To prevent an undue force from being applied to a head cleaning mechanism of an ink jet printer.

Cleaning is performed by moving a sled 38 fixed with a wiper 46 relatively to a head 14. Movement of the head is detected by means of an encoder 40 when the sled 38 is driven between a position abutting against a front stopper 48 and a position abutting against a rear stopper 50. At first, a controller 42 drives the sled 38 with a relatively weak driving force, and increases the driving force of the sled 38 gradually when a fact that the sled 38 is not performing a desired operation is detected based on a signal from the encoder 40.