Patent ID: 7517040

Claim:
A liquid ejection apparatus, comprising: a liquid ejection head including, a plurality of ejection elements arranged in a matrix of ejection elements with the plurality of ejection elements extending in a row direction of the matrix of ejection elements coinciding with a main scanning direction and in a column direction of the matrix of ejection elements which is substantially parallel to a sub-scanning direction, each of the ejection elements having a nozzle which ejects liquid onto an ejection receiving medium and having a piezoelectric element which applies an ejection force to the liquid to be ejected from the nozzle, the ejection elements forming columnar groups of the ejection elements, with each of the columnar groups of the ejection elements being constituted by the ejection elements arranged to extend in the column direction, and a plurality of heating elements which heat the liquid to be ejected from the nozzles, each of the heating elements being arranged in the row direction correspondingly to each one of the columnar groups of the ejection elements that extend in the column direction, each of the heating elements having a length in the column direction of the matrix of ejection elements substantially equal to or greater than a length of each of the columnar groups of the ejection elements; a movement device which moves the ejection receiving medium in the sub-scanning direction relatively to the liquid ejection head by moving at least one of the ejection receiving medium and the liquid ejection head; a heating element drive device which applies a heating drive signal to each of the heating elements; a prediction device which predicts a number of the ejection elements to be driven in each of the columnar groups of the ejection elements according to ejection data; and a heating control device which varies and controls an amount of heat generated by each of the heating elements according to the number of the ejection elements to be driven in each of the columnar groups of the ejection elements as predicted by the prediction device without an input from a temperature measuring sensor to indicate a measured temperature.