Conventional fluid ejection systems, such as inkjet printing systems, include a printhead, an ink supply that provides liquid ink to the printhead, and an electronic controller that controls the printhead. The printhead ejects ink drops through multiple nozzles (also referred to as orifices) toward a print medium, such as a sheet of paper, thereby printing onto the print medium. Typically, the multiple nozzles are arranged in one or more arrays such that properly sequenced ejection of ink from the nozzles causes characters or other images to be printed on the print medium as the printhead and the print medium are moved relative to one another.
In a particular arrangement, commonly referred to as a wide-array inkjet printing system, multiple individual printheads (also referred to as printhead assemblies) are mounted on a single carrier. In this arrangement, the number of nozzles and, therefore, the overall number of ink drops that can be ejected per second is increased. Since the overall number of ink drops that can be ejected per second is increased, printing speed can be increased with the wide-array inkjet printing system.
Mounting multiple printhead assemblies on a single carrier can result in an irregular spacing between the multiple arrays of nozzles in the multiple printhead assemblies and between nozzles in printhead assemblies on different carriers. If the movement of the printhead is generally constant, this irregular spacing of nozzles results in irregular time delays between ejection of adjacent ink drops. For example, the time delay between ink drops ejected from adjacent nozzles in the same assembly is relatively small. However, the time delay between ink drops ejected from adjacent nozzles in different assemblies may be significantly larger. Further, the time delay is even greater between ink drops ejected from adjacent nozzles in two different assemblies located on different carriers.
The variance in the distance between adjacent nozzles can cause visible artifacts in the printed image due to non-uniform drying times of the ink drops, non-uniform interaction between the ink and the print medium, and non-uniform interactions between multiple ink drops. These visible artifacts degrade the quality of the printed image.