JP2000086015A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer with a function clearly informing paper jam condition or paper shortage condition to an operator in case of a paper jam/ shortage for requiring a proper operation by the operator by means of an inexpensive structure using a conventional simple liquid crystal display. SOLUTION: A group of a plurality of sensors 50 arranged on a paper path in a printer detect a paper jam occurrence position and feed a signal including jam occurrence position information to a jam management unit 34. A data conversion unit 36 converts the information into symbol information indicating a cover required to be opened according to the jam occurrence position. On the basis of the converted information, a display control unit 39 indicates symbols representing a plurality of covers in the form of characters on a liquid crystal screen.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a processing technique in a case where paper stays due to a paper jam or slippage in a printing apparatus, or when printing is stopped due to detection of an incorrect paper, and the like. In the present application, the term “paper jam” is used not only when the paper is crushed but also when the paper stays in the above-described embodiments.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, printing apparatuses intended for office use have been increasingly provided with multiple functions, such as having a plurality of paper feed trays, a double-sided printing function, and a mailbox function. In such a printing device, the paper path is long,
In addition, the paper jam has to be complicated, and the number of places where paper jam occurs inevitably increases. In a serial printer or the like having a simple paper path configuration, it is normal that a paper jam occurs only at one place. However, in the above-described multi-function printer, a plurality of papers may stay in the engine. It is possible that things will happen. In such a case,
In order to remove the staying paper, it is necessary to open a plurality of covers of the printer housing to perform the operation.

[0003] Conventionally, large-size copying machines and the like have been provided with a large-screen liquid crystal display, and have urged an operator to take necessary measures by, for example, graphically displaying a location where a jam has occurred. However, when such a large liquid crystal display is provided, the size of the device is increased,
In particular, there has been a problem that the installation area is inevitably enlarged and the cost is increased.

For this reason, in a conventional multifunctional printing apparatus, 2
A liquid crystal display capable of displaying characters of about 0 digits is provided. For example, when a paper jam occurs at a plurality of locations, the following processing is performed. That is, only one of the plurality of locations where the paper jam has occurred is displayed. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 9, a plurality of places are displayed in order at time intervals. Or, only the message of "jam" was displayed.

[0005]

As described above, for example, when only one location is displayed, the operator takes action on the pointed out location, further reviews the liquid crystal display, confirms the next location, and re-covers. It had to be opened and closed, which was very complicated. In addition, when a plurality of locations are displayed with a time interval, it is very difficult to see and it is difficult for the operator to intuitively grasp the location where the jam has occurred.

The above-mentioned problem occurs not only when a paper jam occurs but also when the cover is opened to replenish the paper due to the paper running out.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus having a function capable of easily communicating the situation to an operator when a paper jam or running out of paper occurs and prompting the operator to take appropriate measures. It is an object of the present invention to provide a technology that can be realized with a low-cost configuration using a conventional simple liquid crystal display device.

[0008]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, according to the present invention, a symbol representing a cover that needs to be opened in accordance with a location where a jam has occurred is displayed on a liquid crystal screen so that an operator can see at a glance. It was structured so that the necessary treatment could be understood.

That is, the printing apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention generates jam occurrence location information when a paper jam occurrence location is detected based on signals from a plurality of sensors arranged on a paper path, and generates the jam occurrence location information based on the detected information. In a printing apparatus having means for prompting an operator to deal with paper jam by causing the display unit to display a jam occurrence location, it is necessary to open the jam occurrence location information according to the jam occurrence location. It is characterized by having information conversion means for converting into information of a symbol representing a special cover.

When prompting the user to open and close a plurality of covers, it is difficult to determine which part has been treated by the operator. Therefore, the printing apparatus according to a second aspect further includes a cover opening / closing detecting unit that detects opening / closing of each cover and issues a cover opening / closing signal. The information conversion means receives the cover opening / closing signal, performs collation between the opened / closed cover and a cover that needs to be opened according to the location represented by the jam occurrence location information, and responds to the result of the collation. In addition, it is characterized in that the display can be performed by excluding a symbol representing a cover that is no longer required to be opened from the information of the symbol.

Further, a computer program for realizing the above control procedure can be recorded and held on a specific medium. In other words, the recording medium storing the program according to claim 3 is provided with a memory for storing the program, and is arranged on a paper path of a printing apparatus in a computer that executes processing according to the program.
A program for displaying on a liquid crystal screen of a printing apparatus having a sensor capable of detecting a location where a paper jam has occurred, wherein when the sensor detects the occurrence of a paper jam, the mechanism control unit of the printing apparatus generates the jam. Generating location information, causing the state management unit of the printing device to convert the information into information of a symbol representing a cover that needs to be opened according to the location of the jam, and displaying the symbol related to the conversion on the liquid crystal screen. The computer-readable recording medium stores a program for controlling display.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the printing apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically showing the configuration of the paper path, the arrangement of sensors, and the configuration of each cover for accessing the inside of the apparatus in the printer 1 according to the present embodiment. The printer 1 includes a plurality of paper feed trays, and has a double-sided printing function, a face-down or face-up discharge function selection function, and the like. The paper to be printed is
, Paper bundles 21 to 23 stored in universal cassettes E, F, and G stored in respective paper cassette storage areas indicated by dotted lines, a paper bundle 24 stored in an A4 paper exclusive box, or a manual insertion tray The sheet is pulled out from the sheet bundle 25 placed on the sheet 4 and fed along a paper path indicated by a two-dot chain line in the figure. The paper is printed by the printing mechanism unit 20, and when double-sided printing is performed, the necessary paper inversion processing is performed by the double-sided printing mechanism unit, and the paper is discharged to the face-down tray 2 or the face-up tray 3. You.

FIG. 2 shows a hardware configuration of a control mechanism 10 for controlling the paper feed control and the print control. The control mechanism 10 includes, for example, a CPU 11, a ROM 12, a RAM 13,
And performs necessary processing in accordance with data transmitted from the host computer 40 via the interface device 15 and input from operation buttons and the like provided on the control panel 16.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the contents of functions realized by these hardware. Each function is
Actually, it is realized by the CPU executing a predetermined program stored in the ROM or the like. Hereinafter, the contents of each functional block will be described while explaining the flow of procedures when a paper jam or the like occurs.

When a print command is received from the host computer 40, the printer controller processes the print command. The print command is divided into a print data portion and a control code portion by the command interpreting section 32 and is interpreted respectively. At the time of normal printing, paper is selected in accordance with the control code, and the printing mechanism control unit 37 and the motor control unit 38 work in cooperation to drive the paper feeding mechanism 30 and the printing mechanism 20 to perform printing.

When a paper jam occurs at any point on the paper path indicated by a two-dot chain line in FIG.
In the drawing, based on signals from the sensor groups 50 arranged at positions indicated by black triangles, the jam management unit 34 recognizes the occurrence of paper jam and returns an error code. Printing is stopped, the occurrence of paper jam is transmitted to the host computer 40 via the interface unit 31, and the display control unit 39 controls the printer control panel 16
The error message is also displayed on the liquid crystal screen 161 provided for the camera.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a flow of a procedure in the jam management section 34 during this time. From the sensor group 50 on the hardware side, a jam detection signal including an error code as jam occurrence location information is transmitted to the jam management unit 34 (S101). The error code may be represented by a single code, for example, when a jam occurs at one place, or a plurality of codes may be represented, for example, when a jam occurs at a plurality of places. Sometimes they are sent. The transmitted error code is temporarily stored in the storage unit 35 (S10).
2).

The error codes stored in the storage unit 35 are sequentially converted into a predetermined format with reference to a table held by the data conversion unit 36 (S103). FIG.
This is an example of the contents of the data conversion table at this time. The table 150 shows the received error code in the left column and the converted 8-bit data in the right column. This table is held in, for example, the EEPROM 14 (FIG. 2). When the configuration of the printer hardware is changed, that is, when the optional double-sided printing mechanism is removed, the contents can be rewritten according to the change. It is possible.

FIGS. 6 and 7 are tables for explaining the meaning of the correspondence in the table 150. FIG.
The 8-bit data shown in the right column of the table 150 is information representing a cover that needs to be opened in accordance with the location where the jam has occurred. As shown in FIG. A to H are supported. In FIG. 1, each cover is shown in an open state by a virtual line.

For example, the error code “E-1” is stored in the storage unit 3
5 is used as key information in Table 1
50 is searched, and data with a flag set in the first bit is retrieved (S103). As shown in the table 170 of FIG. 7, the error code "E-1" indicates that the sensor 51 disposed on the face-up tray 3 side has detected the remaining paper. In this case, it is necessary to open the cover A of the double-sided printing mechanism in order to remove the paper staying at the position of the sensor 51, and therefore, the first bit corresponds to the flagged data.

The cover to be opened in response to an error is not always one. For example, as indicated by the error code “E-n”, when it is detected that the paper fed from the paper bundle 24 of the large capacity paper box has not reached the sensor 52 within the specified time, the paper is detected from the box by the sensor. Since it stays at any position on the way to the position 52, it is necessary to open the covers A and B and the cover C or D to confirm the data. Will be found.

If the number of error codes transmitted from the sensor group 50 is one (NO in S104), a character is displayed on the display based on the retrieved data.

However, in a printer having a long paper path like the printer 1 of the embodiment, a paper jam may be detected in two or more places, and a plurality of error codes may be sent. For example, when the error codes “E-1” and “E-4” are sent to the jam management unit 34, they are sequentially sent from the storage unit 35 to the data conversion unit 36, and the error code “E-1” is sent. Then, the flag corresponding to "E-4" is set again (YES in S104, S103). When flags corresponding to all error codes are set, they are combined (S105). Data “10000000” and “0010010” corresponding to error codes “E-1” and “E-4”
The logical sum "10100100" with "0" is obtained.

The display controller 39 converts each flagged bit into cover symbols A, C, and F using the table 160 on the basis of the data.
Is displayed as a character (S106). FIG. 8 shows an example of the contents of the screen display thus obtained.

While viewing the contents displayed on the liquid crystal screen 161 as described above, the operator opens each cover of the printer 1 and takes measures such as removing the paper that has caused a paper jam. Each cover is affixed with a sticker or the like on which large characters such as "A" and "B" are printed, so that the operator can determine at a glance which cover is the target cover. At this time, when dealing with a plurality of locations, it is necessary to accurately inform the operator which cover has already been opened and dealt with, and which cover has not been dealt with. For this purpose, the printer of the present embodiment controls screen display as follows.

The hardware of the printer 1 includes a cover opening / closing detecting mechanism 70 (FIG. 3). From the cover opening / closing detection mechanism 70, a signal representing “cover open” when each cover of the printer 1 is opened (or the cassette is removed), and a signal representing “cover closed” when the cover is closed, respectively. It is sent to the jam management unit 34. The jam management unit 34 performs display control based on this signal.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing the flow of the procedure in the jam management section 34 during this time. The jam management unit 34 that has received the signal determines whether the signal is a signal representing an error code or a cover opening / closing signal (S
111, S112). If that is the error code indicating the paper jam and the first error code sent when the paper jam occurs (it is not an error that is currently being handled) (YES in S113, YES in S115) , The error code is recorded (S11
6).

When the operator opens the cover to deal with the jam, a cover open signal is sent (S
YES at 117). In that case "open cover place"
Is recorded (S118). After the operator has taken appropriate measures such as removing the jammed paper, the cover is closed, and a cover close signal is sent (YES in S119). Here, if the previously recorded “location of the opened cover” matches the location of the currently closed cover (YES in S120), it may be considered that the treatment by the operator has been completed. it can. Therefore, if the position of the cover that has just been opened and closed correctly corresponds to the paper retention position indicated by the error code recorded first, the completion of the treatment for that portion is reflected on the LCD screen display. (YES in S121, S12
2).

To explain according to a specific example, data corresponding to the error codes "E-1" and "E-4" are transmitted as data representing the first jam similarly to the above-described example. If received, these "E-1" and "E-4" are recorded (S116). In this case, a display as shown in FIG. 8 is made on the liquid crystal display screen 161 based on the data “10100100”. The operator sees this, and first opens and closes cover A to remove the staying paper near the discharge tray (YES in S120). Here, since the cover A correctly corresponding to the error code “E-1” has been opened / closed (YES in S121), the paper jam management unit 34 sets the data to erase the symbol “A” from the display on the liquid crystal screen. (S122).

FIG. 11 is a diagram for explaining the display control mechanism at this time. 20 which is the negation of the first data 201 and the data 202 representing the cover A just opened and closed
The logical product of 3 and the data is obtained, and data 204 is obtained. The display control unit 39 causes the liquid crystal screen 161 to redisplay based on the data on which the above-described arithmetic processing has been performed by the data conversion unit 36. The display on the liquid crystal screen 161 switches to a state as shown in FIG.

The case where jam management is performed with 8-bit data corresponding to eight covers and the like has been described above as an example. Of course, if the number of necessary covers is large, the number of management data bits is changed accordingly. You can do more. Also, for convenience of explanation, only three sensors are arranged on the paper path in FIG. 1, but actually more sensors are arranged at various positions, and paper jams in various modes are provided. Various types of error codes are generated in accordance with the occurrence of.

[0033]

Conventionally, on a liquid crystal screen which can only display characters of about 20 digits, the display of the jam is very difficult to see, and it is difficult for the operator to intuitively grasp the location where the jam has occurred. In the event of a paper jam or running out of paper, it is possible to inform the operator of the situation in an easy-to-understand manner and encourage the operator to take appropriate measures even when the paper jam or paper shortage occurs with the conventional simple display device. became.

Further, by causing the liquid crystal screen to redisplay as the operator proceeds, it is possible to convey the situation instantly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a configuration of a paper path, an arrangement of sensors, positions of respective covers, and the like of a printer 1 according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a printer control mechanism.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a relationship between each functional block of a printer control unit and hardware.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure flow in a jam management unit.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the contents of a table held by a data conversion unit.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a correspondence relationship between each data bit and each cover.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary view for explaining the relationship between the content of an error code and a cover to be opened;

FIG. 8 is a view illustrating an example of a liquid crystal screen display according to the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a conventional liquid crystal screen display.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a flow of a procedure in a jam management unit at the time of redisplay.

FIG. 11 is a view for explaining a calculation process when redisplay is performed on a liquid crystal screen.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of redisplay of a liquid crystal screen according to the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 printer 2 face-down tray 3 face-up tray 4 manual insertion tray 10 control mechanism 11 CPU 12 ROM 13 RAM 14 EEPROM 15 interface device 16 control panel 161 liquid crystal screen 20 printing mechanism section 21 to 25 sheet bundle 30 paper feed mechanism section 33 paper Feed management unit 34 Jam management unit 35 Storage unit 36 Data conversion unit 37 Printing mechanism control unit 38 Motor control unit 39 Display control unit 40 Host computer 50 Sensor group 51 to 53 Each sensor 70 Cover open / close detection mechanism 150 Table 160 Door name table

Claims (3)

[Claims] When a paper jam occurrence location is detected based on signals from a plurality of sensors arranged on a paper path of a printing apparatus, jam occurrence location information is generated, and jam occurrence is displayed on a display unit based on the information. In a printing apparatus having means for prompting an operator to deal with a paper jam by displaying a location, a symbol representing a cover which needs to be opened in accordance with the location of the jam, wherein the location information of the jam is displayed. A printing apparatus, comprising: information conversion means for converting the information into information of the type. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a cover opening / closing detecting unit that detects opening / closing of each cover and generates a cover opening / closing signal. The cover that needs to be opened according to the location indicated by the jam occurrence location information is compared with the cover that has been set, and the cover that is no longer required to be opened from the information of the symbol is determined according to the result of the comparison. A printing apparatus characterized in that the display can be performed by excluding a symbol to be represented. 3. A computer having a memory for storing a program and executing a process in accordance with the program, a display of a printing apparatus having a plurality of sensors arranged on a paper path of the printing apparatus and capable of detecting a location where a paper jam has occurred. A program that causes a mechanism control unit of the printing apparatus to generate jam occurrence location information when the sensor detects the occurrence of paper jam, and stores the information in a state management unit of the printing apparatus. Wherein the computer stores a program for controlling the display so that the symbol related to the conversion is displayed on the display means. A readable recording medium.