid. The second energy level comprises a higher energy level than the first energy level. The controller is to determine a decap risk zone associated with the printing fluid, determine in view of the decap risk zone a decap location, and instruct the printhead to spit using the second mode at the decap location.

An ink for ink jet recording according to an embodiment is an ink for ink jet recording containing pigment, colloidal silica, amine, and amino acid.

An ink for ink jet recording according to an embodiment is an ink for ink jet recording containing pigment, colloidal silica, and amino acid.

A test pattern formation method includes preparing a first pattern including a plurality of dot rows that are separated, and a second pattern including a plurality of regions having a width greater than a width of the plurality of dot rows and provided spaced apart by a plurality of gaps greater than or equal to the width of the plurality of dot rows. At least a portion of the first pattern and at least a portion of the second pattern are in positions overlapping each other. Given a largest overlap between one of the plurality of dot rows and one of the plurality of gaps as a reference, the other dot rows of the plurality of dot rows and the plurality of regions having a wide width overlap and are deviated from each other incrementally by a respective distance corresponding to a landing deviation amount.

The present invention discharges ink from a plurality of inkjet heads and is used when performing drive whereby one droplet or a plurality of droplets are discharged onto and united on one pixel. A drive signal includes a drive waveform comprising N number (N being an integer of at least 2) of drive waveform elements and is configured so as to fulfil the relationship 1.1 Tc≤Ts≤1.4 Tc, when Tc is the natural vibration cycle determined from the inkjet head structure and Ts is the time from the start point of the drive waveform to the start point of the subsequent drive waveform. As a result, velocity deviation caused by the resonant frequency of a piezoelectric actuator driving the inkjet head can be suppressed when driving an inkjet head using multiple gradations.

An inkjet recording device includes a nozzle, a pressure generator and a driver The nozzle ejects ink. The pressure generator changes pressure on ink in an ink flow path that communicates with the nozzle by a predetermined drive operation. The driver makes the pressure generator perform the drive operation predetermined limes of at least twice at time points on a predetermined cycle, and makes the nozzle eject an ink droplet of an amount corresponding to a number of drive operations included in a set of drive operations. In a case in which the number of drive operations is two, the driver makes the pressure generator perform the drive operation twice with an interval twice as long as the cycle.