JP3034128B2 - Transfer type printer - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a transfer printer for printing on paper conveyed by a control motor using an ink ribbon conveyed by a direct current (DC) motor.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, a transfer type printer is provided with a thermal head and a platen opposed to each other, and an ink ribbon is stretched on a printing surface of the thermal head. Paper such as a label or a tag is inserted between the thermal head on which the ink ribbon is stretched and the platen, and the ink ribbon and the paper are conveyed in the same direction to perform printing.

At this time, the ink ribbon must be transported in synchronization with the transport of the paper. In a conventional transfer type printer, a direct current (DC) motor is used for transporting the ink ribbon, and a stepping motor is used for transporting the paper. Are known.

[0004]

However, the DC motor is
Even when the energization is stopped, there is a type in which the rotation does not stop at the same time due to the inertial force of the rotation and rotates for a while. In such a case, as shown in FIG. 5, the drive pulse to the paper feed motor employing the stepping motor changes according to the drive signal of the paper feed motor, and the paper transport speed by the paper feed motor is reduced. Change. Then, when the drive signal of the paper feed motor drops to the lowest level, the drive pulse stops, and the paper transport speed of the paper feed motor becomes zero, and the paper feed motor stops completely. In the case of a ribbon motor employing a DC motor with respect to the paper feed motor driven as described above, even if the drive signal of the ribbon motor changes to ON (high level), the ribbon motor transports the ink ribbon. The rise of the speed is somewhat slow, and even if the drive signal of the ribbon motor is turned off (low level), the speed of transporting the ink ribbon by the ribbon motor does not immediately become 0 but becomes 0 after a predetermined time T and stops. Will be.

Therefore, when the paper transport speed is slightly higher than the ink ribbon transport speed, the ink ribbon is also transported along with the transport of the paper, and there is no risk of the paper being soiled. However, when the conveyance is stopped, the ink ribbon is conveyed even though the paper is completely stopped. Therefore, there is a problem that the ink ribbon is pulled and rubbed with the paper, thereby soiling the paper.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the paper and the ink ribbon can be stopped almost at the same time by controlling the stop timing of the DC motor for transporting the ink ribbon. It is an object of the present invention to provide a transfer type printer capable of preventing the occurrence of the transfer.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a transfer motor for transporting an ink ribbon and paper in the same direction and printing predetermined print information on the paper by a thermal head. A DC motor for transporting the ink ribbon, a drive setting means for setting a drive amount or a drive time of the control motor at the time of printing based on print information and the like, and a drive set by the drive setting means at the time of printing. Control motor driving means for driving the amount or driving time, and energizing the DC motor simultaneously with the start of driving of the control motor by the control motor driving means, and setting in advance from the driving amount or driving time set by the drive setting means The drive amount or the drive time obtained by subtracting the drive amount or the time that has been applied. The DC that stops energizing the DC motor when the control motor is driven. It is provided with a and over motor energization control means.

[0008]

In the present invention having such a configuration, the drive setting means sets the drive amount or drive time of the control motor at the time of printing based on print information and the like, and at the time of printing, the control motor drives the control motor by the control motor drive means. The set driving amount or the driving time is driven.

At the same time as the drive of the control motor is started, energization of the DC motor is started by the DC motor drive means, and a drive amount obtained by subtracting a preset drive amount or time from the set drive amount or drive time. Alternatively, when the drive time control motor is driven, the power supply to the DC motor is stopped.

Therefore, the power supply to the DC motor is stopped before the time when the conveyance of the sheet by the control motor is stopped is set a predetermined time earlier, or when the conveyance of the sheet by the control motor leaves the preset drive amount. You.

[0011]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, a sheet 3 is conveyed in a direction indicated by an arrow P1 in FIG. 1 so as to be inserted between a thermal head 1 and a platen 2 provided to face the thermal head 1. The ink ribbon 6 supplied from the ink ribbon roller 4 via the first auxiliary roller 5 in the direction of arrow P2 in the figure is stretched over the printing surface of the thermal head 1,
Further, the film is taken up by a take-up roller 9 via a second auxiliary roller 7 and a third auxiliary roller 8.

The platen 2 is driven to rotate by a paper feed motor 10 employing a stepping motor as a control motor, and the winding roller 9 is driven by a ribbon motor 11 employing a direct current (DC) motor. It is designed to rotate.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a main part.
Reference numeral 21 denotes a CPU (central processi) constituting the control unit body.
ng unit). ROM (read only memory) 2 in which program data of processing performed by the CPU 21 is stored.
2. RAM (random access memo) in which various memory areas used when the CPU 21 performs processing are formed.
ry) 23, C / G (character / generator) ROM 2 in which dot images are stored corresponding to character codes and the like
4. An image buffer 25 in which a dot image is developed based on print data, a UART (asynchronous receiver transmitter) 26 connected to a host computer via a line, and the CPU 2 through a system bus 27.
1 is connected.

A head driver 28 for controlling the thermal head 1, a paper feed motor driver 29 for driving the paper feed motor 10, and a ribbon motor driver 30 for driving the ribbon motor 11 are also provided in the system bus 2.
7, and is connected to the CPU 21.

FIG. 3 shows a flow of a main part process performed by the CPU 21.

First, initialization for initializing various output ports and memories is performed. When the initialization is completed, the process enters a standby state until data transmitted from the host computer is received by the UART 26 as step 1 (ST1).

When data is received by the UART 26,
The received data is analyzed to determine whether the received data is print data. If the received data is not print data, another process is performed based on the received data, and the process returns to the above-described step 1 again.

If the received data is print data, dot image data is developed in the image buffer 25 based on the print data (drawing). The number of drives of the paper feed motor 10 is calculated from the developed image data, and the number of drives is set in the paper feed counter 10 formed in the RAM 23. (Drive setting means) Next, a drive time is calculated from the number of drive times, a predetermined T time is subtracted from the drive time, and the time obtained by the subtraction is further converted into a number of drive times of the paper feed motor 10. . The number of times of driving is set in a ribbon counter formed in the RAM 23.

When the number of times of driving is set in the ribbon counter, it is determined in step 2 (ST2) whether or not to drive the ribbon motor 11 based on whether or not the count value of the ribbon counter is 0. Here, the ribbon motor 11
When it is determined that the ribbon motor 11 is to be driven, the power supply to the ribbon motor 11 is turned on and the ribbon counter is decremented by -1. When it is determined that the ribbon motor 11 is not driven, the power supply to the ribbon motor 11 is turned off. State. (DC motor energization control means) Next, whether or not to drive the paper feed motor 10 is determined based on whether or not the count value of the paper feed counter is 0. Here, when it is determined that the paper feed motor 10 is not driven, the process returns to the above-described step 1 again. When it is determined that the paper feed motor 10 is driven, the paper feed motor 10 is driven by one step. The paper feed counter performs a subtraction process of −1, and outputs one line of print data from the image buffer 25 to the thermal head 1. Thermal head 1 for this print data
When the output to is completed, the process returns to the above-described step 2 again. (Control Motor Driving Means) In this embodiment having such a configuration, when print data is received from the host computer, drawing is performed based on the print data, and the paper feed motor 10 is converted from the drawn dot image data. Is calculated, and the number of times of driving is set in a paper feed counter formed in the RAM 23. The drive time is calculated from the number of times the paper feed motor 10 is driven, and a predetermined time T is calculated from the drive time, that is, as shown in FIG. Is converted to the number of times the paper feed motor 10 is driven. The number of times of driving is set in a ribbon counter formed in the RAM 23.

At the time of printing, the ribbon motor 11 is turned on and energization is started, and at the same time, the paper feed motor 10 is started to start printing. At this time, every time the ribbon motor 11 and the paper feed motor 10 are driven, respectively, a subtraction process of −1 is performed on the ribbon counter and the paper feed counter, and when the ribbon counter becomes 0, power is supplied to the ribbon motor 11. Is stopped. Thereafter, when the paper feed counter becomes 0, the driving of the paper feed motor 10 is stopped. At this time, the paper transport speed of the paper transport motor 10 becomes 0, and the transport speed of the ink ribbon by the ribbon motor 11 also becomes 0. Ends.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the number of times of driving of the paper feed motor 10 employing the stepping motor during printing is calculated and set in the paper feed counter, and a preset DC motor is employed. The number of times of drive corresponding to the time T from when the power supply of the ribbon motor 11 is stopped until the ribbon motor 11 is completely stopped is subtracted from the number of times of drive of the paper feed motor 10 during printing, and the number of drives obtained by the subtraction is set in the ribbon counter.
During printing, the paper feed motor 10 and the ribbon motor 11 are driven until the paper feed counter and the ribbon counter become 0, respectively, so that the power supply to the ribbon motor 11 is stopped before the time T before the paper feed motor 10 stops. be able to. Therefore, the paper 3 transported by the paper feed motor 10 and the ink ribbon 6 transported by the ribbon motor 11 can be stopped simultaneously. As a result, the paper 3 and the ink ribbon 6 are not rubbed, and the generation of stains due to the rub between the paper 3 and the ink ribbon 6 can be prevented.

In this embodiment, the paper feed motor 10 and the ribbon motor 11 are controlled by the number of driving. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The paper feed motor 10 and the ribbon motor 11 may be controlled based on time or the like.

Also, although a description has been given of an example in which a stepping motor is employed as the paper feed motor 10, the present invention is not limited to this.
The present invention can be applied to those adopted as the above.

Further, in this embodiment, the ribbon motor 1 is controlled so that the paper 3 and the ink ribbon 6 are simultaneously stopped.
Although the energization of the ribbon motor 11 is stopped earlier than the stoppage of the driving of the paper feed motor 10 by the time T, the present invention is not limited to this. In consideration of the time t, the power supply to the ribbon motor 11 may be stopped earlier by the time (T-t) than when the driving of the paper feed motor 10 is stopped.

[0026]

As described in detail above, according to the present invention,
Provided is a transfer-type printer that can stop the paper and the ink ribbon almost simultaneously by controlling the stop timing of the DC motor that transports the ink ribbon, and thus can prevent the occurrence of dirt due to the friction between the ink ribbon and the paper. it can.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a main circuit configuration of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a view showing a flow of a main part process of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing timings of a drive signal and a transport speed in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing timings of a driving signal and a transport speed in a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

10: paper feed motor, 11: ribbon motor, 21: CP
U, 23: RAM, 30: Ribbon motor driver.

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] A transfer motor for transporting the ink ribbon and the paper in the same direction and printing predetermined print information on the paper by a thermal head; and a transport motor for transporting the paper and the ink ribbon. DC motor for driving, a drive setting means for setting a drive amount or a drive time of the control motor at the time of printing based on the print information or the like, and a drive amount set by the drive setting means at the time of printing. Or a control motor driving means for driving the driving time, and starting the energization of the DC motor simultaneously with the start of driving to the control motor by the control motor driving means, from the driving amount or the driving time set by the driving setting means. A drive amount or drive time obtained by subtracting a drive amount or time set in advance when the control motor is driven. And a DC motor energization control means for stopping power supply.