Patent ID: 6913336
Filing Date: 2005-07-05
Classification: B41J

Abstract:
1. An ink jet recording apparatus comprising: a recording head, which ejects ink drops; a plurality of ink cartridges detachably mounted on the ink jet recording apparatus, each ink cartridge containing at least one color of ink to be supplied to the recording head; a consumed ink amount counter, which counts a consumed ink amount in each ink cartridge; a verifier, which adds a count value, when the counted consumed ink amount of one ink cartridge reaches a first value indicating an ink end state, to the counted consumed ink amounts of any other ink cartridges, in order to obtain verification count values; a determinant, which judges, when at least one of the verification count values reaches a second value which is not greater than the first value, that the ink cartridge in which the verification count value reaches the second value is in the ink end state, wherein the following relationships are satisfied: where A represents the first value; B represents the second value; C 1 represents the added count value; N is a natural number, and m is number of the ink cartridge.