CN116552132A

CN116552132A - Thermal printing method and thermal printer

Info

Publication number: CN116552132A
Application number: CN202310590036.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 汪才全
Original assignee: Shanghai Hannto Technology Inc
Current assignee: Shanghai Hannto Technology Inc
Priority date: 2023-05-23
Filing date: 2023-05-23
Publication date: 2023-08-08

Abstract

The application provides a thermal printing method and a thermal printer. Wherein the method is applied to a thermal printer; the thermal printer comprises a printing head and a memory, wherein the memory stores parameters of a first temperature curve and parameters of a second temperature curve, and the temperature interval of the first temperature curve is at least partially not overlapped with the temperature interval of the second temperature curve; the method comprises the following steps: receiving a printing instruction; determining the material type of the thermosensitive paper; when the material type is a first material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of a first temperature curve according to parameters of the first temperature curve; or when the material type is the second material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of the second temperature curve according to the parameter of the second temperature curve. The thermal printer includes: a printhead, a memory, and a processor for performing the method as provided in the first aspect of the present application.

Description

Thermal printing method and thermal printer

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to printing, and more particularly, to a thermal printing method and a thermal printer.

Background

The thermal technology makes the printer not depend on the ink bin and the ink box, so that the size of the printer is reduced, but the materials used by the existing thermal printer are different, for example, the color development temperature of the single-color thermal paper is low, the color development temperature of the color thermal paper is high, and the existing printer cannot be compatible with two thermal papers.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the foregoing, the present application provides a thermal printing method and a thermal printer.

Specifically, the application is realized by the following technical scheme:

in a first aspect of the present application, there is provided a method of thermal printing, the method being applied to a thermal printer; the thermal printer comprises a printing head and a memory, wherein the memory stores parameters of a first temperature curve and parameters of a second temperature curve, and the temperature interval of the first temperature curve is at least partially not overlapped with the temperature interval of the second temperature curve; the method comprises the following steps: receiving a printing instruction; determining the material type of the thermosensitive paper; when the material type is a first material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of a first temperature curve according to parameters of the first temperature curve; or when the material type is the second material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of the second temperature curve according to the parameter of the second temperature curve.

In a second aspect of the present application, there is provided a thermal printer comprising: a processor for performing the method as provided in the first aspect of the present application.

Through above-mentioned scheme, this application has following beneficial effect at least:

according to the thermal paper made of different materials, parameters of a first temperature curve and a second temperature curve with different temperature intervals are stored in advance, a temperature curve matched with the material type of the thermal paper is determined during printing, and the temperature of a printing head adapting to the material is controlled through the temperature curve, so that the thermal paper with at least two developing temperatures can be adapted by using the scheme.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating a method of thermal printing according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 2 is a schematic structural view of a thermal printer according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a method of infrared sensor-based thermal printing according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 4 is a schematic structural view of another thermal printer according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating a method of position sensor based thermal printing according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 6 is a schematic view of an overlapping area of a thermal paper shown in an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 7 is a flow chart illustrating a method of adjusting a printed swatch according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Fig. 8 is a block diagram of a thermal printer according to an exemplary embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. When the following description refers to the accompanying drawings, the same numbers in different drawings refer to the same or similar elements, unless otherwise indicated. The implementations described in the following exemplary examples are not representative of all implementations consistent with the present application. Rather, they are merely examples of apparatus and methods consistent with some aspects of the present application as detailed in the accompanying claims.

The terminology used in the present application is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the present application. As used in this application and the appended claims, the singular forms "a," "an," and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It should also be understood that the term "and/or" as used herein refers to and encompasses any or all possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

It should be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various information, these information should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one type of information from another. For example, a first message may also be referred to as a second message, and similarly, a second message may also be referred to as a first message, without departing from the scope of the present application. The word "if" as used herein may be interpreted as "at … …" or "at … …" or "responsive to a determination", depending on the context.

The ink jet printer prints by ejecting small ink droplets, which adhere to paper, and the ink jet head is bulky because it needs to be connected to the ink tank and moved, and the ink jet head is easily blocked after being left for a while.

The occurrence of thermal printing solves the problems of volume and blockage, and the heat is transmitted instead of ink drops, but when thermal printing, because different types of consumables (thermal paper) have different color development temperature intervals, for example, the color development temperature interval of the thermal paper used by a single-color thermal printer is about 70-100 ℃, the color development temperature interval of the thermal paper (Zink photographic paper) used by a color thermal printer is about 110-200 ℃, and because the higher the temperature is, the darker the color is, when the color thermal printer prints the single-color thermal paper, the thermal paper can be completely black and cannot be normally used. Likewise, when a monochrome thermal printer prints Zink photo paper, color change cannot be caused, and thus a photograph cannot be normally displayed.

In order to solve the technical problems in thermal printing, the application provides a thermal printing method which is applied to a thermal printer; the thermal printer comprises a printing head and a memory, wherein the memory stores parameters of a first temperature curve and parameters of a second temperature curve, and the temperature interval of the first temperature curve is at least partially not overlapped with the temperature interval of the second temperature curve; referring to fig. 1, the method may include:

s101, receiving a printing instruction;

s102, determining the material type of the thermosensitive paper;

after S102, S103 or S104 is executed according to the determined type, specifically, when the type of the S103 material is the first material, the print head is controlled to be heated to a temperature interval of the first temperature curve according to the parameter of the first temperature curve; and S104, when the material type is the second material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of the second temperature curve according to the parameters of the second temperature curve.

By the above scheme, after receiving the printing instruction, the temperature of the printing head can be adjusted after knowing the type of the thermal paper due to the parameters of the first temperature curve and the parameters of the second temperature curve stored in advance, and the temperature interval is adjusted according to the corresponding temperature curve of the type as recorded in S103 and S104, so as to adapt to the thermal paper in different temperature intervals.

In the above-described scheme, the type of the thermal paper may be manually input or selected by an operator, and then the type of the thermal paper may be acquired.

In an embodiment, in order to more conveniently determine the type of thermal paper to be printed, if the size of the thermal paper of the first material is different from the size of the thermal paper of the second material, the thermal printer 20 may further include a first position sensor 203 and a second position sensor 204 in addition to the paper cassette, referring to fig. 4, if the size of the thermal paper of the first material is different from the size of the thermal paper of the second material, and the second position sensor may be located in an overlapping area a of the area where the thermal paper 211 of the first material is placed and the area B of the thermal paper 212 of the second material is placed, except for the overlapping area, referring to fig. 4.

Thus referring to fig. 5, the step of determining the material type of the thermal paper (i.e., S102) may include: s501, determining the size of the thermal paper based on whether the first position sensor and the second position sensor are triggered, so as to determine the material type of the thermal paper according to the determined size.

In a specific application, the overlapping area a and other areas B of the thermal paper 211 of the first material and the thermal paper 212 of the second material may take various forms, and in particular, referring to fig. 6, may take any form including, but not limited to, those of the drawings.

Because the first position sensor and the second position sensor only need to monitor two states of triggered and non-triggered when monitoring the size, the first position sensor and the second position sensor have rich selectable types and can be roughly divided into a contact sensor (contact switch) and a proximity sensor (proximity switch). When the contact sensor is adopted, the first position sensor or the second position sensor can be a micro switch, a limit switch, a friction switch and the like; when the proximity sensor is adopted, a capacitive proximity switch, a photoelectric proximity switch, an infrared proximity switch, an acoustic proximity switch and the like can be adopted.

Further, regardless of whether the thermal printer 20 includes the first position sensor 203 and the second position sensor 204, the thermal printer to which the method is applied may include a paper cassette for storing thermal paper and an infrared sensor mounted to the paper cassette, the infrared sensor including an infrared emitting end and an infrared receiving end, both of which face the back of the thermal paper; referring to fig. 3, the step of determining the material type of the thermal paper (i.e., S102) may include:

s301, determining the color of the back surface of the thermal paper based on the intensity of the infrared signal received by the infrared sensor, so as to determine the material type of the thermal paper according to the determined color.

For easy understanding, referring to fig. 2, in the thermal printer 20, the installation positions of the mid-infrared sensor of the thermal printer may be referred to, and the infrared sensor 202, the infrared emitting end 2021 of the infrared sensor 202, and the infrared receiving end 2022 may be respectively configured to emit infrared light and receive reflected infrared light, and based on the intensity of the infrared signal received by the infrared sensor 202, the depth of the color of the back surface of the thermal paper may be determined, and since the reflective capabilities of different materials are different, it may be determined which thermal paper is the thermal paper of which material the thermal paper 21 currently put into the paper box 201 is according to the difference of the color.

Specifically, how to judge according to the corresponding relation between the intensity of the infrared light and different colors and the corresponding relation between the material type and the colors can be selected according to actual requirements. In one embodiment, the values of the back surfaces of the first material thermal paper and the second material thermal paper that reflect infrared light may be experimentally written into the memory of the printer to be recalled and compared with the actual obtained intensity of infrared light.

It will be appreciated that a scheme incorporating the infrared sensor 202 may also be implemented on the basis of the scheme described above. Specifically, since the infrared sensor belongs to one of the proximity sensors, the infrared sensor may be the first position sensor or the second position sensor; in some aspects, the infrared sensor may also be a sensor other than the first and second position sensors.

In one embodiment, when the infrared sensor is the first position sensor, the color of the back surface of the thermal paper may be determined by the infrared sensor, and the size of the thermal paper may be determined by whether the infrared sensor (instead of the first position sensor) and the second position sensor are triggered, so as to determine the material type of the thermal paper according to the determined size.

In another embodiment, when the infrared sensor is a sensor other than the first position sensor and the second position sensor, the color of the back surface of the thermal paper may be determined by the infrared sensor, and still the size of the thermal paper may be determined by whether the first position sensor and the second position sensor are triggered, to determine the material type of the thermal paper according to the determined size.

The specific use of several sensors and which type of sensor can be determined depending on the differences in the specific materials of the thermal paper and the accuracy required.

As can be seen from the above, at least two ways of determining the material of the thermal paper are proposed in the present application, one is to make thermal papers of different materials correspond to different thermal paper sizes, and the other is to make thermal papers of different materials correspond to different thermal paper back colors. Further, the two modes can be further combined, and can correspond to four different materials, namely light color-small size, light color-large size, dark color-small size and dark color-large size, when four types of sizes need to be monitored, a third temperature curve and a fourth temperature curve are correspondingly needed, and the specific corresponding modes can refer to the scheme, so that the application is not repeated.

If only two materials need to be distinguished, the third and fourth can be understood as two sub-types of the thermal paper of the first material or two sub-types of the thermal paper of the second material, i.e. the material whose size does not participate in determining the thermal paper, can be used to determine the print swath of the thermal printer. If the back color of the thermal paper is monitored to determine the thermal paper as the first material, and then the size of the thermal paper is monitored to determine the thermal paper as the third material (small size), the printing picture of the printing head is adjusted according to the monitored size.

Considering that in practical applications, the back color of the thermal paper of two materials may be relatively close, so that the color of the back of the thermal paper of one material may be darker than the color of the back of the thermal paper of the other material. The back side of the thermal paper may specifically be the underside of any one of the thermal papers 21 of several views A-A in fig. 1.

It can be understood that the reason for affecting the recognition is whether the difference in reflected infrared light is sufficient, and whether the accuracy of the infrared sensor is sufficient. Therefore, when the infrared sensor is unchanged, the back color of the thermal paper can be changed preferentially. When the color is changed, the color of the back surface can be changed completely, and the color of a part of the back surface can be changed according to the position of the sensor, so that implementation of the scheme is not affected.

By the scheme, the color of the back surface of one of the thermosensitive paper is darker than that of the back surface of the thermosensitive paper made of the other material, and the infrared reflection capability of the thermosensitive paper made of the different materials is improved, so that the thermosensitive paper is easier to distinguish by a printer. Because of the increased distinction, the accuracy requirements for the infrared sensor are lower, and the cost of the thermal printer is reduced.

The color of the back surface of the thermal paper made of one material can be darker than that of the back surface of the thermal paper made of another material, and the depth of the thermal paper made of the same material can be understood to be different in the same color or different in the different colors. The depth difference between different colors is not particularly limited in the industry, so that when different colors are required to be adopted in actual production, an infrared sensor can be used for reflection test, and after the test, a proper color is selected for printing on the back surface of the thermal paper. In either way, what is disclosed in the present application should be construed as falling within the scope of the present application.

Referring to fig. 7, after determining the size of the thermal paper, the method of thermal printing may further include: and S701, adjusting a printing picture of the thermal printer according to the determined size of the thermal paper so as to match the printing picture with the size of the thermal paper.

S701 may be performed before the step of controlling the heating of the print head (S103/S104), or may be performed after the step of controlling the heating of the print head, which is exemplified in fig. 7, without limiting the present application.

The size of the thermal paper can be 3 inches and 6 inches which are commonly used, and can also be other sizes designed for distinguishing the thermal paper with different materials, and the implementation of the scheme of the application is not affected, and the thermal paper falls into the protection scope of the application.

In addition to monitoring thermal paper of different materials, it is also desirable to monitor whether the thermal paper is properly placed in the paper cassette, so before determining the type of thermal paper, the method of thermal printing may further include: when the intensity of the infrared signal is close to 0, stopping printing and reporting errors.

When two printers are compatible, the thickness of the single-color thermal paper may be smaller than that of the color thermal paper, the thicknesses of the thermal papers of other materials may be different, and the thin thermal paper is put into the printer using the thick thermal paper, so that a situation that a plurality of papers enter at a time can occur, and normal printing cannot be performed. If thick thermal paper is put into a printer using thin thermal paper, paper jam or inability to enter occurs.

Therefore, in the present application, the thickness of the thermal paper of the first material and the thickness of the thermal paper of the second material are both preset thicknesses.

In this application, the thermal paper of the first material and the thermal paper of the second material may refer to existing monochrome thermal paper and color thermal paper, may refer to thermal papers of other different materials, and may refer to other thermal papers generated by technical transition, which should all fall within the protection scope of this application under the condition that implementation of the scheme of this application is not affected.

Correspondingly, the present application further provides a thermal printer, specifically, referring to fig. 8, the thermal printer 20 may include: a print head 206, a memory 207, and a processor 205, the processor 205 being configured to perform the method of any of the embodiments described above.

Any hardware or structure mentioned above may be included in the thermal printer, and the implementation process of the functions and roles of each hardware or structure in the specific embodiment is specifically shown in the implementation process of the corresponding steps in the method, which is not repeated herein.

For a thermal printer, reference is made to the description of the method embodiments for the relevant points, since they essentially correspond to the method embodiments. The above structure or hardware may be separate or integrally formed in practical application, and a single structure or hardware may be composed of multiple parts. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand and implement the present invention without undue burden.

Embodiments of the subject matter and the functional operations described in this specification can be implemented in: digital electronic circuitry, tangibly embodied computer software or firmware, computer hardware including the structures disclosed in this specification and structural equivalents thereof, or a combination of one or more of them. Embodiments of the subject matter described in this specification can be implemented as one or more computer programs, i.e., one or more modules of computer program instructions encoded on a tangible, non-transitory program carrier for execution by, or to control the operation of, data processing apparatus. Alternatively or additionally, the program instructions may be encoded on a manually-generated propagated signal, e.g., a machine-generated electrical, optical, or electromagnetic signal, that is generated to encode and transmit information to suitable receiver apparatus for execution by data processing apparatus. The computer storage medium may be a machine-readable storage device, a machine-readable storage substrate, a random or serial access memory device, or a combination of one or more of them.

The processes and logic flows described in this specification can be performed by one or more programmable computers executing one or more computer programs to perform corresponding functions by operating on input data and generating output. The processes and logic flows can also be performed by, and apparatus can also be implemented as, special purpose logic circuitry, e.g., an FPGA (field programmable gate array) or an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit).

Computers suitable for executing computer programs include, for example, general purpose and/or special purpose microprocessors, or any other type of central processing unit. Typically, the central processing unit will receive instructions and data from a read only memory and/or a random access memory. The essential elements of a computer include a central processing unit for carrying out or executing instructions and one or more memory devices for storing instructions and data. Typically, a computer will also include, or be operatively coupled to receive data from or transfer data to, or both, one or more mass storage devices for storing data, e.g., magnetic, magneto-optical disks, or optical disks, etc. However, a computer does not have to have such a device. Furthermore, the computer may be embedded in another device, such as a mobile phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a mobile audio or video player, a game console, a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, or a portable storage device such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) flash drive, to name a few.

Computer readable media suitable for storing computer program instructions and data include all forms of non-volatile memory, media and memory devices including, for example, semiconductor memory devices (e.g., EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memory devices), magnetic disks (e.g., internal hard disk or removable disks), magneto-optical disks, and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks. The processor and the memory can be supplemented by, or incorporated in, special purpose logic circuitry.

While this specification contains many specific implementation details, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of any invention or of what may be claimed, but rather as descriptions of features of specific embodiments of particular inventions. Certain features that are described in this specification in the context of separate embodiments can also be implemented in combination in a single embodiment. On the other hand, the various features described in the individual embodiments may also be implemented separately in the various embodiments or in any suitable subcombination. Furthermore, although features may be acting in certain combinations and even initially claimed as such, one or more features from a claimed combination can in some cases be excised from the combination, and the claimed combination may be directed to a subcombination or variation of a subcombination.

Similarly, although operations are depicted in the drawings in a particular order, this should not be understood as requiring that such operations be performed in the particular order shown or in sequential order, or that all illustrated operations be performed, to achieve desirable results. In some cases, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous. Moreover, the separation of various system modules and components in the embodiments described above should not be understood as requiring such separation in all embodiments, and it should be understood that the described program components and systems can generally be integrated together in a single software product or packaged into multiple software products.

Thus, particular embodiments of the subject matter have been described. Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims. In some cases, the actions recited in the claims can be performed in a different order and still achieve desirable results. Furthermore, the processes depicted in the accompanying drawings are not necessarily required to be in the particular order shown, or sequential order, to achieve desirable results. In some implementations, multitasking and parallel processing may be advantageous.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the present invention is not intended to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and any modifications, equivalents, improvements and alternatives falling within the spirit and principles of the present invention are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method of thermal printing, wherein the method is applied to a thermal printer; the thermal printer comprises a printing head and a memory, wherein the memory stores parameters of a first temperature curve and parameters of a second temperature curve, and the temperature interval of the first temperature curve is at least partially not overlapped with the temperature interval of the second temperature curve; the method comprises the following steps:

receiving a printing instruction;

determining the material type of the thermosensitive paper;

when the material type is a first material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of the first temperature curve according to the parameter of the first temperature curve;

or when the material type is a second material, controlling the printing head to heat to a temperature interval of the second temperature curve according to the parameter of the second temperature curve.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the thermal paper of the first material has a different size than the thermal paper of the second material; the thermal printer further comprises a paper box for storing thermal paper, and a first position sensor and a second position sensor which are arranged on the paper box, wherein the first position sensor is positioned in an overlapped area of an area for placing the thermal paper of the first material and an area for placing the thermal paper of the second material, and the second position sensor is positioned in other areas except the overlapped area in the area for placing the thermal paper of the first material and the area for placing the thermal paper of the second material;

the step of determining the material type of the thermal paper includes:

determining a size of the thermal paper based on whether the first and second position sensors are triggered, to determine a material type of the thermal paper according to the determined size.

3. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the first material of the thermal paper is a different color than the second material of the thermal paper; the thermal printer further comprises a paper box for storing the thermal paper and an infrared sensor arranged on the paper box, wherein the infrared sensor comprises an infrared emission end and an infrared receiving end, and the infrared emission end and the infrared receiving end face the back of the thermal paper;

the step of determining the material type of the thermal paper includes:

the color of the back surface of the thermal paper is determined based on the intensity of the infrared signal received by the infrared sensor, so that the material type of the thermal paper is determined according to the determined color.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the back side of the thermal paper of one material is darker than the back side of the thermal paper of the other material.

5. A method according to claim 3, wherein the infrared sensor is the first position sensor or the second position sensor; or sensors other than the first and second position sensors.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising, after determining the size of the thermal paper:

and adjusting the printing picture of the thermal printer according to the determined size of the thermal paper so as to match the printing picture with the size of the thermal paper.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the first position sensor or the second position sensor is a proximity switch or a contact switch.

8. A method according to claim 3, wherein prior to determining the type of thermal paper, the method further comprises:

and stopping printing and reporting errors when the intensity of the infrared signal is close to 0.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the thickness of the first material of the thermal paper and the thickness of the second material of the thermal paper are both a predetermined thickness.

10. A thermal printer, comprising a print head, a memory, and

a processor for performing the method of any of claims 1-9.