Patent ID: 7992960

Claim:
A method comprising: determining one or more preventative maintenance mode parameters for an inkjet-printing device having an inkjet-printing mechanism based on a water loss rate of water from ink within the device and/or on an air gain rate of air into the ink within the device; and, periodically performing the non-user-initiated preventative maintenance mode for the inkjet-printing device based on the preventative maintenance mode parameters to eject at least some of the ink from, and to refill fresh ink into, the inkjet-printing mechanism, comprising: in response to the inkjet-printing device being turned on, where a time that the inkjet-printing device was off is unknown, determining a number of iterations of the non-user-initiated preventative maintenance mode of the inkjet-printing device that would have been performed if the inkjet-printing device had been on and had remained unused for a predetermined length of time, such that the time that the inkjet-printing device was off is effectively assumed to have been the predetermined length of time in determining the number of iterations of the non-user-initiated preventative maintenance mode, where the number of iterations differs depending on the predetermined length of time selected; and, performing the number of iterations of the non-user-initiated preventative maintenance mode of the inkjet-printing device.