JP2001080163A - Printing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To considerably correctly grasp a toner consumption amount and correctly detect a toner empty by setting a toner amount-calculating means for calculating an amount of toner to be used for printing from the number of printing dots per printing page. SOLUTION: When a printing job is transmitted from a host computer 1 to a printing control device 4 and received, printing data is interpreted by an interpreter 6 and developed to image data by a plotting process part 7. The image data is written to a frame memory 12. At the same time, black dots (the number of printing dots) of page data to be written are counted by a toner amount-calculating part 16, and the number of page dots are calculated so as to calculate a printing density and stored in a memory device 11. Thereafter, the image data is sent to an engine mechanism part 13. At this time, a value of an amount of toner remaining at present is read from the memory device 11 by a remaining amount-monitoring part 17, thereby judging whether a new value of the remaining amount after the page data is printed indicates a toner empty state or not.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control apparatus having means for analyzing commands and data sent from a host computer, developing the data into image data, and transmitting a result of the development, and output from the print control apparatus. The present invention relates to a printing apparatus having an engine mechanism for printing with video data, and a discharge device for discharging a recording material from the engine mechanism.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art First, an outline of the configuration of a conventional printing apparatus will be described with reference to a schematic view of a printing apparatus shown in FIG. The conventional printing apparatus 3 receives print data from the host computer 1, analyzes the print data, expands the image data into image data, and sends the image data to the engine mechanism unit 13. A bidirectional interface 2 for connecting to the print control device 4, an engine mechanism unit 13 for printing video data output from the print control device 4,
And a discharge device 15 for discharging the recording material printed from the engine mechanism unit 13.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of a conventional printing apparatus, which shows an outline of a printing sequence (in this case, called online printing) when print data is transmitted from a host computer 1 and printed in the conventional printing apparatus. This will be described below.

[0006] When a print job is transmitted from the host computer 1 to the print control device 4 via the bidirectional interface 2, the print control device 4 receives the print data in the transmission / reception processing unit 5 and prints the received print data. The data is analyzed by the interpreter 6, rendered into image data by the drawing processing unit 7, and stored in the frame memory 12.

The image data in the frame memory 12 is output to the engine mechanism 13 as video data by the engine controller 8, and the toner in the toner supply device 14 is supplied to perform printing on a recording material. . After the printing is completed, the recording material printed on the discharging device 15 is discharged.

The printing device status monitoring unit 9 monitors the status of the printing device 3 during the printing sequence and controls the operation panel 1.
0 indicates the device status, and the storage device 11 stores setting values and the like to be used in each process in the print control device 4.

[0007] The printing apparatus status monitor 9 will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the status of the print control device 4 is acquired, and an error occurrence status is determined. As a result of the determination, the print control device 4
If an error has occurred, error processing is performed; otherwise, engine state information in the engine mechanism unit 13 is acquired, and error processing is performed according to the error occurrence state. In the error processing, after the content of the error that has occurred is displayed on the operation panel 10, the pressing state of a reset switch (not shown) on the operation panel 10 is monitored, and if the reset switch is pressed, whether the error that has occurred is in a state that can be canceled is determined. Is determined. If the error can be cleared, the state shifts to a normal printable state; otherwise, the state shifts to an uncontrollable state such as an infinite loop.

Although there are many errors in the engine mechanism 13 described above, an error called “toner empty” which occurs when the toner supply device 14 in the engine mechanism 13 runs out of toner is included therein. is there. The toner is generally used in an electrophotographic printing device such as a laser beam printer. This error is generally detected by a toner empty sensor attached to the toner supply device 14 in the engine mechanism 13. However, although this sensor operates based on the level of toner amount, the accuracy of this detection alone is poor, and even when toner empty is detected, it is possible to print from hundreds to thousands on the recording material from that state. It is possible. For this reason, even if the error is canceled, the same error occurs again at regular intervals, and every time the operator is interrupted at the start of printing or during printing, the printing efficiency is deteriorated. In the related art, the true toner empty state is determined based on the fact that the error cannot be cleared even if the reset switch (not shown) on the operation panel 10 is pressed several times.

Further, the print jobs transmitted from the host computer 1 are generally various, and the print density (the ratio of the number of black dots to the number of print area dots) on the recording material is also various. The amount of toner used by the toner supply device 14 in the engine mechanism 13 used for printing also varies for each print job. As the print density becomes higher, the amount of toner used increases accordingly, so that the number of printable pages decreases in inverse proportion. Generally, the administrator of the printing apparatus can determine the remaining amount of toner only by the number of printed pages. In such a case, there is a possibility that the toner runs out earlier than usual, and the timing of replacing the toner is accurately determined. I couldn't do that. Therefore, without the replacement toner, it was inevitable that printing could be performed with another printing device or until a new toner was replaced.

The life of the toner of the toner supply device 14 in the engine mechanism 13 is determined similarly to other photosensitive drums and developing machines. The effective amount of toner is represented by a reference print density (reference print density), a recording material size (reference size), and the number of printable pages. For example, the effective toner amount is defined in specifications as "when printing is performed on an A4 paper size at a print density of 5%, about 20,000 pages can be printed". In this case, the reference print density is 5
%, Reference size is A4 size, printable page is 200
00.

[0012]

In a conventional printing apparatus,
Although the toner empty detection was performed only by the toner empty sensor of the engine mechanism, the actual toner empty state is often not reached by this sensor detection alone, and the error can be released. Until, the operator must release the same error that occurs periodically and use it, and the printing efficiency is degraded due to the print interruption caused by the error. Further, since the administrator of the printing apparatus can determine the remaining amount of toner only based on the current number of pages to be printed, it has not been possible to determine a proper toner replacement time.

An object of the present invention is to eliminate the drawbacks of the conventional system, eliminate unnecessary work and time in unnecessary printing interruption due to incorrect toner empty detection, and perform accurate toner empty detection for an operator. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus which can indicate the latest toner remaining amount and has good printing efficiency and maintainability.

[0014]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a print job which is print data, which is received from a host computer, is developed into print image data, and is converted into video data. A printing device having a control device, an engine mechanism for printing in accordance with the video data, and a toner supply device for storing toner consumed in the printing, wherein The amount of toner to be used is calculated.

Since the amount of consumed toner is calculated by counting the number of printing dots, it can be grasped very accurately. For this reason, since an accurate remaining amount of toner can always be stored, accurate toner empty detection can be performed, and a printing apparatus with high printing efficiency without unnecessary printing interruption can be realized. In addition, by adding a function to read out the current toner remaining amount from the operation panel to the print control device, the administrator of the printing device can know the latest toner remaining amount, and can determine the exact toner replacement time. Therefore, a printing apparatus with good maintainability can be realized.

[0016]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
This will be described with reference to the flowcharts of the toner remaining amount monitoring unit illustrated in FIG. 3, the toner remaining amount calculation process illustrated in FIG. 4, and the printing apparatus state monitoring unit illustrated in FIG.

The present embodiment differs from the above-mentioned conventional example (FIG. 6) in the following points. That is, in the print control device 4, the toner amount calculation unit 16 that calculates the toner usage amount for each print page at the time of image data development in the drawing processing unit 7 and the toner amount calculation unit 16 that is obtained in the engine control unit 8. A new toner remaining amount is calculated from the toner amount obtained, a toner remaining amount monitoring unit 17 for detecting a true toner empty state is newly added, and a part of the printing device state monitoring unit 9 is changed. is there.

First, the printing sequence of this embodiment will be described with reference to the block diagram of the printing apparatus shown in FIG.

When a print job is transmitted from the host computer 1 to the print control device 4 via the bidirectional interface 2, the print job is received by the transmission / reception processing unit 5 and printed by the interpreter 6, as described in the conventional example. The data is analyzed and rendered into image data by the drawing processing unit 7. At that time, the image data is written into the frame memory 12,
At the same time, the toner amount calculation unit 16 counts the number of black dots (number of print dots) of the page data to be written, calculates the number of page dots for calculating the print density, and
To be stored. Next, the image data in the frame memory 12 is sent out as video data to the engine mechanism 13 by the engine control unit 8.
In step 7, the page dot number and the current toner remaining value are read from the storage device 11, a new toner remaining value after printing the page data is calculated and stored in the storage device 11, and the obtained new toner It is determined whether the remaining amount is in the toner empty state, and the toner empty flag is set. Then, after the setting, the video data is sent out, printed by the engine mechanism unit 13, and the printed recording material is discharged by the discharge device 15. Thereafter, the same process is performed for all print pages. However, if the engine mechanism unit 13 detects toner empty during the above print sequence, the printing device state monitoring unit 9 takes into account the toner empty flag. Determine the true toner empty state. In other words, the trigger for recognizing the toner empty state is when the toner empty is detected in the engine mechanism unit 13 and the toner empty flag set in the toner remaining amount monitoring unit 17 is turned on. Do.

Here, the toner amount calculating unit 16, the toner remaining amount monitoring unit 17, and the printing apparatus state monitoring unit 9 are shown in FIG. 2, the toner amount calculating unit, the toner remaining amount monitoring unit shown in FIG. 3, and FIG. This will be described in detail with reference to the toner remaining amount calculation processing and the flowchart of the printing apparatus state monitoring unit shown in FIG.

First, the toner amount calculation unit 16 is a process of counting black dot data in image data in order to calculate a print density for the image data currently being processed. If all writing to the frame memory 12 has not been completed, data to be written to the frame memory 12 is set, and the total number of bits is set in order to check all bits of the set data. Until the check of all bits is completed, each bit value is taken out and the bit value becomes 1
If so, the page dot data is counted up. Thereafter, the writing is performed until the writing into the frame memory 12 is completed. After the writing is completed, the page dot counter is stored in the storage device 11.
And reset the page dot counter for use in the next page, and calculate the number of page dots for one page.

The toner remaining amount monitoring unit 17 calculates the number of page dots obtained by the toner amount calculating unit 16 and a new toner remaining amount value by the toner remaining amount calculating process 18. The set value is compared with a reference value for determining the toner empty state. If the new toner remaining amount value is equal to or less than the reference value, it is recognized as a toner empty state and a toner empty flag is set, but otherwise, it is not recognized as a toner empty state.

The toner remaining amount calculating process 18 basically reads out the current toner remaining amount, calculates the amount of toner used for printing, and calculates the calculated toner amount from the read current toner remaining amount. By subtracting, a new remaining toner value is calculated.

More specifically, first, each value necessary for calculating the remaining toner value is read. First, the current toner remaining value Tc is read from the storage device 11, but when the toner of the toner supply device 14 is in an unused state, the initial value of the toner remaining value Tc is read. This value is calculated by the formula [Ds × Pn × Q] using the reference print density Ds and the number of printable pages Pn (where Q is one toner amount [1 /% · page]).
Is a multiplier for setting the unit of the toner remaining amount to the toner amount), and the operator does not need to set the Ds and Pn, and the initial values of the Ds, Pn, and the remaining amount of toner are set in advance. Is stored in the storage device 11 as a unique value of the toner supply device 14.

Next, the number of page dots Bc obtained by the toner amount calculating section 16, the total number of print area dots Ac of the current print page size stored in advance, and the total number of print area dots of the reference size As Is read from the storage device 11.

Then, the print density Dc of the current print page
(%) Is calculated by the formula [Bc / Ac × 1] using the page dot number Bc, which is the number of black dots (print dot number) of the current print page, and the total print area dot number Ac of the current print page size.
00]. Here, the toner amount T used for printing is
In calculating u, since the size of the recording material used for printing differs depending on the print job, the ratio between the reference size and the recording material size specified in the print job must be determined to adjust the toner usage. The recording material size ratio R is expressed by the formula [A
c / As], and the toner amount Tu used for printing.
Is calculated by the formula [Dc × R × N × Q] from the print density Dc, the recording material size ratio R, the number of pages N (however, N = 1 because it is a page unit), and the toner amount Q. Finally,
The new toner remaining value Tn is calculated by using the current toner remaining value Tc and the toner amount Tu used for the printing by the formula [Tc-T
u], and stores it in the storage device 11. This allows
When a new toner remaining value is obtained and the next page is printed, this value Tn is used as the current toner remaining value Tc.

For example, the initial value of the remaining toner value is 1000
00 toner amount (5% × 20,000 pages × 1 toner amount,
When the print job of one page is printed in A4 size, the print density of print page ゛ is 5%.
, The new remaining toner value is 99995 toner amount (100000−5 × 1 × 1 × 1). If the printing density is the same for A3 size, the new toner remaining value is 9999.
0 toner amount (100000-5 × 2 × 1 × 1).

Further, the changed printing apparatus state monitoring unit 9 differs from the conventional example only in the portion of the toner empty determination unit 19, and adds an error processing transition condition only for the toner empty error. When a toner empty error occurs in the engine mechanism unit 13, the toner empty state is determined by looking at the toner empty flag set by the toner remaining amount monitoring unit 17. If the toner empty flag is set, it is determined that the toner is empty, and the process proceeds to an error process. If not, the process ends and the process proceeds to a printable state.

As described above, some error occurs due to the toner amount calculating section 16 and the toner remaining amount monitoring section 17,
Even when the printing is interrupted, the remaining toner amount is stored and managed in page units, so that the latest toner remaining amount can be stored at all times, so that a true toner empty state can be detected.

In the case of the present embodiment, the toner empty detection is performed not only by the toner empty sensor of the engine mechanism, but also by
Calculate the actual toner usage from the print job to send,
As a result, since the latest toner remaining amount is calculated and the true toner empty is detected, unnecessary work or time in unnecessary printing interruption due to incorrect toner empty detection is eliminated, and accurate toner empty detection is performed for the operator. Therefore, the printing apparatus has high printing efficiency.

Further, the operation panel 1 is provided to the print control device 4.
A toner remaining amount reading function for issuing a processing request (a toner remaining amount reading processing request) to read out the current toner remaining amount to 0, and the storage device 1 according to the toner reading processing request.
By adding a function of reading the current toner remaining amount from the printer 1 and displaying the current toner amount on the operation panel 10, the administrator of the printing apparatus 3 can know the latest toner remaining amount, so that an accurate toner replacement time can be determined. Thus, a printing apparatus with good maintainability can be realized. Similarly, a function of causing the host computer 1 to issue a processing request for acquiring the current toner remaining amount to the print control device 4 (hereinafter, a toner remaining amount acquiring processing request);
A similar effect can be obtained by adding a function of notifying the host computer 1 of the current toner remaining amount to the print control device 4.

[0032]

As described above, according to the present invention, the amount of toner to be used is calculated from the number of print dots for each print page, so that the calculation of the amount of consumed toner is extremely accurate. For this reason, since an accurate remaining amount of toner can always be stored, accurate toner empty detection can be performed, and a printing apparatus with high printing efficiency without unnecessary printing interruption can be realized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an outline of a printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a toner amount calculation unit according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a toner remaining amount monitoring unit according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a remaining toner amount calculating process according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a printing apparatus status monitoring unit according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a printing apparatus according to a conventional example.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an outline of a printing apparatus according to a conventional example.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of a printing apparatus status monitoring unit according to a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

1. Host computer, 2. Bidirectional interface,
3 printing device, 4 printing control device, 5 transmission / reception processing unit,
6 interpreter, 7 drawing processing unit, 8 engine control unit, 9 print state monitoring unit, 10 operation panel, 11 storage device, 12 frame memory, 13 engine mechanism unit, 14 toner discharge device, Reference numeral 15 denotes a discharge device, 16 denotes a toner amount calculation unit, 17 denotes a remaining toner amount monitoring unit, 18 denotes a remaining toner amount calculation process, and 19 denotes a toner empty determination unit.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 2C061 HK15 HK18 HV14 2H027 DD02 2H077 DA15 5B021 AA01 AA02 BB10 CC05 NN00 PP04 9A001 BB01 BB03 BB04 DD05 JJ35 KK31 KK37 KK42 LL05 LL09

Claims (5)

[Claims] A print control device that receives a print job as print data from a host computer, expands the print job into image data for print, and converts the print data into video data; and an engine that performs printing in accordance with the video data. In a printing apparatus having a mechanism unit and a toner supply device for storing toner consumed in the printing, a toner amount calculating unit for calculating a toner amount used for printing from the number of print dots for each print page is provided. Printing device. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a toner remaining amount monitoring unit that calculates a remaining amount of toner in the toner supply device from the amount of used toner. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising: a toner remaining amount monitoring unit configured to detect the presence or absence of toner in the toner supply device by comparing the toner remaining amount reference value with the toner remaining amount. . 4. The printing control device according to claim 1, further comprising a toner remaining amount display processing request function for displaying a remaining toner amount, and a toner remaining amount function for displaying a current toner remaining amount on a display device. Item 3. The printing device according to Item 2. 5. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the host computer has a function of issuing a toner remaining amount acquisition request for acquiring the remaining amount of toner to the print controller, and the print controller has a function of notifying the host computer of the remaining toner amount. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a remaining amount notification function.