JPS62128782A - Apparatus for positioning control of color ink ribbon - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to set a color ink ribbon to a necessary position with respect to a printing head, by simple constitution such that the positioning control of the color ink ribbon is performed by stepping control. CONSTITUTION:When the initial position of a ribbon fixing member is set, a ribbon positioning control part searches the information of the number of steps corresponding to the color of the color ribbon part indicated from CPU 23 and, when confirms the information of the number of steps, outputs a step pulse corresponding to the number of steps to a ribbon positioning mechanism part 22. By this method, the solenoid of a stepping mechanism is driven to rotate a gear 30 by one-step angle. Next, the ribbon positioning control part 21 counts a step pulse and outputs the step pulse corresponding to the number of retrieved steps to stop the operation of the ribbon positioning mechanism part 22. By this constitution, a color printer can perform designated color printing.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a color ink ribbon positioning control device used in printers, typewriters, etc. capable of color printing.

[Technical Background of the Invention and Problems thereof] Conventionally, color printers have used color ink ribbons (ribbon bands) in which color ribbon portions of about three or four colors are arranged in the vertical direction. The color ink ribbon 10 is held so as to be wound around a ribbon fixing member 11, as shown in FIG. 6 (side view). By moving the ribbon fixing member 11 up and down with respect to the print head 12 by the ribbon positioning mechanism, a predetermined color ribbon section is set at a position facing the print head 12.

Thereby, when the print head operates, color printing corresponding to the positioned color ribbon portion is performed.

By the way, as shown in FIG. 6, the ribbon positioning mechanism generally includes a gear 13 fixed to the ribbon fixing member 11.
, a rotating gear 14 engaged with the gear 13, and a gear 15 coupled to the rotating shaft of the motor. That is, when the gear 15 rotates due to the rotational drive of the motor, this gear 15
The rotating gear 14 engaged with is driven to rotate. The rotation of the rotary gear 14 engaged with the gear 13 causes the ribbon fixing member 11 to move up and down by a predetermined angle. As a result, the color ink ribbon 10 is moved up and down by a predetermined angle, and a predetermined color ribbon portion is set at a position facing the print head 12.

However, with one ribbon positioning system as described above,
There is a problem in that a complicated motor drive control circuit and the operation of the printer's CPU that sets the control contents are required.

[Object of the Invention] An object of the present invention is to provide a color ink ribbon positioning control device that can set a color ink ribbon at a required position with respect to a print head with a simple configuration in a color printing device. .

[Summary of the Invention] The present invention includes a ribbon positioning mechanism that sets an ink ribbon portion of a predetermined color to a position facing a print head, and a ribbon positioning control means that controls the operation of the ribbon positioning mechanism. The ribbon positioning mechanism performs a predetermined movement 111fi from the initial setting position of the ribbon holder for each stabilizer.
The ribbon holder is moved up and down to set the ink ribbon portion of a predetermined color corresponding to the number of steps to a position facing the print head. The ribbon positioning control means outputs step pulses corresponding to the number of steps corresponding to a predetermined color when the initial setting position of the ribbon holder is detected, and moves the ribbon holder up and down from the initial setting position to print ink of a specific color. The operation of the ribbon positioning mechanism is controlled to set the ribbon portion in a position facing the print head.

With such a configuration, it is possible to control the positioning of the color ink ribbon with a simple configuration and control content without requiring complicated motor control operations.

[Embodiment of the Invention] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1st
The figure is a block diagram showing the configuration of a control device according to an embodiment. In FIG. 1, a ribbon movement request receiving section 20,
Ribbon positioning control section 21 and ribbon positioning mechanism section 2
2 is provided within the main body of the color printer, for example. The ribbon movement request receiving unit 20 is an interface that receives a color ink ribbon movement request signal transmitted from a host computer (cPU) 23, which is an external device of the color printer main body. The ribbon positioning control section 21
It consists of a microprocessor and executes color ink ribbon positioning control operations based on a pre-stored program. The ribbon positioning control unit 21 recognizes a specific color ribbon portion to be positioned based on the color ink ribbon movement request signal received by the ribbon movement request receiving unit 20,
This specific color ribbon part is attached to the print head (12 in Figure 3).
A control operation is performed to set the position opposite to .

The ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 is a mechanism that moves the ribbon fixing member 11 holding the color ink ribbon 10 up and down with respect to the print head 12, as shown in FIG.

Specifically, the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 includes a step mechanism including a gear 30, a stopper 31, and a solenoid 32, as shown in FIG.

The solenoid 32 includes an exciting coil 32a and a plunger 32.
b is leaked. In the step mechanism, the solenoid 32 responds to the step pulse from the ribbon positioning control section 21.
The plunger 32b is driven horizontally, and the gear 30 is
Drive to rotate by step angle. On the other hand, the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 includes a heart-shaped cam 34 connected to the gear 30 of the step mechanism through a shaft 33, as shown in FIG. This cam 34 constitutes a vertical movement mechanism together with a vertical shaft 35 connected to the ribbon fixing part 11. In the vertical movement mechanism, gear 30
The cam 34 rotates by a predetermined angle (45 degrees in this case) in response to the rotation of the vertical shaft 35.
is driven to move up and down at regular intervals.

Further, the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 is provided with an initial position detection switch 36 at a position close to the ribbon fixing member 11, as shown in FIG. When the ribbon positioning control section 21 receives the detection signal from the switch 36, it recognizes the initial setting position of the ribbon fixing member 11 (the state shown in FIG. 3).

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. First, as shown in FIG. 5, the ribbon positioning control section 21 stores step number information for each color in advance according to the arrangement of each color ribbon section (here, four colors) in the vertical direction of the color ink ribbon 10. are doing. When the ribbon positioning control section 21 receives a color ink ribbon movement request signal from the CPU 23 through the ribbon movement request receiving section 20, as shown in step $1 in FIG. 4, it positions a predetermined color ribbon section. recognize. The ribbon positioning control unit 21 sets the initial position of the ribbon fixing member 11 necessary for positioning control, as shown in step S2. That is, the ribbon positioning control section 21 outputs a step pulse to the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22, so that the ribbon fixing member 11 contacts the switch 36 and the switch 36 is activated.
The vertical movement of the ribbon fixing member 11 is continued until a detection signal is output from . In this initial position setting operation, the second
The step mechanism shown in the figure is driven, and the cam 34 of the vertical movement mechanism rotates at fixed angle intervals, and is stopped in the state shown in FIG. 3.

In this case, the part of the cam 34 shown in FIG. 3 that is shaded acts to move the ribbon fixing member 11 up and down in a constant manner, and the part of the other cam 34 (the 180 degree part other than the part that is shaded) sets the initial position. It will be used for

When the initial position of the ribbon fixing member 11 is set, the ribbon positioning control unit 21 searches the CPU 23 for step number information corresponding to the color of the color ribbon section specified (step S3). The step number information is determined in advance according to the arrangement position of each color ribbon section as described above. In this case, the step number information is the ribbon fixing member 11
It is set based on the initial position of . When the ribbon positioning control section 21 recognizes the step number information, it outputs a step pulse corresponding to this step to the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 (steps 84 and 85). As a result, the solenoid 32 of the step mechanism is driven, and the gear 30
rotates one step angle at a time.

As the gear 30 of the step mechanism rotates, the cam 34 of the vertical movement mechanism rotates in the direction of arrow 37 in FIG. The ribbon positioning system unit 21 counts the step pulses, and when it outputs the step pulses corresponding to the retrieved number of steps, stops the operation of the ribbon positioning mechanism unit 22 (steps 86 and 87).

Here, for example, if the designated color of the CPU 23 is "blue", the number of steps is "2" as shown in FIG. The ribbon positioning control section 21 outputs two step pulses to the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 . As a result, the gear 30 of the step mechanism rotates by two steps,
The cam 34 of the vertical movement mechanism rotates 90 degrees (one step is 45 degrees) from the initial position. By converting this rotation by the cam 34 into an upward vertical movement by the vertical shaft 35, the ribbon fixing member 11 is moved upward by a predetermined movement amount of two steps. Therefore, the “blue” color ribbon portion of the color ink ribbon 10 is attached to the print head 12.
It will be set in a position opposite to.

In this way, the color printer can set the color ribbon portion of the color specified by the CPU 23 at a position facing the print head 12 and print in the specified color. In this embodiment, the positioning control operation of the designated color ribbon section is a step control operation performed based on predetermined step number information for each color. Therefore, the positioning operation of the color ink ribbon 10 can be realized with the ribbon positioning mechanism section 22 having a simple configuration consisting of a step mechanism driven by a step pulse corresponding to step number information and a vertical movement mechanism.

Furthermore, the control operation of the ribbon positioning control section 21
As shown in the flowchart in the figure, the control consists of relatively advanced control contents. Therefore, in the control operation of the color printer, the burden on the positioning control operation of the color ink ribbon 10 can be reduced. In addition, since positioning control operation can be achieved without using a DC motor, various circuit configurations required for DC motor control operation can be made unnecessary, and the entire control device can be realized with a simple configuration. be able to.

[Effects of the Invention] As described in detail above, according to the present invention, in a color printing apparatus, positioning control of a color ink ribbon can be performed by step control.

Therefore, a predetermined color ribbon portion can be set at a required position with respect to the print head with a simple positioning mechanism and simple control contents.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a control device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are schematic diagrams showing a partial configuration of a ribbon positioning mechanism of the same embodiment, and FIG.
The figure is a flow chart for explaining the operation of the same embodiment.
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the memory contents of the ribbon positioning control unit 21 of the same embodiment, and FIG.
It is a schematic diagram showing the composition of I structure. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10... Color ink ribbon, 11... Ribbon fixing member, 20... Ribbon movement request receiving part, 21... Ribbon positioning control part, 22... Ribbon positioning mechanism part. Applicant's representative Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A color printing device that performs predetermined color printing by moving a color ink ribbon vertically relative to a print head, comprising: a ribbon holder that holds the color ink ribbon so as to face the print head; moving the ribbon holder up and down from an initial setting position of the ribbon holder by a predetermined movement amount for each step to set an ink ribbon portion of a predetermined color corresponding to the number of steps to a position facing the print head; a ribbon positioning mechanism that detects the initial setting position of the ribbon holder, outputs step pulses corresponding to the number of steps corresponding to a predetermined color, and moves the ribbon holder up and down from the initial setting position to ink of a predetermined color. A color ink ribbon positioning control device comprising: ribbon positioning control means for controlling the operation of the ribbon positioning mechanism so as to set the ribbon portion at a position facing the print head.