CARTRIDGE WITH BAR CODE COMPRISING ENCODED ALIGNMENT DATA

摘要

A printhead cartridge for a multi-printhead ink jet printer includes an array (3) of ink jet nozzles and a reference surface Z for locating the cartridge in the printer. The cartridge also includes a data carrier, such as a bar code (9), which carries a measurement (z) of the location of the first ink jet nozzle (10) in the array (3) relative to the reference surface (Z) of the cartridge. The measurement information allows the manufacturing tolerances for the cartridge to be reduced because any misalignment of the nozzle array (3) in the (z) direction can be compensated by delaying the print signal to the nozzle array (3).