JP3624685B2 - Printer - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a paper feeding technique for printing paper in a printer and a printing system.
[0002]
[Prior art]
For example, in a printer having a cut sheet feeder, when a sheet is continuously printed, the feeding operation of the next sheet is started after the printing and discharging of one sheet are completed. For this purpose, after the printing operation of one sheet is completed, the sheet discharge feeder is continuously rotated for a sufficiently long time, that is, at least approximately the sheet length, and then the sheet feeding operation for the next sheet is started. That is, it is normal that the discharge feeder keeps idling for a considerable time, although it depends on the amount actually printed on the paper.
[0003]
In order to prevent the paper discharge feeder from idling, for example, in a conventional serial printer, a paper detection sensor is provided in the vicinity of the paper discharge port, and while this sensor detects the presence of paper, The paper discharge feeder is continuously rotated, and during that time, the next paper feed operation (including the preparation operation for paper feed) is not started. Then, after the sensor detects that the sheet is discharged outside the apparatus, the feeder on the sheet feeding side is driven. Therefore, the print engine is in an idling state from the start of the discharge operation of one sheet to the completion of the next sheet supply operation until the sheet reaches a predetermined position, and the actual printing operation is performed. Absent.
[0004]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
In recent years, the throughput of a printer has been improved by improving the printing speed, but the time during which the print engine is not driven as described above, that is, the idling time of the print engine has not been shortened. Accordingly, the higher the printing speed is improved by improving the performance of the print engine itself and other improvements, the proportion of the idling time in the entire printing time is relatively increased. Therefore, such idling time has become a bottleneck when further improving the throughput of the printer.
[0005]
Also, if the speed of the data transfer path from the host to the printer is slow, the paper feeding operation will still start until the printing data for the next paper is satisfied even if the printing operation for the first paper is completed. Not. Even in this case, the idling time of the print engine becomes long.
[0006]
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a printer that can shorten the entire printing time by reviewing the contents of paper feed and paper discharge control in the printer.
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to solve the above problems, a printer according to the present invention is a printer that forms a paper path by a paper feed unit, a paper feed mechanism in a print engine, and a paper discharge unit controlled and controlled by a paper feed / discharge control unit. The paper supply / discharge control unit drives the paper supply unit so as to start the paper supply operation for the next paper during the printing operation or the paper discharge operation for one paper when performing printing on two or more papers. It is configured to be controllable. Here, the paper feeding means for performing the paper feeding operation and the preparation operation thereof, the paper feed mechanism in the print engine in charge of paper feeding during the printing operation, and the discharge for discharging the printed paper out of the machine. It does not matter whether or not the paper means is configured by a physically independent mechanism. That is, a mechanism unit including a power source may be shared. Further, the sheet feeding means may be constituted by a cut sheet feeder.
[0008]
In order to configure the printer as described above, for example, it is conceivable to use an image buffer for rasterizing data to be printed.
[0009]
That is, in a printer having an image buffer in addition to the above configuration, the paper supply / discharge control unit determines whether or not printing of a sheet subsequent to the sheet being printed is executed from the print data in the image buffer. To do. Then, as a result of the determination, if the print data for the next paper remains in the image buffer, the paper feed / discharge control unit drives the paper feeding means to start the paper feeding operation for the next paper. What is necessary is just to be comprised so that control may be performed.
[0010]
In order to prevent the first sheet and the next sheet from overlapping in the paper path, the printer is configured as follows. In other words, the printer also has a sensor for detecting the position of the paper in the print engine, and the paper supply / discharge control unit uses the sensor to cause the one paper to be in a predetermined position in the print engine, that is, the first paper. The paper feeding means and the paper discharge means are configured to be drive-controllable so that the paper discharge operation and the paper feed operation are started at the same time after it has been detected that the position does not overlap the next paper. Just do it.
[0011]
As a countermeasure for eliminating the increase in idling time due to data delay in the data transfer path between the printer and the host, a printing system realized by both the printer and the host may be configured as follows. That is, the printer includes a host capable of transmitting a print command including information on the number of prints to the printer, a paper feed unit controlled by a paper feed / discharge control unit, a paper feed mechanism in the print engine, and a paper discharge unit. In a printing system including a printer having a paper path, the paper feed / discharge control unit includes the execution of printing on two or more sheets as the content of the number-of-prints information included in the print command received from the host. That is, when printing two or more pages and / or printing two or more copies, the next paper is fed during the printing operation or the paper ejection operation of one paper. The paper feeding means is driven and controlled so as to start the paper operation.
[0012]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
[0013]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a printer 1 according to the present embodiment. In the embodiment, the printer 1 includes a cut sheet feeder as a sheet feeding unit including a sheet support 11 and a sheet feeding feeder 12 for standing a bundle of cut sheets. In the drawing, a paper path indicated by a thick line is provided with a sensor 19 for detecting the presence of paper, a print engine 13, and a paper discharge feeder 14 for discharging the paper to the outside of the printer. A printer control unit having a computer configuration including a CPU 16, a ROM 17, and a RAM 18 controls the mechanism unit of these printers. This printer control unit is connected to the host 2 via the interface device 21 and controls each mechanism unit according to a printer control language sent from the host 2 to actually perform a printing operation.
[0014]
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a printer control unit realized by the CPU 16 executing an application program stored in the ROM 17. The characteristic feature of the printer control unit 3 in the embodiment that is different from the conventional one is that each of the motors of the printer mechanism unit is controlled based on information obtained from the bitmap data development unit 34 and the sensor 19 by the paper supply / discharge control unit 35. It has a function of driving control.
[0015]
FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating only the main points of the power mechanism that is driven and controlled by the paper supply / discharge control unit 35.
[0016]
The sheet 41 that is a cut sheet stands against the sheet support 11 (FIG. 1) and is placed at the sheet suction port 51 of the printer housing 50 indicated by a virtual line. From that state, the sheet is fed into the print engine 13 by the sheet feeding feeder 12 including the sheet feeding roller 122 and the sheet feeding motor 121 that drives the sheet feeding roller 122.
[0017]
The sensor 19 is a sensor switch provided with a wedge-shaped key top protruding into the paper path. When a paper is passing over the key top, the key top is pressed to detect the presence of the paper. It is supposed to be. Since the sensor 19 may be any sensor that can detect the presence or absence of a sheet, the sensor 19 may be configured by other means such as a photosensor instead of the above configuration.
[0018]
The sheet passes over the sensor 19 and is sent to the print engine 13 that performs the actual printing operation. In the embodiment, the print engine 13 sandwiches a sheet by a carriage 134 that is penetrated and supported by a carriage guide rail 135 and a free roller 133, and is rotated by a sheet feed motor 131 to perform sheet feeding during a printing operation. It is constituted by a roller 132 or the like. The carriage 134 is mounted with, for example, an ink cartridge and a print head, and is sent from the head controller 36 (FIG. 2) via a ribbon cable (not shown) while horizontally moving by a carriage motor and a power transmission mechanism (not shown). Printing is performed based on the signal.
[0019]
The paper on which printing has been completed is discharged out of the printer from the paper discharge port 52 indicated by the phantom line by the paper discharge roller 142, the paper discharge motor 141 that drives the paper, and the free roller 143. Is done. For simplification of explanation, the motors 121, 131, and 141 for driving the respective parts are depicted as independent motors, but these motors share one motor by two or more power mechanisms and transmit power. You may comprise so that it may drive to each with the switching operation by a mechanism. The switching operation in that case is performed by the motor control unit 37.
[0020]
Hereinafter, a procedure for supplying paper while discharging the paper by the paper supply / discharge control unit 35 will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS.
[0021]
A print command sent from the host 2 to the printer 1 is transmitted to the command interpretation unit 32 via the interface unit 31. Control codes relating to paper feed, line feed, etc. are interpreted by the control code interpretation unit 322 and passed to the paper feed / discharge control unit 35. On the other hand, the print data is rasterized by the bitmap generation unit 33. Here, since the printer 1 of this embodiment includes an image buffer, the rasterized data is held by the bitmap data development unit 34. Specifically, it is expanded to a predetermined address on the RAM 18 of the printer 1.
[0022]
The condition determination unit 351 in the paper supply / discharge control unit 35 refers to the received control code and several lines of print data expanded and held by the bitmap data expansion unit 34, and performs the paper discharge operation and paper supply. It is judged and determined whether or not the paper operation should be performed simultaneously.
[0023]
FIG. 4 shows a determination procedure in the condition determination unit 351. For example, when the capacity of the memory allocated to the image buffer is an amount corresponding to print data for N lines, the condition determination unit 351 that has received the control data causes the page to be printed when N lines are fed. It is determined whether or not printing is completed (S101 and S102). For example, when the printing of one sheet is just started like the sheet 44 shown in FIG. 8, the print data for the next page has not been rasterized yet, so the bitmap data in the image buffer It cannot be determined whether or not the next page exists. Therefore, a request is issued to continue the paper feed in the print engine (S103). The motor control unit 37 that has received the paper feed continuation request continues to drive the paper feed motor 131, while the head control unit 36 moves the head based on the developed bitmap data and continues printing.
[0024]
When printing is continued to some extent and the state like the paper 46 shown in FIG. 9 is reached, the bitmap data expansion unit 34 is referred to and it is determined whether or not there is a page after the page being printed in the image buffer. (YES in S102, S104). Here, when the data of the next page exists in the image buffer, it is assumed that a condition for simultaneously starting the paper discharge operation and the paper feed operation is satisfied, and this is notified to the simultaneous paper discharge start unit 352 and the paper discharge request Is issued (YES in S104, S105, S106). If there is no next page at this time, printing ends when printing of the current page ends, so a paper discharge request is simply issued (NO in S104, S106).
[0025]
FIG. 5 shows a processing procedure by the simultaneous paper feed / discharge starting unit 352 for actually starting the paper discharge operation and the paper feed operation at the same time in response to the determination by the condition determining unit 351.
[0026]
The simultaneous paper feed / discharge starting unit 352 first obtains paper detection information from the sensor 19 and determines whether or not the paper is in the print engine. This is to prevent sheets from overlapping in the print engine. In other words, when a page break is performed from the top of one sheet by printing only a few lines, the data for the next page is established even when the sheet is at the position of the sheet 44 shown in FIG. (YES in S102, YES in S104 in FIG. 4). In such a case, if the paper 44 and the paper 41 are immediately ejected at the same time, both the papers are fed in an overlapping state, and the paper 41 cannot be cued. Therefore, while the sensor 19 is detecting the presence of a sheet, feeding of a new sheet (sheet 41) is not started. The steps on the left side of FIG. 5 (S208 to S211) represent the procedure in the meantime.
[0027]
While the presence of the sheet is detected by the sensor 19 (YES in S201 and S202), only the paper discharge operation is first performed (S208). At the position of the paper 46 shown in FIG. 9, the sensor 19 is still detecting the paper (YES in S209), and the paper discharge motor 141 is operating (NO in S211). When the sheet reaches the position of the sheet 43 shown in FIG. 3 through this state, the sensor 19 does not detect the presence of the sheet (NO in S209). Here, the stop of the paper discharge operation is once instructed to the motor control section 37, and the motor is stopped (YES in S211).
[0028]
From this state, the paper discharge operation for the printed paper (43 in FIG. 3) and the paper supply operation for the next paper (42) are started simultaneously. That is, the simultaneous paper discharge start unit 352 receives a condition for executing the simultaneous paper discharge by the previous condition determination unit 351 (S105 in FIG. 4, YES in S203 in FIG. 5), and the paper discharge motor 141 The paper feed motor 121 is driven in synchronization to feed both papers. When there is no next page, only the paper discharge operation is activated (S205), and the paper is discharged, and then the control is terminated.
[0029]
The case has been described above where the speed of the data transmission path from the host 2 to the printer 1 is sufficiently high and print data is immediately established on the image buffer. However, if the speed of the data transfer path is slower than the amount of data to be printed, it is possible that the image formation for the next page will be delayed. For example, when printing a large amount of data with a page printer, the next sheet cannot be fed and its preparatory operation cannot be started until the entire next page is rasterized. Therefore, this problem can be avoided by causing the host 2 to transmit a print command including information on the number of print pages in advance. Hereinafter, the control procedure in that case will be described.
[0030]
FIG. 6 shows a condition determination procedure in the condition determination unit 351 at this time. Upon receiving the number of printed pages from the control code interpreting unit 322, the condition determining unit 351 subtracts 1 from the number of pages (S301, S302) to determine how many times simultaneous activation of paper supply / discharge is performed. When the number of simultaneous activations is not zero, the satisfaction of the condition is transmitted to the simultaneous sheet feeding / discharging activation unit 352 and the calculation result is replaced with the number of pages (NO in S303, S304). That is, the number of pages is reduced by one.
[0031]
FIG. 7 shows a processing procedure in the simultaneous paper discharge start-up unit 352 that has received the conditions. The procedure at this time is almost the same as in the case of FIG. 5 described above, except that the simultaneous execution / discharge is activated (S204), and the fact of execution is notified back to the condition determination unit (S401). ). Since other procedures are not different from the example shown above, the same reference numerals are attached to the drawings, and description thereof is omitted.
[0032]
When receiving the notification of the fact that the simultaneous paper feed / discharge is performed once, the condition determination unit 351 subtracts 1 again from the number of the replaced pages (S301, S302), and determines the remaining number of executions of the simultaneous paper feed / discharge start-up. Ask. Thereafter, the same procedure is repeated (S303 to S305). When the number of times that simultaneous activation should be performed becomes zero (YES in S303), the paper is discharged without terminating the condition and the process is terminated (S305).
[0033]
Although the present embodiment is as described above, the present invention is based on the type, size, printing speed, paper path path length and configuration of the printing method and printing unit of the printer in which it is adopted, It can be used with various changes. In particular, in the embodiment, the case where the timing for starting the paper feeding operation is performed together with the paper discharging operation has been described. However, it is also conceivable that the preparation for feeding the next paper is started during the printing operation. Further, the position and number of the sensors 19 shown in the embodiment can be changed as appropriate.
[0034]
【The invention's effect】
As is clear from the above description, in the printer of the present invention, the paper supply / discharge control unit has a function of controlling the paper supply means, the paper feed mechanism in the print engine, and the paper discharge means, and covers two or more sheets. When printing is performed, since the feeding operation of the next sheet is started during the printing operation or the discharging operation of one sheet, the idling time of the print engine is significantly reduced, and the throughput of the printer is correspondingly reduced. It is possible to increase.
[0035]
Also, in the printing system of the present invention, the host transmits the print command including the number of printed sheets, and the printer receives this and feeds the next sheet during the printing operation or discharge operation of one sheet. Since the operation is started, the throughput of the printer can be increased even in an environment where the transmission path is slow such that establishment of the next page is delayed.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of a printer control unit.
FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating only a main point of a power mechanism of the printer.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a determination procedure in a condition determination unit.
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a processing procedure in a simultaneous paper discharge start unit when the determination shown in FIG. 4 is received.
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating another example of a determination procedure in the condition determination unit.
7 is a diagram illustrating a processing procedure in a simultaneous paper feed and discharge starting unit when the determination shown in FIG. 6 is received.
FIG. 8 is a perspective view for explaining a relationship among a sheet position, a sensor, and a sheet feeding operation.
FIG. 9 is a perspective view for explaining a relationship among a sheet position, a sensor, and a sheet feeding operation.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printer 11 Paper support 12 Paper feed feeder 121 Paper feed motor 122 Paper feed roller 13 Print engine 131 Paper feed motor 132 Paper feed rollers 133, 143 Free roller 134 Carriage 135 Carriage guide rail 14 Paper discharge feeder 141 Paper discharge motor 142 Paper discharge Roller 16 CPU
17 ROM
18 RAM
19 Sensor 2 Host 3 Printer control unit 34 Bitmap data development unit 35 Feed / discharge control unit 351 Condition determination unit 352 Simultaneous feed / discharge start-up units 41 to 46 Cut sheet

Claims (4)

An image buffer,
A paper feeding means for feeding paper, a paper feeding mechanism for feeding the fed paper,
A control unit for controlling the paper feeding means and the paper feeding mechanism;
A sensor for detecting the position of the paper;
Based on the print data in the image buffer, it is determined whether or not printing of a sheet subsequent to the sheet being printed is executed, and whether or not the sheet being printed has reached a predetermined position on the transport path based on the sensor. And a judgment means for
The control unit controls the paper feeding unit to start a paper feeding operation for a next paper during a printing operation of one paper based on the judgment of the judgment unit. Receiving means for receiving a print command including print number information from the host;
A paper feeding means for feeding paper, a paper feeding mechanism for feeding the fed paper,
A control unit for controlling the paper feeding means and the paper feeding mechanism;
A sensor for detecting the position of the paper;
Judgment means for judging whether or not printing of a sheet following the sheet being printed is executed based on the number-of-printing-sheet information and whether or not the sheet being printed has reached a predetermined position on the conveyance path based on the sensor And comprising
The control unit controls the paper feeding unit to start a paper feeding operation for a next paper during a printing operation of one paper based on the judgment of the judgment unit. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the paper feeding unit and the paper feeding mechanism are each driven by a single motor by a switching operation by a power transmission mechanism. The printer according to claim 1, further comprising: a carriage on which a print head is mounted, and performing printing by an operation of the paper feeding mechanism that feeds paper during the printing operation with the carriage.

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