A wiping assembly for a liquid ejection head includes a wiper including a first wiper surface facing in a first direction and a second wiper surface facing in a second direction, a wiper cleaner, a mover, and a controller. A protruding portion of the wiper cleaner includes a first cleaning surface facing in the second direction and a second cleaning surface facing in the first direction. The controller controls the mover to move at least one of the wiper and the wiper cleaner in at least one of the first and second directions from a state in which the wiper is located farther in the second direction than the protruding portion to bring the first wiper surface into contact with the first cleaning surface, and to move the at least one of the wiper and the wiper cleaner in at least one of the first and second directions from a state in which the wiper is located farther in the first direction than the protruding portion to bring the second wiper surface into contact with the second cleaning surface.

A head cleaning device includes: a porous cleaning roller that rotates around a cylindrical axis while a cylindrical side circumferential surface is in pressure contact with a nozzle surface of an ink head to clean the nozzle surface; a storage tank that immerses a lower part of the cleaning roller in a cleaning liquid stored therein; a unit moving mechanism that moves a cleaning unit including the storage tank and the cleaning roller in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the cleaning roller; a hardware processor that controls a rotation speed [vr] of the cleaning roller and a moving speed [vx] of the storage tank and the cleaning unit; and a composition acquisition part that acquires a change in composition of the cleaning liquid in the storage tank due to mixing of ink supplied from the nozzle surface through the cleaning roller.

A system in an inkjet printer cleans components in a printhead cleaning system. The system includes a rectangular frame, an actuator configured with a bi-directionally rotating output shaft, a shaft connected to the rotating output shaft, a rinsing member pneumatically connected to a fluid source to enable a fluid from the fluid source to flow to the member and exit through openings in the rinsing member. Cords are connected to the shaft and the member to move the rinsing member from a first position at one end of the frame to a second position at another end of the frame as the output shaft of the actuator rotates in one direction. Fluid is released through the openings in the rinsing member to clean components of a printhead cleaning system as the rinsing member moves. The actuator is reversed to return the rinsing member to the first position.

A wiping assembly includes a wiper that wipes a liquid ejection head, a wiper cleaner, and a mover that moves the wiper relative to the wiper cleaner. The wiper cleaner includes a first member, a second member, an absorbent, and a presser. An opening is located in the first member. The second member includes a projecting portion opposed to the opening. The absorbent has a plate shape and is disposed between the first member and the second member. The presser presses the second member toward the first member. The projecting portion presses the absorbent toward the opening. A portion of the absorbent is deformed to form a protruding portion that protrudes in a projection direction of the projecting portion from the opening by pressing by the projecting portion. The mover moves the wiper such that the wiper contacts the protruding portion of the absorbent.

There is provided an inkjet printing apparatus capable of efficiently performing print preparation in a standby state. For this purpose, the inkjet printing apparatus includes: a cap moving unit for bringing a cap member for protecting an ejection opening surface of a print head into or out of intimate contact with the ejection opening surface; and a positioning unit for positioning the print head so as to achieve a printing operation. The positioning unit allows a reference portion disposed at the print head to abut against a distance defining member for defining a predetermined distance between the ejection opening surface 8a and the platen so as to position the print head. At this time, the distance defining member is inserted into a portion at which the reference portion can abut in association with operation in which the cap moving unit separates the cap member from the ejection opening surface.

A liquid ejecting apparatus includes a medium support portion that has a medium support surface for supporting a medium, a liquid ejecting unit that ejects liquid onto the medium supported on the medium support surface through a plurality of nozzles arranged in a nozzle surface, a first cleaning member that wipes the nozzle surface by moving relative to the liquid ejecting unit in a direction along the nozzle surface in a first maintenance operation of discharging the liquid through the nozzles for maintenance of the liquid ejecting unit, and a second cleaning member that removes foreign matters which have adhered to the nozzle surface by moving relative to the liquid ejecting unit in the direction along the nozzle surface in a second maintenance operation of removing the foreign matters.

A cleaning unit for cleaning the nozzle plate of a print head of an inkjet printing device having cleaners with respective different levels of cleaning quality and respective different strengths of loading of the nozzle plate. The different cleaners for cleaning the nozzle plate are selected depending on a cleaning indicator in order to achieve an improved compromise between print quality and service life of the print head.

The ink jet recording method is an ink jet recording method of recording an image on a recording medium using an ink jet recording apparatus including a recording head and a recovery mechanism for recovering an ejection state of pigment ink from ejection orifices. The recording head includes a first flow path and a second flow path allowing an ejection orifice and a recording element to communicate with each other and through which ink flows between the ejection orifice and the recording element. The ink jet recording method includes (i) a first cleaning of allowing the ink in the first flow path to flow to the second flow path while performing wiping and suction with a suction wiper; or (ii) a second cleaning of allowing the ink in the first flow path to flow to the second flow path after performing wiping and suction with a suction wiper.

A wiping device includes a wiping member including a web to wipe an object to be wiped, and circuitry to cause the wiping member to perform a wiping operation to wipe the object to be wiped. The circuitry causes the wiping member to perform a first wiping operation to move the wiping member relative to the object to be wiped in a first direction to wipe the object to be wiped from a wiping start side of the first wiping operation, and perform a second wiping operation to relatively move the wiping member relative to the object to be wiped in a second direction different from the first direction, to wipe the object to be wiped from a wiping finish side different from the wiping start side of the first wiping operation with the wiping member.

A head cleaning mechanism includes a recording head and a wiper. The recording head includes an ink ejection face provided with an ink ejection region in which a plurality of ink ejection openings for ejecting ink onto a recording medium are open. The wiper wipes the ink ejection face in a predetermined direction. The ink ejection face has, downstream of the ink ejection region in the wiping direction, an elevated portion extending in the head width direction perpendicular to the wiping direction. The elevated portion includes an upstream side inclined face which inclines downward from the ink ejection face to the downstream side in the wiping direction, and a downstream face which is arranged downstream of the upstream side inclined face in the wiping direction and which faces the downstream side in the wiping direction.