JP2001353936A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a printer which enables many kinds of information to be transmitted by commands without greatly increasing a communication time and without changing a conventional communication architecture in a video interface between a controller and an engine. SOLUTION: The command to be transmitted from the controller to the engine is divided to a plurality of hierarchies in accordance with the contents to be transmitted. When the engine receives the command of a lower hierarchy, it is recognized that the command is received together with a previously generated last command of an upper hierarchy than the hierarchy of the command. Therefore, the engine controls the inside in accordance with the received second command of the lower hierarchy and the first command of the upper hierarchy which has been previously received last and is not received yet at the time. The command of the upper hierarchy of commands representing kinds of orders related to the execution of printing are made common.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a controller for generating a command in response to print information and a printing apparatus having an engine for executing printing in accordance with the command.
In particular, the present invention relates to a printing apparatus capable of transmitting various types of information from a controller to an engine by a command in a short time.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing an electrical configuration of a conventional printing apparatus. The printing device 1 is a device that is connected to a host computer 2 such as a personal computer and executes printing based on a print command from the host computer 2. The printing apparatus 1 is largely divided into a controller 3 and an engine 4. When a command is issued from the host computer 2, the controller 3 first receives the print information, and based on the print information, creates a command for giving various instructions to the engine 4 and image data to be printed.

[0003] The engine 4 is roughly divided into a mechanical control 5 and a mechanical part 6 as shown in the figure. Here, the mechanical controller is a mechanical controller that controls a mechanical unit. When the created command is issued from the controller 3, the mechanical controller 5 receives the command, controls each part of the mechanical unit 6 according to the instruction, and executes printing. Normally, the engine 4 includes a paper feed unit, a photoreceptor unit, a transfer unit, a fixing unit, a paper discharge unit, and the like.
It controls the motors, clutches, sensors, etc., which are arranged in each of these units.

[0004] As shown in the figure, an interface between the controller 3 and the mechanical controller 5 is referred to as a video interface 7. The video interface unit 7 usually has a dedicated line for transmitting and receiving a specific signal, such as a communication line for notifying each other of a stable power supply state, a communication line for transmitting video data, and a line for transmitting the command. Serial communication lines are provided.
In the serial communication line, the command is transmitted from the controller 3 to the mechanical controller 5 and the status is returned from the mechanical controller 5 to the controller 3 in response to the command. Here, the status is mainly the engine 4
The controller 3 grasps the state of the engine 4 by returning the status.

In a conventional device, this serial communication is designed to return a 1-byte length status in response to a 1-byte length command.

[0006]

In the conventional printing apparatuses, particularly in the case of monochrome printing, the types of information transmitted and received by the video interface unit 7 are relatively small, and the selective information is also small. Therefore, transmission of main information is performed by a dedicated line, and serial communication is mainly used for transmission of exceptional information such as error information.
Therefore, the type of the information is small, and it is sufficient if one byte is prepared for the command and the status as described above.

However, in recent printing apparatuses capable of performing color printing and having a variety of functions, there are many types of information to be transmitted from the controller 3 to the mechanical controller 5, and selective information is also increasing. In order to transmit such various kinds of information, it is preferable to respond by using a command by serial communication without using a dedicated line, but a one-byte length is not sufficient. Therefore, if the communication architecture of the conventional device is not changed, one-byte command transmission is required twice or more to transmit one type of information, resulting in an increase in communication time.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a video interface between a controller and an engine for transmitting various types of information by commands without changing the conventional communication architecture without significantly increasing the communication time. It is to provide a printing device that enables it.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, according to one aspect of the present invention, a command transmitted from a controller to an engine is classified into a plurality of hierarchies according to the contents of the transmission. When a lower layer command is received, it is recognized that the command has been received together with a higher layer command than the last command issued earlier. Therefore, the engine performs internal control in accordance with the received second command of the lower layer and the first command of the upper layer which was not received at that time but was previously received last. In addition, as for various commands related to the execution of printing, commands in the upper layer of the commands representing them are shared. Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to omit the transmission of overlapping upper-layer commands, and to maintain a conventional communication architecture without significantly increasing the communication time, and to provide more types of information than before. Can be transmitted.

In order to achieve the above object, another aspect of the present invention is a printing apparatus having a controller for transmitting commands expressing various instructions and an engine for executing printing based on the transmitted commands. In, the commands are classified into a plurality of layers, the command is determined by at least a first command of the upper layer and a second command of the lower layer, the engine receives the first and second commands When the command is executed, the command specified by the first and second commands is executed, and when the second command is received without receiving the first command, the first command and the last command received last are received. A command specified by the received second command is executed.

Further, in the above-mentioned invention, a preferable mode is characterized in that the command includes information on the hierarchy to which the command belongs.

In the above-mentioned invention, another aspect is as follows.
When the engine receives the command for setting various parameters transmitted at the time of performing printing, the engine sets a parameter setting value transmitted by the command,
Next, the command is held until a command for setting the parameter is received.

Further, in the above-mentioned invention, another aspect is as follows.
When executing the printing, when receiving the command to set the parameters for all parameters to be set after execution of the previous printing at the time of printing, the engine executes printing according to the setting value of the command, and performs setting. When the command for some of the parameters to be received is received, for some of the parameters, according to the setting value of the received command, for the other parameters, the last received command The printing is executed in accordance with the setting value of (1).

Further, in the above-mentioned invention, in another aspect, the various commands related to the execution of printing include a common first command indicating the execution of printing and the second command different depending on the various commands. It is characterized by being specified.

[0015] Further objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the embodiments of the present invention described below.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. However, such embodiments do not limit the technical scope of the present invention.
In the drawings, the same or similar components are denoted by the same reference numerals or reference symbols.

The embodiment of the printing apparatus to which the present invention is applied also has the same electrical configuration as the conventional apparatus, as shown in FIG. As described above, the printing apparatus 1 includes the controller 3 and the engine 4, and the engine 4 includes the mechanical controller 5 and the mechanical unit 6. The controller 3 receives print information from the host computer 2 and generates various commands for instructing the engine 4 to perform printing and image data to be printed. Mechanical controller 5 that has received the command transmitted from controller 3
Controls each part of the mechanical unit 6 according to the instruction, and executes printing.

Further, the video interface unit 7 between the controller 3 and the mechanical controller 5 is provided with various dedicated communication lines and a serial communication line for transmitting the above commands, as in the conventional case. Figure 1 shows the serial communication line.
As shown in (1), transmission of a 1-byte length command from the controller 3 to the mechanical controller 5 and return of a 1-byte length status from the mechanical controller 5 to the controller 3 in response thereto are repeatedly performed. The transmission of the status from the mechanical controller 5 is performed only when a command from the controller 3 is received, and cannot be transmitted from the mechanical controller 5 at an arbitrary timing.

As described above, the printing apparatus 1 according to this embodiment communicates by devising the bit arrangement of commands while maintaining the electrical configuration of the conventional apparatus and the communication architecture of the video interface unit. It seeks to enable a greater variety of information transmissions without significantly increasing time.

First, in the printing apparatus 1, the controller 3
The information to be transmitted to the mechanical controller 5 is systematically classified according to the content. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example thereof. In this example, the information to be conveyed is classified into three classes: a large classification, a middle classification, and a small classification. As shown in the figure, there are four major categories, and "execute" includes information on various instructions necessary for causing the engine 4 to execute printing as a middle category and a small category. For example, “execute / print / color” in the drawing is information that indicates that printing should be executed in color.

"Acquisition" is information issued by the controller 3 to know the state of the engine 4 side. "Acquisition / discharge number" in FIG. Information indicating that the number of sheets should be returned as a status to the controller 3 side. Similarly, “setting” is information issued to make basic settings of each part of the engine 4 such as the paper size of the feeder, and “control” is
This is information issued for giving a special instruction to the engine 4, such as a stop instruction.

The information classified in this way is expressed as a command and transmitted from the controller 3 to the mechanical controller 5. In the printing apparatus 1, there are many types of information to be transmitted. They cannot all be conveyed as unique information. Further, as described above, the present device employs a communication method of transmitting and receiving a command and status of 1 byte length, similarly to the conventional device. Therefore, the printing apparatus 1 roughly divides the commands into 1-byte and 1-byte commands, each of which is a 1-byte length, and sends each of them once, a total of two times, to send one piece of unique information to the engine 4 side. Takes a way to communicate.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a bit arrangement of a command used in the present apparatus. (A) in the figure is the 1st
The bit array of the command is shown, and (b) shows the bit array of the 2nd command. As shown in the figure, the 1st command is
The systematic classification indicates the major classification and the middle classification of the information to be transmitted, and the second command indicates the minor classification. Therefore, based on the information system to be transmitted, the 1st command is an upper-layer command that transmits higher-level broad information, and the 2nd command is the 1st command that transmits detailed information.
It can be said that the command is a lower layer command.

In the example of the bit arrangement shown in FIG.
Since 4 bits are assigned to the middle classification,
A large classification of types and a 16 middle classification can be prepared. Also,
As for the small classification, 64 kinds can be prepared for each middle classification. The assignment of the bits can be determined according to the classification of the information to be transmitted, so as to conform to the classification. As shown in FIG. 3, a parity bit (bit 0) and a 1st command / 2n are assigned to each of the 1st command and the 2nd command.
A bit (bit 7) for identifying the d command is provided. The bit for this identification allows the mechanical controller 5 to respond to the command transmitted with the same 1-byte length by the 1st
It is possible to identify whether it is a command or a 2nd command.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a command in the present apparatus. (A) of the figure shows a command corresponding to the information of “execution / print / color”. As described above, the 1st command expresses "execute / print" and 2
"Color" is represented by the nd command. Therefore, when instructing the mechanical controller 5 to execute printing in color, in principle, the controller 3 transmits the illustrated 1st command and 2nd command twice. (B) of the figure shows a command corresponding to the information of “execution / print / single-sided”. Similarly, when instructing the mechanical controller 5 to execute the printing by one-sided printing, In principle, it is necessary to send these two commands.

However, in the printing apparatus 1, the 1st command of the information to be transmitted is the 1st command issued last before that.
If the same as the st command, omit the 1st command and return to the 2nd
Send commands only. In other words, Mechacon 5
Holds the contents of the last received 1st command until the next 1st command is received, and when the second command is received, recognizes that the second command has been received together with the held 1st command, Identify information communicated from This is one of the major features of this device.

In the example of FIG. 4, when the information shown in FIG. 4B is transmitted immediately after the transmission of the information shown in FIG.
Since the st command is common, when sending (b), 2nd
You only need to send the command. In addition, (c) of FIG.
Indicates a command corresponding to the information of "control / pause instruction", but some of the information transmitted in this manner does not have a small classification. Only send.

As described above, in the printing apparatus according to the present embodiment, a two-layer command can transmit more types of information than before, and it is not always necessary to transmit a two-layer command every time. However, the communication time is not significantly increased as compared with the conventional device that transmits one piece of information by one command.

Further, the above-described classification of information so that the information group frequently transmitted continuously belongs to the same higher-level group (middle classification) is performed by using a command representing the information.
The 1st command becomes the same, and the opportunity to omit the transmission of the 1st command increases, which is effective in shortening the communication time. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 2, the instruction of each parameter (“color”, “single-sided”, etc. in FIG. 2) that is continuously performed at the time of printing is classified into one classification (“execution / print ") Is effective.

Further, in the present apparatus, when the designated value of each parameter at the time of printing execution is the same as the value at the time of previous printing execution, issuing of a command for instructing the parameter can be omitted. For that purpose, Mechacon 5
A command for instructing each parameter at the time of printing (FIG. 2
(For example, those belonging to “execute / print”), the contents are held, and until the next command for instructing the parameter is received, printing is executed with the held contents every time. Therefore, the controller 3 only needs to issue a command for a parameter having a value different from the value at the time of the previous printing, and the communication time can be reduced by this feature.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a time series of a series of commands issued from the controller 3 to the mechanical controller 5 when two sheets are printed. In the figure, part a indicates a group of commands issued to execute the printing of the first sheet, and part b indicates a group of commands for printing the second sheet. First, the controller 3 executes a 1st command meaning “execute / print” illustrated in FIG.
Is issued, and the mechanical controller 5 recognizes that an instruction of “execution / print / color” has been received by the two commands.

Next, the controller 3 issues an "execute / print / single-sided" command.
Since it is the same as the above 1st command, as described above, 1
The transmission of the st command is omitted, and only the 2nd command which means “one side” is transmitted. The mechanical controller 5 regards the received 2nd command as having been received together with the 1st command, and recognizes the content of the command as "execution / print / single-sided". Hereinafter, similarly, “execute / print /
The setting of "plain paper" and "execution / print / A3" is performed only by the 2nd command. Therefore, for each parameter setting (a 'part in the figure) that is performed continuously when printing is performed, 1s
Only one transmission of the t command is required. “GO” in the figure is a 2nd command for instructing print execution.

In the example of FIG. 5, next, a print command for a second sheet, which is different from the first sheet only in the parameter of the paper size, is issued. In this case, as described above, the command need only be transmitted for parameters having different values. Therefore, a command meaning "execute / print / A4" is transmitted. In this case, the 1st command is also transmitted last. Since it is the same as the issued 1st command, it is sufficient to transmit only the 2nd command meaning "A4" as shown in the b 'part of the figure. As described above, although the information to be transmitted is expressed so as to be unique by the two-layered command, the number of commands actually transmitted can be reduced.

As described above, in the printing apparatus according to the present embodiment, the information to be transmitted from the controller to the engine is expressed by the hierarchical 1-byte 1st command and the 2nd command. While maintaining the communication architecture, it is possible to transmit more types of information than before, and the function of omitting the transmission of the first command and the function of retaining the set parameter values on the engine side, the number of commands to be transmitted Therefore, the communication time is not significantly increased as compared with the conventional case. Furthermore, setting the same 1st command for each parameter setting command at the time of printing execution is more effective because the number of times the 1st command can be omitted at the time of printing execution in which communication time is to be reduced as much as possible is increased. In addition, since the commands are systematically classified according to their contents, there is an effect that it is easy to understand at the time of development and maintenance.

In the present embodiment, the command transmitted from the controller to the engine is represented by two-layer commands. However, if the number of transmitted commands is larger, the command is represented by three or more hierarchical commands. Is also good. Also in this case, when the engine receives a lower-layer command, it recognizes that the command has been received together with the upper-layer command that was received last before, so that the number of command transmissions can be reduced.

The scope of protection of the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, but extends to the inventions described in the claims and their equivalents.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention, the commands transmitted from the controller to the engine are classified into a plurality of layers.
In some cases, transmission of higher-layer commands can be omitted, so that more types of information can be transmitted without significantly increasing communication time while maintaining the conventional communication architecture. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing transmission and reception of commands and statuses performed between a controller 3 and a mechanical controller 5.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a systematic classification of information to be transmitted from a controller 3 to a mechanical controller 5.

FIG. 3 is adopted in the printing apparatus according to the embodiment.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a bit arrangement of a first command and a second command.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a command in the printing apparatus.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a series of commands issued from the controller 3 to the mechanical controller 5 in chronological order.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram illustrating an electrical configuration of a conventional printing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printing apparatus 2 Host computer 3 Controller 4 Engine 5 Mechanical control 6 Mechanical part 7 Video interface part

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus having a controller for transmitting commands expressing various instructions and an engine for executing printing based on the transmitted commands, wherein the commands are classified into a plurality of hierarchies, and The command is determined by the first command of the hierarchy and the second command of the lower hierarchy. When the engine receives the first and second commands, the engine is specified by the first and second commands. When the second command is received without receiving the first command, the command specified by the last received first command and the received second command is executed. A printing device characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the command includes information on the hierarchy to which the command belongs. 3. The engine according to claim 1, wherein when the engine receives the command for setting various parameters transmitted at the time of executing printing, the engine sets a parameter set value transmitted by the command.
Next, the printing apparatus holds the command until a command for setting the parameter is received. 4. The engine according to claim 1, wherein, when executing the printing, when the engine receives the command for setting all the parameters to be set after executing the previous printing, the engine executes the command. When printing is executed in accordance with the set values of the parameters and when the command for some of the parameters to be set is received, the parameters for some of the parameters are set in accordance with the set values of the received command. A printing apparatus that performs printing in accordance with a setting value of a command received last for parameters other than the above. 5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the various commands related to the execution of printing are specified by the common first command indicating the execution of printing and the second command that is different depending on the various commands. Printing device.