PRINTING APPARATUS AND PRINTING METHOD

摘要

The disclosure appropriately performs high-quality printing in a case of using ultraviolet curing ink in a serial type inkjet printer. As a solution, a printing apparatus for performing printing in an inkjet mode by a multi-pass scheme includes: inkjet heads, a temporarily hardening light source, a fully hardening light source, and a controller configured to serve as a pixel selector, wherein the temporarily hardening light source radiates ultraviolet light whenever a predetermined number of main scan operations are performed, and the fully hardening light source radiates ultraviolet light after main scan operations of all printing passes finish.

主权项

1. A printing apparatus which performs printing on a medium with an ultraviolet curing ink of N-number of different colors in an inkjet mode by a multi-pass mode for performing printing on each position on the medium by a plurality of printing passes, wherein N is an integer of 2 or greater, and the printing apparatus comprising:
N-number of inkjet heads configured to eject ink drops of the ultraviolet curing ink of the N-number of colors, respectively; a main scan driver configured to drive the N-number of inkjet heads to perform main scan operations of ejecting ink drops while moving in a main scan direction which is predetermined; a sub scan driver configured to relatively move the N-number of inkjet heads with respect to the medium in a sub scan direction perpendicular to the main scan direction; temporarily hardening light sources configured to radiate ultraviolet light which hardens the ultraviolet curing ink on the medium to a temporarily hardened state which is a state where at least a surface of the ultraviolet curing ink has adhesiveness; a fully hardening light source configured to radiate ultraviolet light which completes hardening of the ultraviolet curing ink on the medium; and a pixel selector configured to select pixels onto which ink drops are ejected during each printing pass of the multi-pass mode, wherein the N-number of inkjet heads are installed such that the number of colors of ink dots which are formed in a band area corresponding to each printing pass in each main scan operation becomes smaller than N, whenever a predetermined number of main scan operations are performed on each position on the medium, the temporarily hardening light sources radiate ultraviolet light which hardens the ultraviolet curing ink to the temporarily hardened state, and after main scan operations of all printing passes on each position on the medium finish, the fully hardening light source radiates ultraviolet light.