JPH0227152B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a printing device using a fixed character string.

Traditionally, magnetic ink characters were used on bills, beer tickets, etc. [The number of digits printed in the magnetic ink characters on these bills is based on the Tokyo Clearinghouse rules established in 1971 by the Tokyo Clearinghouse of the Tokyo Bankers Association. It is a long print string exceeding 10 digits, as specified as a 65-column single-line character string. Furthermore, this rule is a rule established in accordance with the conventions of the American Bankers Association, and is a character string that is used not only domestically but also worldwide and is generally well-known] or letters, numbers, and symbols of an optical character reader. A single-line printing device such as the above uses a type drum with letters, numbers, symbols, etc. arranged around it, and this type drum is constantly rotated so that the code drum can tell which type is currently in front of the hammer. 2. Description of the Related Art Drum type printers and the like are known that operate a hammer to print when the content of a storage device to be printed matches the content of a code drum. However, with such conventional devices, the printing speed is limited to about 12 to 20 characters per second due to inertia in mechanical movement, and because the type itself is moving, it may not be possible to print clearly due to misalignment etc. There were drawbacks such as the possibility of

In order to increase the printing speed, improvements have been made by improving the response characteristics of the hammer and its actuator, and by using stepping motors or pulse motors, but these methods increase the price and reduce print quality. There is a limit to the improvement in printing speed.

On the other hand, a stamping device has been proposed which eliminates the need for type alignment required in the conventional single or plural drum system for moving type. This technology was published in Japanese Patent Publication No. 48-41826.
As disclosed in the publication, the printed characters are arranged in a grid pattern, and the number of character strings is the same as the number of digits of the stamp to be stamped in a direction perpendicular to the direction of movement of the printing paper. The marking device is arranged in a matrix, and further includes a fixed hammer device corresponding to each character in the printing row.
The operation of the marking device is such that when the printing paper passes between the matrix-shaped character row and the hammer, in one row of characters passing sequentially in the passing direction,
A single letter is stamped on printing paper. Therefore, the above-mentioned group of markings is a technique in which markings are made in a line perpendicular to the direction of movement of the printing paper. However, this marking device develops a group of letters formed in a ring shape using the drum method mentioned above, and instead of omitting the rotary drive mechanism for aligning the letters, it uses a drum method in which a large number of hammers are installed instead. This technology is just a variation of the previous one. In other words, in the above-mentioned stamping device, since the type is arranged in a matrix, it is necessary to prepare a hammer for each type, which is very uneconomical even when compared with the conventional drum method, and the entire device becomes expensive. Become. In addition, the maximum number of digits to be printed and the spacing between printed characters are determined by the number and arrangement of the character strings arranged in the matrix, so it is not possible to increase the number of digits arbitrarily.
Additionally, the spacing between printed characters was fixed and could not be selected arbitrarily.

Furthermore, since a printing mechanism such as a typewriter system requires a large printing stroke, there are problems such as large inertia of the mechanism, slow printing speed, and misaligned or blurred printing.

The purpose of the present invention is to eliminate the above-mentioned problems of conventional printers, and to print a character string of any number of digits according to the information content to be printed with a minimum character string that has only one set of characters to be used. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing device capable of printing at arbitrary character intervals.

In the printing device according to the present invention, a type string device having a desired number of characters, numbers, symbols, etc., is fixedly provided, and the type string device is provided adjacent to the type string device so as to move in the same direction and parallel to the printed character string. The printer is configured to continuously drive the printed printing paper and ribbon in one direction, and drive a hammer at a position corresponding to the information content to be printed as the printing paper and ribbon move forward. Naturally, the number of hammers is the same as the number of characters in the type string device, and the ribbon used can be arbitrarily selected depending on the type of reading device (for example, optical or magnetic).

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

The drawing schematically shows a device according to the present invention that is configured to print certain information in a line from 10 characters [this is 65 or more characters of printed information if printing a bill]; A type string device 2, 3 is a ribbon and printing paper arranged parallel to the type string device 1, each of which is formed by fixedly supporting type letters in a line. The ribbon and the printing paper are advanced continuously or, if necessary, stepwise, in the direction of the type strings of the type string device 1 by means of a drive (not shown). 4 are hammers, each hammer 4 is a type string device 1
is positioned at a position corresponding to each of the printed characters, and is driven by the combined actuator 5. Block 6 is a first storage device that stores information to be printed on printing paper 3, [a simple example of this stored information is "01234567890123456789" or, as the same meaning, "repeat printing from 0 to 9 twice". This information or other information is a series of the same number "1111", and an example of the above-mentioned handprint's magnetic ink characters is "......〓023008905〓
Examples include 001〓405446〓 0101〓0000065000〓]. Block 7 is a second storage device for storing the contents of the type string in the type string device 1. [Specifically, the device for storing the contents of the type string in the type string device 1 refers to This means storing information corresponding to the type and position of the printed characters, such as the first one is "0," the second one is "1," and the ninth one is "8."] Block 8
is a comparison device that successively compares the stored contents of these two storage devices 6 and 7 and supplies a control signal to the actuator 5 of the hammer 4 in accordance with the advance of the ribbon 2 and the printing paper 3 [A specific example of the above comparison is , when the signal “1111” stored from the first memory device is sent to the successive approximation device, the contents of the second memory device and each signal are compared, and a message “actuating the second character four times” is generated. Comparison results are obtained. Also,
The above-mentioned "memorizing the operating order" means the storage devices 6 and 7.
This refers to the order in which the actuators are actuated based on the results obtained by comparing the stored contents. This operation order will be explained using a printing example for printing a simple print result consisting of two characters "0 from the right end and 1 from the left side" on a printing paper. In addition, the order of the type string is that when the paper feed direction is from left to right on the drawing, the first type located at the left end is 0, and the second type to the right is 1. It is related. First, by comparing block 8, a comparison result is obtained in which 0 and 1 are sequentially the first and second printed characters. Further, relative to the respective comparison results, the first type is "after zero movement of the above-mentioned progressively advancing printing paper" and the second type is "after the above-mentioned progressively advancing printing paper". A set of information is stored together with the comparison results, including the information for shifting the timing of printing the letters "After one movement of the paper", and the set of these pieces of information becomes the information on the operating order. Further, in this example, the actuator 5 is sequentially controlled in accordance with the information contents of each set of information for each movement of the printing paper that advances stepwise as described above. When observing the operation of the actuators obtained as described above, it appears as if the actuator 5 has a slower operating speed as the actuator on the right side of the drawing.] In this case, the comparator 8
As described above, the storage contents of the storage devices 6 and 7 may be compared in advance or may be sequentially compared each time in synchronization with the advancement of the printing paper 3. In the former case, the comparison device 8 can preferably include a device for storing the comparison results, ie the identification of the hammers to be driven and their order of operation. In any case, it is recognized that as the printing paper 3 advances, the hammers designated in relation to the information content to be printed are activated at designated times. In other words, even if the feeding speed of the printing paper is constant, the interval between printed characters can be changed arbitrarily from 0 to infinity. Further, a computer can be used to control the operation of the apparatus according to the present invention, and for example, the timing of the driven hammer can be determined by detecting the position of the advance of the printing paper using a photo sensor or the like. Furthermore, the information content to be printed on the printing paper and the content of the character string in the character string device can be compared in advance by memorizing the hammers to be driven and their operating order, or by comparing the information content to be printed on the printing paper with the content of the character string in the character string device. The steps may be performed sequentially depending on the situation.

As described above, the present invention provides a type string device 1 which is fixedly supported and has type characters arranged in a line along the printing direction.
, a driving device that continuously drives the printing paper 3 and the ribbon 2 in the same direction as the printing direction adjacent to and parallel to the type string device 1; a hammer device comprising a hammer 4 and an actuator 5; a first storage device 6 for storing information to be printed on the printing paper 3; types and positions of the type forming the type string in the type string device; and the hammer device. A second storage device 7 stores information regarding the correspondence with each hammer position provided in the hammer device, and the information stored in the first storage device 6 and the information stored in the second storage device 7 are compared. This printing device is characterized by comprising a comparison device 8 that supplies a control signal to an actuator 5 of a hammer 4 provided within the printing device.

As a result, the following excellent effects are achieved.

Since the characters are not printed at right angles to the paper feed direction as in conventional marking devices, but are printed along the paper feed direction, there is no limit to the spacing between printed characters or the number of digits.

In other words, even if the printing paper feeding speed is constant, by changing the timing of successive activation of the hammer device, the printed character interval can be set to any desired width. If you set the character spacing to 0, you can even print overlapping characters. This allows the desired printed character spacing to be obtained without mechanically changing the printing device even for various types of paper that are subject to character spacing restrictions, and is highly adaptable to paper types.

Also, no matter how long the print string is printed,
Printing can be done by simply equipping the type string device with one set of character types and hammer devices for the number of character types. This is because even if there are multiple identical characters in the character string to be printed, one printed character can be used more than once. For example, a single line character string of 65 digits, such as magnetic ink characters on handprints, can be printed simply by providing a set of character types to a type string device. Naturally, the printing device can be manufactured at low cost.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The drawing is a schematic diagram showing an embodiment of the device according to the invention. In the figure, 1: type string device, 2: ribbon, 3: printing paper, 4: hammer, 5: actuator, 6: first storage device, 7: second storage device, 8: comparison device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A type string device 1 which is fixedly supported and has type arranged in a line along the printing direction, and a printing paper 3 and a ribbon 2 are continuously arranged adjacent to and parallel to the type string device 1 in the same direction as the printing direction. a hammer device comprising hammers 4 and actuators 5 provided in the same number as the number of printed characters in the type string device 1; and a first storage device 6 for storing information to be printed on the printing paper 3. , a second storage device 7 for storing information regarding the correspondence between the type and position of the type of characters constituting the character string in the type string device and each hammer position provided in the hammer device; and information in the first storage device 6. A printing device comprising a comparison device 8 which compares the information stored in the second storage device 7 and the information stored in the second storage device 7 and supplies a control signal to an actuator 5 of the hammer 4 provided in the hammer device.