Patent ID: 7944582

Claim:
A carriage drive control method applied to a printing apparatus which prints by moving a carriage, to which a printhead is mounted, relative to a printing medium, comprising: a first detection step of extracting moving velocity information of the carriage; a second detection step of extracting acceleration information of the carriage on the basis of outputs from first and second strain gauges which are attached to a flexible belt for transmitting a drive force from a carriage motor to the carriage, the first and second strain gauges being respectively attached on opposite sides of a fixing unit for fixing the carriage to the flexible belt; a compensation step of compensating for the acceleration information of the carriage extracted in said second detection step on the basis of the moving velocity information of the carriage extracted in said first detection step; and a control step of feedback-controlling driving of the carriage motor on the basis of the acceleration information of the carriage compensated in said compensation step, wherein said second detection step includes the steps of: detecting a thrust which acts on the carriage, on the basis of a difference between the respective outputs from the first and second strain gauges; and obtaining the acceleration information by dividing the thrust by mass of the carriage.