JP2016036941A - Recording apparatus, control method for the same, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a recording apparatus capable of shortening start-up time when a power source of the recording apparatus is turned on, a control method for the recording apparatus, and a program.SOLUTION: A recording apparatus includes: storage means for storing a previous OFF-state of a power source; detection means for detecting an ON-state of the power source; and determination means for determining whether or not initialization processing is executed, on the basis of the previous OFF-state of the power source, stored in the storage means, and the state detected by the detection means, when the power source is turned on.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 3

Description

  The present invention relates to a recording apparatus using an ink jet system.

  In the conventional recording apparatus, when the power switch is turned on, initialization of the mechanism portion of the recording apparatus is executed. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-228561 describes that the content of the initialization process is changed according to the state of the recording apparatus.

JP 2004-345307 A

  In the above conventional example, the content of the initialization process is changed according to the state of the recording apparatus, but initialization that is not necessary is also executed. Therefore, the conventional example has a problem that the starting time of the recording apparatus is long.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a recording apparatus, a recording apparatus control method, and a program capable of shortening the startup time when the recording apparatus is powered on.

  The recording apparatus according to the present invention includes a storage unit that stores a previous power-off state, a detection unit that detects a power-on state, and a previous power-off state that is stored in the storage unit when the power is turned on. And determining means for determining whether or not to execute the initialization process based on the state detected by the detecting means and the state detected by the detecting means.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to shorten the start-up time when the power of the recording apparatus is turned on.

2 is a block diagram illustrating an electrical configuration of the inkjet printer 120. FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view illustrating a mechanism configuration of an inkjet printer 120. FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a power-ON processing operation according to the first embodiment. 3 is a flowchart illustrating mechanical logic initialization processing according to the first embodiment. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a whole mechanism initialization process according to the first embodiment. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a power ON processing operation in the second embodiment. 10 is a flowchart of a pre-print cap opening operation in the second embodiment.

  The form for inventing is the following embodiment.

Embodiment 1

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the printer will be described. The printer of this example is an ink jet serial printer that has a head and an ink tank on a carriage, and the carriage scans the recording paper in the main scanning direction and records the recording paper by conveying it in the sub-scanning direction. is there. The ink jet type serial printer is suitable for a printer used by an individual at home or office, for example.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the electrical configuration of the inkjet printer 120.

  The SOC 101 includes a CPU that controls the entire printer 120 and an ASIC. The RAM 102 is a volatile memory used as a work memory when executing a program. The ROM 103 is a read-only memory that holds programs and data executed by the CPU. The EEPROM 104 is a non-volatile readable / writable memory that stores control information, setting information, and the like of the printer 120. The motor driver 105 is a driver that drives a motor. These are mounted on the substrate 100 as elements.

  The printer 120 includes a mechanism portion and various motors connected thereto, an encoder used for controlling the motor, a paper sensor used for the operation of the printer 120, a cover sensor, and an ink jet head. And these, SOC101 which exists on the board | substrate 100, and the motor driver 105 are connected by harness, a flexible cable, etc. (not shown).

  FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view showing the mechanism configuration of the inkjet printer 120.

  The ink jet printer 120 internally includes a recording paper feeder, a pickup roller, a carriage, and a carriage motor. The inkjet printer 120 includes units of a print head, an ink tank, a paper feed roller, a paper feed motor, a paper discharge roller, a head cap, and an ink suction pump.

  The recording paper is stacked on a recording paper feeder, conveyed to a paper feed roller by printing execution from a PC, etc., and after cueing to a printable position, ink is applied from the print head while scanning the carriage in the serial direction. Protruding. As a result, printing is performed on the recording paper. After the printing is completed, the recording paper is conveyed by the paper feed roller, and printing and paper feeding are repeated while scanning the carriage to form an image. After the image formation is completed, the recording paper is discharged out of the printer 120 by the paper feed roller and the paper discharge roller, thereby completing the image recording.

  When a predetermined time has passed after printing is completed, or when the power switch is pressed after printing, the carriage is moved to a predetermined position (just above the cap), and then the cap is lifted vertically to eject the head surface. Adhere to. This prevents drying of the nozzles provided in the print head.

  In the print head, a plurality of print heads are arranged in parallel along the transport direction. In this example, seven print heads corresponding to seven colors of C (cyan), M (magenta), Y (yellow), LC (light cyan), LM (light magenta), G (gray), and K (black) are provided. Have.

  The printer 120 includes a recording device 1, a paper feed device 2, a paper feed roller 27, a carry motor 3, a carry roller 32, and a carriage 5. The carriage 5 is in a fixed state with the print head 50 and the ink tanks 71 (C, M, Y, BK, PhotoBK) placed thereon.

  The carriage motor 54 drives the carriage 5. The pump 60 sucks ink from the print head 50. The cap 61 is brought into close contact with the nozzle portion of the print head 50 in order to suck ink by the pump 60 and to prevent clogging due to drying of the nozzle portion of the print head during the non-recording operation.

  As an operation at the time of recording, first, a recording sheet (not shown) is placed on the sheet feeding device 2, and the loaded recording sheet is conveyed to the conveying roller 32 by the sheet feeding roller 27. Then, after the recording paper is cued, an image is formed on the recording paper by ink ejected from the print head 50 mounted on the carriage 5 driven in the serial direction by the carriage motor 54. Further, the conveyance roller 32 driven by the conveyance motor 3 conveys the recording paper, drives the carriage again to form an image, conveys, drives the carriage, and repeats image formation. Thus, printing is performed by the serial scan method, and when this printing is completed, the recording paper is discharged from the apparatus by the conveyance roller 32 driven by the conveyance motor 3 and the series of operations is completed.

  After the recording operation is completed, when the power switch is pressed, the carriage 5 is moved to a position where the cap 5 can be capped (in the figure, the carriage is located on the left side of the cap, but the position just above the cap). Then, the cap 61 is moved in the upward direction in FIG. 2 to be brought into close contact with the print head 50, 1 is set in a cap flag in a nonvolatile memory described later, and the power is turned off.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the power ON process according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

  A program corresponding to a part or all of the processing of the flowchart shown in FIG. 3 is stored in the ROM 103, and the processing of FIG. 3 is realized by the CPU of the SOC 101 executing this program. Alternatively, the ASIC of the SOC 101 may be designed so that the flowchart shown in FIG. 3 can be executed, and the ASIC may realize the processing of FIG. The processing of FIGS. 4 to 7 described later is the same.

  “Hard ON” described in the following description is a state in which the AC plug of the inkjet printer 120 is inserted into an outlet or an operation of inserting the AC plug. “Hard OFF” is an operation in which the AC plug of the inkjet printer 120 is removed from the outlet or is removed. Further, “power ON (soft ON)” is an operation in which a power switch (power key) (not shown) is pressed in the hardware ON state, or the ink jet printer 120 is activated by the operation.

  The power ON process is started when the power switch is pressed in the hardware ON state. First, in S301, it is checked whether or not the activation is in the normal user mode. If the activation is not in the normal user mode, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310. “Mechanical initialization” is a process for executing all initializations involving mechanism operations. In other words, unless it is a start in the normal user mode, there is little need to shorten the start-up time in a special mode that is not a user mode, for example, a maintenance mode for service personnel, so the entire mechanism is initialized in S310. .

  Subsequent steps S302 to S308 are the same as described above, and if even one of the determination conditions in the flowchart is not satisfied, the entire mechanism is initialized in step S310. If all the conditions of S301 to S308 are satisfied, only the mechanical logic initialization is executed in S309, and the entire mechanical initialization is not executed. The “mechanical logic initialization” is an operation for logically initializing the state on the RAM. That is, since the mechanical logic initialization that requires less time is executed without executing the entire mechanical initialization that takes a long time, the startup time of the inkjet printer 120 is short.

  In S <b> 302, it is determined based on the cap flag stored in the EEPROM 104 whether or not the cap operation has been completed at the end of the previous time. If it is determined that the cap has not been completed, it is considered that the previous power-off process has not been completed normally, so the entire mechanism is initialized in S310. Note that “power OFF (soft-off)” is to turn off a power switch (power key). However, for example, when the hardware is turned off in the power-on state (when the AC plug is removed from the outlet), it is determined that the power-off process has not ended. When the power is normally turned off, processing for raising the cap flag is executed. Therefore, if the cap flag is not set when the power is turned on, it can be determined that the previous power-off process has not ended normally.

  In S303, it is checked whether or not the current power ON process is the first power ON process after hardware ON. If it is determined that the current power-on process is the first time after the hardware is turned on, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310. That is, if the current power-on process is the first time after the hardware is turned on, the recording apparatus itself may be physically moved when the hardware is turned off. In this case, since the cap may be mechanically displaced, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310 without shortening the startup time.

  If the arrival state flag stored in the EEPROM 104 is set, it is determined in S304 that it is in the arrival state, and there is a possibility that the packaging material or the like during transportation remains. In this case, since it is not a steady state, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310. In S <b> 305, it is determined whether the recording paper remains in the printer 120 based on the detection result of the paper trailing edge sensor. Since the subsequent operation cannot be performed if the recording paper remains in the printer 120, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310 to be discharged.

  In S306, it is checked whether or not the tank position was normal when the power was turned off last time. If the tank position was not normal when the power was turned off last time, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310. That is, there is a possibility that the tank has been removed, and it is necessary to check the installed state of the ink tank and the remaining amount of ink, so the entire mechanism is initialized in S310.

  In S307, it is determined whether or not a tray guide (not shown) for performing CDR printing is in an open state. If the tray guide is in an open state, a CDR printing tray is inserted into the apparatus. In step S310, the entire mechanism is initialized. That is, since the subsequent operation cannot be performed if the printing tray remains in the printer 120, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310 in order to initialize the entire mechanism for discharging the printing tray in S310. Do. In S308, it is checked whether or not the wet state is required. If necessary, the entire mechanism is initialized in S310.

  In other words, when the inkjet printer 120 is turned on, if all of the predetermined conditions for initialization are not satisfied, the entire mechanism initialization process for performing all the initializations involving the mechanism operation is not performed. Complete the power ON process.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing mechanical logic initialization processing during startup processing according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

  In the flowchart shown in FIG. 3, when all the conditions of S301 to S308 are satisfied, only the mechanical logic initialization is executed without executing the entire mechanical initialization process (S310). First, in S401, the position of the drive switching mechanism is set to the initial position, and in S402, the cam position of PG (mechanism for driving the pump) is set to the initial position. In step S403, the inter-paper position is set to the initial position. In step S404, the entire mechanism initialization is set to be completed, and the process ends.

  As described above, if all of the plurality of predetermined conditions are satisfied, the entire mechanical initialization process (S310) that takes a relatively long time is not executed. For this reason, since the “handling is equivalent to the completion of initialization of the mechanical mechanism” in a short time, the startup time of the inkjet printer 120 is shortened.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the entire mechanism initialization process executed when the first embodiment of the present invention is started.

  When the power switch is pressed and the power switch is pressed and one of the conditions from S501 to S508 is not satisfied, the entire mechanism initialization process is executed. First, in S501, a special operation upon arrival is executed. This special operation at the time of arrival is an operation in which a sensor (not shown) detects a packing material (not shown) for fixing a carriage placed in order to prevent damage during transportation. If the sensor detects that the packaging material has been removed, the arrival status flag stored in the non-volatile memory is set to 0. If the packaging material has not been removed, the arrival status flag set at the time of shipment is set. 1 remains. After executing the special operation at the time of arrival in S501, if it is determined that there is an error flag in S502 (if it is determined that the packing material has not been removed), the entire mechanical initialization is terminated. If it is determined in S502 that the packaging material has been removed, the sub-scanning mechanism is initialized in S503. If it is determined in S504 that the initialization of the sub-scanning system is unsuccessful, the entire mechanical initialization is terminated.

  If it is determined in S504 that there is no error in initialization of the sub-scanning system, initialization of PG and initialization of the carriage are performed in S505. If it is determined in S506 that the initialization of the PG has failed or the initialization of the carriage has failed, the initialization of the entire mechanism is terminated.

  If it is determined in S506 that the PG initialization is successful or the carriage initialization is successful, the determination in S507 is performed. In S507, the previous initialization is completed normally (end in cap state = cap flag is 1), and it is determined whether the previous tank position is normal, and it is determined that the previous initialization was completed normally. Then, the whole mechanism initialization is completed. If it is not determined in S507 that the previous initialization has been completed normally, the tank may have been removed due to abnormal termination, so it is necessary to check the installed state of the ink tank and the amount of ink remaining in S508. Check if the cover is closed. If it is determined that the cover is closed, the ink tank position is detected in S509, the ink remaining amount is detected in S510, and the entire mechanism initialization is completed. In order to detect the ink tank position in S509 and to detect the remaining amount of ink in S510, an optical detection process (not shown) is required. When the cover is open, it is affected by external light and is correct. Since it may not be detected, the cover state is checked in S508. These operations (initialization of the entire mechanism) usually require several tens of seconds.

Embodiment 2

  The first embodiment shows an example in which the entire mechanism is initialized when it is determined that the tank position is not normal when the power is turned off last time (No in S306). On the other hand, in the second embodiment, even when it is determined that the tank position is not normal when the power is turned off last time, the entire mechanical initialization operation is not performed when the power is turned on. An example in which ink tank position detection and ink remaining amount detection are executed before the start of printing processing after the power is turned on will be described.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the power ON processing operation in the second embodiment of the present invention. Since the processes and contents other than S611 and S612 are the same as S301 to S310 in FIG. 3, the description of the processes and contents is omitted.

  In the first embodiment, in S306, it is checked whether the tank position at the time of the previous power-off is normal. If it is not normal, there is a possibility that the tank remains removed. It is necessary to investigate. Therefore, the entire mechanical process is executed in S310.

  On the other hand, in the second embodiment, if it is determined in S606 that the previous ink tank installation was not normal, only the tank check necessity flag is set. Here, the entire mechanism is not initialized, and the process returns. Further, when only the mechanical logic initialization is executed while satisfying the conditions of S601 to S608, the logic initialization activation flag is set to 1.

  FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the pre-print cap opening operation after the power ON process is completed in the second embodiment of the present invention.

  After the power ON process shown in FIG. 6 is executed, the cap open process before printing shown in FIG. 7 is executed at a predetermined timing before printing. For example, it is executed when a print job is received from an external device or when a user's print instruction for the operation unit of the inkjet printer 120 is received. In step S701, a cap open operation is executed. After that, in step S702, it is checked whether the logical initialization start flag is 1 or not. If the logical initialization activation flag is not 1 (no logical initialization has been activated), the processing is terminated as it is. If the logical initialization activation flag is 1 (if logical initialization is activated), it is checked in step S703 if the tank check necessity flag is set to 1. If the tank check necessity flag is not 1, the processing is terminated as it is. If logical initialization is activated and it is determined that a tank check is necessary, an ink tank detection process that was not performed during the power-on process is executed in S704, and an ink remaining amount detection process is executed in S705. Run at the timing. Therefore, even if the ink tank has not been properly installed last time, the entire mechanism initialization is not executed when the power is turned on, so the startup time of the inkjet printer 120 is shortened. In addition, since necessary processing is executed when the cap is opened before printing, the necessary operation can be executed at the optimal timing before the printing operation.

  In the second embodiment, the start-up time can be shortened if only the minimum necessary conditions are satisfied. For example, in a multifunction machine such as an MFP, in the first embodiment, if all conditions from S301 to S308 are not satisfied, it takes time to execute all mechanical initializations in S310. However, in the second embodiment, it is possible to shorten the mechanical initialization when the power is turned on even if the condition of S306 is not satisfied. In a situation where only the scanner is used in the MFP, the startup time can be shortened, and the power is turned on. Can be scanned immediately. Further, at the time of printing, processing (ink tank detection processing) necessary for printing is executed immediately before printing, so printing can be performed in a state where those processing are executed.

  Note that the functions of this embodiment can also be realized by the following configuration. That is, it is also achieved by supplying a program code for performing processing of the inkjet printer 120 of the present embodiment to a system or apparatus, and a computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus executing the program code. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the function of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code also realizes the function of the present embodiment.

  Further, the program code for realizing the function of the present embodiment may be executed by one computer (CPU, MPU), or may be executed by a plurality of computers cooperating. Also good. Further, the program code may be executed by a computer, or hardware such as a circuit for realizing the function of the program code may be provided. Alternatively, a part of the program code may be realized by hardware and the remaining part may be executed by a computer.

1 ... Recording device,
120 ... Inkjet printer,
61 ... Cap,
71: Ink tank,
101... SOC (CPU + ASIC).

Claims (7)

Storage means for storing the last power-off state;
Detection means for detecting the state when the power is turned on;
A determination unit that determines whether to execute an initialization process based on a previous power-off state stored in the storage unit and a state detected by the detection unit when the power is turned on;
A recording apparatus comprising:   The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit is a unit that determines whether or not to execute a whole-mechanism initialization process that executes all initializations involving mechanism operations.   If the determination unit satisfies a plurality of predetermined conditions for not requiring initialization when the recording apparatus is turned on, it must execute the entire mechanism initialization process for performing all initializations involving mechanism operations. The recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the determination is performed.   When the storage unit stores that the ink tank has not been normally installed last time, the determination unit determines to execute the entire mechanism initialization process for performing all initializations involving the mechanism operation. The recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein:   If the storage means remembers that the ink tank was not properly installed last time, when the power is turned on, it does not execute the entire mechanism initialization process that performs all the initializations that involve the mechanism operation. The recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein an ink tank detection process and an ink remaining amount detection process are executed. A storage process for storing the state when the power is turned off last time;
A detection process for detecting the state when the power is ON;
A determination step for determining whether or not to execute an initialization process based on the power-off state stored in the storage step and the state detected in the detection step when the power is turned on;
A control method for a recording apparatus, comprising:   A program for causing a computer to execute the control method of the recording apparatus according to claim 6.

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