JP2007145540A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To shorten the time for preparation for printing by detecting size of paper sheets in a short time in order to shorten the first printing time, in a printer which detects size of printing paper sheets, which are supplied before printing, by using a photo sensor on a carriage. <P>SOLUTION: This printer prints the only paper sheets having a corresponding size among image size of the printing data received from a host or among specified paper sheet sizes contained in the printing data. Since detection of size of the printing paper sheets previously fitted in the printer is impossible, paper feeding is performed once, and thereafter, the photo sensor fitted to the carriage is used to scan from an end to the other end of the printing paper sheet for size detection, and determination whether printing is possible or not is performed on the basis of the detected size. Condition to be required to detect size is previously limited. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention starts printing processing in advance in a printing apparatus in order to prevent, for example, platen contamination of the printing apparatus, and to shorten the first printing time without wasting expensive paper by printing on paper of different sizes. The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that identifies the size of printing paper before printing and performs printing processing by an appropriate method according to the identified result.

Conventionally, a printing apparatus performs a printing process based on print data received from a host. For example, when receiving print data, select an appropriate size from the print paper in the printing device or the print paper attached to the printing device according to the print paper size specified in the print data. I do. As a result, it is possible to prevent platen contamination of the printing apparatus due to a size mismatch between the print data and the print paper, and it is possible to prevent the use of expensive paper wastefully. This presupposes that the size of the printing paper in the printing apparatus or the printing paper attached to the printing apparatus can be detected in advance. (See Patent Document 1)
Such a configuration is especially in the era of cost reduction in recent printing devices, and there is a demand for a reduction in the number of components that make up the printing device. In the current situation, which is disliked for detection and is being deleted, it is difficult to realize a size detection mechanism using a sensor. Instead, the size of the printing paper fed by the printing device is detected after feeding using, for example, a photo sensor attached to the carriage, and printing is performed according to the printing paper size specified in the print data. A configuration for processing is conceivable and has become common. (See Patent Document 2)
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-105265 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-300751

  However, according to such a method, it is necessary to perform carriage scanning for the size width in order to detect the print paper size before entering the printing process, so that it takes a long time to start the printing process. There was a problem. In particular, this problem has clearly appeared in large format printers that print A0 or larger sizes.

  Therefore, in order to solve such problems, the present invention shortens the detection time of the printing paper size required before the printing apparatus enters the printing process, quickly detects the printing paper size, and starts the printing process. An object is to provide a system that can do this.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a printing apparatus that performs a printing process only on a paper whose size matches from an image size of print data received from a host or from a specified paper size included in the print data. In addition, since it is impossible to detect the size of the printing paper previously attached to the printing apparatus, the paper is once fed, and thereafter, from the edge of the printing paper using the photosensor attached to the carriage. A printing device configured to detect a size by scanning, determine whether printing is possible from the detected size, and perform processing, and obtain a paper size information recorded in the printing device in advance If the information acquisition means detects that the paper size is a little larger than the desired paper size, A paper size determination means for determining that the paper is a large size paper, and a carriage movement means capable of moving the carriage freely left and right, and when receiving print data from the host, When paper feeding is completed, the paper size to be fed is determined from the paper size information acquisition means and the received print data, and then the carriage is moved by the carriage moving means using a photo sensor attached to the carriage. The edge of the paper that has already been fed is detected, and after detection, the carriage is moved toward the paper edge on the opposite side. During that time, while there is a paper reaction, the carriage movement distance is processed as the paper size. Using the previous paper size determination means, the paper size being detected has reached a paper size that is one smaller than the paper size to be fed. When the detection is continued, the carriage moving means is used to stop the carriage movement, the detection of the paper size by the photosensor is terminated, and the printing apparatus is immediately ready for printing. It is characterized by preparing.

  According to the present invention, when printing data is received, printing paper in the printing apparatus or printing paper attached to the printing apparatus is fed, and the printing paper of the printing apparatus is fed to the fed printing paper. In a printing device that detects the size of a printable size using a photosensor attached to the carriage, a user who prints two types of printing paper, for example, A0 and A2, prints A0 size print data. In this case, the printing device will first detect the size of the fed printing paper, but until now, the carriage was moved while slowly detecting the size of the A0 size, so it took time to detect the size and printing. There was a problem that it took a long time to start processing, but when it was detected that it was slightly larger than A2 when moving the carriage by size detection The size is determined to be A0, carriage movement by size detection is completed, and it is possible to immediately prepare for the start of print processing. As a result, the time required for size detection is reduced, and user print data is printed immediately. It becomes possible to process.

  Hereinafter, as an embodiment of the present invention, an embodiment for shortening the size detection time in print sheet size detection using a photosensor attached to a carriage will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 schematically shows the configuration of a printing apparatus to which the present invention is applied. 100 indicates a platen, 101 indicates a shaft for moving the head, 102 indicates a head, and 103 indicates a photosensor attached to the head. 104 printing sheets are fed onto a 100 platen, and the size is detected by 102 heads and 103 photosensors. First, in the printing apparatus, the print paper size to be printed is determined based on the print data received from the host, and immediately after the 104 papers are fed onto the 100 platen and the paper feed is completed, The head of 102 and the photosensor of 103 move along the shaft of 101 on the print paper of 104 from the front to the back. At this time, when the printing paper is detected using the 103 photosensor when moving from the front, it is determined that the place is one of both ends of the printing paper, and the head of 102 and the photosensor of 103 are 101. Move to the back along the shaft. At this time, for example, if the printing device is capable of printing only A4, A3, A2, A1, A0, first, at the stage where the existence of the printing paper is determined, it is determined that the fed printing paper is at least A4 size or larger. If the print data is A4 size, the paper size detection by the head 102 and the photosensor 103 is finished, and preparation for the printing process is started immediately. If the print data is A0 size, continue to move 102 heads and 103 photo sensors along the shaft of 101 toward the back to reach the A1 size width, and even a little as much as the A1 size width. If the 102 heads have moved and the 103 photosensors are responding, it is determined that the A0 size is higher than the A1 size, and the A0 size width is detected by moving the 102 head. The paper size detection by the 102 head and the 103 photo sensor is terminated, and the preparation for the printing process is started immediately, so that the wasted time due to the size detection that was required before the printing process is saved, and as a whole Has shortened the printing time.

  FIG. 2 shows a printing apparatus to which the present invention is applied. The printing paper size to be printed is determined from the received printing data, and the printing paper actually in the printing apparatus or the printing paper attached to the printing apparatus is determined. Flowchart showing a series of flow until the size is determined in the configuration in which the size is detected from the value of the photosensor attached to the carriage and the moving distance of the carriage by feeding paper and the size of the fed printing paper. It is. In step S201, print data is received. In step S202, an internal temporary storage area used for detection is used as a counter for the detected print paper size and carriage movement distance, and is initialized. In S202, the print paper size is determined from the print data. If the received print data is for A3, for example, it is A3. Paper is fed in S203, carriage movement is started in S204, paper detection is performed by the photosensor along with carriage movement in S205, and when it is determined that there is paper, the carriage movement distance is counted in S206. Up. At this time, if there is no paper detection response from the photosensor, the carriage movement process of S204 is resumed. According to the carriage movement distance counted up in S206, an appropriate size is determined from the carriage movement distance and paper size correspondence table S210 stored in advance in the printing apparatus in S207. In this case, the process returns to the carriage movement process in S204, and size detection continues. If it is determined in S207 that the counter value based on the carriage movement distance is a little larger than the counter value of A4, for example, it is determined to be handled as A3 which is one larger size. Therefore, when judging that it is larger than an arbitrary size, set a larger size in S208 and check whether it matches the print paper size to be printed received in S209. End and start the printing process. At this time, if it is determined in S209 that it is non-conforming, the process returns to the carriage movement process in S204 and continues to detect the size.

  FIG. 3 illustrates that in the printing apparatus to which the present invention is applied, the correspondence table between the carriage movement distance and the paper size in S201 of FIG. 2 can be arbitrarily changed by the user. If the printing device has a panel such as S300, the user can arbitrarily set the paper size to be used from the menu item of S300. For example, the user can only set two types of printing paper, A0 and A2. When not using, let the user select the printing paper size of A0 and A2 in the menu items such as the user's paper size in advance, and inside the printer as the correspondence table of paper size and carriage movement distance and user registration paper size of S301 Let me register. Thus, when the print paper size detection mechanism determines that there is paper, it first determines that it is A2 size, and then determines that it is A0 when it is determined that the size is slightly larger than A2. It is possible to make a judgment, and since it took a lot of time to detect the size exactly for the width of A0 size in the past, unnecessary carriage movement due to size detection is eliminated, so the size detection that was applied before the first print It is possible to shorten useless time.

The figure which shows a schematic structure. The flowchart which shows a series of flows of this invention. Basic configuration when doing.

Explanation of symbols

100 platen
101 shaft
102 heads
103 Photosensor
104 Printing paper (A4 ~ A0)
300 panels
301 Paper size, carriage movement distance and user registered paper size correspondence table

Claims (2)

A printing device that performs printing processing only on paper that matches the size from the image size of the print data received from the host or from the specified paper size included in the print data, and the printing device that is attached to the printing device in advance Since it is impossible to detect the size of the paper, the paper is fed once, and then the size is detected by scanning from end to end of the printing paper using the photo sensor attached to the carriage. A printing apparatus configured to perform processing by determining whether printing is possible from
Paper size information acquisition means for acquiring paper size information recorded in advance in the printing apparatus;
A paper size determination unit that determines that the paper is one size larger than the arbitrary paper size when it is detected that the size is slightly larger than the arbitrary paper size;
Carriage moving means capable of moving the carriage left and right freely;
When the print data is received from the host, a paper feed operation is performed, and when the paper feed is completed, the paper size to be fed is determined from the paper size information acquisition unit and the received print data, and then Using the photo sensor attached to the carriage, the carriage moving means moves the carriage to detect the edge of the paper that has already been fed, and after the detection, moves the carriage toward the opposite paper edge, During the paper reaction, the carriage movement distance is processed as the paper size, and the previous paper size determination means is used to reach the paper size that is one smaller than the paper size to be fed. Further, when it is determined that the detection is continued to be as large as possible, the carriage movement means is used to stop the carriage movement, Printing apparatus characterized by to prepare for the printing device to exit the detection of the paper size, and immediately printable state by. In the printing apparatus according to claim 1, paper size setting registration means capable of arbitrarily setting and registering paper size information recorded in advance in the printing apparatus from a panel or a host;
Only the paper size registered by the paper size setting registration means, or the paper size determination means in the printing apparatus in addition to the paper size registered by the previous paper size setting registration means A printing device characterized by being treated as a size.

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