JP2959193B2 - Printing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for determining a printing range based on dimensions of a printing paper to be inserted.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a printing apparatus that determines a printing range based on the dimensions of a printing paper to be inserted, the dimensions of the printing paper need to be specified before receiving print data. To set the dimensions of the printing paper to be inserted, operate the panel, etc., and specify one of the prepared options, or directly if it is not included in the prepared options. This was done by specifying a numerical value.

Some conventional printing apparatuses have a paper edge position detector and can measure the size of the printing paper. However, the size of the printing paper specified by the operation of a panel or the like and the size of the printing paper actually inserted are merely used. It was merely measured to confirm whether the dimensions of the printing paper were the same.

[0004]

However, in the above-mentioned prior art, the user must perform complicated operations on the panel or the like to set the size of the printing paper, and further, the printing paper having a nonstandard size must be used. At the time of insertion, there is a problem that the dimensions must be measured in advance by other means, and the operation becomes complicated. If the size of the set printing paper is different from the size of the printing paper actually inserted,
There is a problem that the printing result is disturbed. Therefore, the present invention is to solve such a problem. The purpose of the present invention is to make it possible to set the dimensions of the printing paper to be inserted by a simple operation, and to set the dimensions of the printing paper to be actually inserted. It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus that does not cause a mismatch in dimensions of a printed paper.

[0005]

A printing apparatus according to the present invention is a printing apparatus for determining a printing range according to the size of a printing paper to be inserted, and a paper edge position detecting device for detecting an edge of the inserted printing paper. Container, a paper feed amount counter, paper size determining means for determining the size of the printing paper based on a signal from the paper end position detector and a signal from the paper feed amount counter, and a paper has a paper size measurement start means for instructing a start of dimensional measurements, measurements of the size of the printing paper, printing paper dimensions
Non-standard printing paper
It is characterized in that the measured value itself is adopted as being inserted .

[0006]

[0007]

According to the above construction of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, the paper feed is started by a command from the paper size measurement start means 104, and the left end position and the right end position detected by the paper end position detector 101 are detected. After the measurement error is removed from the difference by the paper size measurement error removing unit 105, the width of the printing paper is calculated by the paper size determination unit 103, and the paper edge position detector 101 detects the upper edge of the paper and then detects the lower edge. Paper feed amount counter 10
After the measurement error is removed from the amount counted in 2 by the paper size measurement error removing unit 105, the width of the printing paper is calculated by the paper size determination unit 103. The value calculated in this way is sent to the print control unit 106 to set the size of the printing paper.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a paper feed system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the drawing, a paper end detector 101 moves in the direction of arrow A by a belt 202 driven by a step motor 201. The paper edge detector 101 is a reflection type optical sensor. The printing paper 204 has a high reflectance, while the platen 205 thereunder is painted black and has a low reflectance.
This reflectance difference appears as a level difference of the output signal of the paper edge detector 101. By detecting the position where the reflectance changes from low to high, the left end position and the upper end position of the printing paper 204 are detected, and by detecting the position where the reflectance changes from high to low, the right end position and the lower end position of the printing paper 204 are determined. To detect.

Reference numeral 203 denotes a stepping motor for feeding the paper, which detects the paper feeding amount by multiplying the number of driving pulses inputted thereto by the amount sent by one driving pulse.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a control system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
A ROM 303 in which a character font, a control program, and a print paper size table are stored, a RAM 304 used for a print buffer and a data reception buffer, and a data reception circuit 308 for receiving print data from an external host computer 309 Is done. Further, a control circuit 30 for controlling a step motor 203 for feeding paper
6, a control circuit 307 for controlling the step motor 201 for moving the paper edge detector 101, the paper edge detector 101,
An operation panel 305 having a switch for instructing the start of paper size measurement is connected to the bus 302.

By outputting a pulse from the microprocessor 301 to the step motor control circuit 306, the step motor 203 for feeding the paper is rotated. The microprocessor 301 monitors the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 and starts counting the number of pulses output to the step motor control circuit 306 when detecting a change in the signal level due to the change in reflectance from low to high. After several steps of paper feeding, the paper edge detector 1 changes with the change in reflectance from high to low.
When a change in the output signal level from 01 is detected, the counting is terminated, and the length of the printing paper is obtained by multiplying the counted value by the paper feed amount in one pulse.

Similarly, by outputting a pulse from the microprocessor 301 to the step motor control circuit 307, the step motor 201 for moving the paper edge detector 101 is output.
To rotate. The microprocessor 301 monitors the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 and counts the number of pulses output to the step motor control circuit 307 when detecting a change in the signal level due to the change in reflectance from low to high. After the start, the paper edge detector is moved several steps, and when the change in the output signal level from the paper edge detector 101 due to the change of the reflectance from high to low is detected, the counting is terminated. The width of the printing paper is obtained by multiplying the movement amount by one pulse.

The dimensions of the printing paper measured in this manner include errors due to characteristics such as the response speed of the paper edge detector 101 and the resolution of the step motors 201 and 203. Therefore, these errors are determined in advance by experiments or the like, and the standard dimensions (A4,
B5) is recorded in the ROM 303, and a search is made on this table to determine which standard size the measured print paper has. By determining the dimensions in this way, measurement errors can be eliminated.

Next, the operation procedure of the apparatus thus constructed will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. 4 and the aforementioned FIGS.

When a command to start measurement of print paper dimensions is issued, the paper edge detector 101 is first moved rightward by several steps (step 1), and paper feeding is started. While feeding the paper one step at a time, the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 is monitored to detect the upper end of the printing paper (steps 2 and 3). When the upper end is detected, the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 is monitored while moving the paper edge detector 101 leftward by one step, and the paper edge detector 101 is moved to a position where an output signal level corresponding to the reflectance of the platen 205 is output. (Steps 4-5). Next, while moving to the right one step at a time, the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 is monitored to detect the left edge of the printing paper (steps 6 and 7). Further, the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 is monitored while the register W assigned as the paper width counter is incremented by one at the same time as moving rightward by one step, and the right edge of the printing paper is detected (steps 8 to 10). Thereafter, the paper edge detector 101 is moved leftward by several steps (step 11), and paper feeding is resumed. At the same time as feeding the paper one step at a time, the output signal from the paper edge detector 101 is monitored while the register L assigned as the paper length counter is incremented by one, and the lower end of the printing paper is detected (steps 12 to 12)
14).

The width of the printing paper is obtained by multiplying the counted register W by the movement amount of the paper edge detector per step (step 15). Similarly, the length of the printing paper is obtained by multiplying the register L by the paper feed amount per step (step 16). For the width and length obtained here, RO
The print paper size table stored in M303 is searched (step 17). If a paper paper of the corresponding standard size is searched, the standard size recorded in this table is adopted as the size of the inserted print paper (step 17). Step 19).
If the result of the search is not included in this table, it is determined that a nonstandard printing paper has been inserted and the measured value itself is adopted (step 20).

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, this is merely an embodiment, and a plurality of paper edge detectors are arranged in a line instead of moving one paper edge detector. Or by detecting the edge position of the printing paper by sequentially scanning the output signals from the printer, and instead of counting the number of pulses output to the stepping motor, the paper feed amount is calculated using a rotation speed detector such as a rotary encoder. A configuration other than this embodiment, such as a configuration for detecting, may be used.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, printing is performed by the paper size judging means based on the upper, lower, left and right end positions of the printing paper detected by the paper edge position detector and the paper feed amount counted by the paper feed amount counter. due to the structure to set to determine the dimensions of the sheet, without performing a complicated operation panel operation or the like, is
When inserting printing paper with non-standard dimensions,
Therefore, the dimensions of the printing paper can be set by a simple operation of inserting the printing paper to be printed and instructing the start of the paper dimension measurement without measuring the dimensions by other means . Further, since the dimensions of the actually inserted printing paper are measured and set, there is an effect that mismatch between the set dimensions of the printing paper and the dimensions of the actually inserted printing paper does not occur.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a paper feed system in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of a control system in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure for measuring the dimensions of a print sheet according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 101 Paper edge detector 102 Paper feed amount counter 103 Paper dimension determination means 104 Paper dimension measurement start means 105 Paper dimension measurement error removing means 106 Print control unit 201 Step motor for moving paper edge detector 202 Paper edge detector Belt 203 for moving paper 203 Paper feed step motor 204 Printing paper 205 Platen 301 Microprocessor 302 Bus 303 ROM 304 RAM 305 Operation panel having switch for instructing start of paper size measurement 306 Paper feed step motor control circuit 307 Paper edge detection Step motor control circuit for moving the container 308 Data receiving circuit 309 Host computer 310 Print head control circuit 311 Print head

Continuation of the front page (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) B41J 29/50 B41J 11/42 B41J 13/00 B41J 29/20 B41J 29/42 B41J 29/48

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A printing apparatus for determining a printing range based on dimensions of a printing paper to be inserted, a paper edge position detector for detecting an edge of the inserted printing paper, a paper feed amount counter, and the paper edge. Paper size determination means for determining the size of the printing paper based on the signal from the position detector and the signal from the paper feed amount counter, and paper size measurement start means for instructing the start of the paper size measurement by an external operation. Measurement of printing paper dimensions
If the fixed value is not included in the print paper size table,
Assuming that non-standard printing paper is inserted,
A printing device characterized by adoption .