JP2005156956A - Printing apparatus, printing system, printing controller and printer driver - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a technology which enables a user to speedily obtain information on the handling of toner. <P>SOLUTION: A printing apparatus in which a toner cartridge having a memory element with information on the handling of toner recorded thereon can be loaded includes: an instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to print the information; a reading means for reading the information on the handling of the toner from the loaded toner cartridge; and a printing means for printing the information on the read handing of toner. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing apparatus, and more particularly to a printing apparatus that can be loaded with a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling.

  A typical laser printer as a page printer performs printing by irradiating a photosensitive drum with images of characters, graphics, and the like using a laser beam, developing the toner with toner supplied from a toner cartridge, and transferring the image onto a sheet.

  Since the toner used for printing is accommodated in the toner cartridge, it is not exposed to the outside in a normal use state. However, since toner is a consumable item, the toner cartridge must be replaced when the toner cartridge's remaining toner level is low. At this time, the toner spills and adheres to the body / clothes, eyes, mouth, etc. Etc. may enter. In addition, a paper jam or the like may occur, and the toner may adhere to the body or clothes or enter the eyes or mouth when various operations are performed inside the printer.

  The countermeasures for toner adhering to the body / clothes or entering the eyes / mouth are described in the manual attached to the printer or toner cartridge. It is not easy to find the description accurately if it sticks or gets into your eyes or mouth. It is also assumed that the description in the manual cannot be fully handled when there is a change in the toner component contained in the toner cartridge and the optimum countermeasure is changed.

  SUMMARY An advantage of some aspects of the invention is that it provides a technique by which a user can quickly acquire information related to toner handling.

The first aspect of the present invention for solving the above problems is as follows.
A printing apparatus capable of loading a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling,
An instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to print the information;
Based on the instruction, a reading means for reading out information relating to toner handling from the loaded toner cartridge;
And a printing unit that prints information on handling of the read toner.

  The user can acquire a sheet on which information related to toner handling is printed by instructing an instruction receiving means such as a button provided in the printing apparatus.

In addition, the second aspect of the present invention includes
A printing system including a printing device capable of loading a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information on handling of toner, and a printing control device,
The print control device includes:
Instruction accepting means for accepting an instruction to print information on handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
An instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to print information relating to toner handling based on the instruction;
The printing apparatus includes:
Reading means for reading out information relating to the handling of toner from a loaded toner cartridge based on the printing instruction;
A printing system comprising printing means for printing information relating to the handling of the read toner.

  The user can acquire a sheet on which information related to toner handling is printed by operating a printer driver or the like.

A printing system including a printing apparatus capable of loading a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling, and a print control apparatus to which a display device is connected;
The print control device includes:
An instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to display information relating to handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
An instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to acquire information on toner handling based on the instruction;
The printing apparatus includes:
Reading means for reading out information relating to the handling of toner from the loaded toner cartridge based on the acquisition instruction;
Comprising information output means for outputting information relating to the handling of the read toner to the print control device;
Furthermore, the printing control device includes:
The printing system may further include display means for displaying information on the handling of the output toner on the display device.

  The user can display information on toner handling on the screen by operating a printer driver or the like.

  The present embodiment will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an outline of a hardware configuration of a printing system to which the present invention is applied.

  As shown in the figure, the printing system includes a computer 30 for realizing various processes using application software, a printing process using a printer driver, and the like, and a printer 10 connected to the computer 30. In the present embodiment, the computer 30 functions as a print control apparatus that generates print data and transmits it to the printer 10. The printer 10 functions as a printing apparatus that performs printing based on the received print data. A printer driver, which is a computer program for causing the computer 30 to function as a printing control apparatus, is generally developed for the printer 10 by the manufacturer of the printer 10, and is recorded on a recording medium such as a CD-ROM and distributed, or the like. Distributed via a computer network. The configuration of the printing system is not limited to this.

  The computer 30 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 31 that executes various programs, a RAM (Random Access Memory) 32 that temporarily stores data and programs, various data and various programs for controlling the computer 30, and the like. A ROM (Read Only Memory) 33 that is stored in a nonvolatile manner and an interface 34 that controls transmission / reception of data to / from a peripheral device such as the connected printer 10 are provided.

  The computer 30 includes a display device 21 such as a color display, an input device 22 such as a mouse and a keyboard, a media reading device 23 that reads data from a recording medium such as a CD-ROM, and a built-in or external auxiliary storage device 24. Connected. Of course, the configuration of the computer 30 is not limited to this. For example, a communication control device for connecting to a computer network such as the Internet may be provided.

  The printer 10 is a laser page printer. A laser-type page printer includes a toner cartridge that contains toner in a housing, and performs printing by transferring the toner to a printing medium such as printing paper. The printer 10 may be either a color laser printer or a monochrome laser printer. In general, a monochrome laser printer has one toner cartridge that contains black toner, and a color laser printer has four toner cartridges that contain black, cyan, magenta, and yellow toner, respectively.

  The printer 10 includes an interface 11 that controls transmission and reception of data to and from the computer 30, a CPU 12 that executes various programs such as a printer driver, a RAM 13 that temporarily stores print data and the like, various data and various programs for controlling the printer 10. From a print engine 15 including a ROM 14, a toner cartridge, a photosensitive drum, a laser beam irradiation mechanism, a paper feed mechanism, a paper supply / discharge mechanism for performing a print medium supply / discharge process, etc. And an operation panel 16 for receiving the instruction. Of course, the configuration of the printer 10 is not limited to this.

  The toner cartridge included in the print engine 15 is detachable so that it can be replaced when the remaining amount of toner is low. As shown in FIG. 2, in the present embodiment, the toner cartridge 17 includes a nonvolatile storage element 17a such as a memory chip. The main body of the print engine 15 is provided with a storage element connection portion 15a that is electrically connected to the storage element 17a of the toner cartridge 17 to read data from or write data to the storage element 17a. The storage element 17a can be configured by, for example, an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable and Programmable ROM) which is a rewritable nonvolatile memory.

  The storage element 17a of the toner cartridge 17 and the storage element connection portion 15a of the print engine 15 are not limited to the contact type, and may exchange data wirelessly.

  In the present embodiment, the storage element 17a has information on the handling of the toner contained in the toner cartridge 17, specifically, the toner has adhered to the body, clothes, etc., or has entered the eyes, mouth, etc. Coping methods such as cases are recorded. When the toner adheres to the body, clothes, etc. or enters the eyes, mouth, etc., for example, “wash with water”, “consult a doctor”, etc. Since these pieces of information are closely related to the components of the toner, the toner and the coping method can be easily matched by recording the information in the toner cartridge 17 containing the toner.

  It should be noted that information regarding the handling of toner is recorded in advance by a manufacturer or the like when the toner cartridge 17 is shipped. In addition, when the storage capacity of the storage element 17a is small and information relating to toner handling cannot be stored, information indicating the toner component, for example, a predetermined toner component identifier is stored, and the toner handling is stored. Information related to the identifier may be stored in the printer 10 by providing the printer 10 with a rewritable nonvolatile memory corresponding to the identifier. In this case, for example, information on the latest toner handling is taken into the printer 10 by firmware update or the like.

  Information regarding the handling of the toner recorded in the storage element 17a of the toner cartridge 17 can be acquired by the CPU 12 of the printer 10 via the storage element connection unit 15a. It is assumed that a program defining the procedure at this time is recorded in advance in the ROM 14 of the printer 10.

  Various modes can be considered as a method for calling information on handling of toner recorded in the storage element 17a. Several examples are described below.

  (First Example) In the first example, the operation panel 16 of the printer 10 is provided with a button for printing information relating to toner handling. When this button is pressed, the CPU 12 of the printer 10 performs the following processing according to a program recorded in the ROM 14 in advance.

  In other words, information regarding the handling of toner recorded in the storage element 17 a of the toner cartridge 17 is read out via the storage element connection unit 15 a of the print engine 15. The read information is printed using the print engine 15.

  As a result, the user can acquire a sheet on which information relating to toner handling is printed by pressing a button provided on the printer 10.

  The button for calling up information relating to toner handling provided on the operation panel 16 of the printer 10 may be provided as a dedicated button or may be used in combination with other function buttons. In addition, information regarding toner handling may be called by operating a plurality of buttons.

  (Second Example) In the second example, a function for printing information relating to toner handling is added to the printer driver that controls the processing of the printer 10. Here, the printer driver is a program that runs on the computer 30.

  When the printer driver receives a print command for information on toner handling from the user, the printer driver sends a command to that effect to the printer 10. When the CPU 12 of the printer 10 receives this command, it performs the same processing as described above in accordance with a program recorded in the ROM 14 in advance.

  In other words, information regarding the handling of toner recorded in the storage element 17 a of the toner cartridge 17 is read out via the storage element connection unit 15 a of the print engine 15. The read information is printed using the print engine 15.

  As a result, the user can acquire a sheet on which information relating to toner handling is printed by activating the printer driver on the computer 30 and inputting a print command for information relating to toner handling.

  Here, for example, a user can receive a print command for information regarding toner handling by providing a button for issuing a print command for information regarding toner handling on the print setting screen of the printer driver. It can be easily realized by accepting.

  As a modification of the second example, a utility program is always started on the computer 30 instead of or in addition to command transmission by the printer driver, and a predetermined operation from the user, for example, a keyboard function, is performed. When the key input is monitored and a predetermined operation is detected, a command for printing information regarding toner handling may be transmitted to the printer 10.

  (Third Example) In the third example, a function for displaying information on toner handling on the display device 21 is added to the printer driver that controls the processing of the printer 10.

  When the printer driver receives a display command for information regarding toner handling from the user, the printer driver sends a command for acquiring information regarding toner handling to the printer 10. When the CPU 12 of the printer 10 receives this command, it performs the following processing in accordance with a program recorded in the ROM 14 in advance.

  In other words, information regarding the handling of toner recorded in the storage element 17 a of the toner cartridge 17 is read out via the storage element connection unit 15 a of the print engine 15. Then, the read information is transmitted to the printer driver of the computer 30.

  When the printer driver receives the information on the toner handling sent from the printer 10, the printer driver displays the information on the toner handling on the display device 21.

  As a result, the user can cause the display device 21 to display information relating to toner handling by activating the printer driver on the computer 30 and inputting a display command for information relating to toner handling.

  As in the second example, as a third modified example, a utility program may be used to call up information relating to toner handling.

  Next, recording of information relating to toner handling to the storage element 17a of the toner cartridge 17 will be described.

  The manufacturer of the toner cartridge 17 records information regarding the handling of the toner in accordance with the toner component to be stored in the storage element 17 a in the process of manufacturing the toner cartridge 17.

  Further, a supplier who recycles toner by refilling the used toner cartridge 17 re-records information on handling of the toner according to the refilled toner component in the storage element 17a. In this case, the information regarding the handling of the previously recorded toner is deleted. This is because it is considered that the refilled toner component is different from the previous toner component and the contents of the information regarding the handling do not match.

  Note that when the supplier who performs recycling receives a license from the manufacturer of the toner cartridge 17, it is almost guaranteed that the information regarding the handling of the toner according to the refilled toner component is re-recorded.

  However, if the recycling company has not received a license or the like from the manufacturer of the toner cartridge 17, toner having a component different from that of the genuine toner is used, and the toner recorded in the storage element 17a is used. There is a possibility that the information regarding the handling of the information is not updated.

  In such a case, in order to avoid the situation where the information regarding the handling of the toner to be printed or displayed differs from the actual desirable handling method, it is possible that a toner having a component different from a genuine toner component is used. If it is possible, it is desirable not to print or display information relating to toner handling recorded in the storage element 17a even when a command to print or display information relating to toner handling is received. At this time, it may be printed or displayed that there is a possibility that a toner having a component different from that of the genuine toner may be used.

  The possibility of using a toner having a component different from that of the genuine toner can be determined as follows, for example.

  That is, a toner low flag is provided in a predetermined area of the storage element 17a of the toner cartridge 17. Here, the initial state of the toner low flag is off. Then, when the remaining amount of toner in the toner cartridge 17 is low and the printer 10 needs to be replaced, the printer 10 turns on this toner low flag. Note that the remaining amount of toner in the toner cartridge 17 can generally be determined using a toner counter.

  When the toner cartridge 17 manufacturer or a recycler who receives a license refills the toner cartridge 17, the toner cartridge 17 is updated with information on the handling of the toner as necessary and the toner low flag is turned off. To.

  On the other hand, when a supplier who has not received a license or the like refills the toner, the toner low flag remains off. Therefore, when the toner counter is on even though the toner counter indicates that the remaining amount of toner is sufficient, the printer 10 has a component different from the genuine toner component. It can be determined that there is a possibility that the toner is used.

1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printing system. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a print engine and a toner cartridge.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Printer, 11 ... Interface, 12 ... CPU, 13 ... RAM, 14 ... ROM, 15 ... Print engine, 15a ... Storage element connection part, 16 ... Operation panel, 17 ... Toner cartridge, 17a ... Storage element, 21 ... Display Device, 22 ... Input device, 23 ... Media reader, 24 ... Auxiliary storage device, 30 ... Computer, 31 ... CPU, 32 ... RAM, 33 ... ROM, 34 ... Interface

Claims (9)

A printing apparatus capable of loading a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling,
An instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to print the information;
Based on the instruction, a reading means for reading out information relating to toner handling from the loaded toner cartridge;
A printing apparatus comprising: a printing unit that prints information on handling of the read toner. The printing apparatus according to claim 1,
A toner remaining amount acquiring means for acquiring the remaining amount of toner in the toner cartridge;
The reading means does not read out information regarding the handling of the toner when the remaining amount of toner is equal to or greater than a predetermined amount and the value of the predetermined area of the storage element indicates a predetermined value. Characteristic printing device. The printing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2,
The information on the handling of the toner includes a coping method when the toner adheres to the body, a coping method when the toner adheres to clothes, a coping method when the toner enters the eyes, and coping when the toner enters the mouth. A printing apparatus comprising any of the methods. A printing system including a printing device capable of loading a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information on handling of toner, and a printing control device,
The print control device includes:
Instruction accepting means for accepting an instruction to print information on handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
An instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to print information relating to toner handling based on the instruction;
The printing apparatus includes:
Reading means for reading out information relating to the handling of toner from a loaded toner cartridge based on the printing instruction;
A printing system comprising: a printing unit that prints information on handling of the read toner. A printing system comprising: a printing apparatus capable of loading a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling; and a print control apparatus to which a display device is connected,
The print control device includes:
An instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to display information relating to handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
An instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to acquire information on toner handling based on the instruction;
The printing apparatus includes:
Reading means for reading out information relating to the handling of toner from the loaded toner cartridge based on the acquisition instruction;
Comprising information output means for outputting information relating to the handling of the read toner to the print control device;
Furthermore, the printing control device includes:
A printing system comprising: display means for displaying information on handling of the output toner on the display device. A printing control apparatus for controlling a printing apparatus that can be loaded with a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information on handling of toner,
Instruction accepting means for accepting an instruction to print information on handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
An instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to print information relating to toner handling based on the instruction. A printing control apparatus that controls a printing apparatus that can be loaded with a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information on handling of toner, and to which a display apparatus is connected,
The print control device includes:
An instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to display information relating to handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
Instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to acquire information relating to toner handling based on the instruction;
Receiving means for receiving information relating to toner handling from the printing device;
A printing control apparatus, comprising: a display unit configured to display information on handling of the received toner on the display device. A printer driver that causes a computer to function as a printing control device that controls a printing device that can be loaded with a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling.
Instruction accepting means for accepting an instruction to print information on handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
A printer driver that causes a computer to function as an instruction output unit that instructs the printing apparatus to print toner-related information based on the instruction. A printer driver that causes a computer to which a display device is connected to function as a print control device that controls a printing device that can be loaded with a toner cartridge including a storage element that records information relating to toner handling.
An instruction receiving means for receiving an instruction to display information relating to handling of toner recorded in a storage element of a toner cartridge loaded in the printing apparatus;
Instruction output means for instructing the printing apparatus to acquire information relating to toner handling based on the instruction;
Receiving means for receiving information relating to toner handling from the printing device;
A printer driver that causes a computer to function as display means for displaying information on handling of the received toner on the display device.

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