Patent ID: 8118409

Claim:
An acoustic ink jet printer comprising: a piezoelectric body unit which includes a common electrode extended in a main scanning direction to a length equivalent to a width of a recording medium, segment electrodes, a multiple of which are formed corresponding to recording pixels at predetermined intervals in the main scanning direction, and piezoelectric bodies sandwiched by the common electrode and the segment electrodes, wherein a piezoelectric body is caused to vibrate by a printing signal being applied to the segment electrode, and as a result, generates an ultrasonic wave of each recording pixel; an ink cartridge including an ink reservoir which is supported so as to be movable in proximity to the piezoelectric body unit extended in the main scanning direction, stocks ink therein which is exposed to the ultrasonic wave, and has an aperture through which ink is discharged due to a radiation pressure caused by the ultrasonic wave; a movement section which moves the ink cartridge along the piezoelectric body unit in accordance with recording information; a recording signal supply section which, on the ink cartridge being moved to a position corresponding to the segment electrode by the movement section, supplies a printing signal to the segment electrode based on the recording information; and a recording medium conveyor section which conveys the recording medium in a sub-scanning direction in order to move the recording medium in a vicinity of a movement trajectory along which the aperture of the ink cartridge moves.