Patent ID: 7341327

Claim:
A capping apparatus comprising: a sealing unit that seals at least nozzle apertures of a liquid droplet ejection head that ejects liquid droplets; a heating unit that heats at least a vicinity of the nozzle apertures; a negative pressure supplying unit that supplies an interior of the sealing unit with negative pressure that causes liquid droplets to be ejected from the nozzle apertures; a detection unit that makes a determination as to whether or not an ejection of the liquid droplets has been made from each of the nozzle apertures; and a control unit that controls at least one of a drive signal generating unit and the negative pressure supplying unit provided in the capping apparatus in accordance with detection results of the detection unit, that controls a heating time of the vicinity of the nozzle apertures by the heating unit, that controls a negative pressure supply time by the negative pressure supplying unit, and that includes a time measuring unit measuring a length of time during which the nozzle apertures have been sealed by the sealing unit, and that performs control to change the heating time and the negative pressure supply time in accordance with the length of time measured by the time measuring unit.