System and method for detecting defective ink jet nozzles

摘要

A system for detecting failures in a sensitive region of an inkjet printhead is described. The system includes an inkjet printer that uses a printhead (12) for printing an image (18) on a substrate (20). The image (18) has a sensitive portion that is more sensitive to printing failures than the rest of the image (18). The printhead (12) includes a first portion that prints an area of the substrate corresponding to the sensitive portion of the image. A radiant energy source (24) is used with a photodetector (22) located downstream from the printhead (12) to detect background florescence from the substrate (20) in the area of the substrate corresponding to the sensitive portion of the image (18) that should be quenched by printing of the image. If background florescence is detected, a failure is indicated.