Patent ID: 8540352

Claim:
An inkjet recording apparatus, comprising: a droplet ejecting head which has multiple nozzles for ejecting ink, multiple head tanks which generate a negative pressure at the droplet ejecting head and temporarily store a predetermined amount of ink, an ink cartridge which stores the ink, multiple liquid sending pumps which perform a forward transfer liquid process which sends the ink from the ink cartridge to the multiple head tanks, or a backward transfer liquid process which sends the ink from the multiple head tanks to the ink cartridge, an ink supply channel being branched from the ink cartridge to multiple head tanks to supply ink from the ink cartridge to multiple head tanks by the corresponding one of multiple liquid sending pumps, and an ink liquid level sensing unit which senses a height of an ink liquid level within each of the head tanks, wherein, when the height of the ink liquid level within the head tanks that is sensed by the ink liquid level sensing unit provided at any one of the multiple head tanks across the multiple liquid sending pumps being branched is less than a predetermined height, the backward transfer liquid process of each of the liquid sending pumps is not performed, and wherein at least one of the multiple liquid sending pumps performs the forward transfer liquid process when there is a short supply of ink in the ink cartridge without being able to send the ink from the ink cartridge to one of the head tanks, and then each of the multiple liquid sending pumps performs the backward transfer liquid process for a predetermined ink amount.