An ink jet head includes a pressure chamber, an actuator, and an application unit. The chamber accommodates liquid. The actuator changes a volume of the chamber with a drive signal to be applied. The unit apply s the signal to the actuator. The signal includes a discharge pulse and a vibration pulse. The discharge pulse causes liquid to be discharged from a nozzle. A second discharge pulse is applied after a first discharge pulse. The vibration pulse is applied before the discharge pulse, has a potential having a polarity opposite to that of the discharge pulse. A period of the discharge pulse is 1.5 times to 2.5 times a half-period of a main acoustic resonance frequency of liquid in the chamber. A pulse width of the first pulse is closer to the half-period of the main acoustic resonance frequency than a pulse width of the second pulse.

A fluid ejection device including a plurality of primitives each having a same set of addresses and including a plurality of fluid chambers, each fluid chamber corresponding to a different address of the set of addresses and including a firing mechanism. Input logic receives a series of fire pulse groups, each fire pulse group corresponding to an address of the set of addresses and including warming data having an enable value or a disable value and a series of firing bits, each firing bit corresponding to a different primitive and having a firing value or a non-firing value. For each firing bit of each fire pulse group, when the warming data has the enable value, activation logic provides a warming pulse to the firing mechanism of the fluid chamber corresponding to the firing bit when the firing bit has the non-firing value.

A method of operating a drop-on demand (DOD) jetting device having a nozzle, a pressure chamber filled with a liquid and connected to the nozzle and an actuator energized by a drive signal, wherein a periodic DOD signal determines whether or not a droplet is jetted out from the nozzle in a given DOD period, and the drive signal has a waveform configured to cause the actuator to excite a pressure wave in the liquid, the method further comprising the steps of a) energizing the actuator with a waveform that has a fixed pattern and extends over a time interval that is longer than the given DOD period; and b) ignoring the DOD signal in at least the first DOD period that follows after said period for which the step a) has been performed.

Thermal inkjet printing wherein a printhead has ink ejection elements which are energizable by electrical pulses of a given energy with fire pulses of an amplitude (V) and a fire pulse width (fp). A printer controller sends commands to the printhead to spit ink drops, one or more temperature sensors coupled to the printhead measure a temperature of the printhead, and a calibration component coupled to the temperature sensor variably adjusts the fire pulse energy provided to the having ink ejection elements of the printhead. The calibration component initiates calibrating the printhead, spitting a number (X) of ink drops at a frequency (Y) by the electrical pulses, reading and storing printhead temperature, varying the fire pulse energy by repeating spitting ink drops and reading and storing printhead temperature, finding minimum temperature from the stored printhead temperatures, and deriving an operational fire pulse (fp.sub.op) from a fire pulse (fp.sub.on) that has produced the minimum temperature, wherein the printer controller uses the operational fire pulse (fp.sub.op) for printing.

First electronics may determine a count of bubble jet resistors to be fired by a fire pulse group. A fire pulse generator may generate a fire pulse train for bubble jet resistors, the fire pulse train comprising a precursor pulse and a firing pulse separated by a dead time. Second electronics may adjust a width of the fire pulse for the bubble jet resistors of the fire pulse group by maintaining a first edge of the fire pulse relative to the precursor pulse and adjusting a second edge of the fire pulse relative to the precursor pulse based upon the determined count for the fire pulse group.

A print component includes an array of fluidic actuation structures including a first column of fluidic actuating structures addressable by a set of actuation addresses, each fluidic actuating structure having a different one of the actuation addresses and having a fluidic architecture type, and a second column of fluidic actuating structures addressable by the set of actuation addresses. Each fluidic actuating structure of the second column has a different one of the actuation addresses and has a same fluidic architecture type as the fluidic actuating structure of the first column having the same address. An address bus communicates the set of addresses to the array of fluidic actuating structures, and a fire signal line communicates a plurality of fire pulse signal types to the array of fluidic actuating structures, the fire pulse signal type depending on the actuation address on the address bus.

A drive-waveform determination method determines a waveform of a first drive pulse to be applied to a drive element included in a first liquid discharging head that discharges liquid. The drive-waveform determination method includes: a first step of obtaining second waveform information regarding a waveform of a second drive pulse to be applied to a drive element included in a second liquid discharging head that discharges liquid; and a second step of determining the waveform of the first drive pulse, based on the second waveform information.

Provided is a device for controlling the printing of a print image with a nozzle of an inkjet printing device. The device is configured togiven the presence of a relatively long printing pause of the nozzle insert one or more print image-independent pre-ejection pulse phases, followed by a print image-dependent pre-ejection pulse phase, between the printing of two successive dots, in order to efficiently and reliably increase the print quality of the printing device.

Maintenance routines that can be used to maintain the operability of one or more DOD print heads in a card processing system. The maintenance routines can include, but are not limited to: a cover routine where a cover or cap is selectively and automatically located over the print head(s) to protect the print head(s); a shake pulse routine that energizes the nozzles of the print head(s) without causing an ejection of ink; a spit routine where the nozzles of the print head(s) are energized to eject one or more drops of ink; and a purge routine where the nozzles are not electrically energized but the pressure holding the ink in the nozzles of the print head(s) is reversed to push ink out of the nozzles.

A fluid ejection device including a plurality of primitives each having a same set of addresses and including a plurality of fluid chambers, each fluid chamber corresponding to a different address of the set of addresses and including a firing mechanism. Input logic receives a series of fire pulse groups, each fire pulse group corresponding to an address of the set of addresses and including warming data having an enable value or a disable value and a series of firing bits, each firing bit corresponding to a different primitive and having a firing value or a non-firing value. For each firing bit of each fire pulse group, when the warming data has the enable value, activation logic provides a warming pulse to the firing mechanism of the fluid chamber corresponding to the firing bit when the firing bit has the non-firing value.