Patent ID: 7029090

Claim:
An ink jet head cleaning apparatus comprising: a wiping unit adapted to perform a wiping operation on a nozzle surface of an ink jet head, said nozzle surface including at least one orifice from which ink is ejected as an ink droplet; a suction unit adapted to perform a sucking operation on the nozzle surface of the ink jet head; detector means for detecting an operation OFF condition of the wiping unit and an operation OFF condition of the suction unit; and drive means for selectively actuating the wiping unit and the suction unit in accordance with the OFF condition detected by the detector means; wherein the detector means detects the operation OFF condition of the wiping unit by measuring an elapsed time after the wiping operation, and detects the operation OFF condition of the suction unit by measuring an elapsed time after the sucking operation; wherein the drive means (i) determines whether the elapsed time after the wiping operation is longer than a first predetermined time, and actuates the wiping unit when the elapsed time after the wiping operation is determined to be longer than the first predetermined time, and (ii) determines whether the elapsed time after the sucking operation is longer than a second predetermined time, and actuates the suction unit when the elapsed time after the sucking operation is determined to be longer than the second predetermined time; and wherein the first predetermined time is longer than the second predetermined time.