Patent ID: 6874883

Claim:
A manufacturing apparatus for a color filter manufactured by forming and arranging many filter elements colored in a same color on a substrate in an X-axis direction as one direction, and forming and arranging filter elements such that filter elements adjacent to each other in a Y-axis direction perpendicular to the X-axis direction are colored in different colors, comprising: a plurality of ink-jet heads, each discharging ink of different color, each ink-jet head having at least a first nozzle group having a plurality of ink discharging nozzles arranged in a direction being different from the X-axis direction and a second nozzle group having a plurality of ink discharging nozzles arranged in the same direction as the nozzles of said first nozzle group, said first and second nozzle groups discharging ink of the same color, a pitch of said plurality of ink discharging nozzles of said first nozzle group in the Y-axis direction being set to be equal to a pitch of the filter elements of the same color in the Y-axis direction, a pitch of said plurality of ink discharging nozzles of said second nozzle group in the Y-axis direction being set to be equal to a pitch of the filter elements of the same color in the Y-axis direction, wherein when the nozzles of said first nozzle group correspond to a coloring position where the filter elements are colored, the nozzles of said second nozzle group do not correspond to the coloring position, and when the nozzles of said second nozzle group correspond to the coloring position, the nozzles of said first nozzle group do not correspond to the coloring position; moving means for moving relative positions of said plurality of ink-jet heads and the substrate; switching means for selecting one nozzle group which is newly used based on one of a used time and a number of discharge times of each of said first nozzle group and said second nozzle group, said switching means switching a nozzle group to be used for coloring the filter elements between said first nozzle group and said second nozzle group; and control means for controlling an operation of said moving means and ink discharging operations of said plurality of ink-jet heads, wherein said control means controls said ink-jet heads to discharge ink from only one nozzle group which can color the filter elements on said substrate within said first and second nozzle groups, and wherein when one of said first and second nozzle groups is used to color the filter elements, the other one is not used.