A liquid ejecting apparatus is configured to eject liquid in response to a drive signal. The drive signal includes a first ejection pulse, a plurality of second ejection pulses, and a third ejection pulse. An ejection component of the first ejection pulse changes from a first potential to a reference potential and is temporally continuous with an interpulse component. Ejection components of the second and third ejection pulses change from the first potential to a second potential. The second ejection pulses include first vibration suppression components that change from the second potential to the reference potential after the ejection components. The third ejection pulse includes a second vibration suppression component that changes from the second potential to a third potential. The reference potential is a potential between the first potential and the second potential and between the second potential and the third potential.

A liquid ejection head includes a nozzle for ejecting a droplet of a liquid, a pressure chamber connected to the nozzle, an actuator for changing a volume of the chamber according to a voltage signal, and a drive circuit generating the signal for ejecting n droplets, where n is an integer of 3 or more. The signal includes (n?1) ejection pulses, comprising a first pulse lowering the voltage signal to a first value to expand the chamber and then to a second value to contract the chamber, and a second pulse lowering the voltage signal to the first value and then to a third value higher than the second value. The pulses are input at intervals of 0.8? to 1.2?, where ? is a primary natural vibration period of the chamber filled with the liquid.

Methods and systems are described herein for driving droplet ejection devices with multi-level waveforms. In one embodiment, a method for driving droplet ejection devices includes applying a multi-level waveform to the droplet ejection devices. The multi-level waveform includes a first section having at least one compensating edge and a second section having at least one drive pulse. The compensating edge has a compensating effect on systematic variation in droplet velocity or droplet mass across the droplet ejection devices. In another embodiment, the compensating edge has a compensating effect on cross-talk between the droplet ejection devices.

An ink-jet recording apparatus includes: an ink-jet head provided with first and second nozzles for jetting a first ink and a second ink respectively, first and second drive elements which apply energy to the first and second inks respectively; a power supply circuit; and a controller. The controller estimates viscosity of the first ink in the first nozzle, controls the power supply circuit to generate a first drive voltage or a second drive voltage higher than the first drive voltage based on the viscosity of the first ink in the first nozzle estimated, drives the first and second drive elements by use of the drive voltage generated in the power supply circuit, and calculates a jetting amount of the first ink to be jetted from the first nozzle and a jetting amount of the second ink to be jetted from the second nozzle.

The invention relates to a method for actuating an inkjet print head, comprising at least one printing system having a nozzle on the side of an ink chamber which faces a substrate to be imprinted, and which is delimited at least in areas, preferably in its area facing away from the print substrate, by a diaphragm that is movable away from the ink chamber by electrically actuating a piezo element that is mechanically coupled to the diaphragm, so that ink is drawn into the ink chamber from a reservoir, and the diaphragm is movable into the ink chamber so that an ink drop is ejected from the ink chamber through the nozzle, wherein the printing system made up of the ink chamber, diaphragm, piezo element, and the electronic control system thereof represents an oscillatable structure which, when actuated at high energy, is excited to oscillate at a natural frequency f.sub.res that exhibits resonance; i.e. the oscillation with the period T.sub.res=1/f.sub.res undergoes little or no attenuation, and wherein the brightness of a pixel to be printed is varied in that, for each pixel, a sequence of multiple ink drops is ejectable in succession from the same nozzle at a time interval of T.sub.drop=1/f.sub.drop, and energy is only introduced into the printing system via the actuation signal precisely when an ink drop is actually to be ejected.

Methods and systems are described herein for driving droplet ejection devices with multi-level waveforms. In one embodiment, a method for driving droplet ejection devices includes applying a multi-level waveform to the droplet ejection devices. The multi-level waveform includes a first section having at least one compensating edge and a second section having at least one drive pulse. The compensating edge has a compensating effect on systematic variation in droplet velocity or droplet mass across the droplet ejection devices. In another embodiment, the compensating edge has a compensating effect on cross-talk between the droplet ejection devices.

A liquid discharging head includes a discharge port that discharges a liquid, a pressure chamber that communicates with the discharge port, and an energy generating element that is disposed in the pressure chamber. In the liquid discharging head, the discharge port is provided with a plurality of projections that project towards a central portion of the discharge port from an inner peripheral edge of the discharge port, and an interval between the projections at a location where the projections are closest to each other is 5 m or less.

A liquid ejecting head includes a drive element, a drive circuit that outputs a signal for driving the drive element, and a wiring board. The wiring board is provided with a power supply wire through which power is supplied to the drive circuit, a first drive signal wire through which a first drive signal is supplied to the drive circuit, and a second drive signal wire through which a second drive signal is supplied to the drive circuit and that is not electrically connected to the power supply wire and the first drive signal wire on the wiring board, each of the first drive signal wire and the second drive signal wire is provided with a buried wire that is buried in a groove, and the first drive signal wire and the second drive signal wire are different from each other in number of the buried wires.

An ink jet head drive device includes a pressure chamber in which a liquid can be contained, an actuator configured to change a pressure on the liquid in the pressure chamber by changing a volume of the pressure chamber in response to a drive signal, a nozzle through which the liquid contained in the pressure chamber can be ejected when an ejection pulse is supplied to the actuator, and a drive circuit configured to output the drive signal to the actuator as a drive waveform having a first pulse group and a second pulse group following the first pulse group when at least three consecutive ejection pulses are included in the drive waveform. All ejection pulses in the first pulse group have a first voltage amplitude, and all ejection pulses in the second pulse group have a second voltage amplitude that is smaller than the first voltage amplitude.

According to an embodiment, an inkjet head includes a nozzle that ejects ink, an ink pressure chamber that connects to the nozzle, an actuator that changes a volume of the ink pressure chamber, and an actuator driving circuit that drives the actuator with a driving waveform. The driving waveform includes an ejection pulse portion that changes from a first voltage to a second voltage at which the ink pressure chamber expands and then changes from the second voltage to a third voltage at which the ink pressure chamber contracts so as to eject the ink from the nozzle. The third voltage is between that of the first and second voltages in potential level. The potential difference between the second and third voltages is greater than the potential difference between the third and first voltages.