JP2792565B2 - Image recording device - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus provided with an image recording unit having a heat fixing unit in an electrostatic electrophotographic recording system.

2. Description of the Related Art As an image recording apparatus for recording an image on plain paper, an apparatus provided with a recording unit of an electrostatic electrophotographic recording method is well known. In this case, a toner image is recorded on a recording paper by a heat fusion method. There are many things to fix. In such a heat fusing method, it is necessary to heat a heat fixing unit such as a heat roller which presses the recording paper to a predetermined temperature. Generally, such a facsimile apparatus has a function of always preheating the heat fixing unit to a constant temperature so that image information received and received can be immediately recorded.

However, since a certain amount of power is required for the preheating, it is a waste of power to always heat the heat fixing unit especially when reception frequency is low.

In order to solve this waste of electric power, heating of the heat fixing unit is started when an incoming call is received, image information to be received is temporarily stored in an image memory, and after the heat fixing unit rises to a predetermined temperature, a recording operation is performed. How to get started is known.

In this case, an image memory for temporarily storing received image information is required. On the other hand, conventionally, an image memory is often used when an image of a transmission document is stored once and then transmitted.

Therefore, in order to effectively use the image memory, it is desirable to share the image memory for storing the image information of the transmission original and the image information to be received as described above.

However, when the image memory is shared, when the image information is received, the image information to be transmitted is already stored in the image memory. Cannot be received.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] As described above, conventionally, there has been a problem that it is not possible to save power required for preheating the heat fixing unit, effectively use an image memory, and reliably receive an image. .

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems and to provide an image recording apparatus capable of saving power consumption and effectively receiving an image by effectively using an image memory.

Means for Solving the Problems The present invention comprises a heat fixing section for fixing a recorded image on recording paper, a heating means for heating the heat fixing section, and an image memory for temporarily storing image information for transmission and reception. In the image recording apparatus having a preheating mode for controlling the temperature of the heat fixing unit to a predetermined preheating temperature, the preheating mode is turned off when the size of the remaining capacity of the image memory is equal to or more than a predetermined value, When the remaining capacity is less than the predetermined value, a preheating mode is turned on, and during the preheating mode, there is provided a preheating control means for controlling a preheating temperature according to the magnitude of the remaining capacity.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, a scanner 1 reads a document image to extract image information, and a plotter 2 records an image on plain paper by an electrostatic electrophotographic recording method. The plotter 2 includes a heat fixing unit 2a for fixing a toner image on recording paper by a heat roller or the like.
And a temperature control means 2b for heating the heat roller or the like to a constant temperature required for recording by a heater or preheating to heat the heat roller or the like to a constant temperature in a short time.

The page memory 3 temporarily stores image information for one page recorded by the plotter 2. Encoding / decoding unit 4
Performs encoding of image information to be transmitted and decoding of received image information. The SAF (Store And Forward) memory 5 temporarily stores image information, and is used when storing and transmitting a document image or receiving a memory.

The network control device 6 controls transmission / reception of a line by capturing the line, transmitting a selection signal as a destination telephone number, detecting an incoming call, and the like. The modem 7 modulates and demodulates the image information and transmits the same, and transmits and receives various procedure signals to execute a predetermined transmission control procedure.

The operation display unit 8 displays the operation state of the device,
The operator performs various operations. The CPU 9 controls the above-described units to execute the operation of the predetermined facsimile apparatus.The ROM 10 stores the control program, and stores the control program in the RAM.
Reference numeral 11 denotes a work memory for temporarily storing various data. The signal bus 12 is a signal line for transferring various signals and data between the above units.

The facsimile apparatus of the present embodiment has a function of storing and transmitting a document image and a function of receiving a memory in the above-described configuration, and an operator performs a transmission and reception process according to a known operation procedure. In this case, the image information to be transmitted and received is stored in the SAF memory 5, but a plurality of processes can be arbitrarily set if the storage capacity is free.

As a result, the free space of the SAF memory 5 increases or decreases,
This facsimile machine always operates as shown in FIG.
It is determined whether or not the free space of the SAF memory 5 is equal to or larger than a predetermined value (step 101).
(Y), while the preheating control of the heat fixing unit 2a is turned off (processing 10
2) If the value is less than the predetermined value (N in step 101), the preheating control is turned on (step 103).

By the way, if the predetermined temperature control is started without performing the preheating control of the heat fixing unit 2a, it takes a certain time until the plotter 2 can record an image. The constant value of the free space of the SAF memory 5 corresponds to a memory capacity that, when image information to be received is sequentially stored in the free area, it takes a certain time until the free area disappears.

Also, after receiving a call, it takes some time to receive the image information from the other party and start the recording operation. However, the preheating control starts after a predetermined temperature control is started, and the temperature at which an image can be recorded after the lapse of the time has elapsed. To preheat.

FIG. 3 shows a reception process of the facsimile apparatus. When an incoming call is received (process 201), a predetermined temperature control of the heat fixing unit 2a is first started (process 202). Next, after executing a predetermined transmission control procedure, the image information to be transmitted is sequentially received for one page, and the data compressed image information is stored in the free area of the SAF memory 5 as it is,
Decrypt and store in the page memory 3 (Process 203, Process 2
From N of 04 to process 203).

When one page is received (Y in step 204), it is checked whether the temperature of the heat fixing unit 2a has risen to a predetermined temperature at which an image can be recorded (step 205).

Here, for example, when the pre-heating of the heat fixing unit 2a is turned off at the time of receiving an incoming call, if the data amount of the image information of one page received just now is small and the reception is completed in a short time, the heat fixing unit 2a still has The temperature has not risen to the specified level.

When the temperature of the heat fixing unit 2a is lower than the predetermined temperature (N in Step 205), the storage area of the image information stored in the SAF memory 5 is stored (Step 206), and then the presence or absence of the received image information of the next page is determined. Is determined (process 207). If there is a next page (Y in step 207), the image information of the next page is processed in the same manner (to step 203). Thus, the image information is received one page at a time.

Then, after a lapse of a predetermined time, the temperature rises to a predetermined temperature at which the heat fixing unit 2a can record. When the temperature of the heat fixing unit 2a reaches a predetermined temperature (Y in Step 205), the image information of one page in the page memory 3 is read and recorded (Step 208), and the image information of the page stored in the SAF memory 5 is deleted. (Step 209).
If there is a next page (Y in step 207), the same process is performed on the page (to step 203).

As a result, the image information received thereafter is immediately recorded.

Then, when the recording of the last page is completed (processing 207)
N), it is determined whether or not the image information is stored in the SAF memory 5 (process 210). If the image information is stored (Y in process 210), it is checked whether or not the heat fixing unit 2a is at a predetermined temperature (process 210). 211).

In the above example, the case where the heat fixing unit 2a rises to the predetermined temperature during the reception of the image information has been described, but if the data amount of the image information is small, the temperature does not rise to the predetermined temperature even when the reception of the last page is completed. There are cases.

Therefore, in such a case, the process waits until the temperature rises (N loop of process 211). After the temperature rises to a predetermined temperature (Y in step 211), the image information stored in the SAF memory 5 is sequentially read, decoded, and transferred to the page memory 3. Each time one page is stored, an image is recorded (processing 21
2). Therefore, for example, if the image of the third page is received and the heat fixing unit 2a rises to a predetermined temperature during the reception of the second page, the second and third pages of the recorded image are recorded. Thereafter, the first page is recorded.

When the recording of all pages is completed, the temperature control of the heat fixing unit 2a is turned off (process 213), and the reception process ends.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the SAF memory 5 is used for storing image information at the time of memory storage transmission and memory reception and for the heat fixing unit.
Since it is used for temporarily storing received image information until 2a rises to a predetermined temperature, the image memory can be used effectively.

When the free space of the SAF memory 5 is large, the preheating of the heat fixing unit 2a is turned off, so that the power consumption can be saved correspondingly, and when the free space of the SAF memory 5 is small, the preheating is performed. Since the received image information is recorded immediately, the image can be received reliably.

 Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described.

Here, as shown in FIG. 4 (a), when the image information is received and the image information is sequentially stored in an empty area of the memory while the available capacity c of the SAF memory 5 is considered, the image information is fixed. Since the data is received at the speed, the free space decreases as the reception time elapses, and the free space disappears after a predetermined time t.

If this case, since lost their free space, it is only necessary to image recording, as shown in FIG. (B), to increase the heat-fixing portion 2a at a predetermined temperature h ₀ that can image recorded at that time, preheating temperature, the temperature h ₀ from the constant temperature low temperature h ₁
It would be good if it was. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5, the larger the available memory capacity, the lower the preheating temperature may be.

Therefore, in this embodiment, a function as shown in FIG. 5 is stored in advance. Then, as shown in FIG. 6, the free space of the SAF memory 5 is checked (step 301). If the free space is equal to or more than a certain value (Y in step 301), the preheating control is turned off as in the above-described embodiment. On the other hand (step 302), if the value is less than the predetermined value (N in step 301), a preheating temperature is determined based on the stored function in accordance with the amount of free space in the SAF memory 5 (step 302). Process 303), preheating control is performed at that temperature (process 304).

Then, the reception processing shown in FIG. 3 is similarly executed.
In this case, after one page of image information is received when the free space of the SAF memory 5 is equal to or less than a predetermined value (Y in step 204), when the temperature of the heat fixing unit 2a is checked (step 205), the temperature reaches a predetermined temperature. May not be rising.

In this case (N in Step 205), the storage area of the image information stored in the free area of the SAF memory 5 is stored (Step 20).
6) It will be read out and recorded later. On the other hand, the storage of the received image information causes the vacant area to disappear, but at that time, the temperature of the heat fixing unit 2a rises to a predetermined temperature (Y in Step 205), so that the image information received thereafter can be immediately recorded. it can.

As described above, the power consumption can be further reduced by lowering the preheating temperature according to the size of the free space of the SAF memory 5.

In the process 203 in FIG. 3, the received image information is stored in the SAF memory 5 and the page memory 3 simultaneously.
Stored only in the page memory 3, if one page is received and the heat fixing unit 2a does not rise to a predetermined temperature, the image information is stored.
The data may be transferred to the SAF memory 5.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, a heat fixing unit for fixing a recorded image on recording paper, a heating unit for heating the heat fixing unit, and an image memory for temporarily storing image information for transmission and reception In the image recording apparatus having a preheating mode for controlling the temperature of the heat fixing unit to a predetermined preheating temperature, when the remaining capacity of the image memory is equal to or more than a predetermined value, the preheating mode is turned off. Also, when the remaining capacity is less than the predetermined value, a preheating mode is turned on, and during the preheating mode, a preheating control means for controlling a preheating temperature according to the magnitude of the remaining capacity is provided, so that the image memory Even if is shared for both transmission and reception, the heat fixing unit is preheated to the preheating temperature according to the remaining capacity of the image memory at the time of reception, so that the received image is not lost by storing or directly recording the received image in the image memory. As well as being able to receive reliably,
The power consumption can be saved by suppressing the unnecessary rise of the preheating temperature.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart of preheating control, FIG. 3 is an operation flowchart of reception processing, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a graph showing a change in the temperature of the fixing unit, FIG. 5 is a graph showing a preheating temperature according to the available memory space, and FIG. 6 is an operation flowchart showing another embodiment of the preheating control. 1 ... Scanner, 2 ... Plotter, 2a ... Heat fixing unit, 2b
... temperature control means, 3 ... page memory, 4 ... encoding and decoding unit, 5 ... SAF memory, 6 ... network control device, 7 ...
... Modem, 8 ... Operation display section, 9 ... CPU, 10 ... ROM,
11 ... RAM, 12 ... Signal bus.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] An image memory for temporarily storing image information for transmission / reception, wherein the temperature of the heat fixing unit is controlled by a temperature of the heat fixing unit. In the image recording apparatus having a preheating mode for controlling the preheating temperature to a predetermined preheating temperature, the preheating mode is turned off when the size of the remaining capacity of the image memory is equal to or more than a predetermined value, and the remaining capacity is set to the predetermined value. An image recording apparatus comprising: a preheating control unit that turns on a preheating mode when the temperature is less than a predetermined value and controls a preheating temperature in accordance with the remaining capacity while the preheating mode is being executed.