JP2001219566A - Printer host, medium storing its operating program, ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce print miss due to removal of nozzle as much as possible at the time of day and night continuous operation or when the print cost is high. SOLUTION: The cleaning execution print amount setting section 65 of a printer host 10 determines a cleaning execution print amount depending on the print conditions of a job being printed. The cleaning execution print amount is set at a small value when the unit price of print sheet is high, the print resolution is high and the print time is long, or unattended continuous operation is performed. When a decision is made that the actual print amount exceeds the cleaning execution print amount, a cleaning execution timing deciding section 67 delivers a head cleaning command to a printer 30.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a printer host,
The present invention relates to a storage medium storing the operation program and an ink jet printer, and more particularly to a head cleaning and nozzle check technique of the ink jet printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, head cleaning is performed in order to maintain the print quality of an ink jet printer, for example, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 6-316062 and 11-129487. There is.

[0003] The ink jet printer described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-316062 is provided with a counter for counting the number of prints. When the number of prints counted by the counter exceeds a predetermined number, a head cleaning operation is performed. That is.

[0004] In addition, the ink jet printer described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H11-129487 can be used when a predetermined time or more has passed since the previous head cleaning time,
The head cleaning operation is performed when the cumulative number of printed sheets exceeds a predetermined number.

[0005]

However, in the prior art, the cleaning cycle is determined in accordance with past printing results, and the waste of ink and the cleaning time due to the execution of head cleaning are reduced.
Because the head cleaning cycle is set to be longer, for example, when performing unattended continuous operation day and night,
Nozzle missing often occurs when you do not want nozzle missing (no nozzle clogged and ink is ejected) during printing, such as when printing in high-resolution photo mode on glossy paper with a high unit price. There is a problem that there is.

The present invention has been made in view of such conventional problems, and a printer which can prevent printing errors due to missing nozzles as much as possible in continuous operation day and night or when printing cost is high. It is an object of the present invention to provide a host, a storage medium storing an operation program thereof, and an ink jet printer.

[0007]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a storage medium storing an operation program of a printer host for outputting a print command to an ink jet printer. Timing, or an execution time printing amount that determines the execution time of the nozzle check of the inkjet printer, an execution time printing amount setting step that is determined according to the content of the print job to be printed, and the print command that is output to the inkjet printer. It is determined whether the corresponding printing amount has exceeded the execution time printing amount, and when it is determined that the printing amount has exceeded the execution time printing amount, a head cleaning instruction or a nozzle check instruction is given to the inkjet printer. Output time determining step It is intended that the stored program characterized.

[0008] The execution timing print amount setting step includes the step of determining the print resolution of the print job, the type of paper used in the execution of the print job, and whether the execution of the print job is unmanned continuous operation or manned continuous operation. It is preferable that the execution time print amount is determined based on at least one of them.

Here, the storage medium storing the operation program of the printer host may be a magnetic storage medium, a magneto-optical storage medium, or any storage medium to be developed in the future. . Also, the duplication stages of the primary duplicated product, the secondary duplicated product, and the like are equivalent without any question. In addition, the present invention is still used even when a supply method is performed using a communication line, and the same applies to a case where the information is written on a semiconductor chip.

Further, even when a part is realized by software and a part is realized by hardware, there is no difference in the concept of the present invention. It may be in a form that is appropriately read in accordance with it.

When the present invention is implemented by software, the present invention is naturally realized not only as a medium storing a program but also as the program itself. included.

The above operation program is executed by a substantial computer, and the object of the invention is achieved. Therefore, in this sense, the present invention can be realized as a substantial device including such a computer. That is, this device is a printer host in which the above operation program is installed.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an ink jet printer having a head cleaning means or a nozzle check means for executing printing in response to an input print command. An execution timing or an execution timing which determines the execution timing of the nozzle check by the nozzle check means, an execution timing print quantity setting means which determines according to the content of a print job to be printed, and a print quantity which corresponds to the print command It is determined whether or not the printing amount has exceeded the execution time printing amount.When it is determined that the printing amount has exceeded the execution time printing amount, the head cleaning unit is caused to perform head cleaning, or the nozzle check unit performs the cleaning. Implement nozzle check And it is characterized in that it comprises a period determining means.

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Various embodiments of a printer system according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First, a printer system according to a first embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

As shown in FIG. 1, the printer system according to the first embodiment includes a printer host 10 and an ink jet printer 30 that performs printing based on a print command output from the printer host 10. .

The printer host 10 includes a host body 11
, A display device 12, and a keyboard 13. The host body 11 includes a CPU 20 for executing various programs, a ROM 21 for storing various data and various programs, a RAM 22 for temporarily storing various data and various programs, and a display device 1.
, A keyboard controller 24 for controlling the keyboard 13, a floppy disk drive 25, a hard disk drive 26, a CD-ROM drive 27, a printer interface 28, and a network interface 29.
And

The printer 30 has a monitor 37, a printing mechanism 40, and a print controller 31 for controlling these. The print controller 31 executes C to execute various programs.
It has a PU 32, a ROM 33 in which various data and various programs are stored, a RAM 34 in which various data and various programs are temporarily stored, a monitor controller 35 for controlling a monitor 37, and an interface 36. .

The printing mechanism 40 supplies a printing head 41 for ejecting inks of various colors, a head moving mechanism 42 for moving the printing head 41, a nozzle wiper 43 for cleaning the printing head 41, and the printing paper 1. A paper feed mechanism 44 for feeding paper, a platen 45, and an optical sensor 46 for reading a nozzle check pattern printed on the printing paper 1
And The optical sensor 46 is attached to the print head 41, and can read the nozzle check pattern printed on the printing paper 1 by moving the print head 41. The nozzle wiper 43 is located at the end of the moving range of the print head 41, and head cleaning is performed by moving the print head 41 to the nozzle wiper 43 by the head moving mechanism 42.

The function of the printer host 10 is as shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 5, an operating system 51, an application 52, a printer driver 60 for creating a print command or the like based on a drawing command created by the application 52, and a spool for temporarily storing the print command created by the printer driver 60. File 53
And an I / F driver 54 that outputs a print command and the like created by the printer driver 60. In addition,
The above operating system 51, application 52, and printer driver 60 are all CD-R
A program stored in the OM 17 (shown in FIG. 1) or the like is configured as a functional element of the printer host 10 by installing the program on a hard disk.

The spool file 53 is developed on the hard disk of the hard disk drive 26.

The printer driver 60 includes an RGB image data creation unit 61 that converts a drawing command created by the application 52 into RGB image data,
A CMYK binarization processing unit 62 that converts the GB image data into CMYK binarized image data, a print command creation unit 63 that converts the CMYK binarized image data into a print command, and stores the print command in a spool file 53;
A printing condition storage unit 64 that stores printing conditions set by the application 52, a cleaning execution printing amount setting unit 65 that sets a printing amount for determining the head cleaning execution time, and sends out a print command and a head cleaning command. A command sending unit 66. The command sending unit 66 includes a cleaning timing determination unit 67 that sends a head cleaning command according to whether the actual printing amount has exceeded the cleaning execution printing amount set by the cleaning execution printing amount setting unit 65. .

As shown in FIG. 3, the cleaning printing amount setting unit 65 has a map of the cleaning printing amount according to the printing resolution, printing paper type, and unmanned continuous operation and manned continuous operation. As for the print resolution,
There are three types: photo mode, beautiful mode, and fast mode. There are four types of printing paper: glossy paper, super fine paper, fine paper, and plain paper. For example,
In the case of photo mode, glossy paper, and unmanned continuous operation, the cleaning execution printing amount is 1 m, and photo mode, plain paper,
In the case of unmanned continuous operation, the cleaning amount
m, in the case of fast mode, glossy paper, unmanned continuous operation,
The cleaning print amount is set to 1.5 m.

In other words, in this map, the print amount for cleaning is reduced in the order of increasing paper cost (plain paper → fine paper → super fine paper → glossy paper). Further, in this map, the cleaning execution print amount is reduced in the order of increasing the resolution, in other words, in the order of increasing the printing time per unit area (fast → clean → photo). This is because if the printing cost is high or the printing time is long, even a single printing error has a large effect on the printing cost and the total printing time. This is because it is preferable to reduce the number as much as possible. In this map, the cleaning execution print amount is set smaller in the unmanned continuous operation than in the manned continuous operation. This is because if nozzle missing of the printer 30 occurs during the unattended continuous operation, printing after the nozzle missing occurs becomes a printing error.

The cleaning printing amount setting unit 65 reads the printing conditions set by the application 52 from the printing condition storage unit 64, and reads the printing conditions, specifically,
Read the printing resolution, printing paper type, unmanned continuous operation / manned continuous operation described above, and refer to the map described above,
Determine the cleaning print volume.

Although all the printing conditions are set by the application 52 here, a part of the printing conditions, for example, the printing conditions, are set by a user interface (not shown) provided in the printer driver 51. The resolution, unmanned continuous operation, and the like may be set. Although the printing condition storage unit 64 is provided in the printer driver 60 here, a separate storage area may be provided in the spool file 53 to store the printing conditions here.

Next, the operation of the printer system according to the present embodiment will be described.

The drawing command created by the application 52 is converted into RGB image data by the RGB image data creating unit 61. The RGB image data is converted into CMYK binarized image data by the CMYK binarization processing unit 62. The CMYK binarized image data is converted into a print command by the print command creation unit 63 and stored in a spool file 53 developed on a hard disk. The print conditions set by the application 52 are stored in the print condition storage unit 64.

When print execution of the print command stored in the spool file 53 is received, the command sending unit 66
Starts reading the print command from the spool file 53, and the cleaning execution printing amount setting unit 65 determines the cleaning execution printing amount according to the printing conditions as described above, and sends this to the command sending unit 65.

Here, the operation of the command sending section 65 will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

The command sending section 65 first checks whether or not there is a print command in the spool file 53 (step 1). If there is a print command, the print command is read (step 2), and the print command is transmitted to the printer 30 via the I / F driver 54 (step 3). Next, it is determined whether the transmission of the print command for one page has been completed (step 4). If the transmission has not been completed, the process returns to step 2; Is determined (step 5). If there is no print copy remaining, the process returns to step 1. If there is a print copy remaining, the cleaning execution timing determination unit 67 of the command sending unit 65 determines that the actual print amount is equal to the cleaning execution print amount setting unit 65. It is determined whether or not the determined cleaning execution print amount has been exceeded (step 6).

Here, for example, if the print size is A1 (59
4 × 841mm) size and the cleaning print amount is 1m, the actual print amount is 1.188m for printing 2 pages
(= 0.594 m × 2 pages), it is determined that the cleaning execution print amount has been exceeded. In the present embodiment,
Since roll paper is used as the printing paper, the cleaning execution printing amount is expressed in units of length.
^{As in 2} , it may be expressed in area units. Also,
The above-described map may be prepared for each standard paper size, and the cleaning execution print amount may be represented by the standard paper number.

When it is determined that the cleaning print amount has been exceeded, a head cleaning command is sent (step 7). When it is determined that the cleaning execution print amount has not been exceeded, and after the head cleaning command is sent, Returning to step 2, spool file 5
Then, a print command is read from step 3.

Upon receiving the head cleaning command from the printer host 10, the ink jet printer 30 moves the print head 41 to the nozzle wiper 43 by the head moving mechanism 42 and executes head cleaning.

As described above, in the present embodiment, when the paper cost is high and the printing cost is high, when the resolution is high and the printing time is long, the continuous unmanned operation is performed, judging from the contents of the print job. In this case, since the head cleaning is performed in a short cycle, printing errors due to missing nozzles can be reduced. As described above, in the case where the printing cost is high, the printing time is long, or in the case of continuous unmanned operation, printing errors can be reduced, so that the overall printing cost and the total printing time can be suppressed.

Next, a printer system according to a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

This embodiment is similar to the first embodiment in hardware, and differs only in software. Specifically, this embodiment is different from the first embodiment in that the cleaning execution printing amount setting unit 65 and the cleaning execution time determination unit 67 that the printer host 10 has.
Is provided in the ink jet printer 30a.

The print controller 31a of the inkjet printer 30a functionally includes a print command receiving unit 73 for receiving a print command from the printer host 10a, a print condition receiving unit 74 for receiving print conditions from the printer host 10a, Cleaning execution printing amount setting unit 75 for setting the printing amount for determining the execution time of the head cleaning
And a print control unit 76 that creates a control signal for the printing mechanism 40 based on the print command. The print control unit 76 has a cleaning timing determination unit 77 that sends a head cleaning command according to whether the actual print amount has exceeded the cleaning execution print amount set by the cleaning execution print amount setting unit 75. .

When the print command receiving unit 73 receives the print command, the print condition receiving unit 74
0a, a print condition transmission request for the print command is made, and the print condition is received. The cleaning execution printing amount setting unit 75 determines the cleaning execution printing amount based on the printing conditions and transmits this to the cleaning execution timing determination unit 77, as in the first embodiment. The cleaning timing determination unit 77 determines whether or not the actual print amount has exceeded the cleaning execution print amount during the process in which the print control unit 77 generates the control signal of the printing mechanism 40 from the print command. If it is determined that the number exceeds the limit, a head cleaning command is transmitted to the printing mechanism 40.

As described above, in the present embodiment, a part of the functional configuration in the first embodiment is merely transferred to the printer 30a. The effect can be obtained.

The above embodiments relate to the head cleaning cycle, but the present invention can also be applied to the printer nozzle check cycle. In this case, the cleaning execution print amount setting unit 6 according to the first embodiment and the second embodiment.
5 and 75 may be used as the nozzle check execution print amount setting unit, and the cleaning execution time determination units 67 and 77 may be used as the nozzle check execution time determination unit. The nozzle check execution print amount setting unit basically performs the same operation as the cleaning execution print amount setting units 65 and 75, and the nozzle check execution time determination unit basically performs the same operation as the cleaning execution time determination units 67 and 77. Will do. However, when the nozzle check execution print amount exceeds the actual print amount, the nozzle check execution time determination unit outputs a nozzle check command. When this nozzle check command is output, for example, the printer 30 in the first embodiment
Prints a nozzle check pattern prepared in advance on the printing paper 1, scans it with the optical sensor 46 (FIG. 1), and the print control unit prints the nozzle check pattern appropriately based on the scan result. It is determined whether or not the determination has been made, and the determination result is transmitted to the printer host 10 or not.
It is displayed on the monitor 37 of the printer 30.

When the print control unit determines that the nozzle check pattern is not properly printed, the head cleaning may be immediately executed without transmitting the print data to the host 10.

In the above embodiment, the print head 41 is moved relative to the nozzle wiper 43,
While the head cleaning is being performed, the print head 41
Alternatively, head cleaning may be performed by jetting ink wastefully.

[0044]

According to the present invention, when the paper cost is high and the printing cost is high, when the resolution is high and the printing time is long, and when the continuous unmanned operation is performed, the printing time is short. Since the head cleaning or the nozzle check is performed periodically, it is possible to reduce printing errors due to missing nozzles. As described above, in the case where the printing cost is high, the printing time is long, or in the case of continuous unmanned operation, printing errors can be reduced, so that the overall printing cost and the total printing time can be suppressed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram of a printer system according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a printer host according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a relationship between various printing conditions and a cleaning execution print amount according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a command sending unit according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a functional block diagram of an inkjet printer according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Paper 10, 10a ... Printer host 17 ... CD-ROM 20, 32 ... CPU 21, 33 ... ROM 22, 34 ... RAM 30, 30a ... Inkjet printer 31, 31a ... Print controller 40 ... Printing mechanism 41 ... Print head 43 ... Nozzle wiper 46 ... Optical sensor 52 ... Application 60 ... Printer driver 64 ... Print condition storage unit 65,75 ... Cleaning print amount setting unit 66 ... Command sending unit 67,77 ... Cleaning time judgment unit

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A printer host for outputting a print command to an ink-jet printer, comprising: a printing time to determine a time to perform head cleaning of the ink-jet printer or an execution time to determine a time to perform a nozzle check of the ink-jet printer; An execution time print amount setting unit determined according to the content of the job; and determining whether a print amount according to the print command output to the inkjet printer has exceeded the execution time print amount, and determining the print amount. A printer host comprising: an execution timing determining unit that outputs a head cleaning instruction or a nozzle check instruction to the inkjet printer when it is determined that the execution timing printing amount has been exceeded. 2. The printer host according to claim 1, wherein the execution time print amount setting unit determines a print resolution of the print job, a paper type used in the execution of the print job, and execution of the print job. Unmanned or manned continuous operation,
A printer host, wherein the execution time print amount is determined based on at least one of the following. 3. A storage medium storing an operation program of a printer host for outputting a print command to an inkjet printer, wherein a timing for performing head cleaning of the inkjet printer or a timing for performing a nozzle check of the inkjet printer is determined. An execution time print amount setting step that determines the execution time print amount according to the content of a print job to be printed, and whether the print amount according to the print command output to the inkjet printer exceeds the execution time print amount. Determining whether the print amount has exceeded the print amount at the execution time, and outputting a head cleaning instruction or a nozzle check instruction to the inkjet printer. Storage medium on which the program is stored . 4. A storage medium storing an operation program for a printer host according to claim 3, wherein the execution timing print amount setting step is used for executing a print resolution of the print job and executing the print job. A storage medium storing a program storing a program, wherein the execution time print amount is determined based on at least one of a paper type and whether execution of the print job is unmanned continuous operation or manned continuous operation. . 5. An ink jet printer comprising a head cleaning means or a nozzle check means for executing printing in accordance with an input print command, wherein a timing of head cleaning by said head cleaning means or a nozzle by said nozzle check means is provided. An execution time print amount setting unit that determines an execution time print amount that determines a check execution time, according to the content of a print job to be printed, and whether the print amount according to the print command exceeds the execution time print amount. Determining whether the print amount has exceeded the execution time print amount, causing the head cleaning means to perform head cleaning, or performing the nozzle check by the nozzle check means, Ink jet characterized by comprising Topurinta. 6. The ink jet printer according to claim 5, wherein the execution time print amount setting unit determines a print resolution of the print job, a paper type used in the execution of the print job, and execution of the print job. Unmanned or manned continuous operation,
An ink jet printer characterized in that the execution time print amount is determined based on at least one of the above.