JPH02128874A - Information recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform the pagenation-control of recording information with a low-cost and simple construction by a method wherein a recording medium is fed until a detection means detects the passing trailing end thereof before the start of an information recording, and based on the detection/output timing of the detection means the length of the recording medium in a feed direction is calculated. CONSTITUTION:A detection signal that a sheet sensor 40 has detected the leading end of a sheet is received by a CPU 21. After that, the CPU 21 drives a sheet feed motor 4 forward by one step and has driven the motor until the sensor 40 detects the trailing end of the recording medium with the increment of the value of a register. The CPU 21 writes the length of the recording medium, which is obtained by multiplying the value of the register by the feed length for one step, into a predetermined area of a RAM 25. Thereafter, the CPU 21 rotates the sheet feed motor 4 reverse, furthermore rotates the same forward to feed the recording medium to a recording start position, and starts recording after waiting for an input from a host device 14.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an information recording device that records information such as a single image of a character on a sheet material (sheet-like recording medium) that moves in a fixed direction, and particularly relates to a word processor. It is also suitable for various printers used as output devices for information processing devices such as personal computers.

[Prior Art] In recent years, this type of information recording apparatus has come to manage recording data (output data) on a page-by-page basis, and has also been able to handle complex coordinate instructions and has improved the image quality of output information.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, such conventional devices only manage recorded data, and only monitor the width of recording media such as cut sheets with a paper width sensor. .

There is also a method of determining the length of the recording medium using a switch that works with the claw of a special cartridge for each paper size, such as the paper cartridge in a copying machine, but this method is not suitable for small recording devices such as printers. .

Therefore, even if recorded data is managed, there is a drawback that it cannot be managed when recording media of different sizes are used. In particular, in recent years there has been an increasing demand for printing letters on recording media of various sizes, such as letter size and envelopes and postcards, in addition to standard size recording media such as F4 size and B5 size. It is necessary to be able to easily record information in page units even on recording media of different sizes.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks and to provide an information recording device that has an inexpensive and simple configuration and can manage pages of recorded information by knowing the length of the recording medium before starting recording. be.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention includes a feeding means for feeding a sheet-like recording medium in a predetermined direction, a detection means for detecting passage of a leading edge and a trailing edge of the recording medium, Before you start recording information,
A control means that drives and controls the feeding means to feed the recording medium until the detection means detects passage of the trailing edge, and a size that calculates the length of the recording medium in the feeding direction based on the detection/output timing of the detection means. The present invention is characterized by comprising a detection means.

[Function] With the above configuration, the present invention starts feeding the sheet-like recording medium before starting recording of information, and continues feeding until the detection means detects the trailing edge of the recording medium or detects that there is no recording medium. The length of the recording medium in the feeding direction is detected based on the number of rotations of the sheet feeding motor at the time of detection, so the length of the recording medium can be determined before the start of recording using an inexpensive and simple configuration. You can manage pages of recorded information by knowing this.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a liquid jet recording apparatus. This recording apparatus is a so-called bubble jet (BJ) type color inkjet recording apparatus having an electrothermal converter as a discharge energy generating means.

In FIG. 1, a sheet-shaped recording medium 1 such as paper or a plastic sheet is supported by a conveying roller 2.3 consisting of a pair of rollers arranged above and below a recording area, and is driven by a sheet feeding motor 4. It is transported by the transport roller 2 in the direction of arrow A in the figure. Conveyance roller 2.
A guide shaft 5 is provided in front of and parallel to this. A carriage 6 is reciprocated along this guide shaft in the direction of arrow B in the figure via a wire 8 by the output of a carriage motor 7.

A recording head unit 90, which is a BJ type inkjet head, is mounted on the carriage 6. This recording head unit 90 is for creating a color image, and is arranged in the scanning direction.

Four recording heads 9 provided corresponding to each color ink of magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (Bx),
That is, it consists of 98, 9B, 9C, and 9D. A plurality of (for example, 32 or 128) ink ejection ports are arranged in a vertical row on the front surface of each recording head 9, that is, the surface facing the recording medium 1 at a predetermined interval (for example, 0.8 mm). A section has been established.

Furthermore, 40 is a sheet sensor according to the present invention, which is disposed near the end of the lower conveyance roller 3 upstream in the paper feeding direction of arrow A in this figure, and is used to detect the recording medium 1 being fed in the direction of arrow A. Detect the rear end. Various types of electrical, mechanical, or optical sensors can be used as the sheet sensor 40, but in addition to microswitches, reflective photocouplers and transmissive photosensors are also suitable. In this embodiment, a microswitch is used as the sheet sensor 40.

FIG. 2 shows the recording heads 9 (recording heads 9A to 9) in FIG.
The partial vertical structure of the ink ejection part (same for both D) is schematically shown.

In FIG. 2, on the surface facing the recording medium 1, a plurality of ink ejection ports 10 are formed at a predetermined pitch in the vertical direction. Based on the recorded information, the heat driver 13 drives (energizes and heats) the electrothermal converter (heating resistor, etc.) 11 of each ink ejection port 10 to generate bubbles (bubbles H18) in the ink, and the pressure at this time is increased. As a result, flying ink droplets 12 are formed, and recording is performed while the ink dots are attached to the recording medium 1 in a predetermined pattern.

Each recording head 9 is equipped with a circuit board of a drive circuit (driver) 29 for driving as described above.

Referring again to FIG. 1, the control circuit (CP
II), and a control unit including ROM, RAM, etc. attached thereto is formed on the control board 15, and this control unit receives command signals and data signals (recorded information) from a host device 14 such as a computer. Based on this, the heat driver 1 described above is
A driving voltage (heat voltage) for the electrothermal transducer is applied to each of the recording heads 9A to 9D via the recording head 3.

An online/offline switching key 1 is provided on the operation panel 160 attached to the exterior case (not shown) of the recording device.
In addition to key setting sections such as 6A, line feed key 16B, form feed key 166, and sheet size switching key 160, a display section including several warning lamps such as alarm lamp 16E and power lamp 16F is provided.

FIG. 3 shows a circuit configuration of a control system of the BJ type inkjet recording apparatus shown in FIG.

In FIG. 3, a microprocessor type CPU (
The control circuit) 21 is connected to a host device 14 such as a computer via an interface 22, and receives command signals (commands) and recorded information signals read from the host device 14 into the data memory 23, as well as ROM (read-on memory). ) format program memory 24 or RAM
(Random Ax Memory) Form of Working Memory 25
The recording operation is controlled based on the programs and data stored in the computer, etc.

The CPII 21 also controls the carriage motor 7 (see FIG. 1) and the sheet feed motor 4 (see FIG. 1) via the output port 26 and the motor driver 27, and also controls the recording information stored in the data memory 23. Based on this, the recording head 9 is controlled via the head control circuit 29.

The sheet sensor 40 detects whether or not the recording medium 1 is present between the conveyance rollers 2 and 3 (see FIG. 1), and
The detection signal is transmitted to the CPU 21 via the human powered boat 31.

Each of the operation keys 168 to 16 on the operation panel 160 described above
The output from D (see FIG. 1) is transmitted to the CPII 21 via the input port 32, and is also transmitted to the alarm lamp 16.
A control signal from the CPU 21 is supplied to the warning lamps such as E and the power lamp 11iF through the output port 36.

33 is a DIP installed on the bottom of the exterior of the device, etc.
switch, whose output is connected to C via input port 34.
It is transmitted to PU21.

In addition, from the power supply circuit 28, a logic drive voltage VCG (5V) for operating the control logic circuit, various motor drive voltages Vll (30V), and a reset voltage RE are supplied.
SET, heat voltage (head voltage) for heating the dot forming element (electric heating converter 11) of each recording head 9;
VH (25V) and a backup voltage VDD)I for protecting the recording head 9 are output.

The above heat voltage VH is applied to the recording head 9, and the backup voltage VDDH is applied to the head control circuit 29 and the recording head 9.
, respectively.

Next, an example of the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

When the operator presses the sheet size switching key 160 on the operation panel 160, the key output is
It is received by the CPU 21 through. As a result, CPt
121 starts processing the program shown in this figure, drives the driver 27 through the output port 26, and drives the driver 27.
7, the sheet feed motor 4 is rotated in the forward direction to feed the recording medium (sheet) 1 in the direction of arrow A in FIG. 1 (step Sl).
.

The sheet sensor 40 is open (OF) when there is no recording head 1.
F), but when the recording medium 1 is sent and the sensor 40 switch is pressed, it becomes closed ((IN),
The position of the tip (head position) of the recording medium chamber can be detected. A detection signal indicating that the sheet sensor 40 has detected the leading edge position of the sheet is received by the CPU 21 through the input boat 31.

A detection signal indicating that the leading edge position of the sheet has been detected is sent to CPU2.
When the value reaches 1 (step S2), the CPU 21 sets the value "00B (hexadecimal)" in its own internal register DO (step S3).

After this, the CPt 121 outputs the output port 26. driver 2
7, the sheet feeder 4 is driven one step forward (step S4), the value of the register DO is incremented (step S5), and the input port 31 is checked.
Check whether the sheet sensor 40 is open (OFF) (step S6).
until the last end of CPU2 is detected and turned off (OFF).
1 repeats the operation of driving the sheet feed motor 4 in steps 54 to S6.

CPt12 indicates that the seat sensor 40 is open.
1 is detected, the rotation of the sheet feed motor 4 is stopped, and the value of the recording medium 1 obtained by multiplying the value of register 00 by the feed length of one sheet feed step of the sheet feed motor 4 is detected.
The vertical length (size in the feeding direction) is written in a predetermined area of the RAM (working memory) 25 (step S7).

After this, the CPt 121 connects the output port 26. driver 2
7 to reverse the sheet feed motor 4 and turn it OFF.
), the sheet sensor 40 is once closed (ON), and the recording medium 1 is fed until it becomes open (OFF) again.

Next, the sheet feed motor 4 is rotated in the normal direction via the output port 26 and the driver 27 to feed the recording medium 1 to the recording start position (step S8), and after waiting for an input from the host device 14, recording is started ( (See Figure 5).

FIG. 6 shows a recording operation mode in another embodiment of the present invention.

In this embodiment, the operation up to detecting the length of the recording medium 1 is similar to the above-described embodiment shown in FIG. 4 (hereinafter referred to as the first embodiment). However, in this embodiment, after the sheet feed motor 4 finishes feeding the recording medium 1, the process immediately moves to the recording process without performing the operation of step S8 in FIG. Data is set in the head drive circuit 29 in order from the data in the bottom row of the memory 23, and the recording head is driven to perform recording as shown in FIG. Therefore, in this embodiment, the recording time can be shortened compared to the first embodiment by not performing the operation in step S8 described above.

FIG. 7 shows yet another embodiment of the invention.

Like the embodiment shown in FIG. 6, this embodiment also operates in the same manner as the first embodiment until the length of the recording medium 1 is detected. However, in this embodiment, the operation of step S8 in FIG. 4 is not performed,
One line of recording data in the data memory 23 is turned upside down in the working memory 25, the data is set in the head drive circuit 29 from the highest position, and recording is performed while the recording medium 1 is fed backward in the direction of arrow B.

Note that in the above-described embodiment of the present invention, the size of the recording medium in the feeding direction is detected based on the number of rotations of the sheet feeding motor 4, but the present invention is not limited to this.
It is also possible to detect the size of the recording medium in the feeding direction from the feeding time measured by a timer (not shown) linked to the opening/closing operation of the sheet feeding motor 4 and the feeding length per unit time. It is also possible to attach an encoder to one end of the roller 2 and detect the size of the recording medium 1 in the feeding direction based on the detection value of the encoder based on the opening/closing timing of the sheet sensor 40 and the outer circumference dimension of the conveying roller 2. .

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, the feeding of the sheet-like recording medium is started before the recording of information is started, and the detection means detects the trailing edge of the recording medium or detects that there is no recording medium. The length of the recording medium in the feeding direction is detected based on the number of revolutions of the sheet feeding motor at the time of detection, and the length of the recording medium in the feeding direction is detected. This has the effect of being able to manage the pages of recorded information by knowing the length of the recording medium.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing the cross-sectional structure of the recording head portion of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a control of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operating procedure of the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 3; FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing the sheet feeding direction during recording operation of the embodiment of the present invention; 6 and 7 are schematic diagrams showing the recording operation mode and sheet feeding direction of other embodiments of the present invention, respectively 9... Recording head, 14... Host device, 168-16D... Operation keys 21 ... Control circuit (CPU), 23... Data memory, 25... Working memory (RAM) 2g... Head drive circuit, 40... Sheet sensor. 1... Sheet-shaped recording medium (sheet material), 2.3...
・Conveyance roller, 4... Sheet feed motor, Figure 6 section

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1) a) feeding means for feeding a sheet-shaped recording medium in a predetermined direction; b) detection means for detecting passage of the leading and trailing ends of the recording medium; and c) before starting recording of information. d) control means for driving and controlling the feeding means to feed the recording medium until the detection means detects passage of the trailing edge; and d) controlling the recording medium based on the detection/output timing of the detection means. An information recording device comprising size detection means for calculating the length in the feeding direction of the information recording device.