JPH0132075B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

The present invention relates to a color image recording device. Conventionally, there are devices that record color images using wire printers, for example.
There is one in which a plurality of recording wires are arranged in the paper feed direction, and the ink ribbon is separated into two color bands, red and black, in the paper feed direction, and the two color pixels are separately printed. However, according to this method, the recording head was temporarily stopped at each recording position of one line, and the ink ribbon was switched each time to perform recording, which was very time-consuming, and it was not possible for printers with a mechanism to stop the recording head midway. It was limited to. In addition, it is used as a computer terminal device, etc., and separates the ink ribbon into three color bands of yellow, cyan, and magenta in the direction perpendicular to the paper feed, and records the length of each color band. Make it longer than the width of the paper, first record the entire screen with one color, then
Some printers repeat the operation of backfeeding the recording paper by one screen, switching to the next color band of the ink ribbon, and recording one screen. However, according to this, in order to record one screen in three colors, the recording paper must be accurately back-fed twice. Therefore, extremely high precision was required of the paper feeding mechanism, and the time required for recording was also increased by the amount of backfeed. Therefore, the present invention provides a color image recording device that can record high quality color images in a short time. An embodiment of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a carriage, which slides on guide rods 2, 2, to which a recording head 3 is fixed. Further, a drive section 4 having a built-in motor (not shown) is fixed to the carriage 1, and a rotary plate 6 shown in FIG. 2 is screwed to the tip of the rotating shaft 5 as shown in FIG. There is. The rotary plate 6 has
Ink ribbon sections 6M, 6Y, and 6C of three colors, magenta, yellow, and cyan are provided. These ink ribbon portions are arranged at positions facing the tip portion 3a of the recording head 3 . Ink cartridges 7M, 7Y, and 7C are clicked into cylindrical portions 8 to 8 protruding from the rotary plate 6, respectively, as shown in FIG. A sponge 9 impregnated with magenta ink is housed in the ink cartridge M, and this contacts the ink ribbon portion 6M at the opening 9a to supply ink. The sponges in cartridges 7C and 7Y are impregnated with cyan and yellow ink, respectively. Furthermore, slits 10 and 11 are formed on the outer periphery of the rotary plate 6 for detecting the color of the ink ribbon section. 1st
12 in the figure is a photo sensor, with slits 10 and 11
It is arranged on the arm part 13 extending from the carriage 1. In Fig. 4, CM ₁ to CM ₃ are comparators, and each input terminal ER, EG, EB receives red, recording, and blue light for color images from a video tape recorder or color image pickup tube (not shown). Three primary color signals are supplied. D is a conversion circuit that converts the three primary color signals of light into hue data of magenta, yellow, and cyan, which are the three primary colors of paint, and the details thereof will be described later.
Mm ₁ -Mm ₈ , My ₁ -My ₈ , Mc ₁ -Mc ₈ are memory circuits each consisting of a 1024-bit random access memory, and Ac is an addressing circuit. _g1 ,
g ₂ , g ₃ ~ _{g 3} are gate circuits, DR is recording wire 3
The drive circuits b to 3b and PL ₁ to PL ₈ are multiplexers. T is a timing pulse generation circuit which generates various timing pulses in response to vertical and horizontal synchronizing signals from terminals VS and HS, clock pulses from clock pulse generator CL, etc. FIG. 5 shows details of the conversion circuit D, which consists of gate circuits _g4 to _g13 . In this example, as shown in Figure 6, one screen of the television is displayed in the row direction using horizontal and vertical synchronization signals.
It is divided into 1024 parts and 512 parts in the column direction, and each point is recorded as one pixel. Eight recording wires are scanned in the row direction to record eight rows at a time. First, the operation of converting the three primary color signals of light into the hue data of the three primary colors of paint will be explained. The three primary color signals supplied to terminals ER, EG, and EB in Fig. 4 are converted into logical values by converters CM ₁ to CM ₃ , respectively, and red, green, and red signals are supplied to terminals R, G, and B, respectively.
Data for each hue of blue is generated. By additively mixing the three primary colors based on the hue data, eight types of hues can be obtained as shown in Table 1 below.

[Table] In this example, the ink ribbon parts 6M, 6Y, and 6C have magenta, which is the three primary colors of paint among the above-mentioned hues,
Three colors, yellow and cyan, are used, and pixels are recorded by subtractive mixing of these three colors. By subtractive mixing of the three primary colors, eight colors are obtained as shown in Table 2 below.

[Table] Therefore, after decoding each hue data from terminals R, G, and B into data for the above eight colors,
Generate hue data of the three primary colors of paint in y and c,
FIG. 5 shows the configuration of the conversion circuit D. In the figure, gate circuits g ₄ to _{g 10} have magenta, yellow, cyan, blue, red, and
Green and black decode outputs are generated, and the gate circuit g ₁₁ ~
_g13 generates magenta, yellow, and cyan hue data based on Table 2. Note that in the case of white, the outputs of the gate circuits _g11 to _g13 are all "0". As described above, hue data based on the three primary colors of light is converted into hue data based on the three primary colors of paint. Next, the above hue data is stored in the storage circuit shown in Fig. 4.
The operation of sampling Mm ₁ to Mm ₈ , My ₁ to My ₈ , and Mc ₁ to Mc ₈ will be explained. First, when the print command shown in FIG. 7A is supplied to the terminal PR shown in FIG.
The sampling pulse Pm shown in Figure B is generated. This pulse Pm is generated by the horizontal and vertical synchronizing signals shown in FIGS. 8A and 8B, and is shown in an enlarged view in FIG. 8C. While the pulse Pm is being generated, the hue data of each pixel in the 1st to 8th rows in FIG. 6 is sampled as follows. Above pulse
With the generation of Pm, write command pulses are generated from the terminals t ₁ , t ₃ , t ₅ , and t ₇ of the timing pulse generation circuit T by the horizontal synchronizing signal as shown in FIG. 8 D to G, respectively.
P ₁ , P ₃ , P ₅ , and P ₇ are generated. FIG. 9D shows an enlarged view of the pulse _P1 , and FIG. 9A shows an enlarged view of the horizontal synchronizing signal hp in the first row of the first field in FIG. 8A. FIG. 9B also shows clock pulses from the clock pulse generator CL, which generate the write pulses shown in FIG. 9C from the terminal tw of the timing pulse generator T. This write pulse is one in which 1024 pulses are generated, and the contents of the addressing circuit Ac are incremented by this, and the magenta and yellow of pixels h ₁ v ₁ to h ₁ v ₁₀₂₄ in the first row in FIG. 6 are generated. , cyan hue data are written into the memory circuits Mm ₁ , My ₁ , and Mc ₁ , respectively. In the same way, _the memory circuits Mm ₃ , _{P 3} , P ₅ , _{P 7 of} FIG. My ₃ ,
_Mc3 has 3rd row _{pixels h3v1 to h3v1024} , memory circuit
Mm ₅ , My ₅ , Mc ₅ have pixels h ₅ v ₁ to h ₅ v ₁₀₂₄ in the 5th row,
The memory circuit Mm ₇ , My ₇ , Mc ₇ has pixels h ₇ v ₁ in the 7th row,
Each hue data of h ₇ v ₁₀₂₄ is written respectively. Next, in synchronization with the second field scan, write command pulses are sequentially generated from terminals t ₂ , t ₄ , t ₆ , and t ₈ of the timing pulse generating circuit T as shown in FIG. 8 H to I, respectively. These pulses cause the memory circuits Mm ₂ , My ₂ , Mc ₂ to display the second row of pixels h ₂ v ₁ to h 2 v ₁₀₂₄ and the memory circuits Mm ₄ , My ₄ , Mc ₄ to display the pixels h 2 v 1 to _{h 2} v 1024 in the same way as above. 4 rows _of pixels _{h4v1 to h4v1024} , memory circuit _Mm6 ,
My ₆ and Mc ₆ are the pixels of the 6th row h ₆ v ₁ to h ₆ v ₁₀₂₄ , and the memory circuit Mm ₈ , My ₈ and Mc ₈ are the pixels of the 8th row h ₈ v ₁ to _{h 8} v ₁₀₂₄
Each hue data is written. As mentioned above, by scanning the first frame,
The hue data of each pixel in the 1st to 8th rows is written into the storage circuit. Next, the memory circuits Mm ₁ , My ₁ , Mc ₁ to Mm ₈ ,
Based on the contents of My ₈ and Mc ₈ , the first to
The operation up to recording pixels in the 8th row will be explained. When the generation of the sampling pulse Pm stops, a shift pulse for the recording head is generated from the terminal th of the timing pulse generation circuit T as shown in FIG. 7C. This is shown enlarged in Figure 10B.
This pulse starts the carriage 1 shown in Fig. 1, and when the recording head 3 reaches the start position, the detection signal is sent to the terminal ST shown in Fig. 4 (the start position detection device is already known, so it is omitted). ) occurs as shown in Figure 10C. Also, the terminal
From DT, a detection pulse is generated as shown in FIG. 10D every time the recording head 3 reaches 1024 recording positions. This pulse is supplied to the addressing circuit Ac via the gate circuits g ₁ and g ₂ and increments its contents to the memory circuits Mm ₁ , My ₁ , Mc ₁ to Mm ₈ ,
Read the contents of My ₈ and Mc ₈ . Memory circuit Mm ₁ ,
Hue data from My ₁ , Mc ₁ to Mm ₈ , My ₈ , and Mc ₈ are supplied to multiplexers PL ₁ to PL ₈ , respectively,
Multiplexers PL ₁ to PL ₈ are configured as follows:
Each hue data of magenta, yellow, and cyan is selected in synchronization with the rotation of the rotary plate 6. In other words,
The photo sensor 12 shown in FIG. 1 detects the hue of the ink ribbon portion facing the recording head 3, selects hue data corresponding to this hue, and drives the recording wires 3b to 3b. In this example, the rotation speed of the rotary plate 6 and the recording head 3 are
It is not synchronized with the scanning speed of , and the time it takes for the recording head 3 to move from one recording position to the next, that is, the period of the pulse shown in FIG. It is designed to take less time. Therefore, the detection pulses of the slits 10 and 11 generated from the photo sensor 12 are as shown in FIGS. 10E and F, respectively.
The period is shorter than the pulse in Figure 0D. Therefore, while the recording head 3 is at one recording position, the three color ink ribbon sections 6Y, 6M, and 6C face the recording head 3 at least once each. FIG. 10G shows the hue of the ink ribbon portion facing the recording head 3 as the rotating body 6 rotates, where M is magenta, Y is yellow, and C is cyan. Now, slit 1 from photo sensor 12
The detection pulses of 0 and 11 are connected to the terminals Ph ₁ and Ph ₂ in Fig. 4.
is supplied to the multiplexer PL ₁ ~
PL ₈ selects each hue data. That is, when the magenta ink ribbon portion 6M is facing the recording head 3 by the detection pulses shown in FIGS. 10E and 10F from the photo sensor 12 , the memory circuits Mm ₁ -
The magenta hue data from Mm ₈ is stored in the memory circuit when the yellow ink ribbon section 6Y is facing
The yellow hue data from My ₁ to My ₈ is stored in the memory circuit when the cyan ink ribbon section 6c is facing
The cyan hue data of Mc ₁ to Mc ₈ is selected by multiplexers PL ₁ to PL ₈ and sent to gate circuits g ₃ to
supplied to _g3 . On the other hand, the photo sensor 12 from the terminals Ph ₁ and Ph ₂
The detection pulse is supplied to the timing pulse generating circuit T, and a driving pulse as shown in FIG. 10H is generated from the terminal tp by this and the pulse shown in FIG. 10D from the terminal DT. This is so that three driving pulses are generated synchronously when either of the pulses E or F in FIG. 10 rises or rises after the pulse D in FIG. 10 rises. It is set to . Therefore, at the recording position of the first column, after the pulse Pa shown in FIG. 10D rises, first,
Assuming that _the yellow ink ribbon section 6Y faces the recording head 3 as shown in _FIG . multiplexer PL ₁ to _{PL 8}
This and the first drive pulse Pd ₁ of FIG. 10H cause outputs from the gate circuits g ₃ to _{g 3} . This output generates a drive output from the output terminals _d1 to _d8 of the drive circuit DR, drives the recording wires 3b to _3b , and records yellow pixels in the first column _{v1h1 to v1h8 .} be done. Then, when the rotating body 6 rotates 1/6 and the cyan ink ribbon section 6c faces the recording head 3 , the cyan hue data of the pixels in the first column from the memory circuits _Mc1 to _Mc8 is selected. This and Figure 10 H-2
According to the drive pulse Pd ₂ , the first column v ₁ h ₁
A cyan pixel is recorded at ~v ₁ h ₈ . When the rotating body 6 further rotates by 1/6 and the magenta ink ribbon portion 6M faces the recording head 3 , the magenta hue data of the pixels in the first column from the memory circuits Mm ₁ to Mm ₈ is selected. and Figure 10H
The third drive pulse Pd ₃ causes the first column to
Magenta pixels are recorded in v ₁ h ₁ to y ₁ h ₈ . In this way, the pixels of the first column are recorded by the above three recordings, and the pixels of yellow, cyan, and
A black pixel is recorded by overlapping magenta, a red pixel is recorded by overlapping magenta and yellow, a blue pixel is recorded by overlapping magenta and cyan, and a blue pixel is recorded by overlapping yellow and cyan. Thus, green pixels are recorded. Next, when the recording head 3 reaches the recording position in the second column and the pulse Pb shown in FIG. 10D is generated, the hue data of the pixels in the second column changes to cyan, magenta,
The pixels are read out in the order of yellow, and the pixels in the second column are recorded in the same manner as above. In this way, up to 1024 columns are recorded in order,
7th from terminal Tl of timing pulse generation circuit T
The pulse shown in Figure D is generated, which advances the recording paper by eight lines. By repeating the same actions as above,
Pixels from the 9th to 512th rows are sequentially recorded 8 rows at a time, completing the recording of one screen. In the above embodiment, an ink cartridge is brought into contact with each ink ribbon section, and ink soaked into the sponge is constantly supplied, so that clear pixels can always be recorded. Furthermore, when the ink runs out, the ink cartridge can be removed and ink can be injected. Note that the ink ribbon portion is not limited to three colors as in the above embodiment, but may also include other colors. Alternatively, the recording head wire may be driven by synchronizing the scanning of the recording head with the rotation of the rotating body. As described above, according to the present invention, ink ribbon sections of a plurality of colors are provided on a rotating body that rotates at a position facing the recording head, and the ink cartridge mounting section is arranged so as to correspond to each ink ribbon section. Because it is fixed on a rotating body, the ink ribbon cartridges only need to be attached to their respective attachment points.
Ink can be replenished with a simple configuration. Furthermore, unlike the conventional method, there is no need to stop the recording head or backfeed the entire screen, so recording can be performed efficiently and the recording time can be shortened. Moreover, before the recording head moves from one recording position to the next, the ink ribbon section of each color is rotated at least once so as to face the recording head, and the hue data corresponding to the opposed ink ribbon section is Since recording is performed based on the printing method, each color can be overprinted at high speed and accurately, resulting in a recorded image of good quality.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 1 is a side view, FIG. 2 is a front view of the main part of FIG. 1, and FIG.
Figure 4 is an electric circuit diagram, Figure 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line -
The figure is a logic circuit diagram showing a part of Figure 4 in detail, Figure 6 is an explanatory diagram showing pixels obtained by dividing the color image receiving surface, and Figures 7 to 10 are timing diagrams for explaining the operation. It's a chat. 3 ... Recording head, 3b-3b... Recording wire, 6... Rotating body, 6C, 6M, 6Y... Ink ribbon section, 7M, 7Y, 7C... Ink cartridge, 8-8... Cylindrical section, 10,11 slit, 1
2...Photo sensor, CM1 ~ CM3 ...Comparator, D... _Conversion circuit, _Mm1 ~ _Mm8 , _{My1 ~}
My ₈ , Mc ₁ ~ Mc ₈ ... memory circuit, PL ₁ ~ _{PL 8} ...
Multiplexer, DR...drive circuit, T...timing pulse generation circuit.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A carriage that scans in a direction perpendicular to the paper feed, a recording head provided on this carriage, and ink ribbon sections of a plurality of colors are arranged in the rotation direction, and each of the ink ribbon sections is sequentially moved. A rotating body that rotates to face the recording head is provided in the carriage, and a mounting part is provided for each of the ink ribbon parts to which an ink cartridge for supplying ink to each of the ink ribbon parts can be attached and detached. A color indicating section indicating the color of each of the ink ribbon sections is provided on the rotating body in a manner that corresponds to each of the ink ribbon sections; There is a
A detection device for detecting the color of the ink ribbon portion facing the recording head from the color indicating portion, and a data supply device for sequentially generating hue data of pixels to be recorded are provided, A selection device is provided for selecting hue data corresponding to the color of the ink ribbon portion of each color, and the ink ribbon portion of each color is selected at least once before the recording head moves from one recording position to the next recording position. A color image recording device comprising: a drive section that rotates the rotary body so as to face the recording head; and a drive device that drives the recording head in synchronization with the rotation of the rotary body and based on the hue data selected above. Device.