JP3377829B2 - Inkjet printer - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink-jet printer used for a terminal device of information equipment and the like,
It is possible to cope with various printings by individualizing the ink cartridge. 2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, as the form of computers has been reduced from a desk top type to a laptop type or a notebook size type, printers have also been required to be excellent in portability and small in size. I have. Under these circumstances, an ink jet printer using a disposable type ink cartridge integrated head is of a laptop type and a notebook size type because of its ease of use and easy downsizing of the printer. It is drawing attention as a printer system for computers. A conventional ink jet printer is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, a carriage 1 on which a monochrome ink cartridge integrated head (hereinafter referred to as "cartridge") 2 and a multi-color cartridge 3 are mounted, and the carriage 1 is positioned at a predetermined position on a printing paper 7 during printing. A belt 51 to be moved, a motor 5 as a driving source thereof, shafts 61 and 62 for guiding the moving direction of the carriage 1, and caps 42 and 43 for capping the heads 21 and 31 of the cartridges 2 and 3 when printing is not performed. And a cap holder 4 for pressing the caps 42, 43 against the heads 21, 31 for that purpose. The cartridges 2 and 3 include print heads 21 and 31
In addition, it includes an ink storage unit and an electrical contact for receiving a drive signal, and is detachably configured so that it can be replaced when ink runs out. When printing is not performed, the carriage 1
Is in the standby position, and the cap holder 4 moves in the direction of A to press the caps 42 and 43 against the heads 21 and 31 to prevent the ink ejection ports of the heads 21 and 31 from drying and clogging. Do. When printing, the cap holder 4
Moves in the opposite direction to A, the caps 42 and 43 covering the heads 21 and 31 are removed, and the carriage 1 reciprocates along the shafts 61 and 62 by the operation of the belt 51 and the motor 5, while the paper 1 7 is printed. The head 21 of the cartridge 2 has, for example, 48
With this nozzle, a monochrome character font can be printed by one carriage 1 scan. The cartridge 3 is for multi-color, the ink storage unit is yellow,
The ink is divided into three corresponding to the three inks of magenta and cyan, and the corresponding 48 nozzles of the head 31 are also divided into three. Therefore, a multi-color character font can be printed by scanning the carriage 1 three times. [0009] In the ink jet printer, further high-speed printing and a fine finish are required. Particularly, in multi-color printing, it takes a long time. Has become. However, in a conventional ink-jet printer, even if two cartridges are mounted on the carriage, only one of them is always used for printing, and the mounted cartridge is sufficient for improving the printing performance of the printer. I can't say that I work. The present invention has been conceived in view of the above points, and has as its object to provide an ink jet printer capable of selecting various printing modes by changing a mounting method of a cartridge. I have. Therefore, according to the present invention, there is provided an ink jet printer which carries out printing by mounting a print cartridge, comprising a chamber for containing ink and a plurality of discharge ports for discharging ink. A carriage capable of detachably mounting a print cartridge; and print control means for switching a print mode in accordance with the type of the print cartridge mounted on the carriage . The carriage includes a first color ink as the print cartridge. And a first print cartridge that accommodates the first color ink and ejects the ink of the first color from a first ejection port array that is linearly arranged.
The second color ink, which is different from the third color, is stored separately, and the second color ink is linearly arranged from the second ejection port row arranged in a line. The ink of the fourth color is ejected from a fourth ejection port array arranged linearly from a third ejection port array arranged linearly, and the second, third, and fourth inks are ejected from the fourth ejection port array arranged linearly. 4 of the discharge port array, the second print cartridge and is mounted friendly arranged so as to be aligned in a straight line perpendicular to the scanning direction of the carriage
The first print cartridge and the second mark.
Character cartridge is the same cartridge on the carriage.
The outer shape is the same so that it can be attached to the cartridge holder.
It is configured so as that. When the detecting means detects that a plurality of print cartridges of the same type are mounted,
The print control means is configured to switch to a high-speed print mode in which a large number of lines are simultaneously printed by a plurality of print cartridges. When the detecting means detects that a plurality of print cartridges of the same type are mounted,
The printing control means is configured to switch to a high-definition printing mode in which one line in normal printing is printed finely by a plurality of print cartridges. The print cartridge is integrally provided with a protection means for protecting the ink discharge means. Further, the ink jet printer is provided with display means for displaying the type of the print cartridge mounted on the carriage. For this reason, in this ink jet printer, a single-color ink is accommodated, and the ejection is linearly arranged.
Mono-color cartridge ejected from the mouth, or, double
Discharges that contain ink of different colors and are arranged in a straight line
Other capable multicolor cartridge for ejecting separately their ink mouth and attached to the carriage performs normal printing monocolor or multicolor, Mo
Attach two colorless cartridges to the carriage,
High-speed mono-color printing and high-resolution printing with double resolution
Selectively in and go, and the multi-color cartridge 2
High-speed printing with multi-color
And high-definition printing can be selectively performed . FIG. 2 shows an ink jet printer according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, drive signals are transmitted from a head unit 21, a slidable shutter 22, an ink storage unit, and the main body of the ink jet printer. The cartridge 2 integrated with the connector for receiving is mounted on the carriage 1
The ink receiver 44 is detachably mounted on the printer and is located at a position facing the head unit 21 at the standby position. Other configurations are the same as those of the conventional device (FIG. 5). As shown in the front view of FIG. 1, a carriage portion of the ink jet printer has a cartridge holder 1 for detachably holding two cartridges 2, 3.
1, 12 and the printer control circuit of the main unit (not shown)
And a flexible cable for connecting between the control circuit 14 and the head connectors 16 and 17 of the cartridges 2 and 3.
15 and. The cartridges 2 and 3 have an ink storage section for storing black ink 24 in the case of monochrome 2, and the yellow ink 34, the magenta ink 35 and the multicolor printing ink 34 in the case of multicolor 3. It has three divided ink storage units for storing the cyan ink 36. The head sections 21 and 31 of the cartridges 2 and 3 are provided with ink discharge port groups 23 and 33 for discharging ink. The ink ejection orifice groups 23 and 33 are closed by the shutters 22 and 32 until the cartridge is mounted on the carriage 1 to prevent drying and clogging. The cartridges 2 and 3 are individually mounted on the carriage 1, and are held by cartridge holders 11 and 12, respectively. In FIG. 1, the black ink cartridge 2 is mounted on the upper stage, and the multi-color ink cartridge 3 is mounted on the lower stage. The respective cartridges can be detachably mounted independently. The upper stage is for the multi-color ink cartridge, and the lower stage is for the black ink. You can attach a cartridge,
A black ink cartridge or a multi-color ink cartridge can be mounted on both upper and lower stages. Further, it is also possible to mount a black ink cartridge or a multi-color ink cartridge on only one of the upper and lower tiers for printing. That is, the cartridge required for printing at that time is selected and mounted. With the cartridges mounted, the connectors 16 and 17 on the side surfaces of the cartridges 2 and 3 are flexible.
The cartridges 2 and 3 are connected to the control circuit unit 14 mounted on the carriage 1 so that the cartridges 2 and 3 can be printed by contacting the contacts of the cable 15. At this time, the shutters 22, 32, which have been covering the heads 21, 31 before the mounting, are slid in the direction B to release the sealing of the heads. The shutters 22, 32 can also be opened and closed mechanically in accordance with the attachment / detachment of the cartridge,
Alternatively, the ink discharge port may be closed by sliding in the direction B immediately before printing and sliding in the direction A immediately after printing while controlling with an actuator such as a solenoid. In printing, ink is ejected to the ink receiver 44 at a standby position as necessary. This is to prevent the viscosity of the ink from changing when the non-printing state continues for a long time, and to prevent the printing quality from deteriorating if printing is performed as it is. The carriage 1 on which the cartridges 2 and 3 are mounted reciprocates in the printing position while being guided by the shafts 61 and 62 by the driving force of the motor 5 via the belt 51, thereby printing on the printing paper 7. Do. In the multi-color ink cartridge 3, the ink container is divided into three chambers of yellow ink 34, magenta ink 35, and cyan ink 36. If there are three discharge ports, for example, 60 discharge ports, discharge is performed from 20 discharge ports. That is, the upper 20 nozzles serve as yellow, the central 20 serve as magenta, and the lower 20 serve as cyan. As shown in FIG. 3, the control unit in the ink jet printer according to the embodiment includes a print control unit 80 for controlling a printing operation, a font ROM 81 storing character fonts of a normal resolution, and a double-precision character font. , A dither ROM 83 storing a normal resolution graphic pattern, a dither ROM 84 storing a double precision graphic pattern,
A head driver 87 for driving the head, a switch 86 for switching between normal resolution and double precision, a paper feed motor 88,
A cartridge type detection unit 85 for detecting the type of the cartridge mounted on the carriage, and LEDs 1 and 2 for displaying the detection results in different colors. The black cartridge 2 has a resistor R1 for detection inside, and the multicolor cartridge 3 has a resistor R2 for detection inside. Now, when the black cartridge 2 is mounted on the carriage 1, at the same time as the mounting, the internal detection resistor R1 for black ink has one end connected to the power supply and the other end connected to the print control unit 80 and the detection resistor R3. Connected to ground through. Here, the power supply is 5 V, R1 is 10 KΩ, R
Assuming that 3 is 10 KΩ, a voltage of 2.5 V is detected at the detection terminal I. When the multicolor cartridge 3 is mounted, the detection resistor R2 for the internal multicolor ink is connected to the power supply at one end and the print control unit 80 and the detection resistor R4 at the other end. Connected to ground. Now, when the power supply is 5V and R4 is 10KΩ, R
Assuming that 2 is 15 KΩ, a voltage of 2 V is detected at the detection terminal J. As described above, in the print control unit 80,
Which type of cartridge is mounted on the carriage 1 can be detected based on the difference in voltage. As the detection resistors R1 and R2, an identification resistor may be embedded in the cartridge, or conductive ink may be used as the detection resistor. The print control unit 80 detects the type of the cartridge mounted on the carriage 1 and detects whether the changeover switch 86 is set to ON or OFF, and the print mode is shown in FIG. Switch to the street. That is, when the print control unit 80 detects that only one cartridge of one type is mounted (irrespective of whether the switch 86 is on or off),
Printing in the normal mode using that type of cartridge is executed. In the case of the normal mode, data is received from the font ROM 81 storing characters of normal resolution and the dither ROM 83 storing graphic patterns of normal resolution, and a print signal is sent to the head driver 87 to perform printing. When it is detected that two cartridges of the same type are mounted, and at the same time it is detected that the switch 86 is off, printing in the double speed mode using the cartridge of that type is executed. In the case of the double speed mode, the printing speed is doubled by simultaneously driving two cartridges and printing two lines together. When it is detected that two cartridges of the same type are mounted, and simultaneously when the switch 86 is turned on, printing in the double-precision mode using the cartridge of that type is executed. . In the case of the double-precision mode, the print control unit 80 receives data from the font ROM 82 storing double-resolution characters and the dither ROM 84 storing double-resolution graphic patterns, and sends the data to the upper and lower cartridges. The print signal is supplied to the head driver 88 so that the print signal corresponding to half of the ink ejection port pitch is sent at a shifted timing. Driving is performed such that the feeding operation and the paper feeding operation at the print line pitch are repeated. By doing so, printing can be performed at double resolution. When it is detected that two different types of cartridges are mounted, the print mode is a mixed mode of black and color. Each of the LEDs 1 and 2 has a built-in two-color light emitting diode for selectively emitting two colors of red and green.
D1 emits red light when the type of the cartridge mounted on the upper stage is a black cartridge, and emits green light when the cartridge is a multi-color cartridge. The LED 2 emits red light when the lower cartridge is a black cartridge, and emits green light when the cartridge is a multi-color cartridge. The method of detecting the type of the cartridge is as follows.
The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment. For example, differences in the outer shape of the cartridge, detection markers provided on the cartridge, and the like may be detected electrically, magnetically, or optically. As is apparent from the above description of the embodiment, in the ink jet printer of the present invention, in addition to the normal printing , two mono-color cartridges are provided on the carriage.
Performs high-speed printing and high-definition printing with mono color by mounting
Or two multi-color cartridges on the carriage
Attached, multi-color high-speed printing and high-definition printing can be performed. Further, since the print cartridge is integrally provided with a cover for covering the ink discharge port, it is possible to prevent ink drying and clogging when not used for printing. In the conventional apparatus, only one of a plurality of cartridges mounted on the carriage is used for printing. Therefore, a cartridge which is mounted and not used for a long time is not only wasted, but also causes drying and clogging of ink. However, in the ink jet printer of the present invention, since the cartridge is selected according to the mode in which printing is to be performed and is mounted on the carriage, such waste and danger are reduced.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a front view of a carriage of an ink jet printer according to an embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram illustrating an overall shape of the ink jet printer according to the embodiment; FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a control unit in the apparatus of FIG. 4, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a control pattern of a print mode by a control unit of the apparatus of the embodiment, and FIG. 5 is an overall configuration diagram of a conventional inkjet printer. [Explanation of symbols] R1, R2, R3, R4 Detection resistors LED1, LED2 Two-color light-emitting diode 1 Carriage 11, 12 Cartridge holder 14 Control circuit 15, 18 Flexible cable 16, 17 Connector 2, 3 Cartridge 21, 31 Head part 22, 32 Shutter 23, 33 Ink ejection port group 24 Black ink 34 Yellow ink 35 Magenta ink 36 Cyan ink 4 Cap holder 42, 43 Cap 44 Ink receiver 5 Motor 51 Belt 61, 62 Shaft 7 Printing Paper 80 Print control unit 81, 82 Font ROM 83, 84 Dither ROM 85 Cartridge type detection unit 86 Changeover switch 87 Head driver 88 Paper feed motor

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Tomoyuki Noguchi 1006 Kazuma Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-4-173344 (JP, A) JP-A-2- 301447 (JP, A) JP-A-2-200446 (JP, A) JP-A-2-198850 (JP, A) JP-A-2-188259 (JP, A) JP-A-2-187348 (JP, A) JP-A-1-208143 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B41J 2/175 B41J 29/00 B41J 29/42

Claims (1)

(1) An ink jet printer for performing printing by mounting a print cartridge, wherein the print cartridge includes a chamber for accommodating ink and a plurality of discharge ports for discharging the ink. a carriage which can be detachably mounted, and a print control means for switching the print mode according to the type of the print cartridge mounted on said carriage, said carriage as said print cartridge, a first color ink And a first print cartridge for discharging the first color ink from a first discharge port array arranged in a straight line, and a second, third, and fourth ink cartridge different from the first color. The second color ink is stored separately, and the third color ink is linearly arranged from the second ejection port row in which the second color ink is linearly arranged. The fourth color ink is ejected from the ejection port array from the fourth ejection port array linearly arranged, and the second, third, and fourth ejection port arrays are scanned by the carriage. A second print cartridge arranged so as to be aligned on a straight line perpendicular to the direction can be mounted, and the first print cartridge and the second print cartridge can be mounted.
The second print cartridge is the same as the carriage
External shape so that it can be attached to the cartridge holder
An ink jet printer characterized by being the same .