CN117719255A - Consumable chip, serial number switching method thereof, consumable container and printing equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention provides a consumable chip and a serial number switching method thereof, a consumable container and printing equipment, wherein the method comprises the steps of judging whether a request instruction for acquiring a serial number is received after the consumable chip is electrified, if so, transmitting a stored first serial number; during a power-on period, if the following signals appear, the first serial number is determined to be a valid serial number: the consumable chip receives the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again, and receives the serial number verification instruction within a preset time after receiving the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again; or the consumable chip receives the data for starting printing; if the consumable chip detects the following signals, the first serial number is marked as an invalid serial number, and the consumable chip is switched to the second serial number: and after the communication bus is powered down, the communication bus is powered up again, and the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state. The invention also provides a consumable chip for realizing the method, a consumable container using the consumable chip and printing equipment. The invention can improve the accuracy of serial number switching.

Description

Consumable chip, serial number switching method thereof, consumable container and printing equipment

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of printing equipment, in particular to a consumable chip on the printing equipment, a serial number switching method of the consumable chip and the printing equipment using the consumable chip.

Background

The printing equipment is used as common office equipment, great convenience is provided for modern office, the common printing equipment is divided into ink-jet printing equipment and laser printing equipment, and the ink-jet printing equipment uses an ink box containing ink as a consumable container to jet the ink to paper so as to form characters or patterns to be printed on the paper; the laser printing device uses a toner cartridge containing toner as a consumable container to form text or patterns on a medium to be printed.

Referring to fig. 1, a conventional color inkjet printing apparatus has a housing 11, and the inkjet printing apparatus shown in fig. 1 omits a pallet of the housing 11. The housing 11 is provided with a movement 12 of the ink jet printing apparatus and with a slide along which a carriage 14 reciprocates under the drive of a motor (not visible in fig. 1). A main control circuit board (not visible in fig. 1) is provided in the carriage 14, and communicates with the movement 12 through the flat cable 13.

The carriage 14 is detachably provided with a plurality of ink cartridges 15, and different ink cartridges 15 contain different colors of ink. The ink cartridge 15 has a cartridge body enclosing a chamber for accommodating ink, the lower end of the chamber being provided with an ink outlet through which ink in the chamber flows out and supplies ink to the ink supply needle of the carriage 14.

A chip is mounted on the outer wall of the cartridge body of the ink cartridge 15, the chip having a substrate, and a plurality of connection terminals are provided on one side of the substrate for electrical connection with contact pins on the carriage 14. The other side of the substrate is provided with an electronic module, a memory is arranged in the electronic module, and generally, the memory is a nonvolatile memory, such as EEPROM or FLASH, and stores information related to the ink box, including variable information and invariable information, wherein the variable information is information which can be continuously changed along with printing operation, such as information of ink allowance, printing time, printing paper number and the like, and the invariable information is information which cannot be changed along with the printing operation, such as ink box model, applicable ink jet printing equipment model, ink color and the like.

After the ink cartridge 15 is mounted to the carriage 14 of the ink jet printing apparatus, the ink jet printing apparatus powers on the chip and reads the data stored in the memory of the chip to determine whether the type of the ink cartridge is appropriate, whether the amount of ink remaining in the ink cartridge is sufficient, and the like. The ink jet printing apparatus can execute a print job only after it is judged that the ink cartridge type is proper and that there is sufficient ink in the ink cartridge.

When the ink in the ink cartridge 15 is consumed, if the ink cartridge 15 is directly discarded, the ink cartridge 15 can be continuously used due to the casing, the chip, etc. of the ink cartridge 15, and the direct discarding of the ink cartridge 15 causes environmental pollution.

However, since the serial number of the ink cartridge is recorded in the cartridge chip, once the serial number has been used and the ink of the ink cartridge corresponding to the serial number has been consumed, the ink jet printing apparatus will not allow the ink cartridge to continue to be used, and marks the serial number as a dead serial number, resulting in that the ink cartridge refilled with ink is still not usable. In order to solve the technical problem, a plurality of groups of serial numbers are stored in some ink box chips in the prior art, and a new group of serial numbers are replaced when the ink box chips are reinstalled into the ink-jet printing equipment after the ink is filled. Or a serial number generating module is arranged in the ink cartridge chip, and a new serial number is generated through the serial number generating module.

In order to determine whether the current serial number is marked as a failure serial number by the inkjet printing apparatus, some existing ink cartridge chips determine whether the transmitted serial number is valid through subsequent communication with the inkjet printing apparatus after transmitting the current serial number. For example, whether other instructions are received or not within a preset time; alternatively, there is a case where the ink capacity is suddenly changed to a very low value or the like in the inkjet printing apparatus. However, after some existing inkjet printing apparatuses read the serial number transmitted from the ink cartridge chip, the inkjet printing apparatus transmits other instructions to the ink cartridge chip regardless of whether the serial number is a failure serial number or not, and the instructions are substantially identical, and therefore, it is often difficult for the ink cartridge chip to confirm whether the currently transmitted serial number is a failure serial number or not through communication with the inkjet printing apparatus. Since the cartridge chip cannot determine whether the currently transmitted serial number is considered to be a valid serial number, the operation of switching the serial number frequently occurs to the cartridge chip, even if the current serial number is considered to be a valid serial number, the operation of automatically switching the serial number by the cartridge chip changes to another group of serial numbers, but the changed serial number may be considered to be a failure serial number, and once the situation occurs, inconvenience is brought to the use of a user.

In addition, the powder box chip used in the existing powder box has similar problems, the powder box chip also needs to switch the serial numbers frequently, the serial numbers after the switching can be considered as invalid serial numbers, and inconvenience is brought to users.

Disclosure of Invention

The first object of the present invention is to provide a serial number switching method of consumable chips capable of avoiding frequent serial number switching.

The second object of the present invention is to provide a consumable chip capable of implementing the above serial number switching method.

The third object of the invention is to provide a consumable container using the consumable chip.

A fourth object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus employing the above consumable container.

In order to achieve the first object, the serial number switching method of the consumable chip provided by the invention comprises the steps of after the consumable chip is electrified, judging whether a request instruction for acquiring the serial number is received, if so, sending the stored first serial number; during a power-on period, if the following signals appear, the first serial number is determined to be a valid serial number: the consumable chip receives a request instruction for obtaining the serial number again after receiving the request instruction for obtaining the serial number for the first time, and receives a serial number verification instruction within a preset time after receiving the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again; or the consumable chip receives the data for starting printing; if the consumable chip detects the following signals, determining that the first serial number is a failure serial number: a power-down characteristic signal appears on the communication bus; or, after the consumable chip receives the request instruction for obtaining the serial number for the first time, the consumable chip receives the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again, and does not receive the serial number verification instruction within preset time; if the consumable chip confirms that the first serial number is an invalid serial number and the serial number switching flag is in a switching permission state, switching to the second serial number under the following conditions: a power-on characteristic signal appears on the communication bus; alternatively, the consumable chip successfully enables battery powered.

According to the scheme, if the consumable chip continuously receives the request instruction for acquiring the serial number twice and can receive the serial number verification instruction within the preset time or receives the instruction for starting printing, the user is indicated to have performed the opening and closing operation of the door cover or has started printing, the printing equipment considers that the current serial number is the valid serial number, at the moment, the current serial number is locked, namely, the current serial number is always used in the subsequent communication process with the printing equipment, the serial number is not switched, and therefore the normal use of the printing equipment can be ensured.

In addition, the occurrence of the power failure characteristic signal on the communication bus or the failure of receiving the serial number verification instruction within the preset time after receiving the request instruction for obtaining the serial number for the second time indicates that the user performs a shutdown operation or a door cover opening and closing operation, and the reason that the user performs such an operation is often that the current serial number is regarded as the invalid serial number, so that the serial number needs to be switched at this time.

In addition, when the consumable chip confirms that the current serial number is the invalid serial number and the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state, if a power-on characteristic signal appears on the communication bus or the consumable chip successfully starts battery power supply, the condition for switching the serial number is met, and the consumable chip uses the intermittence of the on-off state or the power supply of the battery to realize the switching of the serial number, so that the printing equipment can verify the new serial number after being restarted.

Preferably, the method further comprises the step of locking the first serial number after determining that the first serial number is a valid serial number.

According to the scheme, after the first serial number is locked, the serial number is not switched in the subsequent printing process, and the serial number which is considered to be valid is prevented from being switched.

The initial state of the serial number switching mark is a switching permission state; locking the first serial number includes: the sequence number switching flag is set to a switching prohibition state.

Therefore, the serial number switching mark is set to be in the switching prohibition state, so that the consumable chip can rapidly judge whether the current serial number group needs to be subjected to switching operation according to the serial number switching mark.

Optionally, the initial state of the serial number switching mark is a switching prohibition state; after switching to the second sequence number, further performing: the sequence number switching flag is set to a switching prohibition state.

Therefore, when the initial state of the serial number switching flag is the switching prohibition state, the operation of switching to the second serial number must already set the initial state of the serial number switching flag to the switching permission state, and the serial number switching flag is set to the switching prohibition state after switching to the second serial number, so that the current serial number group is not switched off again after the printing device is started up next time, and the serial number of the current serial number group can be verified by the printing device.

The further scheme is that when the serial number verification instruction is not received within a preset time after the request instruction for obtaining the serial number is received again, the serial number switching mark is set to be in a switching permission state.

Therefore, the serial number verification instruction is not received within the preset time after the request instruction for obtaining the serial number is received again, which means that after the user performs the uncapping operation, the current serial number does not pass the verification of the printing equipment, and therefore the serial number switching mark is set to be in a switching permission state, so that the consumable chip can perform the serial number switching operation subsequently.

If the serial number verification instruction is not received within the preset time after the request instruction for obtaining the serial number is received again, the battery is started and supplies power to the consumable chip.

For the printing equipment provided with a plurality of consumable containers, if the printing equipment is frequently started and shut down, each consumable container is frequently switched with serial numbers because frequent power-down and power-up operations are detected, in order to avoid frequent power-down and power-up operations, power is supplied to the consumable chip through the battery, and the consumable chip can be enabled to not need to carry out serial number switching operations through detecting the power-down and power-up characteristics.

In a further scheme, after the battery is successfully started, whether the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state or not is judged, and if so, the serial number switching mark is switched to a second serial number.

Since the battery turned on indicates that the current serial number does not pass the verification of the printing apparatus, it is necessary to determine whether the serial number switching flag is in the switching permission state after the battery turned on is successful, and perform the switching operation of the serial number when the serial number switching flag is in the switching permission state.

Further, after switching to the second serial number, the battery is turned off. Therefore, the battery only supplies power to the consumable chip during the period of switching the serial numbers, and other times cannot supply power to the consumable chip, so that the electric quantity of the battery can be ensured not to be wasted.

In a further scheme, if the battery fails to be started, the power-down state of the communication bus is monitored, the communication bus is powered up again after the power-down state of the communication bus is achieved, and the serial number switching mark is a second serial number when the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state.

Therefore, once the battery is started unsuccessfully, the consumable chip still performs serial number switching operation by detecting the power-down and power-up characteristic signals of the communication bus, and serial number switching of the consumable chip is prevented from being influenced due to battery loosening.

In order to achieve the second object, the consumable chip provided by the invention comprises a substrate, wherein an electronic module is arranged on the substrate; and after the electronic module is electrified, executing each step of the serial number switching method of the consumable chip.

In order to achieve the third object, the consumable container provided by the invention is provided with a shell, and the consumable chip is arranged on the outer wall of the shell.

In order to achieve the fourth object, the printing equipment provided by the invention is provided with a machine body, wherein a consumable container mounting position is arranged in the machine body, and the consumable container is detachably arranged on the consumable container mounting position.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a structural view of a conventional ink jet printing apparatus.

Fig. 2 is a first part of a flowchart of a first embodiment of a consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a second part of a flowchart of a first embodiment of the consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a first part of a flowchart of a second embodiment of the consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a second part of a flowchart of a second embodiment of the consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is an electrical schematic block diagram of a consumable chip to which a third embodiment of the consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention is applied.

Fig. 7 is a first part of a flowchart of a third embodiment of a consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention.

Fig. 8 is a second part of a flowchart of a third embodiment of the consumable chip serial number switching method of the present invention.

The invention is further described below with reference to the drawings and examples.

Detailed Description

The consumable chip of the present invention may be applied to a printing apparatus such as an ink jet printing apparatus, for example, the consumable chip is an ink cartridge chip mounted on a side wall of an ink cartridge, or may be applied to a laser printing apparatus, for example, the consumable chip is a toner cartridge chip mounted on a side wall of a toner cartridge. Wherein, a plurality of ink cartridges can be installed on the ink-jet printing equipment, and each ink cartridge is provided with an ink cartridge chip.

Consumable chip and serial number switching method thereof in a first embodiment:

the cartridge chip is used as a consumable chip. The consumable container of this embodiment is the ink horn of detachably mounting to inkjet printing apparatus, is provided with a door closure on inkjet printing apparatus, and the user can take out the ink horn with opening the door closure. The cartridge is provided with a cartridge chip as a consumable chip, and one surface of the cartridge chip is provided with a plurality of connection terminals, for example, the number of connection terminals is three. In addition, the other surface of the ink cartridge chip is provided with an electronic module, and the electronic module is electrically connected with the plurality of connecting terminals.

The electronic module is internally provided with a memory for storing a plurality of groups of serial numbers, or is internally provided with a controller for generating the serial numbers, so that the electronic module can output a plurality of groups of different serial numbers. But the electronic module outputs only one set of serial numbers at a time to the inkjet printing apparatus and switches to another set of serial numbers when the currently output set of serial numbers is considered to be a failed serial number. This embodiment needs to address when to switch sequence numbers and avoid the problem that sequence numbers that are considered to be valid are not switched away by mistake.

In this embodiment, the ink cartridge chip and the inkjet printing device communicate using a 1-Wire protocol, and when the ink cartridge is mounted on the inkjet printing device and turned off and turned on, the data signal line will sequentially generate a power-down characteristic signal and a power-up characteristic signal, so that the ink cartridge chip can be used as a mark for turning off and on the inkjet printing device. Because the ink-jet printing device often has a display screen or an indicator light, if the current serial number of the ink cartridge chip is a failure serial number, a prompt message such as "no ink cartridge detected" is displayed on the display screen or the indicator light is lighted red, so that the user can know that the current serial number of the ink cartridge chip is not a valid serial number through the prompt message. At this time, the user can perform an operation of turning off and turning on again the inkjet printing apparatus once. When the ink box chip detects that a user performs operations of shutting down and restarting the ink jet printing equipment, the serial number switching operation is performed immediately.

Thus, a serial number switching flag is stored in the cartridge chip, and if the serial number switching flag is in a switching-enabled state, the cartridge chip can perform a serial number switching operation, and if the serial number switching flag is in a switching-disabled state, the cartridge chip does not perform the serial number switching operation, that is, indicates that the serial number is locked. In this embodiment, the serial number switching flag defaults to a switching permission state, that is, the ink cartridge chip is powered on after the inkjet printing apparatus is turned on. In this way, the ink cartridge chip detects that the power-down characteristic signal appears on the communication bus, then the power-up characteristic signal appears again, and the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state, so that the current serial number can be switched to a new serial number by using the time interval of power-up of the ink-jet printing equipment. It will be appreciated that the serial number of the ink cartridge chip will be switched once after the user performs an operation of turning off and on the ink jet printing apparatus once as long as the serial number switch flag is in the switch-enabled state.

If the current serial number of the ink box chip is the effective serial number, the ink-jet printing equipment does not display prompt information such as 'no ink box detected', and the like, and the user knows that the current serial number is the effective serial number, and then the operation of shutdown and startup is not performed, and the serial number of the ink box chip is not switched again. In this way, the cartridge chip can maintain the currently valid serial number and continue to use the serial number in subsequent communications.

In order to avoid that the currently valid sequence number is switched off, the present embodiment prohibits the switching operation of the sequence number by the sequence number switching flag. For example, once it is determined that the current sequence number is a valid sequence number, the sequence number switching flag is set to the switching prohibition state, so that the valid sequence number can be prevented from being switched off.

For example, when the current serial number is a valid serial number, the user can lock the currently valid serial number by performing a printing operation, or an operation of opening and reclosing a door of the inkjet printing apparatus. Specifically, if the user selects to start performing a printing operation, the cartridge chip will receive print data sent from the inkjet printing apparatus, and once printing is started, the cartridge chip sets the state of the serial number switching flag to the switching prohibition state.

In addition, the ink jet printing device only sends a request instruction for obtaining the serial number once after the ink jet printing device is started to be shut down or before the door cover is opened, and sends a request instruction for obtaining the serial number once after the door cover is opened and closed, and if the current serial number is a valid serial number, the ink jet printing device also sends a serial number verification instruction after sending the request instruction for obtaining the serial number after the door cover is opened and closed. Therefore, the ink cartridge chip determines whether the user has performed operations of opening, closing, and opening the door by determining whether a request instruction to acquire the serial number is received twice in sequence during one start-up of the inkjet printing apparatus. If the user has performed this operation and the ink cartridge chip receives the serial number verification command after the request command for obtaining the serial number for the second time, the ink cartridge chip also considers the current serial number to be a valid serial number and locks the current serial number.

Referring to fig. 2 and 3, the present embodiment first performs step S101, after the user installs the ink cartridge to the ink jet printing apparatus, the ink cartridge chip is powered on, and at this time, a power-on signal appears on the communication bus between the ink jet printing apparatus and the ink cartridge chip, for example, the power line is a high level signal. Then, the cartridge chip performs step S102 to read the first serial number into the random access memory RAM. For example, the cartridge chip acquires an unused set of serial numbers from among the stored sets of serial numbers and stores the same in the random access memory, or generates a new set of serial numbers and stores the same in the random access memory.

Next, the ink cartridge chip executes step S103 to determine whether a request instruction to acquire a serial number is received, and if so, executes step S104 to transmit the first serial number stored in the random access memory to the inkjet printing apparatus. If no request instruction for a serial number is received, waiting is continued.

After the first serial number is sent, three situations may occur, where the ink cartridge signal receives the serial number verification instruction sent by the inkjet printing device, that is, step S105 is performed, at this time, step S106 is performed, and the ink cartridge chip returns serial number verification response data, such as a check code obtained by calculating through a preset algorithm according to the first serial number, to the inkjet printing device. Then, step S107 is performed to determine whether data for starting printing is received, for example, whether the inkjet printing apparatus transmits a signal for driving the carriage to move or the ink cartridge to start preparation for printing, and if so, step S108 is performed to determine that the current first serial number is a valid serial number and to set the serial number switching flag to a switching prohibition state.

If the result of the determination in step S107 is negative, step S109 is executed to wait for the occurrence of a power-down characteristic signal on the communication bus. It will be appreciated that after the serial number verification instruction is returned in step S106, if the user does not perform the printing operation, there is a high possibility that the currently transmitted first serial number is invalid, and the ink cartridge chip waits for the user to turn off the ink jet printing apparatus and turn on the ink cartridge chip to switch the serial numbers. The cartridge chip can use the power-down characteristic signal on the communication bus as a judging condition for the power-off of the ink-jet printing equipment.

After the ink cartridge chip sends the first serial number, i.e. after step S104, a second situation may occur in which a request instruction for obtaining the serial number is received for the second time, i.e. step S110, if the serial number verification request instruction is received again, this indicates that the user performs an operation of opening and closing the door cover once, then, the ink cartridge chip performs step S111 to determine whether the serial number verification request instruction is received within a preset time, if the serial number verification request instruction is received, at this time, step S112 is performed to determine that the current first serial number is a valid serial number, and set the serial number switching flag to a switching prohibition state.

If the result of the determination in step S111 is negative, step S109 is executed to wait for the occurrence of a power-down feature signal on the communication bus. It can be understood that, after the ink cartridge chip determines in step S110 that the user opens and closes the door, if the serial number verification request instruction is not received within the preset time, it indicates that the currently transmitted first serial number is invalid, and then the ink cartridge chip waits for the user to close the ink jet printing apparatus and then open the ink cartridge chip to switch the serial number. Likewise, the cartridge chip may use the power down feature signal on the communication bus as a condition for determining that the power of the inkjet printing apparatus is turned off.

After the cartridge chip sends the first serial number, i.e., after step S104, a third situation may occur in which the inkjet printer device does not send a serial number verification command to the cartridge chip, the user does not open or close the door, and a power-down feature signal appears on the communication bus. This is usually the case because the user has seen that the currently transmitted first serial number has failed through an external prompt such as the display screen of the above-described inkjet printing apparatus, so that the power of the inkjet printing apparatus is directly selected to be turned off and then turned on to perform switching of the serial numbers. Therefore, the cartridge chip waits for the power-down feature signal to appear on the communication bus, i.e. step S109, if the power-down feature signal appears, step S113 is executed, where the power-down flag is set, for example, the power-down flag bit is a one-bit binary number, and the power-down flag is set to "1" when the power-down flag is set.

Then, the ink cartridge chip executes step S114 to determine whether a power-on feature signal appears on the communication bus, and if not, continues to wait, and if the power-on feature signal appears, executes step S115 to set the power-on flag, for example, the power-on flag bit is a one-bit binary number, and when the power-on flag is set, the power-on flag is set to "1".

Next, step S116 is performed to determine whether the power-on flag and the power-off flag are both set, and if not, step S117 is performed to determine that the inkjet printing apparatus is powered on abnormally. If the power-up flag and the power-down flag are set, which indicates that the user performs an operation of powering off and powering on the inkjet printing apparatus once, step S118 is performed to determine whether the current state of the serial number switching flag is a state allowing switching, and if so, step S119 is performed to switch the current first serial number to the second serial number, for example, to obtain a new serial number, and the new serial number is read to the random access memory and replace the first serial number, and the new serial number is the second serial number. Then, both the power-on flag and the power-off flag are reset, i.e., both the power-on flag and the reset flag are switched to binary "0".

If the determination result in step S118 is no, since the current state does not allow the serial number to be switched, step S120 is performed to keep the current serial number unchanged, but the power-up flag and the power-down flag still need to be reset, that is, the power-up flag and the reset flag are both switched to binary "0".

After step S119 or step S120 is performed, the process returns to step S103, and it is again determined whether a request instruction to acquire a serial number is received, and after the request instruction to acquire a serial number is received, the serial number stored in the random access memory is transmitted to the inkjet printing apparatus. Thus, if step S119 is performed, the transmitted sequence number is the second sequence number, that is, the updated sequence number is transmitted.

Therefore, when the first serial number is judged to be the invalid serial number by the user, the user can switch the serial number by executing one-time shutdown and startup operations on the ink-jet printing equipment, and the serial number switching mark defaults to a state allowing switching, so that after the ink box chip is electrified again, the serial number can be automatically switched. In addition, once the user finds that the current serial number is a valid serial number, the current serial number can be locked by starting printing or performing an operation of opening and closing the door cover once, so that the serial number is prevented from being switched off. The user can confirm whether the current serial number is the effective serial number by observing the content displayed on the display screen of the ink-jet printing device, so that the locked serial number is ensured to be the effective serial number, and the subsequent printing operation is ensured to be carried out smoothly.

Consumable chip and serial number switching method thereof in a second embodiment:

in the first embodiment, the cartridge chip receives the power-down characteristic signal and the power-up characteristic signal on the communication bus, and the serial number switching flag is in a state allowing switching, i.e. the serial number can be switched. But this approach suffers from the following problems: if the current serial number is a valid serial number, but the user does not execute the operation of starting printing or the operation of opening and closing the door cover due to other reasons, the serial number switching mark is still in a state of allowing switching. When the ink-jet printing equipment is powered on next time, the operation of switching the serial number is automatically performed, namely, the currently valid serial number is switched off when the ink-jet printing equipment is powered on next time, so that inconvenience is brought to a user.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the default state of the serial number switching flag is set to the switching prohibition state, so that after the inkjet printing apparatus is started, the user needs to open and close the door cover, and the ink cartridge chip performs the serial number switching operation only when the serial number verification instruction is not continuously received. And once the serial number is successfully switched, the serial number switching mark is reset to a state of prohibiting switching, so that the situation that the ink box chip automatically switches the serial number after the user performs shutdown and startup operations on the ink-jet printing equipment in the subsequent use process is avoided. The flow of the present embodiment is described below with reference to fig. 4 and 5.

The present embodiment first performs step S201, after the user installs the ink cartridge to the ink jet printing apparatus, the ink cartridge chip is powered on, and at this time, a power-on signal appears on the communication bus between the ink jet printing apparatus and the ink cartridge chip, for example, the power line is a high level signal. Then, the cartridge chip executes step S202 to read the first serial number into the random access memory RAM.

Next, the ink cartridge chip executes step S203 to determine whether a request instruction for acquiring a serial number is received, and if so, executes step S204 to transmit the first serial number stored in the random access memory to the inkjet printing apparatus. If no request instruction for a serial number is received, waiting is continued.

After the first serial number is sent, three situations may occur, where the ink cartridge signal receives the serial number verification instruction sent by the inkjet printing apparatus, that is, step S205 is performed, at this time, step S206 is performed, and the ink cartridge chip returns serial number verification response data, such as a check code obtained by calculating through a preset algorithm according to the first serial number, to the inkjet printing apparatus. Then, step S207 is executed to determine whether data for starting printing is received, and if yes, step S208 is executed to determine that the current first serial number is a valid serial number. Since the sequence number switch flag is in the switching prohibition state by default, the state of the sequence number switch flag does not need to be changed after step S208.

If the result of the determination in step S207 is negative, step S209 is performed to wait for the occurrence of a power-down feature signal on the communication bus.

After the ink cartridge chip sends the first serial number, i.e. after step S204, a second situation that may occur is that a request instruction for obtaining the serial number is received for the second time, i.e. step S210, if the serial number verification request instruction is received again, this indicates that the user performs an operation of opening and closing the door cover once, then, the ink cartridge chip performs step S211, determines whether the serial number verification request instruction is received within a preset time, if the serial number verification request instruction is received, then step S212 is performed, it is determined that the current first serial number is a valid serial number, and the serial number switching flag is kept in a switching prohibition state.

If the result of the determination in step S211 is no, which means that the first serial number currently transmitted is considered as the invalid serial number after the user performs one time of opening and closing of the door, and the serial number needs to be switched, step S213 is performed, the serial number switch flag is set to the allowable switch state, and step S209 is performed, and the power-down feature signal appears on the communication bus to switch the serial number.

After the cartridge chip sends the first serial number, i.e. after step S204, a third situation may occur in which the user performs operations of powering off and powering on the inkjet printing device, so the cartridge chip waits for a power-down feature signal to appear on the communication bus, i.e. step S209, if the power-down feature signal appears, step S214 is performed, where the power-down flag is set, for example, the power-down flag is a one-bit binary number, and when the power-down flag is set, the power-down flag is set to "1".

Then, the ink cartridge chip executes step S215 to determine whether a power-on feature signal appears on the communication bus, and if not, continues to wait, and if the power-on feature signal appears, then executes step S216 to set the power-on flag, for example, the power-on flag bit is a one-bit binary number, and when the power-on flag is set, the power-on flag is set to "1".

Next, step S217 is performed to determine whether the power-on flag and the power-off flag are both set, and if not, step S218 is performed to determine that the inkjet printing apparatus is powered on abnormally. If the power-up flag and the power-down flag are set, which means that the user performs the operations of powering off and powering on the inkjet printing apparatus once, step S219 is performed, and it is determined whether the current state of the serial number switching flag is a state allowing switching, and if so, step S220 is performed to switch the current first serial number to the second serial number. Then, both the power-on flag and the power-off flag are reset, i.e., both the power-on flag and the reset flag are switched to binary "0".

If the determination result in step S219 is no, since the current state does not allow the serial number to be switched, step S221 is performed, and the current serial number is kept unchanged, but both the power-up flag and the power-down flag still need to be reset, that is, both the power-up flag and the reset flag are switched to binary "0".

After step S220 or step S221 is executed, step S222 is also executed to set the sequence number switching flag to the switching prohibition state, and step S203 is executed again to determine whether a request instruction for acquiring the sequence number is received. In this way, when the ink jet printing apparatus is powered on next time, since the serial number switching flag is in the switching prohibition state, the serial number switching operation is not automatically performed, and the effective serial number is prevented from being erroneously switched off.

In this embodiment, since the default state of the serial number switching flag is the switching prohibition state, and the switching prohibition state is changed from the switching prohibition state to the switching permission state and is only performed after the user opens and closes the door, the ink cartridge chip determines that the serial number verification instruction is not received, that is, only when the user confirms that the currently transmitted first serial number is invalid, opens and closes the door, the ink cartridge chip performs the serial number switching operation when the inkjet printing apparatus is turned on next time. When the switched second serial number is effective, even if the user switches off and starts the ink jet printing device again and opens and closes the door cover, the ink box chip still receives the serial number verification instruction after the door cover is opened and closed because the second serial number is the effective serial number, the serial number can not be switched, and the accuracy of serial number switching is ensured.

Consumable chip and serial number switching method thereof in a third embodiment:

the first embodiment is mainly directed to serial number switching operations of individual color ink cartridges, and if ink cartridges of a plurality of colors are mounted on an inkjet printing apparatus, the number of serial number switching times of ink cartridges of different colors tends to be different, which causes great trouble to the operation of the user. For example, the first color ink box needs to switch 1-order column numbers, the second color ink box needs to switch 2-order column numbers, the third color ink box needs to switch 3-order column numbers, and the fourth color ink box does not need to switch serial numbers. However, the color inkjet printing apparatus generally requires that all of the four color cartridges pass the authentication of the inkjet printing apparatus to start printing, which causes great trouble to the user.

For this reason, in the present embodiment, a battery is provided on the cartridge chip, as shown in fig. 6, the electronic module 30 of the cartridge chip may receive the current output from the battery 31, a transistor Q1 as a switching device is connected between the battery 31 and the electronic module 30, and the electronic module 30 may control the on-off state of the transistor Q1. In this way, the electronic module 30 will control the transistor Q1 to be turned on and the battery 31 will supply power to the electronic module 30 only when the cartridge chip detects that the user opens and closes the door and the serial number is considered as the invalid serial number. In addition, the electronic module 30 only needs the battery 31 to supply power in the process of executing the serial number switching, and after the serial number switching is completed, the triode Q1 is in the off state, and the battery 31 cannot supply power to the electronic module 30, so that the service time of the battery 31 is prolonged. According to the embodiment, when the user determines that the current serial number is the invalid serial number after the ink-jet printing equipment is started, the serial number can be switched through the operation of opening and closing the door cover for multiple times, the operation of shutting down and starting up the ink-jet printing equipment for multiple times is not needed, and the user operation is convenient.

Referring to fig. 7 and 8, the sequence number switching flag of the present embodiment defaults to a switching-allowed state. The present embodiment first performs step S301, after the user installs the ink cartridge to the ink jet printing apparatus, the ink cartridge chip is powered on, and at this time, a power-on signal appears on the communication bus between the ink jet printing apparatus and the ink cartridge chip, for example, the power line is a high level signal. Then, the cartridge chip performs step S302, reading the first serial number into the random access memory RAM.

Next, the ink cartridge chip executes step S303 to determine whether a request instruction to acquire a serial number is received, and if so, executes step S304 to transmit the first serial number stored in the random access memory to the inkjet printing apparatus. If no request instruction for a serial number is received, waiting is continued.

After the first serial number is sent, three situations may occur, where the ink cartridge signal receives the serial number verification command sent by the inkjet printing apparatus, i.e., step S305, at this time, step S306 is performed, and the ink cartridge chip returns serial number verification response data to the inkjet printing apparatus. Then, step S307 is executed to determine whether data for starting printing is received, and if so, step S308 is executed to determine that the current first serial number is a valid serial number and set the serial number switch flag to a switch disabled state.

If the result of the determination in step S307 is negative, step S309 is executed to wait for the occurrence of the power-down feature signal on the communication bus.

After the ink cartridge chip sends the first serial number, i.e. after step S304, a second situation that may occur is that a request instruction for obtaining the serial number is received for the second time, i.e. step S310, if the serial number verification request instruction is received again, it indicates that the user performs an operation of opening and closing the door cover once, then, the ink cartridge chip performs step S311, determines whether the serial number verification request instruction is received within a preset time, if the serial number verification request instruction is received, then step S312 is performed, it is determined that the current first serial number is a valid serial number, and sets the serial number switching flag to a switching prohibition state.

If the determination result in step S311 is no, step S313 is executed to start the battery, for example, to control the transistor Q1 to be turned on, so that the battery 31 supplies power to the electronic module 30. And, step S314 is executed to determine whether the battery 31 is successfully started, if the battery 31 is successfully started, step S320 is executed, and if the battery 31 is failed to start, step S309 is executed to wait for the occurrence of a power-down characteristic signal on the communication bus.

After the cartridge chip sends the first serial number, i.e. after step S304, a third situation may occur in which the user performs operations of powering off and powering on the inkjet printing apparatus, so the cartridge chip waits for a power-down feature signal to appear on the communication bus, i.e. step S309, if the power-down feature signal appears, step S315 is performed, where the power-down flag is set, for example, the power-down flag is a one-bit binary number, and the power-down flag is set to "1" when the power-down flag is set.

Then, the ink cartridge chip executes step S316 to determine whether a power-on feature signal appears on the communication bus, and if not, continues to wait, and if the power-on feature signal appears, then executes step S317 to set the power-on flag, for example, the power-on flag bit is a one-bit binary number, and when the power-on flag is set, the power-on flag is set to "1".

Next, step S318 is executed to determine whether the power-on flag and the power-off flag are both set, and if not, step S319 is executed to determine that the inkjet printing apparatus is powered on abnormally. If the power-on flag and the power-off flag are set, which means that the user performs the operations of powering off and powering on the inkjet printing apparatus once, step S320 is performed, and it is determined whether the current state of the serial number switching flag is a state allowing switching, and if so, step S321 is performed to switch the current first serial number to the second serial number. Then, both the power-on flag and the power-off flag are reset, i.e., both the power-on flag and the reset flag are switched to binary "0".

If the determination result in step S320 is no, since the current state does not allow the serial number to be switched, step S322 is performed to keep the current serial number unchanged, but both the power-up flag and the power-down flag need to be reset, i.e., both the power-up flag and the reset flag are switched to binary "0".

After step S321 or step S322 is performed, step S323 is required to turn off the battery 31, for example, to turn off the transistor Q1, so that the battery 31 does not supply power to the electronic module 30. Then, step S324 is executed to determine again whether a request instruction to acquire a serial number is received, and after receiving the request instruction to acquire a serial number, step S311 is executed back.

As can be seen, after determining that the serial number verification instruction is not received within the preset time in step S311, the battery 31 is started when the current serial number is considered as the invalid serial number after the user performs the door opening and closing operation, and after the battery 31 is successfully started, the judgment of power-down and power-up of the communication bus is not required to be performed, step S320 is directly performed, and the serial number is directly switched under the condition that the serial number switching flag is in the switching permission state, so that the user is not required to perform the shutdown and startup operations of the inkjet printing device.

If the battery 31 fails to start, the ink cartridge chip can switch the serial number according to whether the power-down and power-up characteristic signals appear on the communication bus, namely, the serial number is switched by waiting for the user to switch the serial number after closing the ink jet printing equipment, so that the situation that the serial number cannot be switched due to the fact that the battery 31 is loosened and fails to start is avoided.

Therefore, in this embodiment, since the battery is provided in the ink cartridge chip, when the user confirms that the serial number is invalid after opening and closing the door cover, the serial number can be directly switched, and the user does not need to perform operations of shutdown and startup.

In other embodiments, a combination of the second embodiment and the third embodiment may be adopted. For example, the cartridge chip may be provided with a battery, and the default state of the serial number switch flag is the switch disabled state. In the one-time starting process of the ink-jet printing equipment, after a door cover is opened and closed by a user, when the ink box chip detects that the current serial number is invalid, the battery is started and the serial number is switched, the power supply of the battery is closed after the switching is completed, the arrival of a serial number acquisition request instruction is waited, and after the serial number acquisition request instruction is received for the second time and a serial number verification instruction is received, a switching mark is changed into a switching prohibition state, so that the use experience of the user can be improved while the switching accuracy is ensured.

Consumable container embodiment:

the consumable container can be an ink box or a toner cartridge, and is provided with a shell, and the consumable chip is arranged on the outer wall of the shell.

Printing apparatus embodiment:

the printing equipment can be laser printing equipment or ink-jet printing equipment, and the printing equipment comprises a machine body, wherein consumable container mounting positions, such as a printing carriage or a toner cartridge mounting cavity, are arranged in the machine body, and the consumable container is detachably arranged on the consumable container mounting positions.

Finally, it should be emphasized that the foregoing is merely a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the invention, but rather that various changes and modifications can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and principles of the invention, and any modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention.

Claims (12)

1. The serial number switching method of the consumable chip is characterized by comprising the following steps of:

after the consumable chip is electrified, judging whether a request instruction for acquiring the serial number is received, if so, transmitting the stored first serial number;

during a power-on period, if the following signals appear, the first serial number is determined to be a valid serial number: the consumable chip receives the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again after receiving the request instruction for obtaining the serial number for the first time, and receives the serial number verification instruction within a preset time after receiving the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again; or the consumable chip receives the data of starting printing;

If the consumable chip detects the following signals, determining that the first serial number is an invalid serial number: a power-down characteristic signal appears on the communication bus; or, after the consumable chip receives the request instruction for obtaining the serial number for the first time, the consumable chip receives the request instruction for obtaining the serial number again, and does not receive the serial number verification instruction within preset time;

if the consumable chip confirms that the first serial number is an invalid serial number and the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state, switching to the second serial number under the following conditions: a power-on characteristic signal appears on the communication bus; alternatively, the consumable chip successfully enables battery powered.

2. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 1, wherein:

after determining that the first serial number is a valid serial number, further executing: locking the first serial number.

3. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 2, wherein:

the initial state of the serial number switching mark is a switching permission state;

locking the first serial number includes: and setting the serial number switching mark to be in a switching forbidden state.

4. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 1, wherein:

The initial state of the serial number switching mark is a switching prohibition state;

after switching to the second sequence number, further performing: and setting the serial number switching mark to be in a switching forbidden state.

5. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 4, wherein:

and when the serial number verification instruction is not received within the preset time after the request instruction for acquiring the serial number is received again, setting the serial number switching mark to be in a switching permission state.

6. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 1, wherein:

if the serial number verification instruction is not received within the preset time after the request instruction for acquiring the serial number is received again, the battery is started and supplies power to the consumable chip.

7. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 6, wherein:

and after the battery is successfully started, judging whether the serial number switching mark is in a switching permission state, if so, switching to the second serial number.

8. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 7, wherein:

and after switching to the second serial number, closing the battery.

9. The serial number switching method of consumable chips according to claim 6, wherein:

if the battery is failed to be started, the power-down state of the communication bus is monitored, the communication bus is powered up again after the power-down state of the communication bus is achieved, and the second serial number is switched when the serial number switching mark is in the switching permission state.

10. Consumable chip, comprising:

a substrate on which an electronic module is disposed;

the method is characterized in that:

after the electronic module is powered up, each step of the serial number switching method of the consumable chip according to any one of claims 1 to 9 is performed.

11. Consumable container, its characterized in that includes:

a housing, on the outer wall of which the consumable chip according to claim 10 is arranged.

12. A printing apparatus, comprising:

a machine body, wherein a consumable container mounting position is arranged in the machine body, and the consumable container according to claim 11 is detachably arranged on the consumable container mounting position.