JP7368261B2 - Coating device - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a coating device that continuously applies a coating liquid to a long film conveyed roll-to-roll to form a coating pattern.

Conventionally, techniques such as sputtering, CVD, and photolithography have been known to form circuit patterns, but in recent years, circuit patterns using various printing techniques have been developed to contribute to lower costs, energy savings, and resource savings. Formation technology (printed electronics) is attracting attention. Among them, a circuit pattern is formed by dropping metal ink onto a base material from an inkjet nozzle, then dropping an insulating layer onto the base material from an inkjet nozzle, and then dropping metal ink onto the base material from an inkjet nozzle to form a circuit. Techniques have been developed for forming multilayer circuit patterns by forming patterns.

In addition, in order to apply a coating liquid to a long film, from the viewpoint of production efficiency, it is common practice to transport the long film roll-to-roll and continuously apply the coating liquid.

Patent Document 1 describes a manufacturing apparatus that continuously performs coating and drying on a film conveyed roll-to-roll.

Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-030682

However, in the manufacturing apparatus configured in Patent Document 1, there is a possibility that the coating liquid cannot be accurately applied onto the film. To explain specifically using an example in which a plurality of pixel sections are provided in the form of a film, the plurality of pixel sections are designed to be arranged at equal intervals within one matrix, whereas the pixel sections are arranged in a resin film. When the pixel portion is formed on a substrate that is easily affected by heat and stress, the substrate may be deformed by the heat and stress during formation of the pixel portion. As a result, the arrangement of the pixel portions may be distorted, and the arrangement spacing may be changed in some parts. In this case, there is a deviation between the actual position of the pixel area and the designed position, so if the coating liquid is discharged toward the designed position of the pixel area, the coating liquid will move to a predetermined position such as the center of each pixel area. There was a risk that the particles would not land in the correct place, or that they would land between adjacent pixel areas, resulting in color mixing between these pixel areas, resulting in defective products that could not be made into products. . Further, when the film is conveyed roll-to-roll, the film may be deformed by the tension during conveyance, causing distortion in the arrangement of the pixel portions.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a coating device that can accurately coat a long film with a coating liquid while continuously transporting the film roll-to-roll.

In order to solve the above problems, the coating device of the present invention is a coating device that applies a coating liquid to a flexible substrate by an inkjet method, and discharges the coating liquid from a nozzle facing the surface to be coated of the substrate. a head angle adjustment section that adjusts the angle of the coating head with the direction perpendicular to the surface of the substrate as the rotation axis direction; an imaging section that captures an image of the surface to be coated of the substrate; a control unit that calculates distortion of the base material from positional information of a plurality of points on the coated surface of the base material and controls operations of the coating head and the head angle adjustment unit according to the distortion of the base material; The coating head has a plurality of nozzle rows formed by a plurality of the nozzles linearly arranged at predetermined intervals, and while scanning linearly in a predetermined direction parallel to the substrate surface. The coating liquid is discharged onto the substrate, and the head angle adjusting section adjusts the angle of the coating head each time according to distortion of the substrate during one scan of the coating head, and the control section adjusts the angle of the coating head each time during one scan of the coating head. During the scanning, the coating liquid is ejected only from the nozzles forming a predetermined one nozzle row of the coating head.

According to the coating device of the present invention, it is possible to accurately coat a long film with a coating liquid while continuously transporting the film in a roll-to-roll manner. Specifically, the head angle adjustment section adjusts the angle of the coating head each time according to the distortion of the substrate during one scan of the coating head, thereby adjusting the distortion in the shape of the part to be coated within the coating area. Accordingly, the coating liquid can be applied from the application head. In addition, during one scan, the coating head discharges the coating liquid only from the nozzles that form one predetermined nozzle row, so that even if the angle of the coating head changes, the spacing between adjacent discharge nozzles is uniform. Therefore, it is possible to easily control the angle adjustment of the coating head in order to apply the coating liquid to an accurate position.

Further, the control unit may change the nozzle array used for applying the coating liquid every time the application head scans a predetermined number of times.

By doing so, clogging of the coating liquid inside the nozzle can be prevented.

The control unit further includes an inspection section that inspects whether or not the discharging operation of the coating liquid from the nozzle is normal, and the control section includes the nozzle whose discharging operation is determined to be abnormal as a result of the inspection by the inspection section. It is preferable to control the nozzle row so that it is not used for applying the coating liquid to the substrate.

By doing so, the coating liquid can be normally applied by all the nozzles used to form the coating pattern.

With the coating device of the present invention, it is possible to accurately coat a long film with a coating liquid while continuously transporting the film roll-to-roll.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a coating device in an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure showing the application head in this embodiment. It is a figure showing the coating operation of the coating device in this embodiment. It is a figure showing the application head in this embodiment. It is a figure showing the coating operation of the coating device in this embodiment.

The coating device of the present invention will be explained using FIG. 1.

The coating device 1 conveys a strip-shaped base material W in one direction using a roll-to-roll method, and forms, for example, a color filter on the base material W. It has take-up rolls 3, which are arranged in this order along the transport path of the base material W. In this coating device 1, a base material W sent out from a delivery roll 2 is transported by being wound up by a take-up roll 3. Then, before the base material W sent out from the delivery roll 2 is wound up by the take-up roll 3, the coating liquid is applied to the surface to be coated in the coating section 10 and the coating liquid is dried in the drying section 20. . This makes it possible to obtain a base material W on which a predetermined color filter is formed.

In this description, the vertical direction is referred to as the Z-axis direction, the width direction of the base material W in the horizontal direction is referred to as the Y-axis direction, and the direction perpendicular to the Y-axis direction in the horizontal direction, that is, the transport direction of the base material W is referred to as the X-axis direction. It is called axial direction.

The feed roll 2 is for supplying the base material W to the downstream side. The rotation of the delivery roll 2 is controlled by a control device (not shown), so that the base material W can be delivered at a predetermined speed.

Here, the base material W is a workpiece formed in a strip shape, and for example, a transparent PET film or the like is used.

The winding roll 3 winds up the supplied base material W. Like the delivery roll 2, the take-up roll 3 can take up the base material W by having its rotation controlled by a control device (not shown).

The application section 10 is located on the conveyance path of the substrate W by the feed roll 2 and the take-up roll 3, and applies a coating liquid to the substrate W. In this embodiment, the application section 10 applies a coating liquid to the substrate W in a predetermined pattern using an inkjet method. A predetermined coating pattern is formed on the upper surface (coating surface) of the base material W by discharging droplets of the coating liquid according to the shape (for example, the arrangement of pixel portions of a color filter).

The coating section 10 includes a suction stage 11, a coating head 12, an imaging section 13, and a grip feeder 14.

The suction stage 11 is for suctioning and fixing the base material W, and the surface facing the base material W is substantially flat and has a plurality of suction hole openings. This suction hole is connected to a pressure reducing means (not shown) such as a vacuum pump. By operating this pressure reducing means, gas is suctioned from the suction hole, and the base material W is fixed by suction.

Further, the rolls located immediately upstream and downstream of the suction stage 11 (referred to as lift-up rolls) are attached to moving means (not shown) in the vertical direction (Z-axis direction), so that the base material W is During conveyance, the lift-up roll is raised by this moving means, and the base material W is separated from the adsorption stage 11, thereby preventing interference with the base material W being conveyed.

The coating head 12 discharges a coating liquid by an inkjet method, and discharges droplets 15 of the coating liquid toward the surface (to-be-coated surface) of the base material W that is suction-fixed on the suction stage 11, thereby discharging the coating liquid onto the base material. A coating pattern is formed using a coating liquid on the surface of W to be coated.

FIG. 2 is a view of the coating head 12 viewed from below.

The surface of the coating head 12 facing the base material W is substantially flat and has openings for a plurality of nozzles 121. The nozzles 121 are connected via piping to a tank (not shown) in which a coating liquid is stored, and each nozzle 121 is filled with the coating liquid.

Furthermore, each nozzle 121 is equipped with a drive partition made of a piezo actuator, and droplets are ejected from the opening of the nozzle 121 by operating the drive partition in response to a command from a control unit (not shown).

Further, the plurality of nozzles 121 are arranged linearly at predetermined intervals to form a nozzle row. In particular, in the present invention, a plurality of nozzle rows are formed in the coating head 12, and in this embodiment, a nozzle row 122a and a nozzle row 122b are formed. Note that in these nozzle rows 122a and 122b, it is preferable that the arrangement direction of the nozzles 121 in the nozzle row 122a and the arrangement direction of the nozzles 121 in the nozzle row 122b are parallel to each other in order to simplify the control of the coating operation.

Further, the coating head 12 is attached to a head angle adjustment unit 123 whose rotation axis is the Z-axis direction, which is a direction perpendicular to the surface of the base material W fixed on the suction stage 11 (substrate surface). This head angle adjustment section 123 is operated by a control section (not shown). The coating head 12 is rotated by the head angle adjustment unit 123, and the inclination of the plurality of nozzles 121 in the arrangement direction with respect to the width direction (Y-axis direction) of the base material W is adjusted. The spacing is adjusted.

Here, the coating head 12 is attached to a scanning direction moving means (not shown) that moves the coating head 12 in the longitudinal direction of the base material W (X-axis direction in the coating section 10), which is a direction parallel to the surface of the base material. ing. In this description, the term "scanning" refers to the movement of the coating head 12 in the X-axis direction, which is the arrow direction in FIGS. 1 and 2, by the scanning direction moving means during the coating operation.

By discharging droplets while the coating head 12 scans above the base material W fixed by the suction stage 11, the dimension in the X-axis direction is the distance traveled by the coating head 12 due to this scanning (referred to as the scanning distance). A coating pattern is formed on the base material W, and the dimension in the Y-axis direction is equivalent to the dimension in the Y-axis direction of the area where the plurality of nozzles 121 are arranged.

Further, in this embodiment, the coating head 12 is attached to a shift direction moving means (not shown) that moves the coating head 12 in the width direction of the base material W (Y-axis direction). After the coating head 12 performs a series of coating operations while scanning, the coating head 12 is moved in the Y-axis direction by the shift direction moving means, and thereafter, the coating head 12 performs a series of coating operations while scanning again. Note that in this description, the movement of the coating head 12 in the Y-axis direction after performing a series of coating operations is referred to as "shifting." Note that the coating liquid is not discharged from the coating head 12 during the shift operation.

By repeating the scanning and shifting in this way, a coating pattern with a dimension in the Y-axis direction that exceeds the dimension in the Y-axis direction of the area where the plurality of nozzles 121 are arranged is formed on the coating surface of the base material W. . Note that the area on the base material W where the coating pattern is to be formed by this series of scanning and shifting will be referred to as the "coating area" in this description.

Note that, as described above, since the angle of the coating head 12 is adjusted by the head angle adjustment section 123, the relative angle between the arrangement direction of the nozzles 121 in each nozzle row and the scanning direction of the coating head 12 changes. In this description, it is assumed that the inclination angle of the coating head 12 is zero when the arrangement direction of the nozzles 121 and the scanning direction of the coating head 12 are perpendicular.

In this embodiment, the imaging unit 13 is one or more CCD cameras, and is attached to a moving means (not shown) that moves the imaging unit 13 in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction.

This imaging unit 13 images a characteristic mark (alignment mark) formed on the coated surface of the base material W fixed by the suction stage 11, and a control unit (not shown) analyzes the coordinates of this alignment mark. . For example, the control unit can grasp the position of the base material W by analyzing the coordinates of at least four alignment marks on the base material W fixed by the suction stage 11.

The base material W conveyed roll-to-roll is not necessarily conveyed in a predetermined direction with high precision, and is conveyed with considerable meandering. Therefore, when the base material W is fixed by the suction stage 11, there is a possibility that the base material W is fixed at a position shifted from the predetermined position. , it is possible to grasp the displacement of the fixing position of the base material W.

Then, before the coating head 12 applies the coating liquid, the deviation of the fixing position of the base material W is grasped and reflected in the coating operation, for example, by correcting the coating coordinates, so that the base material W may meander. Even if the coating pattern is applied, a coating pattern is formed on the coating surface of the base material W with good positional accuracy.

Here, by providing a large number of alignment marks, it is possible to accurately grasp the distortion in the shape of the application area of the base material W on the suction stage 11.

The grip feeder 14 has an upper member that contacts the coated surface side of the base material W, and a lower member that contacts the lower surface side, and both the upper member and the lower member contact the base material W at the same time. The base material W is held between the two.

Note that the area of the base material W that is held between the grip feeders 14 is the end of the base material W in the width direction (short direction), and is a range where no coating pattern exists, and the grip feeder 14 destroys the coating pattern. There's nothing to do.

Furthermore, the grip feeder 14 has a moving means (not shown) that moves both of the above-mentioned members in the X-axis direction. By moving in the axial direction, the base material W can be pulled and moved. By setting the moving distance of both members at this time to be equal to the scanning distance of the coating head 12, the base material W can be advanced by exactly one coating area, and the coating pattern formed by the previous and subsequent coating operations can be adjusted. It can be formed so that there are no gaps or overlaps. Moreover, by providing such a grip feeder 14, the base material W can be conveyed at once with high accuracy in the coating section 10.

The drying section 20 is located downstream of the coating section 10 in the conveyance path of the substrate W, and heats and dries the coating pattern on the substrate W using hot air.

The drying section 20 has a space inside thereof through which the substrate W passes, and also has openings that serve as an inlet and an outlet for the substrate W, and is a surface that forms the internal space of the drying section 20 and is an upper surface of the substrate W. A plurality of ventilation holes for blowing out hot air are provided on the surface facing the base material W, and hot air is blown onto the coating surface on which the coating pattern of the base material W is formed, as shown by the arrows in FIG. This accelerates the volatilization of the solvent within the coating pattern, and the coating pattern dries and hardens.

In this embodiment, hot air is applied to the base material W in the drying section 20, but if the hot air causes the base material W to flutter, drying means that irradiates the base material W with infrared rays instead of hot air may be used. It's okay.

Here, in order to prevent uneven drying by the drying section 20 and deformation of the film due to heat in the longitudinal direction of the substrate W, the substrate W is transported at a constant speed within the drying section 20. Thereby, the time period during which the hot air is applied over the entire base material W becomes uniform.

On the other hand, in the coating section 10, the base material W needs to be fixed by suction during the coating operation. Therefore, in order to simultaneously satisfy the requirements for fixing the base material W in the coating section 10 and transporting the base material W at a constant speed in the drying section 20, there is approximately no base material W between the coating section 10 and the drying section 20. A buffer section 30, which is a hanging area in a U-shape, is provided. Even if the conveyance of the base material W is stopped in the coating section 10, the base material W forming the buffer section 30 is gathered together during that time, so that the base material W is conveyed at a constant speed in the drying section 20. . After the application operation of the coating liquid to one application area is completed, the base material W near the application section 10 is sent toward the buffer section 30 at once by the grip feeder 14, and the sagging length of the buffer section 30 is The length is restored to a predetermined length.

Further, it is preferable that a buffer section 40 is also formed between the delivery roll 2 and the application section 10 so that excessive tension is not generated on the base material W when the base material W is fed all at once by the grip feeder 14. .

In particular, the operation of the coating section 10 in the coating apparatus 1 having the above configuration will be further explained using FIGS. 3 to 5.

FIG. 3 shows the movement of the coating head 12 in one scan, and only the nozzle row 122a is shown for convenience. Furthermore, it is assumed that the base material W is, for example, a substrate forming a color filter, and that the pixel portions G are arranged in a matrix in the X-axis direction and the Y-axis direction. The pixel portion G is regularly filled with red, green, and blue ink one by one by the application head 12.

When the pixel portion G is formed on the base material W which is a resin film, the substrate may be deformed due to heat, stress, etc. during formation of the pixel portion G. When the arrangement of the pixel portions G is distorted in this way, the arrangement spacing of the pixel portions G changes, and even within one coating area and within the range that the coating head 12 scans once, the arrangement spacing of the pixel portions G changes. may not be constant. If variations occur in the array spacing of the pixel portions G within a single scan range, the application head 12 changes its angle each time during one scan, and the spacing in the Y-axis direction of the nozzle 121 is adjusted to match the array of the pixel portion G directly below. The coating liquid is applied to a predetermined position of each pixel portion G by moving in accordance with the interval. Specifically, the following operations are performed.

First, before the coating operation, the imaging unit 13 images alignment marks at multiple points on the surface to be coated of the base material W, and based on the positional information of these alignment marks, the control unit (not shown) determines the base material (coating area). Calculate the distortion of Based on this distortion, the control unit further calculates the arrangement interval in the Y-axis direction of the pixel portions G at each predetermined position in the application area. This arrangement spacing may be calculated by calculating the spacing between adjacent pixel portions G, or may be a number corresponding to the number of nozzles 121 constituting the nozzle row 122a, such as distances L1, L2, and L3 shown in FIG. Distance between pixel parts G (in the Y-axis direction between the midpoints of pixel parts G spaced apart by (n-1) when the number of nozzles 121 constituting the nozzle row 122a is n in this embodiment) It may also be one that calculates the dimensions.

After the arrangement interval in the Y-axis direction of the pixel portions G at each predetermined position of the coating area is calculated, the coating head 12 then scans and applies the coating liquid to each pixel portion G. At this time, the head angle adjustment section 123 is operated by the control section, and the distance in the Y-axis direction between the nozzles 121 at both ends of the nozzle row 122a, which is the distance D when the inclination angle of the coating head 12 is zero in FIG. The inclination angle of the coating head 12 continues to change from θ1 → θ2 → θ3 so that the distance becomes L1 → L2 → L3 at the predetermined position. Further, at that time, movement in the shift direction (Y-axis direction) may also be involved.

Note that the misalignment of the pixel portion G with respect to the scanning direction (X-axis direction) of the coating head 12 can be dealt with by individually adjusting the timing at which the coating liquid is discharged from each nozzle 121.

Here, the coating head 12 according to the present invention has a plurality of nozzle rows as shown in FIG. 2 as well. In this case, if the inclination angle of the coating head 12 is zero, as shown by the dimension d1 in FIG. Even if the coating head 12 is tilted as shown by dimensions d2 and d3 in FIG. 4(b), the nozzles 121 of the nozzle row 122b are located between the nozzles 121 of the nozzle row 122a in the Y-axis direction. This positional relationship will collapse. Therefore, when trying to eject the coating liquid from the nozzles 121 of all nozzle rows when applying the coating liquid in one scan of the coating head 12, it becomes difficult to grasp the positional relationship of the nozzles 121 between the nozzle rows, and control becomes difficult. This may become complicated.

Therefore, in the present invention, the control section controls the operation of the coating head 12 so that the coating liquid is ejected only from the nozzles 121 of one predetermined nozzle row of the coating head 12 during one scan. Specifically, when the nozzles 121 of the nozzle row 122a are used as ejection nozzles (the nozzles 121 used for ejection in that scan) in one scan, the nozzles 121 of the nozzle rows other than the nozzle row 122a, such as the nozzle row 122b, No coating liquid is applied.

As a result, even if the inclination angle of the coating head 12 changes, the distance between adjacent discharge nozzles is uniform, so that the coating head 12 can be adjusted to cope with distortion of the base material W and apply the coating liquid to an accurate position. Angle adjustment control can be facilitated.

However, in this embodiment, when the ejection operation of some of the plurality of nozzles 121 forming the nozzle row is not normal, it becomes difficult to set a nozzle 121 to replace that nozzle 121. Therefore, it is preferable that the control unit performs control so that the nozzle row including the nozzle 121 whose discharge operation is not normal is not used for coating at all, and the coating liquid is applied by other nozzle rows. By doing so, it is possible to maintain a state in which the coating liquid can be normally applied by all the nozzles 121 used to form the coating pattern.

Further, in order to test whether or not the discharge operation of each nozzle 121 is normal, the coating device 1 of this embodiment has a test section 16 as shown in FIG. 1.

The inspection unit 16 is, for example, a device that images the flying state of the coating liquid discharged from the nozzle 121 from the side, and determines whether the discharging operation of the nozzle 121 is correct or not based on the flying direction and size of the coating liquid. At this time, the coating head 12 may move to this inspection section 16, or the inspection section 16 may move to the vicinity of the coating head 12 above the suction stage 11.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration in which the coating head 12 scans multiple times to coat the base material W. In this diagram, the coating head 12 scans three times in the X-axis direction as indicated by the arrow. There is.

At this time, the coating liquid is applied by the nozzles 121 in the nozzle row 122a in the first scan, by the nozzles 121 in the nozzle row 122b in the second scan, and by the nozzles 121 in the nozzle row 122a in the third scan. There is. That is, the nozzle row used for each scan is switched, and the control unit changes the nozzle row used for applying the coating liquid every time the coating head 12 scans a predetermined number of times. Preferably, the coating by the coating head 12 is controlled. At this time, if there is a nozzle row that includes a nozzle 121 whose ejection operation is not normal as described above, the control unit performs control to remove that nozzle row from the options and change the nozzle row to be used.

By doing this, all the nozzle rows that do not include the nozzle 121 with a discharge failure can be regularly used as a discharge nozzle. This prevents the coating liquid from clogging.

With the above coating device, it is possible to accurately coat a long film with a coating liquid while continuously transporting the film in a roll-to-roll manner.

Here, the coating device of the present invention is not limited to the form explained above, but may have other forms within the scope of the present invention. For example, in the above description, gas suction in the suction stage is used as a means for fixing the base material in the application section, but the present invention is not limited to this, and other fixing means may be employed. For example, electrostatic adsorption may be used to adsorb and fix the base material using static electricity.

In addition, in the above explanation, the inspection part is to check the flying state of the coating liquid from the nozzle, but it is not limited to this, for example, the inspection part is to make the coating liquid land on the film and check the size and position of the landed coating liquid. It may also be possible to determine whether or not it is normal.

Further, in the above description, there are two nozzle rows, but more than two nozzle rows may be arranged.

Further, in the above description, the nozzle row used during coating is changed every scan, but the nozzle row is not limited to this, and may be changed every two scans, for example.

In addition, in the above explanation, the nozzle row to be used is switched every time the scan is performed a predetermined number of times, but this is not limited to this. For example, there is one nozzle row that is mainly used for coating, and the other nozzle rows are switched. The nozzle array may be used as a backup nozzle array that is switched and used when a discharge failure occurs in a nozzle of the main nozzle array.

Further, the mechanism for conveying the base material in the coating section may be other than the grip feeder. For example, a mechanism may be used in which the base material is gripped by a suction roll that attracts the base material, and the suction roll is rotated to feed out the base material. Alternatively, a mechanism may be used in which the base material is held between a driving roll and a nip roll, and the driving roll is driven to rotate to send out the base material.

Further, when the coating pattern is composed of a coating liquid that is cured by irradiation with ultraviolet rays, the drying section is not a device that blows out hot air, but a device that irradiates the coated surface of the base material with ultraviolet rays.

In addition, in the above explanation, the application was explained in which a color filter is formed by applying R, G, and B inks to the pixel portion formed on the film, but the application is not limited to this. The present invention may be used for applications such as drawing patterns.

1 Coating device 2 Sending roll 3 Winding roll 10 Coating section 11 Suction stage 12 Coating head 13 Imaging section 14 Grip feeder 15 Droplet 16 Inspection section 20 Drying section 30 Buffer section 40 Buffer section 121 Nozzle 122a Nozzle row 122b Nozzle row 123 Head Angle adjustment section G pixel
W Base material

Claims (3)

A coating device that applies a coating liquid to a flexible base material using an inkjet method,
a coating head that discharges a coating liquid from a nozzle facing the surface to be coated of the base material;
a head angle adjustment unit that adjusts the angle of the coating head with the rotation axis direction perpendicular to the substrate surface;
an imaging unit that captures an image of the coated surface of the base material;
Distortion of the base material is calculated from positional information of a plurality of points on the coated surface of the base material imaged by the imaging unit, and operations of the coating head and the head angle adjustment unit are controlled according to the distortion of the base material. a control unit;
Equipped with
The coating head has a plurality of nozzle rows formed by a plurality of nozzles arranged linearly at predetermined intervals, and the coating head coats the substrate while linearly scanning in a predetermined direction parallel to the surface of the substrate. Dispense the coating liquid to
The head angle adjustment unit adjusts the angle of the coating head each time according to distortion of the substrate during one scan of the coating head,
The coating apparatus is characterized in that the control section causes the coating liquid to be ejected only from the nozzles forming a predetermined one nozzle row of the coating head during one scan. 2. The coating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the control unit changes the nozzle row used for coating the coating liquid every time the coating head scans a predetermined number of times. The controller further includes an inspection section that inspects whether or not the discharging operation of the coating liquid from the nozzle is normal, and the control section is configured to control the nozzle including the nozzle whose discharging operation is found to be abnormal as a result of the inspection by the inspection section. 3. The coating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the column is controlled not to be used for coating the coating liquid on the substrate.

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