JP2006130678A - Inkjet recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To equip a serial printer with a secondary storage device such as an HDD without using a special material and members. <P>SOLUTION: The head of a normal HDD is unloaded and a head is loaded in accordance with the action of a carriage and accessed. Or in consideration of head maintenance time, access is made during waiting time to equalize the waiting time between the scanning of the head for lines. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method, and more particularly to a recording apparatus and a recording method using a recording head that performs recording by ejecting ink according to an ink jet method.

  In recent years, OA equipment such as personal computers, copying machines, word processors, and the like has become widespread, and a recording apparatus that performs digital image recording by an ink jet method as a kind of image forming (recording) apparatus of these equipment has rapidly developed and spread. ing. In particular, along with the enhancement of the functions of OA devices, the colorization of these devices is progressing, and various color ink jet recording apparatuses have been developed accordingly.

  In general, an ink jet recording apparatus includes a carriage on which a recording head and an ink tank are mounted, a transport mechanism that transports recording paper, and a control circuit that controls these. In such a recording apparatus, ink is ejected while serially scanning a recording head having a plurality of ejection openings for ejecting ink droplets in the direction (main scanning direction) perpendicular to the recording paper conveyance direction (sub-scanning direction). On the other hand, the recording operation is executed by intermittently conveying the recording paper by an amount equal to the recording width of the recording head while ink is not ejected from the recording head. Further, in the case of a recording apparatus capable of color recording, a color image is formed by superimposing ink droplets ejected from a plurality of recording heads.

  In the ink jet recording apparatus, as a method of ejecting ink, a heating element (electrothermal energy converter) is provided in the vicinity of the ejection port, and an electric signal is applied to the heating element to locally heat the ink to change the pressure. Conventionally, a method for causing ink to discharge from an ejection port and a method for ejecting ink by applying a mechanical pressure to the ink using a piezoelectric element such as a piezoelectric element are known.

  This ink jet recording method records characters and figures by ejecting ink as fine droplets from a discharge port onto a recording medium according to a recording signal, and has low noise because it is non-impact. Because it has advantages such as low running costs, easy downsizing, and relatively easy colorization, it can be used in combination with computers and word processors, etc. Are widely used as image forming (recording) means in recording apparatuses such as copying machines, printers, and facsimiles.

  1 and 2 are block diagrams showing schematic configurations of a controller unit and an engine unit of the ink jet recording apparatus, respectively.

  First, the function and schematic operation of the controller unit will be described. The CPU 101 is connected to the host computers 120 and 121 via the USB interface 108 or the IEEE 1394 interface 109. The CPU 101 receives the control program, the updatable control program, the processing program, various constant data, and the like from the ROM 105 and the host computer 120. The RAM 104 for storing the command signal and the image information is accessed, and the recording operation is controlled based on the information stored in these memories. The instruction information input from the keys of the operation panel 107 is transmitted to the CPU 101 via the operation panel interface 106, and the LED lighting and LCD display of the operation panel 107 are similarly controlled via the operation panel interface 106 according to commands from the CPU 101. Is done. The HDD 110 has a larger storage capacity than the RAM 104 and is a secondary storage device that stores image data and the like. The image information is converted into dot data of each ink color by the image data processing block 111 and output to the engine (FIG. 2). Similarly, various commands and status information are transmitted and received between the controller and the engine via the image data processing block 111. The recording head operation detection unit 113 determines whether the recording head is operating using a recording head operation signal from the engine.

  Next, the function and operation outline of the engine unit will be described. The engine unit is connected to a controller (FIG. 1) via a band memory control block 209. The CPU 201 accesses a ROM 203 storing a control program, an updatable control program, a processing program, various constant data, and the like, and a controller (FIG. 1) RAM 202 for storing received command signals and image information. The recording operation is controlled based on the stored information. In addition, a print head scanning signal is output, and the operation state of the print head is transmitted to the controller. The carriage 220 is moved by operating the carriage motor 208 via the carriage motor control circuit 207. Further, by operating the paper feed motor 205 via the paper feed motor control circuit 204, the paper transport mechanism 206 such as a transport roller is operated. Further, the CPU 201 can record a desired image on a recording medium by controlling the band memory control block 209 and the recording head control block 211 based on various information stored in the RAM 202 and driving the recording head 212. .

  A power supply circuit (not shown) is supplied with a logic drive voltage Vcc (for example, 3.3 V) for operating the CPU and various control circuits, various motor drive voltages Vm (for example, 24 V), and a heat voltage for driving the recording head. Vh (for example, 12V) is output.

  As a method of binarizing multi-value data to obtain binary data and reproducing a gradation image in a pseudo manner using the binary data, for example, (1) density pattern method, (2) systematic pattern dither And (3) error diffusion method.

  In the density pattern method, one pixel is developed into M * N recording dots (M and N are integers of 1 or more), and gradation expression by binary is performed by area modulation, and dots are recorded per unit area. The area modulation is realized by changing the number (number of ink particles).

  In the pattern dither method, a pattern dither matrix including threshold values configured in a matrix is prepared, and one-to-one pixel comparison between each threshold value and each pixel of input data is performed to determine ON / OFF.

  In the error diffusion method, a diffusion coefficient is assigned to a peripheral pixel for a target pixel, and a quantization error generated in the target pixel is distributed to the peripheral pixels according to the diffusion coefficient. As a result, the density of the entire image is preserved, and a favorable pseudo gradation expression is possible.

  In general, the pattern dither method tends to have a lower image quality than an image to which the error diffusion method is applied. However, since parallel processing is possible, high-speed processing is easy. In the error diffusion method, it is difficult to perform high-speed processing because it is not possible to shift to processing of the next pixel until an error propagates.

  In the conventional ink jet recording method, it was necessary to use a special coated paper having an ink absorbing layer in order to obtain a color image with high color development without ink bleeding. A method of giving printability to plain paper that is used in large quantities on a machine has been put into practical use. Furthermore, it is desired to support various recording media such as OHP sheets, cloths, and plastic sheets. In order to meet these requirements, recording media (recording media) having different ink absorption characteristics were selected as necessary. At the same time, development and commercialization of a recording apparatus capable of performing the best recording irrespective of the type of the recording medium are being promoted. In addition, regarding the size of the recording medium, large-sized posters and woven fabrics such as clothes for advertisements have been required. Such an ink jet recording apparatus is in high demand in a wide range of fields as an excellent recording means, and it can be said that there is a demand for providing higher quality images, and the demand for higher speed is further increased.

  Generally, the color ink jet recording method uses three color inks of cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y), and further uses four color inks added with black (Bk). Realizes color recording. In such a color ink jet recording apparatus, unlike a monochrome dedicated ink jet recording apparatus that records only characters, various factors such as color development, gradation expression, and uniformity of an image are recorded in recording a color image. It is necessary to consider.

  However, the quality of the recorded image largely depends on the performance of the recording head unit. The slight differences in the characteristics of each nozzle that occur during the printhead manufacturing process, such as the shape of the printhead discharge ports and the variations in the quality of the electrothermal transducer (discharge heater), are due to the amount and direction of ink discharged. The direction of the image is influenced, and these effects appear as density unevenness in the finally formed recorded image, which causes deterioration in image quality. As a result, there are “white” portions that do not meet the area factor of 100% periodically in the main scanning direction of the recording head, or conversely, the dots overlap abnormally or white streaks occur. Will be. These phenomena are usually perceived as uneven density by the human eye.

  Therefore, a method called a multi-pass recording method has been proposed as a countermeasure against such density unevenness. Here, for the sake of simplicity, a case where a recording head that performs recording using a single color ink consisting of 8 nozzles is used will be described as an example.

  In the first scan of multi-pass printing, even-numbered row patterns are used, and in the second scan, odd-numbered row patterns are used. In the first scan, print data is thinned using a staggered pattern and a second scan is an inverted staggered pattern. A case where two-pass printing is realized by adopting a fixed mask method for generating pass data according to FIG. The staggered pattern is recorded in the first scan, the paper is fed by half the recording width (4 dot width), and then the inverted staggered pattern is recorded in the second scan to complete the recording. That is, the recording area in units of 4 dots is completed for each scan by alternately performing paper feeding in units of 4 dots and recording in a zigzag / reverse zigzag pattern.

  Next, two-pass printing is realized by adopting a table reference method that generates pass data by thinning out print data using a random mask pattern in which print dots and non-print dots are randomly arranged. The case will be described. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a mask table for each recording scan, table areas A and B are complementary mask tables used in the first pass and the second pass, respectively. The table is 1 bit / dot, 0 indicates a mask target, and 1 indicates a non-mask target. Mask tables A and B are tables each having a size corresponding to 12 pixels in the main scanning direction and 4 pixels in the sub-scanning direction, and are repeatedly developed in each direction and used as mask data. The number of nozzles provided in the recording head is 8, and the number of pixels corresponding to the paper conveyance amount in 2-pass recording is 8/2 = 4, which matches the sub-scanning direction sizes of Tables A and B.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining the state of recording scanning using the mask table shown in FIG. For 8 lines of data corresponding to 8 nozzles, A and B are applied as mask patterns every 4 lines. In each recording scan, image data masking (replaces recording dots with non-recording dots) is executed using the stored mask table to generate and output pass data. Specifically, by taking the logical product of the image data and the mask data, if the mask data is 1, the image data is output as it is, and if the mask data is 0, the image data is This is realized by replacing with 0. All image areas are always masked in the order of A and B by two scans to generate print data. Here, the mask OFF (1) ratios of A and B are equally about 50%.

  Similarly to the table reference type two-pass recording, an example of the table reference type four-pass recording is shown below. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a mask table for each printing scan. The table areas A, B, C, and D are complementary to each other used in the first pass, the second pass, the third pass, and the fourth pass. It is a mask table. The table is 1 bit / dot, 0 indicates a mask target, and 1 indicates a non-mask target. The mask tables A, B, C, and D are tables each having a size corresponding to 12 pixels in the main scanning direction * 2 pixels in the sub scanning direction, and are repeatedly developed in each direction and used as mask data. The number of nozzles provided in the recording head is 8, and the number of pixels corresponding to the paper conveyance amount in 4-pass recording is 8/4 = 2, which matches the sub-scanning direction sizes of the tables A, B, C, and D. .

  FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the state of recording scanning using the mask table shown in FIG. For 8 lines of data corresponding to 8 nozzles, A, B, C and D are applied as mask patterns every 2 lines. In each recording scan, image data masking (replaces recording dots with non-recording dots) is executed using the stored mask table to generate and output pass data. Specifically, by taking the logical product of the image data and the mask data, if the mask data is 1, the image data is output as it is, and if the mask data is 0, the image data is This is realized by replacing with 0. All image areas are always masked in the order of A, B, C, and D by four scans to generate print data. Here, the mask OFF (1) ratios of A, B, C, and D are equally about 25% each.

  Thus, by recording one line using two different nozzles, it is possible to form a high-quality image with suppressed density unevenness. In addition, the multi-pass printing method has the effect of suppressing bleeding (bleeding) by printing while drying the ink, and the print head temperature rise, which causes ejection failure, by reducing the printing dots for each scan. The suppression effect can be achieved at the same time. Although the main scanning direction has been described here, it is possible to further improve the image quality by thinning out and recording continuous dots in the sub-scanning direction. Further, when it is desired to realize image formation in the sub-scanning direction at a resolution higher than the nozzle resolution, the thinning recording in the sub-scanning direction is an essential process.

As described above, the pass data for each scan is generated by thinning out the print data using a random mask pattern in which print dots and non-print dots are randomly arranged as described above. In addition to the method of generating the pass data (referred to as the table reference method), the method of generating the pass data by thinning out the recording data using the even / odd column pattern or the zigzag / reverse zigzag pattern (referred to as the fixed mask method) In addition, a method of generating pass data by performing a thinning process while paying attention to recording dots (referred to as a data mask method) or a method using these in combination is known.
JP-A-9-314953

  Recent ink jet recording apparatuses have improved image quality / speedup, and the data bandwidth required for printing has been increasing year by year. For example, from the viewpoint of print resolution, the conventional recording apparatus was about 360 dpi × 360 dpi, but the latest recording apparatus has also appeared as 2880 × 2880 dpi, and requires 64 times the data amount compared to the conventional one. In addition, the number of nozzles and the frequency of recording heads are increasing several times. Therefore, the data bandwidth has become more than 100 times that of the prior art.

  On the other hand, the speed of the interface with the host computer has been increased, and in recent years, 400Mbit / sec IEEE1394, 480Mbit / sec USB2.0, Gigabit Ethernet (registered trademark) with a gigabit bandwidth, etc. are widely used. However, although compression technology has also advanced, it is difficult to say that the necessary bandwidth is sufficient.

  In particular, in multi-copy printing, it is more reasonable to store print data once in a storage device held inside the recording device and use the data again, rather than repeatedly communicating data due to an increase in data volume. is there. For this reason, an external storage such as an HDD has been increasingly used in the ink jet recording apparatus.

  However, a device that stores data by mechanically operating a physical medium such as an HDD has a characteristic of being weak against mechanical vibration. For this reason, it is necessary to adopt a mechanical vibration reduction mounting method for protecting the HDD, specifically, a vibration reduction method using a spring, a damper, a urethane material, etc. This was not a preferable state from the viewpoint of maintenance.

  On the other hand, inkjet recording devices basically perform printing by the shuttle scan method that scans the recording head. As described above, the scanning speed of the recording head has been further improved to achieve higher speed and higher image quality. The weight of the head also increased. For this reason, the factors causing the ink jet recording apparatus to vibrate are increasing, and the vibration with respect to the HDD tends to become more severe.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object thereof is a control method for enabling attachment in a simple manner without using a special device for protecting the HDD.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention controls the operation of the HDD according to the scanning acceleration of the recording head.

  In the shuttle scan method, due to its structure, when changing the moving direction of the recording head, control of deceleration, stop, and acceleration is performed, and there is always a stop period. Also, from the viewpoint of ensuring printing stability, the printing period in the constant speed state is made as long as possible. In particular, since a large format printer scans a long length, this constant speed state exists for a long time. As described above, when the vehicle is stopped or at a constant speed, the acceleration with respect to the vibration of the device is small and the HDD is not affected.

  Further, the ink jet recording apparatus requires a maintenance operation of the recording head called a recovery operation for a certain printing amount, and the acceleration due to the vibration of the device is small during this time.

  Accordingly, if the HDD is operated using these sections, it is possible to perform a stable operation, and there is no need to use mechanical vibration reducing means such as a damper.

  In addition, because of the structure of the shuttle scan method, the recording head can be stopped between recording scans. Therefore, when access to the HDD is required, the recording head can be actively stopped to operate. .

  The ink jet recording apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  A recording head having an interface for transferring multi-value or binary image data / control data to / from a host computer and a memory for storing data from the interface, and having a plurality of ink ejection units In an inkjet recording apparatus that scans a recording medium and forms an image by ejecting ink from the recording head to the recording medium based on the input image information, the external memory An ink jet recording apparatus that controls an operation.

  Further, the ink jet recording apparatus according to the second invention of the present invention has the following configuration.

  An ink jet recording apparatus comprising: means for detecting the operation of the recording head; and means for stopping the operation of the memory by a signal from the detecting means.

  Furthermore, an ink jet recording apparatus according to a third aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  3. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the means for detecting the operation of the recording head is an acceleration determining means for the recording head.

  Furthermore, the ink jet recording apparatus according to the fourth aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  An ink jet recording apparatus comprising: means for detecting a maintenance operation of the recording head; and means for stopping the operation of the memory by a signal from the detecting means.

  Furthermore, an ink jet recording apparatus according to a fifth aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  A recording head having an interface for transferring multi-value or binary image data / control data to / from a host computer and a memory for storing data from the interface, and having a plurality of ink ejection units In an inkjet recording apparatus that scans a recording medium and forms an image by ejecting ink from the recording head to the recording medium based on the input image information, the means for controlling the operation of the recording head and the external An ink jet recording apparatus that controls the operation of the recording head according to the means for controlling the operation of the memory and the operation of the external memory.

  Furthermore, an ink jet recording apparatus according to a sixth aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  An ink jet recording apparatus that performs access control to make the wait time between scans of a recording head uniform.

  Furthermore, an ink jet recording apparatus according to a seventh aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  An ink jet recording apparatus that stores data received from the host computer in an HDD other than a main memory.

  Furthermore, an ink jet recording apparatus according to an eighth aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

  An ink jet recording apparatus, wherein the recording head is a recording head that discharges ink using thermal energy, and includes thermal energy conversion means for generating thermal energy applied to the ink.

  Furthermore, an ink jet recording apparatus according to an eighth aspect of the present invention has the following configuration.

An ink jet recording apparatus, wherein the recording head ejects ink using a pressure generating element.

  As described above, the apparatus includes an interface for transferring multi-value or binary image data / control data to / from a host computer and a memory for storing data from the interface, and a plurality of ink ejection units. In an ink jet recording apparatus for forming an image by causing a recording head to scan a recording medium and ejecting ink from the recording head to the recording medium based on the input image information, according to the operation of the recording head If the operation of the external memory is controlled or the operation of the recording head is limited in accordance with the operation of the external memory, an inkjet equipped with an external memory such as an inexpensive and highly stable HDD without a special installation method. A recording device can be provided.

(First embodiment)
Hereinafter, a first embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 7 shows the structure of the recording unit of the ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention.

  Reference numeral 701 denotes a recording head, which is an ink tank in which four color inks of black (Bk), cyan (Cy), magenta (Mg), and yellow (Ye) are sealed, and four independent heads corresponding to the ink tanks. It is comprised by the multihead which consists of. The number of nozzles for each color is 16 nozzles. A carriage 702 supports the recording head 701 and moves them together with recording. The carriage can move in the X direction using the stay 706. The carriage 702 is at the home position HP shown in the drawing during standby such as a non-recording state. Reference numeral 703 denotes a paper feed roller that rotates while suppressing the recording paper 704 and feeds the recording paper 704 in the Y direction as needed. Reference numeral 705 denotes a paper feed roller that feeds the recording paper 704 and plays the role of suppressing the recording paper 704 in the same manner as the paper feed roller 703 and the auxiliary roller. Here, the recording head 701 has 1024 nozzles respectively arranged in the paper feed direction for the four colors Bk, Cy, Mg, and Ye.

  A basic recording operation in the above configuration will be described.

  The carriage 702 at the home position HP at the time of standby performs recording by ejecting ink onto the recording paper 704 according to the recording data by a plurality of nozzles of the recording head 701 while moving in the X direction by a recording start command. When the recording of the recording data to the end of the recording paper 704 is completed, the carriage returns to the original home position. As the paper feed roller 703 rotates in the direction of the arrow, the paper is fed by a predetermined width in the Y direction, and the carriage 702 again ejects ink while moving in the X direction and starts recording. Data recording is realized by repeating such scanning operation and paper feeding operation.

  The ink jet recording apparatus of this embodiment converts an interface for exchanging image information and various control information with a host computer or the like, and converts input image information into dot ON / OFF data for each ink color. And a controller (FIG. 1) configured with an image data processing block, and an engine (FIG. 2) that transports recording paper and drives a carriage and controls the recording head to form an image. ing.

  In this embodiment, a USB interface and an IEEE1394 interface are provided. The user can select and use one of the two interfaces, and can send and receive image information and control information to and from the host computer using the actually connected interface. Here, it is assumed that the effective rate of the USB interface is 0.5 MByte / S, and the effective rate of the IEEE 1394 interface is 4 MByte / S.

  Further, the ink jet recording apparatus according to the present embodiment employs a multi-pass recording method in which the same recording area is scanned a plurality of times to form an image. As described above, multi-pass printing forms an image using a plurality of nozzles for one line, thereby suppressing density unevenness due to slight differences in the ink discharge amount and discharge direction for each nozzle, and simultaneously passing This is a recording method in which the recording duty is reduced to prevent image quality deterioration due to ink bleeding or the like.

  Here, description will be given by taking two-pass printing as an example. The carriage is driven at a speed equal to or lower than the maximum ejection frequency, and each scan completes an image by two print scans while referring to a mask table. The amount of paper transport performed between scans corresponds to the width of nozzles obtained by dividing the number of used nozzles by two.

  As described above, the recording head has 1024 nozzles for each color, and the nozzle numbers are assigned as # 0, 1, 2, 3,. In the present embodiment, a fixed mask method is employed in which even columns and odd columns are alternately formed. In the first pass, only even-numbered rows of X coordinates = 2n are formed. Then, after carrying the paper having a width corresponding to half of the number of used nozzles, in the second pass, only odd-numbered dots with X coordinates = 2n + 1 are formed. Then, paper is transported with a width corresponding to half of the number of used nozzles. Thereafter, even-numbered dot formation, paper conveyance, odd-numbered dot formation, and paper conveyance are sequentially repeated.

  Next, description will be given by taking 4-pass printing as an example. The carriage is driven at a speed equal to or less than the maximum ejection frequency, and each scan completes an image by four print scans while referring to a mask table. The amount of paper transport performed between scans corresponds to the width of nozzles obtained by dividing the number of used nozzles by four.

  As described above, the recording head has 1024 nozzles for each color, and the nozzle numbers are assigned as # 0, 1, 2, 3,. In the present embodiment, a fixed mask method is employed in which even columns and odd columns are alternately formed. In the first pass, only the dots in the row with the X coordinate = 4n are formed. Then, after carrying a paper having a width corresponding to ¼ of the number of used nozzles, only dots in a row where the X coordinate is 4n + 1 are formed in the second pass. Similarly, paper having a width corresponding to ¼ of the number of used nozzles is conveyed, and in the third pass, only dots in the row where the X coordinate is 4n + 2 are formed. By performing this operation four times, recording is performed for the X coordinates 4N to 4N + 3, that is, all dots.

  Next, the control of the operation of a mechanical external memory such as an HDD according to the operation of the recording head, which is characteristic in the present invention, will be described in detail. Hereinafter, the control method will be described with reference to FIG.

S801 is acquisition of the operating state of the recording head from the engine. The stop trigger signal of the recording head and the constant speed trigger signal of the recording head are used so that there is no operation accompanied by the strong acceleration of the recording head during the operation of the HDD. In the shuttle scan method, when the print area is small, the print speed can be further improved by narrowing the scan width of the recording head. However, in this case, since the time of the constant speed state is short, there is a possibility that the recording head has to be operated again while accessing the HDD. For this reason, when the print width is narrow and the constant acceleration state is short, the constant speed trigger signal should not be turned ON from the engine side. (Since these signals use control signals from the engine CPU in FIG. 2 201, the trigger signal may be controlled on the engine CPU side based on the print width.)
As an initial state, it is assumed that the HDD head is unloaded and the spindle motor is rotating. This is because the recording medium may be destroyed if the head is still loaded when a strong vibration is applied to the device. The spindle motor continues to operate in order to improve the response time when accessing.

  In S802, it is determined whether or not it is in a constant acceleration state. If it is not constant acceleration, it will wait until it comes out of this loop and becomes constant acceleration again.

  If the acceleration is constant, the HDD is operated in S805. First, the head is loaded, and after the HDD operation is stabilized, actual access such as read / write is performed. At this time, since the spindle motor remains rotating, it is not necessary to perform any control.

  If constant acceleration time information is acquired from the engine side in advance, more efficient access is possible.

  In S807, it is determined whether the HDD access has been completed. If not completed, access is performed again in S805. If the processing is completed, a head unload command is output to the HDD. This makes it possible to minimize the physical influence on the head due to the vibration of the device.

  FIG. 10 shows an operation diagram of the recording head. In the figure, the Y-axis direction represents the absolute velocity of the head, and the higher the Y-axis height, the higher the velocity. In the present embodiment, the + direction represents movement from the right to the left facing the printer, and the − direction represents movement from the left to the right in the same manner.

  The X-axis direction represents the passage of time.

  Thus, in the figure, in (1), scanning is started and acceleration in the + direction is continued until a constant speed is reached.

  (2) is a constant speed state. (3) is the final stage of scanning, and decelerates until the recording head stops.

  In (4), in order to change the operation direction of the recording head, the operation is temporarily stopped, and in (5), the scanning operation is started again. This time, acceleration in the reverse direction is started. (6) is the constant speed state again. (7) is a deceleration for stopping the recording head again.

  The HDD access is performed when the acceleration is below a certain acceleration (2), (4), or (6) for the left / right shuttle operation of the head. Conversely, (1), (3), (5), and (7) are not accelerating, so HDD access is not performed.

  With this kind of control, HDDs can be installed in high-speed, high-quality printers without any special mounting method.

  Although not directly described in the above algorithm, the recording head is stopped during the recording head maintenance time such as the recovery operation, and the HDD is accessed actively using this time. .

(Second embodiment)
In this embodiment, the controller side actively limits the operation of the recording head for the operation of the HDD. In other words, taking advantage of the shuttle head method, control is performed to embed HDD access for the required time between scans of the print head.

  Since variations in time between scans of the print head affect the printed image as color unevenness, this deterioration in image quality is prevented by averaging the access time of each scan. For example, considering the print head maintenance time, the wait time between each scan may be the same as the time when the print head maintenance is performed.

  In S901, the print head stop instruction is given to the engine. These use the engine interface shown in FIG. 11 and transmit commands in the same way as normal print instructions.

  In S902, it is detected whether or not the recording head has stopped. The 113 recording head detector is used. If not, wait until it stops. In S903, since the recording head is stopped, HDD access is performed. As described above, a certain amount of access is performed so that the wait time between each scan in consideration of the maintenance time of the recording head is made uniform.

  In S904, the end of HDD access is determined. If completed, in S905, the print head operation is instructed to the engine. This also uses the 1111 engine interface as in S901.

  Note that the present invention is not limited to the mounting direction of the HDD. HDD has a characteristic that the recording head floats due to its structure, and the acceleration in the vertical direction connecting the recording head and the recording medium is weak, but strong acceleration in other directions also has an adverse effect on the head. This is because the error rate is adversely affected.

  The present invention is not limited by the operation principle or configuration of the recording head. That is, the recording head is provided with a heating element (electrical / thermal energy conversion element) in the vicinity of the discharge port, and by applying an electric signal to the heating element, the ink is locally heated to cause a pressure change, and the ink is discharged. A thermal system that ejects ink from an ejection port may be used, or a piezoelectric system that ejects ink by applying mechanical pressure to the ink using an electrical / pressure converting means such as a piezoelectric element.

  The form of the ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention is not limited to an image output apparatus of an information processing apparatus such as a computer or a word processor, but is provided integrally or separately, and a copying apparatus or a communication function combined with a reading apparatus. It may be a facsimile machine having

It is a schematic block diagram of the controller part in an inkjet recording device. It is a schematic block diagram of the engine part in an inkjet recording device. It is a figure which shows an example of the mask table for multipass 2 pass data production | generation. It is a figure explaining the mode of multipass printing using the mask table of FIG. An example of a mask table for each scan of the 4-pass printing in the table reference method is shown. It is a figure explaining the mode of the recording scan using a mask table. 1 shows a configuration of a recording unit of an ink jet recording apparatus. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a recording control operation in the first embodiment of the present invention. 6 is a flowchart illustrating a recording control operation in the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is an operation diagram of the recording head in the first embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (9)

  A recording head having an interface for transferring multi-value or binary image data / control data to / from a host computer and a memory for storing data from the interface, and having a plurality of ink ejection units In an inkjet recording apparatus that scans a recording medium and forms an image by ejecting ink from the recording head to the recording medium based on the input image information, the external memory An ink jet recording apparatus that controls an operation.   2. An ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for detecting the operation of the recording head and means for stopping the operation of the memory by a signal from the detecting means.   3. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the means for detecting the operation of the recording head is an acceleration determining means for the recording head.   2. An ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for detecting a maintenance operation of the recording head and means for stopping the operation of the memory by a signal from the detecting means.   A recording head having an interface for transferring multi-value or binary image data / control data to / from a host computer and a memory for storing data from the interface, and having a plurality of ink ejection units In an inkjet recording apparatus that scans a recording medium and forms an image by ejecting ink from the recording head to the recording medium based on the input image information, the means for controlling the operation of the recording head and the external An ink jet recording apparatus, wherein the operation of the recording head is controlled in accordance with the means for controlling the operation of the memory and the operation of the external memory.   6. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein access control is performed so as to make the wait time between scans of the recording head uniform.   The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein data received from the host computer is stored in an HDD.   8. The recording head according to claim 1, wherein the recording head is a recording head that ejects ink using thermal energy, and includes thermal energy conversion means for generating thermal energy applied to the ink. Inkjet recording apparatus.   The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording head ejects ink using a pressure generating element.

Images