JP2007220034A - Image forming apparatus and proxy printing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image forming apparatus and a proxy printing system that keep printing productivity when performing proxy printing for an image forming apparatus with an error. <P>SOLUTION: An image forming apparatus 400 is used when an image forming apparatus 100 fails or otherwise to cause a printing stop. The image forming apparatus 400 is a normally unused backup and is in an energy saving state such as a preheated or low power mode except when used. The energy saving state means that the temperature of a fixing heater is lowered and peripherals, a polygon mirror and the fixing heater are powered off, and does not mean that a CPU is powered off. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus and a proxy printing system in which a plurality of image forming apparatuses are connected via a network and monitor each other.

  In the conventional printer, the status of each printer that can be shared via the network is monitored, and when an error occurs in the printer used for printing, the other printer is selected to perform printing on its behalf, and printing is performed on that printer. There is something to make.

Therefore, in the image processing apparatus of Patent Document 1, when an error occurs in a printer used for printing among a plurality of printers that can be shared via a network, a print language obtained by analyzing print data is displayed on the network. The printing language supported by the candidate printer that performs proxy printing searched from above is acquired, and the acquired printer that supports the printing language is extracted as a printer capable of proxy printing.
JP 2000-339126 A

  However, the image processing apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 is an invention that searches for a printer that supports a print language when an error occurs in a printer that has been used, and performs proxy printing on the printer. There is no suggestion of a means to increase productivity at the time.

  SUMMARY An advantage of some aspects of the invention is that it provides an image forming apparatus and a proxy printing system that maintain printing productivity when performing proxy printing of an image forming apparatus in which an error has occurred. .

  In order to achieve the above object, the image forming apparatus according to claim 1 is configured such that the information processing apparatus and the plurality of image forming apparatuses can be connected to a network, an error occurs in the image forming apparatus in use, and the printing is stopped. In this case, in an image forming apparatus in which another image forming apparatus performs proxy printing, a detecting unit that detects a failure of the image forming apparatus that is executing the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus, and the detecting unit generates an error. When detected, the image forming apparatus having a transition unit that shifts between the energy saving state and the printable state is normally discharged from the information processing apparatus when a failure occurs. It receives the print data of the next page of the page and executes printing.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first aspect, the transition unit determines whether to shift from the energy saving state to the printable state according to the type of failure detected by the detection unit. It is characterized by that.

  According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the image forming apparatus according to the first or second aspect, when the transition unit shifts from the printable state to the energy saving state after a predetermined time elapses, the image forming apparatus corresponds to the type of failure detected. The time until shifting to the energy saving state can be changed.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, the information processing apparatus and the plurality of image forming apparatuses can be connected to the network, and the image forming apparatus that is executing the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus is stopped. In a proxy printing system that performs proxy printing with another image forming apparatus, a detection unit that detects a fault that has occurred in the image forming apparatus that is executing the print job, and a fault to other image forming apparatuses that are in an energy saving state An information processing apparatus having a notification means for notifying the fact that the error has been detected via the network and a retransmission means for retransmitting the print job, a transition means for executing a transition between the energy saving state and the printable state, and receiving And an image forming apparatus that executes a print job retransmitted by the retransmitting means when the failure information is shifted to a printable state. .

  According to the present invention, when a failure occurs in an image forming apparatus that is executing a print job and the printing is stopped, the image forming apparatus that is in an energy saving state is shifted to a printable state in advance. Thus, it is possible to perform proxy printing without reducing productivity when proxy printing occurs.

Next, the present embodiment will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to the present embodiment.
As shown in FIG. 1, the image forming apparatus 100 includes a host I / F 101, an operation unit 102, a RAM 103, a code / font ROM 104, a nonvolatile RAM 105, a CPU 106, a print control unit 107, and an external storage device 108. Therefore, in the printing processing operation of the image forming apparatus 100, first, a control command and image data are received from the host I / F 101, and once stored in a reception buffer. And is transmitted from the print control unit 107 to the printer engine 300.

FIG. 2 shows a configuration in which the image forming apparatuses 100 and 400 are connected to the information processing apparatus 600 via the network 500.
In the present embodiment, the configuration is based on the assumption that one information processing apparatus 600 uses two image forming apparatuses 100 and 400. The image forming apparatus 100 includes a main image forming apparatus 100 and an image forming apparatus 400 used as a sub. The image forming apparatus 400 is used when a print stop occurs due to a failure in the image forming apparatus 100. The image forming apparatus 400 is a backup device that is not normally used, and is in an energy saving state such as preheating or a low power mode except when in use. The energy saving state in the present embodiment refers to a state in which the temperature of the fixing heater is lowered or the peripheral device, the polygon mirror, and the fixing heater are turned off, and is not a state in which the CPU is turned off.

  When the information processing apparatus 600 monitors the image forming apparatus 100 and determines that printing has stopped due to some failure in the image forming apparatus 100, printing is started from the next page that has been normally discharged. As described above, the print data is transferred to the image forming apparatus 400. The reason for stopping printing due to the failure of the image forming apparatus 100 may be no paper or jam, but the reason for stopping is not particularly limited. Further, as a method for the information processing apparatus 600 to monitor the image forming apparatus 100, state monitoring by MIB (Management Information Base) or the like, timeout processing by counting the number of discharged pages, and the like can be considered.

Next, the processing operation of the image forming apparatus according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the processing operation of the image forming apparatus 400.
The image forming apparatus 400 stores at least one image forming apparatus on the network and monitors the state. General monitoring means such as MIB may be used as the monitoring means.

  First, when the image forming apparatus 400 is in an energy saving and idle state (step S100), the image forming apparatus 400 communicates with the image forming apparatus 100 via the network 500 and reads an address from the nonvolatile RAM 105 of the image forming apparatus 100 ( Step S101) establishes communication with the image forming apparatus 100 (Step S102).

  Next, it is determined whether the image forming apparatus 100 is in a printing stopped state (step S103). If the printing is not stopped (step S103 / NO), steps S101 to S103 are repeated after waiting for a predetermined time.

  If the image forming apparatus 100 is in the printing stopped state (step S103 / YES), it is next determined whether the reason for stopping the image forming apparatus 100 matches the reason for stopping set in the image forming apparatus 400 (step S103 / YES). S104). In this processing, the non-volatile RAM 105 of the image forming apparatus 400 stores the reason for stopping when the image forming apparatus 1 is in the printing stopped state, and when the image forming apparatus 1 is actually in the printing stopped state. The image forming apparatus 100 notifies the image forming apparatus 400 of the reason for stopping.

  When the image forming apparatus 400 receives the reason for stopping, it is determined whether it matches the reason for stopping stored in the non-volatile RAM of the image forming apparatus 400. If not (step S104 / NO), the image forming apparatus 400 waits for a predetermined time (step S104 / NO). Step S111) and the processing operation from step S101 are repeated.

  If they match (step S104 / YES), the image forming apparatus 400 starts warm-up (step S105), enters a printable idle state (step S10), and establishes communication with the image forming apparatus 100. (Step S107).

  In the flowchart illustrated in FIG. 3, the image forming apparatus 400 monitors the state of the image forming apparatus 100 by establishing communication with the image forming apparatus 100. Therefore, when it is detected that the image forming apparatus 100 has stopped for some reason, the communication with the image forming apparatus 100 is cut off once, and the warm-up of the image forming apparatus 400 is started. However, it is not necessary to disconnect the communication until the image forming apparatus 400 starts warming up after the image forming apparatus 100 stops.

  Next, it is determined whether or not the image forming apparatus 400 is in a printing stopped state (step S108). If it is a printing stop state (step S108 / YES), it will transfer to an energy saving state (step S112), and will repeat the processing operation from step S100. When the print is not stopped (step S108 / NO), it is confirmed whether data is received from the image forming apparatus 100 (step S109). If no data has been received (step S109 / NO), the printer waits in the idle state in which printing is possible in step S106. If data is received, the image forming apparatus 400 performs normal printing processing (step S110).

  In addition, when the suspension of the image forming apparatus 100 is released and the operation of the image forming apparatus 100 is continued before data is transmitted from the information processing apparatus 600 to the image forming apparatus 400, the image forming apparatus 400 Transition from the idle state to the energy-saving state.

  The image forming apparatus 400 has a timer (not shown), and shifts to the energy saving state when the idle state continues for a predetermined time. The reason why the image forming apparatus 400 shifts to the normal state is the image forming apparatus 100. The fact that the printing of the image forming apparatus 100 is continued means that data transmission to the image commissioning apparatus 400 is not performed for the time being. In that case, it is possible to quickly shift to an energy saving state and to minimize power consumption.

  When the information processing apparatus 600 detects that the image forming apparatus 100 is stopped, for example, in the case of a paper jam, proxy printing is performed when the image forming apparatus 400 determines whether or not to perform proxy printing from the reason for stopping. If the paper is out, an operation is performed in which proxy printing is not performed. Accordingly, it is possible to avoid useless activation of the image forming apparatus 400 by determining whether or not the reason for stopping the image forming apparatus 100 can be resumed immediately.

Next, the processing operation of the image forming apparatus 400 will be described with reference to FIG.
In the flowchart shown in FIG. 4, first, when the image forming apparatus 400 is printable and in an idle state (step S200), it is determined whether or not the activation reason is a stop of the image forming apparatus 100 (step S201). When the start reason is not the stop of the image forming apparatus 100 (step S201 / NO), the setting 1 is used as the time until the transition to the energy saving state (step S206), and the start reason is the stop of the image forming apparatus 100. (Step S201 / YES), setting 2 is used as the time until the transition to the energy saving state (step S202).

Here, setting 1 and setting 2 will be described.
The settings 1 and 2 are set in the time required for the image forming apparatus 400 to print and transition from the idle state to the energy saving state. The settings 1 and 2 are stored in the nonvolatile RAM 105. Yes.

  In the setting 1, the time for which the timer is activated when the reason for starting the image forming apparatus 400 is other than the stop of the image forming apparatus 100 is set. This is a case where proxy printing of the forming apparatus 100 is not performed.

  The setting 2 sets a time for the timer to operate when the image forming apparatus 100 is stopped. If the reason for starting the image forming apparatus 400 is the stop of the image forming apparatus 100 in step S201, the timer is set. Operate at the time set in setting 2. Note that setting 2 is set longer than the time set in setting 1.

  Therefore, a predetermined time is waited for the time set in setting 1 or setting 2 (step S203), and it is determined whether the specified time has elapsed (step S204). If it has not elapsed (step S204 / NO), it waits until the specified time has elapsed. When the specified time has elapsed (step S204), the process shifts to an energy saving state (step S205).

  From the above description, in the image forming apparatus according to the present embodiment, the image forming apparatus 400 is shifted from the energy saving state to the printable state in advance by stopping the image forming apparatus 100, so that the productivity at the time of occurrence of proxy printing can be increased. Can be improved.

  In addition, when proxy printing is not performed in the image forming apparatus 400 that has shifted to the printable state, it is possible to suppress unnecessary power consumption by quickly shifting to the energy saving state. Further, by changing the time for shifting to the energy saving state due to the reason that printing of the image forming apparatus 100 is stopped, printing can be started immediately without shifting to energy saving even if it takes time to substitute printing. .

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an image forming apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment. It is the figure which showed the structure of the proxy printing system which concerns on this embodiment. 5 is a flowchart illustrating processing operations of the image forming apparatus according to the present exemplary embodiment. 5 is a flowchart illustrating processing operations of the image forming apparatus according to the present exemplary embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

100 Image forming apparatus 101 Host I / F
102 Operation unit 103 RAM
104 Code / Font ROM
105 Nonvolatile RAM
106 CPU
107 Print Control Unit 108 External Storage Device 200 Video I / F
300 Printer engine

Claims (4)

In an image forming apparatus in which an information processing apparatus and a plurality of image forming apparatuses can be connected to a network, an error occurs in the image forming apparatus in use, and another image forming apparatus performs proxy printing when the printing is stopped.
Detecting means for detecting occurrence of a failure in the image forming apparatus executing the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus;
A transition means for shifting the state between the energy saving state and the printable state when the detection means detects an error;
The image forming apparatus that has shifted to the printable state by the shift unit receives print data of the next page of a page that has been normally ejected from the information processing apparatus when the failure occurs, and executes printing. Image forming apparatus.   The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the shift unit determines whether or not to shift from an energy saving state to a printable state according to a type of failure detected by the detection unit. When the transition means shifts to the energy saving state after a predetermined time has elapsed from the printable state,
3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a time required to shift to the energy saving state can be changed according to the type of the detected failure. When the information processing apparatus and the plurality of image forming apparatuses can be connected to a network and the image forming apparatus that is executing the print job transmitted from the information processing apparatus is stopped, the other image forming apparatus performs proxy printing. In the agency printing system that performs
Detecting means for detecting a failure occurring in the image forming apparatus executing the print job;
An information processing apparatus having notification means for notifying another image forming apparatus in an energy saving state as failure information via the network and a retransmission means for retransmitting the print job;
A transition means for performing transition between the energy saving state and the printable state;
When shifting to the printable state from the received failure information,
A proxy printing system comprising: an image forming apparatus that executes a print job retransmitted by the retransmitting unit.

Images