JP4605213B2 - Portable printer - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a portable printer that can use at least either an AC power source or a battery power source as a driving power source, or a portable printer that uses a battery power source as a driving power source.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a recording head that performs recording by ejecting ink droplets onto a recording medium, and a recovery unit that covers a nozzle surface of the recording head with a cap and drives a recovery drive source to perform a recovery operation, at least an AC power supply In addition, portable printers in which the recording head and the recovery drive source are driven using any one of them can be used as a drive power supply.

By the way, such portable printers have a small battery power supply capacity,
There is a demand to reduce power consumption as much as possible. For example, when battery power is used as drive power, the power consumption is reduced by making the recording speed by the recording head slower than when AC power is used as drive power. Has been done to reduce.

In addition, the recovery operation of the purge sequence consumes a large amount of power and is an important factor in the consumption of the battery power, and there is a demand for suppressing the consumption of the battery power in the recovery operation.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a portable printer that uses a battery power source as a driving power source and can reduce power consumption during a recovery operation.

The invention according to claim 1 is a recording head that performs recording by ejecting ink droplets onto a recording medium, and a recovery unit that covers a nozzle surface of the recording head with a cap and drives a recovery drive source to perform a recovery operation;
In a portable printer provided with a battery power source as a drive power source for the recording head and the recovery means, a recording quality selection means for selecting a plurality of modes for recording quality, and a signal received from the recording quality selection means is selected. Control means for controlling the operation of the recovery means by controlling the drive means according to recording quality, and the number of required recovery operations for the recovery means
Recovery operation number detecting means for detecting whether or not the number of times exceeds a set number, and the control means
In response to the selected recording quality and receiving a signal from the recovery operation number detecting means,
When the number of requested recovery operations exceeds the set number, the number of operations of the recovery means is limited . Here, “controlling the operation of the recovery means” means changing the speed of the operation of the recovery means,
This means that the number of operations of the recovery means is limited, and this control affects the consumption of the battery power.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the driving unit is controlled by the control unit according to the recording quality selected by the recording quality selection unit, and the operation of the recovery unit is controlled. For example, in the case of high recording quality, the number of operations of the recovery means is increased to maintain high recording quality, and in the case of low recording quality, the number of operations of the recovery means is decreased to further reduce recording quality. However, the power consumption can be reduced. Furthermore, according to the recording quality selected by the recording quality selection means as described above,
When the number of requested recovery operations exceeds the set number in addition to the number of operations of the recovery means being limited
In addition, the number of operations of the recovery means is further limited.

  The present invention is implemented in the form as described above, and has the following effects.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the number of operations of the recovery means is limited according to the selected recording quality and when the required number of recovery operations exceeds the set number of times, so that the battery power can be prevented from being consumed.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a schematic configuration of a portable printer according to the present invention. In the figure, a portable printer 1 has a cylindrical platen roller 4 that can be rotated by a rotation shaft (not shown) extending in the left-right direction in order to convey a recording paper 3 (recording medium) into a casing 2 thereof. It is supported by. The platen roller 4 is driven to rotate by a paper feed motor 20 described later, and the recording paper 3 supplied from a paper feed cassette or a manual paper feed unit is transferred to a plurality of recording heads 5, 6, 7, 8. It conveys while facing, so-called paper feed mechanism LM
Part of. The recording heads 5 to 8 are provided so that the nozzle surfaces are substantially horizontal, and are ink jet type that performs a recording operation by ejecting ink droplets downward from the nozzles to the recording paper 3 positioned on the lower side. is there.

A carriage 11 is provided above the platen roller 4 so as to be movable along the axis of the platen roller 4. The carriage 11 has a space in which a head holder 9 that supports the recording heads 5 to 8 and ink cartridges 12, 13, 14, and 15 to be described later are detachably mounted. The head holder 9 is formed in a box shape with the opposite side to the recording paper 3 open, and supports the recording heads 5 to 8 on the recording paper 3 side so that the nozzle surface faces the recording paper 3.

The recording heads 5 to 8 are arranged in the moving direction of the carriage 11 in the order of black, yellow, cyan, and magenta from the recording area P1 side, and the ink cartridges 12 that contain ink to be supplied to the recording heads 5 to 8 are arranged. -15 are also provided corresponding to each color.

A carriage shaft 16 and a guide rail 17 are provided in parallel with the axis of the platen roller 4, and the carriage 11 is slidably fitted on the carriage shaft 16. Further, the upper engaging portion 11 a of the carriage 11 is guided by the guide rail 17. The carriage 11 is fixed to a part of a timing belt 18, and the timing belt 18 is wound between timing pulleys 19A and 19B to form a carriage mechanism CM. A carriage driving motor 20 is connected to one timing pulley 19A. ing. The carriage 11 has a recording area P1 facing the recording paper 3, and recovery / maintenance areas P2 described later on both sides thereof.
And can be moved over the flushing area.

In the recovery / maintenance area P2 on the left side of the recording area P1, the purge mechanism RM and the wiping member 26 are provided.
A storage cap device 27 is provided.

The purge mechanism RM has a suction cap 22 that is in close contact with the nozzle surfaces of the recording heads 5 to 8 and a suction pump 23 that sucks and removes ink in the recording heads 5 to 8 through the suction cap 22. The suction cap 22 is moved to a position in close contact with one of the recording heads 5 to 8 and a position retracted from the suction cap 22 by a cam 121 that is rotated by a motor 113 described later. Is driven, and the storage liquid and defective ink (ink in which bubbles are generated or thickened) in the recording heads 5 to 8 are sucked and discharged to the waste ink tank 25. One purge operation is performed by one rotation of the cam 121, and an arbitrary number of purge operations can be performed according to the number of rotations of the cam 121. For example, when 3 days have passed since the previous purge operation and the recording operation is started, one purge operation is automatically performed, and when 5 days have elapsed, two purge operations are automatically performed before starting the recording. In addition, when the ink cartridge is replaced, when purging is performed five times, new ink is introduced into the recording head, and forcibly by a switch operation to restore the ejection function of the recording heads 5 to 8. One purge operation is performed. These programs are stored in a ROM 104, which will be described later, and the CPU 1
This is performed under the control of 01.

A wiping member 26 for wiping off the nozzle surfaces of the recording heads 5 to 8 is disposed adjacent to the recording area P1 side of the suction means 24. The wiping member 26 can also be moved by the cam 121 to a position protruding from the moving path of the recording heads 5 to 8 and a position retracted therefrom. Further, a storage cap device 27 is disposed on the opposite side of the suction unit 24 from the recording area P1. The storage cap device 27 covers the nozzle surfaces of the recording heads 5 to 8 to prevent ink evaporation and prevent the nozzle surfaces from drying when recording is not performed.

As shown in FIG. 1, the storage cap device 27 has storage caps 31, 32, 33, and 34 that are in close contact with the recording heads 5 to 8 and supports the storage caps 31 to 34. The guide rod member 3 having a casing 35 that extends parallel to the moving direction of the carriage 11.
6 is supported so that sliding movement and rotation are possible. When the carriage 11 moves from the recording area P <b> 1 to the recovery / maintenance area P <b> 2 side, the storage caps 31 to 34 slide to follow the movement of the carriage 11 by engaging with the engaging convex portion 35 a of the casing 35. (
1 (to the left in FIG. 1), the nozzles of the recording heads 5 to 8 are brought into close contact with each other by the action of an inclined cam (not shown). When the carriage 11 moves again in the direction of the recording area P1, the storage caps 31 to 34 move away from the recording heads 5 to 8 while moving toward the recording area P1 by the action of a spring (not shown).

A waste ink receiving member 21 is disposed in the flushing area on the right side of the recording area P1. The waste ink receiving member 21 is preliminarily ejected immediately before the recording operation by the recording heads 5 to 8 in order to eliminate clogging of the nozzles of the recording heads 5 to 8 or to remove bubbles mixed in the ink in the nozzles. It is for receiving ink.

Next, the control unit of the portable printer 1 according to the embodiment will be described with reference to the block diagram of FIG.

This control unit is configured around a CPU 101 that is a known arithmetic processing unit. CPU1
01 is connected to the personal computer 11 via the Centronics interface 102.
9 to receive recording data from the personal computer 119 and execute recording.

The CPU 101 functions as a control means for controlling recording on the recording paper. The operation panel 103 is connected to the CPU 101 through an address bus and a data bus.
104 and RAM 105 are connected.

The operation panel 103 sets various parameters such as paper size and displays them. The operation panel 103 includes a switch for forcibly driving the purge mechanism and a recording quality selection switch 106 to restore the ejection function of the recording heads 5 to 8. The recording quality selection switch 106 can select the recording quality by selecting the modes 1 to 3 shown in the following table. For example, as is well known, medium or low recording quality is realized by thinning out dot data to be recorded on a medium every other dot or every several dots, and high recording quality is realized by not thinning out.

ＲＯＭ１０４は、プリンタの制御上必要な種々のプログラム類を格納するものである。
ＲＡＭ１０５は、ホストコンピュータから転送された記録データや、プリンタの制御上必
要な種々のパラメータの一時記憶を行うものである。

The ROM 104 stores various programs necessary for controlling the printer.
The RAM 105 temporarily stores recording data transferred from the host computer and various parameters necessary for printer control.

Further, the CPU 101 is connected to a gate array 107 whose control system is a hardware circuit through an address bus and a data bus. The gate array 107 connects each recording head 5 to 8 through a head driver 108 to the carriage. Control is based on the position. The gate array 107 is input with a carriage encoder signal, and includes an image memory 109 for storing dot data to be recorded.

The CPU 101 also feeds the paper feed motor 11 via motor drive circuits 111 and 112.
3 and the carriage drive motor 20 are driven and controlled. The paper feed motor 113 is configured not only as a drive source for the paper feed mechanism LM but also as a drive source (recovery drive source) for the purge mechanism RM by a switching mechanism (not shown). In addition, it is also possible to use a dedicated purge motor without sharing a motor as a drive source.

Further, the CPU 101 receives signals from an origin sensor 114 that detects that the suction pump 23 is at the origin position and a paper feed sensor 115 that detects the leading edge of a newly supplied recording sheet.

The printer can use any of the built-in battery power source 118, the AC power source 117, and the power source of the personal computer 119 as a power source. The power supply control unit 116 generates and outputs a head drive voltage supplied to the head driver 108, a logic voltage supplied to the CPU 101, the gate array 107, and the like, and a motor drive voltage based on the electric power input from these power supplies. In addition, the power control unit 116 outputs a signal corresponding to the type of the connected power source and a power source voltage including load fluctuations to the CPU 101.

The CPU 101 detects a power source capacity of a driving power source, a driving power source discriminating unit 101a that discriminates the type of power source, a control unit 101b that controls the operation (driving speed and the number of purges) of the recovery driving source, that is, the paper feed motor 113, during the purge operation The capacity discriminating means 101c for discriminating whether or not the capacity exceeds the set value, the recovery operation number detecting means 101d for detecting whether or not the purge number requested in the program exceeds the set number, and A mode control unit 101e that controls a recording operation based on each mode setting is provided. The mutual relationship and operation of each of these means and the control unit will become apparent from the description of the flowcharts of FIGS.

Note that the detection of the power source capacity V1 in the capacity discriminating means 101c is performed by observing a value obtained by subtracting the maximum voltage drop Vd (value output from the power control unit 116) due to load fluctuation from the open circuit voltage V0 of the battery power source or the like. Do. Then, the power supply capacity V1 is compared with set values VT1 and VT2, which are certain reference values, to determine whether the power supply capacity is appropriate or insufficient.

The flow of the purge operation, that is, the recovery operation of this embodiment will be described based on the flowcharts of FIGS.

The CPU 101 performs the purge operation depending on each case, for example, when the purge operation is forcibly performed by a switch operation, when it is automatically inserted according to the elapsed time or the number of days, or when it is automatically performed when the ink cartridge is replaced. To start.

First, in the drive power source determination unit 101a, the type of the connected power source is the AC power source 117.
It is discriminate | determined whether it is (step S1). If it is driven by an AC power supply (step S1)
Since the sufficient power supply capacity can be secured, the control unit 101b receives the determination signal and sets the rotation speed of the motor 113 as the drive source to the first set speed “Fast” (Yes)
Step S2), the motor 113 is rotated at a high speed to perform a purge operation (Step S3).
At this time, the required number of purge operations set in the program for the elapsed days or the ink cartridge replacement is executed as it is. Further, the recording quality selected in the modes 1 to 3 in Table 1 is executed as it is, and it is not necessary to limit the number of purging operations according to the mode as in the case of driving by a battery power source described later.

When the type of the connected power source is not the AC power source 117 (step S1: No), that is, when the power source is the battery power source 118 or the personal computer 119, the capacity determining unit receives a signal from the driving power source determining unit 101a. 101c detects the power supply capacity V1 of the drive power supply (step S4), further determines whether or not the power supply capacity V1 is lower than the first set value VT1, and if it is low (step S5: Yes), the purge operation Since the power supply capacity is not sufficient to perform the control, the control means 101b receives a signal from the capacity determination means 101c and displays a display indicating that the purge is impossible on the display means such as the operation panel (step S6). And finishes without performing a purge operation.

If the power supply capacity V1 is not lower than the first set value VT1 (step S5: No), the mode control unit 101e receives a signal from the capacity determination unit 101c and determines whether or not mode 1 in recording quality is selected. If mode 1 is selected (step S7: Y
es), since a high recording quality is required according to the user's will, the control means 101b receives the signal from the mode control unit 101e and controls the rotation speed of the motor 113 so that the purge operation also has a high quality. The first set speed “Fast” is set (step S2), and the purge operation is executed (step S3). At this time, the purge operation request count set in the program is executed as it is.

On the other hand, when the mode 1 is not selected (step S7: No), that is, when the mode 2 or 3 is selected or the low recording quality is selected, the recovery operation number detecting means is used to balance the recording quality and the power saving effect. 101d detects whether the number of requests set in the program in the purge operation to be performed is two or more (step S8). If not more than once (
In step S8: No), the control unit 101b receives the signal from the recovery operation number detection unit 101d, and sets the motor 113 to the second set speed “Slow”, which is slower than the first set speed (step S9). The purge operation is executed (step S3). That is, modes 2 and 3
If the purge operation is performed once in, it is executed at a low speed to reduce power consumption.

Further, even if the purge operation to be performed is two times or more (step S8: Yes),
Mode 2 (that is, medium recording quality) is not selected in the recording quality (step S10: N)
o), that is, when the low recording quality of mode 3 is selected, the control unit 101b receives the signal from the recovery operation number detection unit 101d and limits the purge operation to two times (step S1).
2) and the motor 113 is set to a slow second set speed “Slow” (step S9).
The purge operation is executed (step S3). In other words, in the low recording quality of mode 3,
Even if the purge operation is requested twice or more, the purge operation is limited to twice and executed at a low speed to reduce the power consumption at the expense of some recording quality.

In addition, the purge operation to be performed is performed twice or more (step S8: Yes), and the mode 2
When the medium recording quality is selected (step S10: Yes), the capacity determination means 101c
Compares the power supply capacity V1 with the second set value VT2 higher than the first set value VT1, and when the power supply capacity V1 is not lower than the second set value VT2 (step S11: No), that is, When the power capacity is relatively sufficient, the control means 101b is used to maintain the medium recording quality.
In response to the signals from the capacity determination means 101c and the recovery operation frequency means 101d, the requested purge operation frequency is executed as it is at a low speed (step S9) (step S3).

On the other hand, when the power supply capacity V1 is lower than the second set value VT2 (step S11: Yes).
In the same way as in mode 3, even if the purge operation is requested twice or more, it is limited to twice and executed at a low speed, and the power consumption is reduced even if the recording quality is somewhat worse than the above-mentioned mode 2 To do.

  FIG. 4 shows the purge operation in step S3 in detail.

First, the recording heads 5 to 8 for which the purge operation is instructed are determined (S21, S23, S25).
The recording head is moved by driving the carriage 11 to a position facing the suction cap 22 (S22, S24, S26, S27). Then, the motor 113 is driven and the cam 121 is driven.
Is rotated once (step S28), the suction cap 22 is brought into close contact with the recording head as described above, and the operation of one cycle of suction by the suction pump 23 is performed. This operation is repeated at the first or second set speed for the number of purges requested in the program or the number of times limited as described above (step S29). Thereafter, the recording head is moved to the flushing area, and preliminary ejection, that is, flushing is performed from the recording head (S30, S31). If there is an instruction for the purge operation for the other recording heads, these series of operations are repeated (step S32).

In the case of the present embodiment, the power supplied from the personal computer 119 is handled in the same way as the battery power because the printer cannot determine whether the personal computer itself is driven by the battery power or the AC power. . In the printer, when only two types of battery power source and AC power source are used, the drive power source determination unit 101a can be configured to determine whether or not to use the battery power source.

It is a schematic block diagram which shows the internal structure of the portable printer which concerns on this invention. 2 is a block diagram of a control unit of the printer. FIG. It is a flowchart figure which shows the flow of a purge process. It is a flowchart figure which shows the flow of a purge process.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Portable printer 3 Recording paper 5-8 Recording head 101 CPU
101a Drive power supply determination means 101b Control means record 101c Capacity determination means 101d Recovery operation frequency detection means 106 Recording quality selection switch 118 AC power supply 119 Battery power supply

Claims (1)

A recording head that performs recording by ejecting ink droplets onto a recording medium; a recovery unit that covers a nozzle surface of the recording head with a cap and drives a recovery drive source to perform a recovery operation; and
In a portable printer comprising a battery power source as a driving power source for the recovery means ,
Recording quality selection means for selecting a plurality of modes for recording quality, and the recording quality selection means
In response to the selected recording quality, and controls the driving means according to the selected recording quality.
Control means for controlling the operation, and the number of required recovery operations for the recovery means exceeds the set number of times
Recovery operation frequency detection means for detecting whether or not the selected recording product
Depending on the quality and upon receiving a signal from the recovery operation frequency detection means, the required recovery operation frequency is set.
A portable printer characterized by limiting the number of operations of the recovery means when a predetermined number of times is exceeded .

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