Patent ID: 9463651
Filing Date: 2016-10-11
CPC Classification: B41J

Claim Text:
1. An inkjet printer comprising: a head for recording an image on a recording medium, based on print data; a transport mechanism for moving said recording medium in a transport direction relative to said head; a controller for controlling said head and said transport mechanism; and a computer comprising a computation part for determining the upper limit of a transport speed of said recording medium moved by said transport mechanism, based on said print data, said head including a plurality of blocks arranged in a width direction perpendicular to said transport direction, a plurality of nozzles arranged in said blocks, and a pressurizing mechanism for causing said nozzles to eject droplets, said computation part performing the steps of a) calculating a load factor indicative of a load on said pressurizing mechanism for each of said blocks, based on said print data, and b) factoring in said load factor for each of said blocks to determine the upper limit of said transport speed so that the upper limit becomes slower as said load factor increases and becomes slower as a printing distance in said transport direction corresponding to said print data increases, said controller controlling said transport mechanism at a transport speed not greater than said upper limit, wherein said step b) includes: b11) calculating the maximum value of the sum total of said load factors of n blocks selected from among m blocks while changing the value of n in the range of 1≦n≦m to provide m maximum values, where m and n are integers not less than 1; b12) determining transport speeds corresponding respectively to the m maximum values; and b13) determining said upper limit, based on the minimum value of said m transport speeds wherein said transport mechanism moves said recording medium relative to said head at a transport speed not greater than said upper limit.