Patent ID: 7300131

Claim:
A droplet ejection apparatus having a driving circuit, a reciprocating mechanism and a plurality of droplet ejection heads each including a cavity filled with a liquid, a nozzle communicated with the cavity, and an actuator, the droplet ejection head ejecting the liquid within the cavity through the nozzle in the form of droplets by driving the actuator by means of the driving circuit to change an internal pressure of the cavity while moving the plurality of droplet ejection heads relatively with respect to a droplet receptor by the reciprocating mechanism so that the ejected droplets land on the droplet receptor, the droplet ejection apparatus comprising: an ejection failure detecting unit for detecting an ejection failure of the droplet ejected through each of the nozzles; a counting unit for counting the number of ejection failures detected by the ejection failure detecting unit; and a droplet receptor transporting unit which carries out discharge and feed of the droplet receptor; wherein the ejection failure detecting unit detects the ejection failure with respect to a droplet ejection operation of each droplet ejected through the nozzles when the plurality of droplet ejection heads eject the droplets onto the droplet receptor, and wherein, in the case where the number of ejection failures with respect to the droplet receptor counted by the counting unit when the plurality of droplet ejection heads eject the droplets onto the droplet receptor exceeds a predetermined reference value, the droplet ejection apparatus stops the droplet ejection operation onto the droplet receptor, and operate the droplet receptor transporting unit to discharge the droplet receptor from and feed another droplet receptor to the droplet ejection apparatus to carry out a new and same droplet ejection operation with respect to the fed droplet receptor.