JP2942303B2 - Facsimile machine - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention provides a function of transmitting character information to a destination by a procedure signal of a transmission control procedure and displaying the character information on a display of a facsimile apparatus of the destination. The present invention relates to a facsimile machine provided.

2. Description of the Related Art An electrophotographic facsimile apparatus for recording an image on plain paper is known. In this electrophotographic recording method, a heat fixing method is often adopted as a method for fixing an image on recording paper.

Generally, in the case of a facsimile apparatus adopting a heat fixing method, the heat fixing unit is always preheated by a heater so that an image can be recorded immediately upon receiving a call.

However, always preheating even during the time when there are few incoming calls and no operator, such as at night, poses a problem in terms of safety and power consumption. For this reason, there is known a facsimile apparatus in which the preheating is turned off in a preset time zone, and when a call is received, the received image information is stored in an image memory.

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] When such a facsimile apparatus receives a large amount of image information during the preheating-off period and the image memory becomes full, the facsimile apparatus does not respond even after receiving a call. I was

On the other hand, a facsimile apparatus having an automatic calling function repeats a calling operation a certain number of times when a call is not answered to a destination, and thereafter records and outputs an error report indicating that the transmission has failed. .

For this reason, another facsimile machine that has transmitted to the facsimile device whose image memory is full as described above has a problem that a useless transmission operation is repeated many times because there is no response from the receiving side.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus which solves the above-mentioned problem and can prevent useless repetition of a transmitting operation when a receiving side cannot receive an image.

[Means for Solving the Problems] For this reason, according to the present invention, when a call is received, a response is made regardless of whether image reception is possible. While transmitting the station identification information and performing image reception, when the image cannot be received, information for notifying the reception failure is transmitted instead of the called station identification information. Things.

[Operation] When the receiving side is incapable of receiving, the transmitting side operator can know the receiving incapacity state of the receiving side from the displayed information and stop the transmitting operation, so that it is possible to prevent unnecessary repetition of the transmitting operation. it can.

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 the figure, a scanner 1 reads a document image to extract image information, and a plotter 2 records an image on a recording sheet.
The plotter 2 is of an electrophotographic recording type and has a heat fixing unit.
2a.

The encoding / decoding section 3 compresses data of the image information to be transmitted by encoding, and decodes the received image information to reproduce the original image information. The modem 4 modulates / demodulates image information and transmits / receives it, and also transmits / receives various procedure signals for transmission control. The network control device 5 is connected to a telephone line and performs line control for making and receiving calls.

The image memory 6 stores image information to be transmitted and received, and the clock 7 obtains the current time. Operation display section 8
Is provided with a display and operation keys, and displays the operation state of the apparatus, while the operator performs various operations.

The CPU 9 controls the above components, and the ROM 10
9 control programs are stored. The RAM 11 temporarily stores various data. In the present embodiment, the RTI (Remote Terminal Iden) registered by the RAM 11 is used.
information, a response message, and a preheating stop time of the heat fixing unit 2a.

The system bus 12 is a signal line through which the above units exchange various data and control signals with each other.

With the above configuration, when using this apparatus, the operator performs a desired preheating stop time setting process. The preheating stop time is a time during which preheating of the heat fixing unit 2a is turned off, for example, at night, and sets a preheating stop time and a restart time. The set information is stored in the RAM 11.

The facsimile machine, when the preheat stop time is set,
As shown in FIG. 2, it is determined whether or not the current time is the preheating stop time (step 101). If the current time is not the preheating stop time (N of step 101), the heat fixing unit 2a is heated by the heater to maintain a constant temperature. Is performed (processing 102).
Also, during the preheating stop time, the power supply to the heat fixing unit 2a is turned off to stop the preheating control (step 103).

Further, the operator performs the registration processing of the RTI and the response message to the facsimile machine before performing the communication processing.

The RTI is known information to be displayed on the display of the destination facsimile machine at the start of communication, and registers the user name, company name, department name, etc. of the machine.

The response message is information to notify the other party when the received image cannot be stored in the image memory 6 during the preheating control off period, that is, when the image cannot be received. Therefore, for example, when the restart time of the preheating control is set to 8:00, information such as "Please transmit after 8:00" is registered. This response message and RTI are
Register using known characters using various characters such as alphanumeric characters and kana. These pieces of registration information are stored in the RAM 11.

 Next, the communication operation of the facsimile machine will be described.

The transmitting side operator performs a predetermined operation on the facsimile machine to read a document image and accumulate image information. Then, the destination is set and the transmission process is started.

As a result, as shown in FIG. 3, the transmitting-side facsimile machine connects to the line (process 201) and makes a call to the other party (process 202).

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 4, the receiving-side facsimile apparatus connects to the line upon receiving a call and starts a predetermined transmission control procedure (process 301). In this embodiment, the CED signal and the NSF signal are responded according to a known transmission control procedure. At this time, the preheating state of the heat fixing unit 2a is checked (step 302), and if the preheating control is turned on (step 3).
02, Y), the RTI is set as display information in an NSF signal and transmitted (process 303).

When the receiving side responds (Y in step 203), the transmitting side receives the above signals and displays the display information set in the NSF signal on the operation display unit 8 (step 204). In this case, the RTI information will be displayed. Thereafter, the transmitting side determines whether or not the receiving side can receive data based on the progress of the transmission control procedure (step 205). That is, the NSS signal and TCF
When the signal is transmitted and the CFR signal is responded from the receiving side, it is determined that reception is possible (Y in process 205), and the stored image information is transmitted (process 206). When the transmission is completed, a DCN signal is transmitted to disconnect the line (process 207).

The receiving side receives the transmitted image information and records it on the recording paper (process 304). When the reception is completed, the line is disconnected after transmitting the DCN signal (process 305).

On the other hand, if the pre-heating is turned off when the call is received (N in process 302), the receiving side checks the free state of the storage area of the image memory 6 (process 306). Here, if the empty area is equal to or larger than a certain value enough to receive the image once (Y in step 306), the RTI information is transmitted as described above (step 307). Then, the image information is received, and the received image information is stored in the image memory 6 (process 308).

If the free area of the image memory 6 is less than the predetermined value (N in step 306), the response message is set as the display information in the NSF signal and transmitted as shown in FIG. (Process 309). After this, N
When the SS signal and the TCF signal are transmitted, a DCN signal is transmitted to disconnect the line (process 305).

In this case, the transmitting side displays the received response message (step 204). Immediately after sending the TCF signal, the DCN
When the signal is responded, the receiving side determines that reception is impossible (processing
N in 205), the line is disconnected (process 208). In this case, the communication date and the reason why the communication was interrupted are stored as communication history information (process 209).

Thereafter, it is determined whether or not a call is made to the other party a predetermined number of times (step 210). If the number of calls is not the same (N in step 210), the apparatus waits for a certain time (step 210). 211).

By the way, when the response message of the receiving side is displayed as described above, the transmitting side operator can determine that the receiving side cannot receive. In this case, by stopping the transmission operation of the facsimile apparatus, useless operation of the facsimile apparatus can be prevented. In addition, as described above, if the message is "Please transmit after 8 o'clock", it may be transmitted again at the time.

If the transmission operation is not stopped by the operator, the facsimile apparatus repeats the above-described transmission operation after waiting for the predetermined time. If the process is repeated a certain number of times (Y in step 210), an error report is recorded and output (step 212).

FIG. 6 shows a recording example of this error report, in which a heading b of each recording item is recorded below the title a of the report. Below the heading b, information such as communication date and time c, time d, destination telephone number e set by the operator, display information f received by NSF signal, and error type g are recorded.

In this example, the response message received as the display information f is recorded. In addition, "T" of the error type g
Indicates an error at the time of transmission, and “E” indicates an error in which communication was interrupted after the start of the transmission control procedure.

The operator does not need to confirm the display during the transmission operation of the facsimile machine, and the display information f of this error report is displayed.
, The state of the receiving side can be determined.

On the other hand, when a call is originated, the line may be busy or the receiver may not respond. In this case (N in process 203), the line is temporarily disconnected (process 208),
The transmission operation is repeated as described above. Then, if no response is made even after a certain number of calls, an error report is output in the same manner as described above. In this case, as the error type g,
This indicates that the receiving side does not respond.

As described above, in the present embodiment, when reception is not possible, RTI
Since the response message is sent instead of the response message, the transmitting side operator can know the state of the receiving side and prevent unnecessary repetition of the transmitting operation.

In addition, since the display of the RTI and the recording of the RTI in the error report are functions of the conventional device, the above-described effect can be obtained even in the conventional device on the transmission side.

In the above embodiment, the time at which the reception is enabled is notified by the response message. However, it is needless to say that other information such as the preheating off time zone may be notified.

Also, a case has been described in which the reception becomes impossible due to the empty area of the image memory 6 being exhausted during the preheating-off period. , Reception becomes impossible. In such a case as well, the same effect can be obtained by notifying the reason why reception is impossible or the time at which reception becomes possible.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, when a call is received,
Regardless of whether or not the image can be received, if the image cannot be received, information for notifying that the image cannot be received is sent instead of the normal information for identifying the destination station. The information on the receiving side makes it possible to know the receiving-disabled state of the receiving side, so that useless repetition of the transmitting operation can be prevented.

[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 transmission processing, FIG. FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of a transmission control procedure when an image cannot be received on the receiving side, and FIG. 6 is a report diagram showing a recording example of an error report. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Scanner, 2 ... Plotter, 2a ... Heat fixing part, 3 ... Encoding / decoding part, 4 ... Modem, 5 ... Network control device, 6 ... Image memory, 7 ... Clock, 8 ... Operation display part, 9 ... CPU , 10… ROM,
11… RAM.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A facsimile apparatus having a function of transmitting character information registered in advance by a procedure signal of a transmission control procedure to a destination and displaying the character information on a display unit of the destination facsimile apparatus. Transmission control execution means for executing a transmission control procedure in response to whether or not a reception operation, which is image recording or storage, is performed when the reception operation is possible, and information for receiving station identification as the character information when the reception operation is possible. Normal reception means for transmitting the image and transmitting the image, and when the reception operation is not possible, transmitting the information for notifying the non-reception as the character information and terminating the communication when the reception operation is not possible. Facsimile machine.