JP2556861B2 - Manual scanning recorder - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial field of use] The present invention relates to a manual scanning type recording in which a recording member is manually scanned while contacting it with a recording material such as a book, a document or a drawing to directly record characters and symbols. It relates to the device.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, various kinds of OA equipment such as workstations have been introduced into offices and process a large amount of information as each information terminal device. Data processed by these OA devices (document data, statistical data, numerical data, image data, etc.) are filed in an external magnetic storage device that is a recording medium, or printed on recording paper fed from a printer. The image is output as a hard copy.

Of these, printers are used as information output devices for many models, such as wire dots, thermal transfer, inkjet,
Printers of various types such as electrostatic transfer have been put to practical use.

However, in each of the above printers, the output paper is limited to a flat sheet, and therefore, a bound book or document or a large-sized drawing (a flat sheet that is larger than the sheet size that can be fed by the printer) There are many proposals for a manual scanning type recording apparatus that is not suitable for printing and that outputs information created by manually recording and scanning a recording member directly on the recording material.

Such a manual scanning type recording apparatus includes a handy recording apparatus (for example, a recording head that ejects ink) that outputs print data, a recording synchronization signal generator that synchronizes the recording data with the recording operation, and a recording data. It is composed of a recording data control unit for controlling the reading of data, a recording member drive unit for driving the recording member, and the like.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In particular, the scanning movement state detection mechanism of the conventional manual scanning type recording apparatus optically detects slits arranged at equal intervals on the circumference of a rotating disk that normally rotates together with the recording head, and detects the slits. This is detected by counting the pulse signals output according to the slits formed.

Therefore, even when the recording head scans from right to left or from left to right, the same pulse signal is output, and the drive of the recording head is controlled based on this pulse signal. From the right to left and from the right to the left, the print characters are not the same because the reading direction of the character font to be printed is fixed.

That is, for example, considering the case of printing a character string,
Normally, when printing a character string in English or Japanese, the recording head is often scanned by scanning from left to right, and one-way recording data processing is performed so that normal printed characters can be obtained by scanning from left to right. The head drive method is used to execute the.

For this reason, there is a situation in which scanning must be performed from right to left due to the limitation of the recording material, for example, binding conditions, pre-formatted slips, etc. must be scanned from right to left. To do. When a manual scanning recording is executed with a recording device that prints this from left to right as described above (in the case of a recording head that forms a character font with dots arranged in one vertical column), the printed characters are the reverse of normal printing. It is printed as the back letter (seal stamp letter) of and does not function properly as a print letter. Further, when the recording head is composed of dots divided into a plurality of rows, characters are printed in a form in which the original is missed and cannot be discriminated.

Further, as described above, in the case of an ink jet recording head in which a character font is composed of dots arranged in a line in the vertical direction, the nozzles are often not arranged in a line for the sake of manufacturing. It is customary to deal with the above by correcting the ink ejection timing. Therefore, when the recording head that controls ink ejection at exactly the same correction timing is scanned in the opposite direction, it seems that the characters in the reversed shape are printed on the contrary to the normal characters. Actually, since the opposite phase is corrected with respect to the direction of the recording head, sufficient quality cannot be guaranteed.

However, from the standpoint of the user, if restricted by such restrictions, it cannot be used, for example, when characters are printed on the left end of a small piece of paper. Therefore, there has been proposed a manual scanning type recording apparatus capable of executing a printing process according to its use.

However, in order to meet such an application, two expensive optical sensors provided with disks having slits arranged at equal intervals along the circumference as a movement detector of the recording head, It is necessary to determine the scanning direction of the recording head, which not only invites an increase in the price of the device, but also
An additional space for installing the optical sensor has to be secured in the device, which causes a number of problems such that the device becomes large and the operability is significantly impaired.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and detects pulse signal trains of different widths generated according to the rotation of a single slit disk that rotates in conjunction with the movement of a scanning body. By detecting the scanning direction of the scanning body from the discrimination result and controlling printing by detecting the direction of rotation, multiple slits arranged on a single slit disk that rotates in conjunction with the movement of the scanning body are detected. It is an object of the present invention to provide a manual scanning type recording apparatus capable of bidirectionally performing optimum printing in the scanning direction from the determined rotation direction by discriminating the rotation direction.

[Means for solving problems]

The manual scanning type recording apparatus according to the present invention is different from a scanning body that accommodates a recording head that detects a manual scanning and prints recording data supplied from a data supply source and a scanning body that rotates in conjunction with the movement of the scanning body. A single slit disk in which slits of different widths are arranged, signal generating means for generating pulse signal trains of different widths according to rotation of the single slit disk, and the pulse signal generated from the signal generating means A discriminating means for discriminating the rotation direction of the single slit disc by detecting a change in the row, and discriminating the scanning direction of the scanning body on the basis of the discrimination result of the discriminating means to control the printing of the recording data. It has a control means for controlling.

[Action]

In the present invention, the discriminating means discriminates the rotation direction of the single slit disk by detecting the change in the pulse signal train generated from the signal generating means, and the scanning body is scanned based on the discriminating result. The direction is discriminated and the control means controls the printing of the recording data to detect the plural slits arranged on the single slit disk which rotates in association with the movement of the scanning body to discriminate the rotational direction. Thus, it is possible to bidirectionally perform optimal printing in the scanning direction from the determined rotation direction.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the internal structure for explaining the configuration of a manual scanning type recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention.

In these figures, reference numeral 1 denotes a main body of the apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a main body), which processes print data transferred from a signal line 2 based on a scanning state of the main body 1. 3 is a detection roller,
It is driven in accordance with the scanning movement of the main body 1 (movement while sliding on a recording material (not shown)). A gear 3a is integrally fixed to the detection roller 3, and the gear 3a is rotationally driven according to the rotational drive of the detection roller 3, and an intermediate gear 4 meshing with the gear 3a is driven. 5 is an encoder disc (slit disc) composed of a thin plate of stainless steel
Thus, it has a plurality of slits having different slit widths for generating the optical synchronization signal. 5a is a gear, a slit disk 5
Is fixed to the center of the gear and meshes with the intermediate gear 4, and is rotationally driven as the main body 1 scans. Reference numeral 6 denotes a photosensor which is pulse signal generating means of the present invention, and includes a light emitting portion (for example, an LED light emitting element) and a light receiving portion (for example, a photodiode
And a phototransistor, etc.) and generates a synchronizing signal as a reference of the recording operation with the rotation of the slit disk 5 (details will be described in detail in FIGS. 5 and 6). Reference numeral 7 denotes, for example, an ink jet type recording head, the ink ejection portion of which is provided at a position facing the recording material and has an ink tank which stores ink serving as a recording material. Reference numeral 8 denotes a printed circuit board, which receives recording data input through the signal line 2 and converts the recording data transmitted / received according to the synchronization signal output from the photosensor 6 into a driving signal for the recording head 7 to convert a recording drive signal into an interface cable. Output via 9. Reference numeral 10 denotes an auxiliary roller, which keeps the distance between the ink ejection port of the recording head 7 and the recording material constant.

FIG. 2 is a control block diagram for explaining the configuration of the printed circuit board 8 shown in FIG.

In this figure, reference numeral 11 denotes a CPU which also serves as the print control means of the present invention, and various arithmetic / logical judgments based on a control program (including a flow chart shown in FIG. 7 described later) stored in a program area PA of the ROM 15. I do. The ROM 15 has a character generator CG for generating fonts corresponding to the characters and symbols to be printed.
A print head unit (HEAD) 12 prints print data (symbols, characters, etc.) output from the CPU 11 by the print head 7 on a print material (not shown). 13 is a head movement detector (DET),
It is composed of a detection roller 3, an intermediate gear 4, a gear 3a, a gear 5a, an encoder disc 5 and the like, and detects a moving distance on a recording material. Reference numeral 14 is a trigger pulse generator (TRG), which is a transmitted light detection signal (provided that the ON time is different) detected by the light receiving section of the photo sensor 6 as the encoder disk 5 rotates, that is, the reference synchronization output to the print head section 12. Generate a signal to CPU1
Output to 1. 16 is a RAM, which is a text area TXT for storing print information indicating characters / symbols to be printed, and a start address where print information to be printed is stored among print information stored in this text area TXT The start address register ST that stores the end address register EN that stores the end address that stores the print information that should be printed among the print information that is stored in the text area TXT, and the character font that is currently printing Font area FA, dot row counter DC that stores the address that stores the font data of the dot row currently waiting to be printed in font area FA, the latest trigger pulse time width data generated by the trigger pulse generator 14 above Recently pulse width register T ₁ for storing, to store the time width data of the trigger pulses generated immediately before the latest trigger pulse Pulse width register T _0, the latest for storing the time width data obtained by subtracting the time width indicated by the data stored from the time width indicated by the data stored in the latest pulse width register T ₁ to the pulse width register T ₀ It has a time difference register l ₁ and a time difference register l ₀ for storing the time width data stored in the latest time difference register l ₁ until just before the latest trigger pulse is generated. Note that TP is a text pointer.

FIG. 3 shows the text area TXT of the RAM 16 shown in FIG.
2 is a schematic diagram for explaining the memory space of FIG. 2, and the same components as those in FIG. 2 are designated by the same reference numerals.

In this figure, 21 is a character code (CAR), R
The address where the character font to be printed by the character generator CG of OM15 is stored is stored. Reference numeral 22 is an inter-character code (INT), which indicates the printing interval of the character font designated by the character code 21.

FIG. 4 shows the font area FA of the RAM 16 shown in FIG.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a character font stored in
(0) is the head address, and indicates a state in which, for example, the character “gloss” is developed into n × n dots from the head address FA (0) to the last address FA (n−1).

FIG. 5 is a plan view for explaining the structure of the slit disk 5 shown in FIG. 1, where SL1 to SL3 are slits,
In the slit interval W ₁ of SL1, a slit interval of the slit SL2 is W _2, the slit interval of the slit SL3 is W _3, the relationship of the slit interval W ₁ to _W-3 has a W ₁ <W ₂ <W ₃ Has become. Note that F is a forward rotation direction, a direction in which the slit disk 5 rotates when the main body 1 shown in FIG. 1 is scanned in the arrow direction shown in FIG. 1, and B is a reverse rotation direction. 1 shows the direction in which the slit disk 5 rotates when the body 1 shown in FIG. 1 is scanned in the direction opposite to the arrow direction shown in FIG. The slit SL1~SL3 as distance between the edges of the slit interval W ₁ to _W-3 of each slit SL1~SL3 against the forward rotational direction F is equal all provided on the slit disk 5.

FIG. 6 is a timing chart explaining a trigger pulse train generated by the rotation of the slit disk 5 shown in FIG. 5, and FIG. 6A shows a forward rotation trigger pulse train,
Rise of trigger pulses P1 to P3 that are sequentially output from the trigger pulse generator 14 based on the light reception signal detected by the photosensor 6 when the main body 1 is scanned in the direction of the arrow shown in FIG. The CPU 11 executes the print processing of the recording data in synchronization with the.

(B) shows a reverse rotation trigger pulse train, in which the main body 1 is the first
At the trailing edge of the trigger pulses PP1 to PP3, which are output from the trigger pulse generator 14 based on the light reception signal detected by the photosensor 6 when scanned in the direction opposite to the arrow shown in the figure, and are sequentially output. The CPU 11 synchronously executes the print processing of the recording data.

Next, the print control operation according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart for explaining the print start control procedure according to the present invention. Note that (1) to (41) indicate each step.

First, with the data stored in the text area TXT, the start address register ST, and the end address register EN in the RAM 16, the trigger pulse generator 14 waits for a predetermined number of times P (1), This waits until the moving speed of the main body 1 stabilizes. Next, the pulse width of the first trigger pulse output from the trigger pulse generator 14 after the P number of generated trigger pulses is measured and stored in the pulse width register T ₀ (2).
This stabilizes the moving speed of the main body 1. The time width of the trigger pulses P1 to P3 corresponding to the slits SL1 to SL3 is
Pre-determined as 15 / 20,16 / 19,17 / 18, RAM16
It is secured in a predetermined area. Next, it waits for the trigger pulse to be output from the trigger pulse generator 14 (3), and when the trigger pulse is output, the pulse width of the generated trigger pulse is stored in the latest pulse width register T ₁ (4). Then, the pulse width data t ₁ of the trigger pulse stored in the latest pulse width register T ₁ is stored in the pulse width register T _0.
It is judged whether it is smaller than the trigger pulse width data t ₀ stored in (5). If YES, “1” is set in the time difference register l _0.
Is set (6), and the process proceeds to step (8) and thereafter. If NO, "0" is set in the time difference register ₁₀ (7).

Next, it waits for the next trigger pulse to be output from the trigger pulse generator 14 (8). When the trigger pulse is output, the pulse width data t ₁ stored in the latest pulse width register T ₁ is added to the pulse width register. Trigger pulse width data at T ₀
After storing as t ₀ (9), the pulse width data of the generated trigger pulse is stored in the latest pulse width register T ₁ (1
0). Next, it is determined whether the pulse width data t ₁ of the trigger pulse stored in the latest pulse width register T ₁ is smaller than the trigger pulse width data t ₀ stored in the pulse width register T ₀ (11), and if YES For example, set "1" to the latest time difference register l ₁ (12), and proceed to step (14) and thereafter.
If NO, the latest time difference register l ₁ is set to “0” (13).

Then, it is determined whether the contents of the latest time difference register l _{1 and} the contents of the time difference register l ₀ match (14), and if NO, the contents of the latest time difference register l ₁ are saved in the time difference register l ₀ ( 15) Return to step (8).

Next, it is judged whether or not the content of the latest time difference register l ₁ is "1" (16), if NO, it is judged as normal printing (normal direction printing), and the process proceeds to step (17) and thereafter, and if YES, reverse direction. Judge as printing, and proceed to step (30) and thereafter.

For normal printing, first start address register ST
The content of is set in the text pointer TP (17). Next, it is determined whether the content of the text pointer TP matches the value obtained by adding "1" to the content of the end address register EN (18). If YES, the printing process ends, and if NO, the text area TXT Judge whether the address indicated by the text pointer TP is the character code (CAR) 21 (TXT (TP) = CAR) (19), and if NO, the text area TX
Determine whether the address indicated by the text pointer TP in T is the inter-character code (INT) 22 (TXT (TP) =
(INT) (20), if NO, execute error processing (21), terminate printing processing, and if YES, wait for the trigger pulse to occur for the number of times m, which is the number of inter-character pulses, that is, the number of times. The main body 1 is idly fed until a trigger pulse of m minutes is generated (22), and the process proceeds to step (29) and thereafter.

On the other hand, if the result of the determination in step (19) is YES, the font data corresponding to the character code 21 is stored from the character generator CG of ROM15 to the font area FA of RAM16 (F
ACG (TXT (TP))) (23), and the dot row counter DC is initialized (24). Next, it waits for the trigger pulses P1 to P3 to rise sequentially (25), and every time the trigger pulses P1 to P3 rise, the dot row (FA (DC)) indicated by the dot row counter DC in the font area FA is printed ( 26), the dot row counter DC is updated by "1" (27).

Next, the dot row counter DC displays the number of dot rows n for one character.
If it is NO, the process returns to step (25). If YES, the text pointer TP is set to "1".
Update (29) and return to step (18).

On the other hand, if the result of the determination in step (16) is YES, that is, in the case of reverse printing, first, the content of the end address register EN is set to the text pointer TP (TPEN) (3
0). Next, it is determined whether the content of the text pointer TP matches the value obtained by subtracting "1" from the content of the start address address register ST (TP = ST-1) (31), YES.
If so, end the printing process. If NO, text area TXT.
It is judged whether it is the address character code (CAR) 21 indicated by the text pointer TP in (TXT (TP) = CAR).
(32) If NO, determine whether the address indicated by the text pointer TP in the text area TXT is the inter-character code (INT) 22 (TXT (TP) = INT) (33). If NO, error After executing the process and ending the printing process, if YES, wait for the trigger pulse to be generated for the number of times m determined as the inter-character pulse number, that is, to feed the main body 1 by idle until the trigger pulse is generated for the number of times m. Step (34), Step (4
1) Proceed to the following.

On the other hand, if the result of the determination in step (32) is YES, the font data corresponding to the character code 21 is stored in the font area FA of the RAM 16 from the character generator CG of ROM 15 (35), and the dot string counter DC for one character is stored. Number of dot rows n
Set (36). Next, it waits for the trigger pulses PP1 to PP3 to fall (37) in sequence, and the trigger pulses PP1 to PP3.
Each time P3 falls, the dot row (FA (DC)) indicated by the dot row counter DC in the font area FA is printed (38),
The dot row counter DC is updated by "-1" (DCDC-1) (39).

Next, it is judged whether or not the dot string counter DC matches "-1" (40), and if NO, the process returns to step (37),
If YES, update text pointer TP to "-1" (TPTP
-1) and then (41) and returns to step (31).

As a result, the print data processing sequence is reversed based on the forward / reverse print direction determination flow, and the print timing is set to the rising edge of the trigger pulse in the case of normal printing, and in the case of reverse printing, the trigger pulse The printing process can be executed by setting to the trailing edge, and the printing process can be executed on the recording data regardless of the scanning direction of the main body 1.

Further, it is possible to accurately detect the moving direction, which is determined by the phase difference between each of the two photo sensors as in the conventional art, by using a single photo sensor. It is possible to reduce the size of the device by reducing the design constraint of the outer dimensions of the device.

As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, the manual scanning recording can be executed without being influenced by the moving direction of the recording scanning body,
It is possible to efficiently print desired recording data in any scanning direction without being restricted by the printing direction on the recording material.

Further, the scanning direction determination of the recording scanning body can be significantly reduced compared to the scanning direction determination by the two photosensors, the space for providing the photosensor can be released, and the shape of the recording scanning body is excellent in operability. Moreover, it has an excellent advantage that it can be made compact.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the present invention, the discriminating means discriminates the rotation direction of the single slit disc by detecting the change in the pulse signal train generated from the signal generating means, and the discriminating result is obtained. The control means controls the printing of the recording data based on the judgment of the scanning direction of the scanning body based on the above, so that a plurality of slits arranged in a single slit disk rotating in association with the movement of the scanning body are detected. Thus, the rotation direction is determined, and the optimum printing can be bidirectionally performed in the scanning direction from the determined rotation direction.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the internal structure for explaining the structure of a manual scanning type recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention and a sectional view of the main part thereof, and FIG. 2 is a view for explaining the structure of the printer substrate shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a control block diagram of the RAM shown in FIG.
Schematic diagram explaining the memory space of the text area TXT,
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram for explaining the character fonts stored in the font area FA of the RAM shown in FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 is a plan view for explaining the structure of the slit disk shown in FIG. FIG. 6 is a timing chart for explaining a trigger pulse train generated by the rotation of the slit disk shown in FIG. 5, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart for explaining a print start control procedure according to the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a main body, 2 is a signal line, 3 is a detection roller, and 5
Is a slit disk, 6 is a photo sensor, 7 is a recording head,
Reference numeral 8 is a printed circuit board, 10 is an auxiliary roller, 11 is a CPU, 12 is a print head unit, 13 is a head movement detection unit, 14 is a trigger pulse generator, 15 is ROM, and 16 is RAM.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A scanning body that accommodates a recording head that prints recording data supplied from a data supply source by detecting manual scanning, and slits of different widths that rotate in conjunction with the movement of the scanning body are arranged. A single slit disk, a signal generating means for generating a pulse signal train having a different width according to the rotation of the single slit disk, and detecting a change in the pulse signal train generated from the signal generating means. A discriminating means for discriminating the rotation direction of the single slit disc, and a control means for discriminating the scanning direction of the scanning body on the basis of the discrimination result of the discriminating means and controlling the printing of the recording data. A manual scanning type recording apparatus having.