Patent ID: 8764153

Claim:
An inkjet recording apparatus comprising: an inkjet head having nozzles which eject ink onto a recording medium, the ink being curable by irradiation of an active light beam; a scanning device which moves the inkjet head in a main scanning direction; a recording medium conveyance device which conveys the recording medium in a sub-scanning direction that is perpendicular to the main scanning direction; a main curing device having an active light beam emission unit that emits the active light beam and is divided into units in the main scanning direction, the main curing device being arranged to a downstream side of the inkjet head in terms of a conveyance direction of the recording medium conveyance device, the main curing device irradiating the ink deposited on the recording medium with the active light beam while moving along with the inkjet head relatively to the recording medium; an active light beam irradiation control device which controls on or off switching with respect to each of the divided units of the active light beam emission unit in terms of an alignment sequence of the divided units in the main scanning direction, and switches on the divided units of the active light beam emission unit sequentially in order of reaching an image formation area on the recording medium, and switches off the divided units of the active light beam emission unit sequentially in order of leaving the image formation area; and an ejection control device which controls ejection by the inkjet head in such a manner that ink ejection is started at a timing that the nozzles arrive at the image formation area, and the ink ejection is ended at a timing that the nozzles leave the image formation area, wherein the main curing device has a structure in which the divided units of the active light beam emission unit are arranged in an opposite direction to a row of the nozzles, wherein the active light beam irradiation control device controls irradiation of the active light beam in such a manner that the divided units of the active light beam emission unit are switched on sequentially from a side having a shorter arrangement interval with respect to the nozzles, and light emission of the divided units of the active light beam emission unit is started at a timing where a time period determined by dividing the arrangement interval between the nozzles and the divided units of the active light beam emission unit by a scanning speed of the scanning device has elapsed from an ink ejection start timing of the nozzles.