JPH0259066B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus that records an image on a recording material according to image data.

Conventionally, there are various types of recording devices such as copy recording devices using an electrophotographic method and inkjet recording devices, but in these recording devices,
When attempting to obtain multiple records from the same original or the same information, it is necessary to repeat the same recording process multiple times. That is, in order to obtain a desired number of copies, a time corresponding to the product of the time required for one recording and the desired number of copies is required.

Therefore, in order to quickly record the same image on a plurality of recording materials based on the same input image data, a configuration may be considered in which the same input image data is directly output to a plurality of recording apparatuses.

However, with this configuration, unless all the recording operations of the plurality of recording apparatuses are completely synchronized with the input of image data, the recording operations of the plurality of recording apparatuses will not be performed satisfactorily.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and includes an input means for inputting image data, a plurality of recording means for recording images on recording materials based on the image data, and sheet number data indicating the number of sheets to be recorded. a plurality of buffer means to which the same image data inputted from the input means is supplied; and a plurality of outputs each outputting the same image data from the plurality of buffer means to the plurality of recording means. and a selection means for selecting one or more recording means to output image data from the plurality of output means based on the number data captured by the capture means, When sheet number data indicating the number of sheets for forming a plurality of images is captured, the same image data inputted from the input means is outputted to each of the plurality of recording means via the plurality of buffer means. The present invention provides an image recording device that records the same image on a recording material using a plurality of recording means.

The present invention will be explained in detail below using the drawings.

(i) FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the recording devices are recording units 100, 200, and 300 having exactly the same configuration.
These recording units are vertically stacked in three stages by supports (not shown).

In the figure, 101, 201, 301 are the recording paper stored in the recording paper storage cassettes 115, 215, 315, 102, 202, 302 are paper feed rollers, 103, 203, 303 are guide plates, 10
4,204,304 is a registration roller, 10
5, 205, 305 are first conveyance rollers, 10
6,206,306 is a platen with many pores, 107,207,307 is a fan, 10
8, 208, 308 are second conveyance rollers, 10
9,209,309 is a suspension roller, 110,2
10,310 is a conveyor belt, 111,211,
311 is a paper output tray, 112, 212, 312
is a recording head, e.g. an inkjet head,
113, 213, and 313 are ink tanks.

(ii) Next, the recording operation in the above configuration will be explained. Since the recording units 100, 200, and 300 operate in exactly the same way, only the recording unit 100 will be explained.

Recording paper 1 stored in paper cassette 115
01 is fed along the guide plate 103 by the rotation of the paper feed roller 102 to the registration roller 104, which has stopped rotating, and forms an appropriate loop. Next, as the registration roller 104 rotates, the recording paper is held between the registration roller 104 and the first conveyance roller 105 and conveyed toward the inkjet head 112.

At this time, a platen 106 having small holes and a fan 107 are provided on the opposite side of the ink jet head 112, and the rotation of the fan 107 blows air in the T direction in the figure.

Therefore, the recording paper that has passed the first conveyance roller 105 is conveyed over the platen 106 toward the second conveyance roller 108 while being attracted by the fan 107 .

The inkjet head 112 is a full-line inkjet head in which a plurality of recording elements are linearly arranged in the vertical direction of the drawing, and recording is performed by a drive circuit in response to electrical signals from an information source (not shown).

After recording, the leading edge of the recording paper is moved to the second conveyance roller 1.
08, the second conveying roller 108
The recording paper is ejected to a paper ejection tray 111 by the conveyor belt 110.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a document reading device of an input section applied to the recording apparatus of the present invention.

(i)' In the figure, 401 is a document table glass, 402 is a bar-shaped light source such as a halogen lamp or a fluorescent lamp, 403 is a first mirror, 404 is a second mirror, 405 is a third mirror, 406 is a lens, and 407 is a A one-dimensional solid-state image sensor such as a CCD.

(ii)' To explain the operation of the document reading device, the document placed on the document platen glass 401 is exposed to the rod-shaped light source 4.
A lens 406 scans (sub-scans) the original by illuminating the light through a first mirror 403, a second mirror 404, and a third mirror 405.
An image is formed on the CCD 407. The main scanning direction of the CCD 407 is perpendicular to the drawing.

The rod-shaped light source 402 and the first mirror 403 are integrated by a support (not shown), and scan the document surface while moving in the direction F in the figure by a guide rail (not shown) (sub-scanning). The second mirror 404 and the third mirror 405 are supports (not shown)
It moves on a guide rail (not shown) in the same direction as the first mirror 403 at half the speed of movement of the first mirror 403. Rod-shaped light source 402, first mirror 403, second
The mirror 404 and the third mirror 405 are located at positions 402', 403', 404' and 4 indicated by dotted lines in the figure, respectively.
05'), but at this time the document table 401
The optical path length from the mirror 403, 404, and 405 to the lens 406 is always kept constant.

Therefore, if the signals from the light receiving elements of the CCD 407 are read out in order during sub-scanning, sequential signals obtained by raster scanning the document surface can be obtained.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the electrical circuitry in the apparatus of FIGS. 1 and 2.

(i)'' In the figure, 1 is a CCD circuit (corresponding to 407 in Figure 2), 2 is a digitization circuit, 3 is a buffer circuit,
4 is a readable/writable memory, 5 is a memory control circuit, 6 is a first buffer circuit, and 7 is a second buffer circuit.
buffer circuit, 8 is the third buffer circuit, 9
is the first drive circuit, 10 is the second drive circuit, 11 is the third drive circuit, and 12 is the first drive circuit.
13 is a second recording head (corresponding to 212 in FIG. 1); 1 is a second recording head (corresponding to 212 in FIG. 1);
4 is the third recording head (corresponding to 312 in FIG. 1);
15 is a paper transport system of the first recording unit (corresponding to 100 in FIG. 1), 16 is a paper transport system of the second recording unit (corresponding to 200 in FIG. 1), and 17 is a paper transport system of the third recording unit (corresponding to 100 in FIG. 1). (corresponding to FIG. 300); 18 is a control circuit that controls the entire circuit and mechanical system; 19 is an operation panel having a dial for setting the number of sheets to be printed, a start button for instructing to start recording, etc.

(ii)'' To explain the operation of FIG. 3, the image data read by the CCD circuit 1 is converted into a binary value or multivalued as necessary by the digitization circuit 2.
For the sake of simplicity, the case of binarization will be described below.

The binarized data is stored via a buffer circuit 3 in a memory 4 consisting of a RAM (random access memory) or the like. The capacity of this memory 4 can be arbitrarily selected from a small capacity such as a line memory to a large capacity such as a page memory. Therefore, depending on the capacity of the memory, in addition to recording the document while it is being read, it is also possible to start recording after reading one page or several pages of the document and storing it in the memory.

Address signals, timing signals, read/write signals, etc. for writing or reading from the memory 4 are performed by an address control circuit 5 controlled by a control circuit 18. Image data in memory 4 is output to buffer circuits 6, 7, and 8 under the control of memory control circuit 5. The data of the buffer circuit is the drive circuit 9, 10,
11 energizes the recording heads 12, 13, and 14, and recording is performed. Drive circuit 9,1
0 and 11 are controlled by the control circuit 18 to turn on and off the drives, so recording heads 12, 13, and 14 are selected as necessary.

The control circuit 18 also controls the paper feed rollers 102, 202, 302 and the registration roller 1 in FIG.
04, 204, 304, conveyance roller 105, 2
05, 305, 108, 208, 308, etc. are controlled.

It is assumed that power is transmitted to these rollers from the same driving source (not shown) via a belt or the like (not shown) and a clutch (not shown). Alternatively, a driving source such as a stepping motor may be directly connected to each roller. The control circuit 18 turns on and off the clutches of these rollers in time series to transport the paper as explained in FIG.
00), 16 (corresponding to recording unit 200), 1
7 (corresponding to the recording unit 300), it is possible to perform recording only on a specific recording unit.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart showing the process of selecting and recording on a plurality of recording sections in a recording apparatus having a plurality of recording sections according to the present invention.

In the example shown in Fig. 4, priorities are assigned in advance among the recording units, and in this example, the first recording unit (U1) has the highest priority, followed by the second (U2), third (U3), etc. They are arranged in the order of recording section.

When recording starts (501), first, the image shown in FIG.
The number of recording sheets specified by the operation panel 9 or the like is set in the sheet number counter in the control circuit 18 (502).

Next, it is checked whether this number of sheets counter is 3 or more (503), and if it is 3 or more, the first, second,
The paper conveyance system of the third recording section is turned on (504), and then, when the recording paper reaches the recording head, the first, second, and third recording sections start recording (505). When the specified recording is completed, the head is turned off (506), and the recording paper is further transferred to the output tray (111, 211, 31 in Fig. 1).
1), the paper transport system is also turned off (507)
do. On the other hand, if the number of sheets counter is 2 or less,
It is checked whether it is 2 or 1 (509), and if it is 2, it records only the first recording section (524-527), and if it is 1, it records only the first recording section (524-527).

After the paper conveyance system is turned off, if printing is performed using the first, second, and third recording sections, the
In the case of , 2 is subtracted, and in the case of only the first, 1 is subtracted from the sheet number counter (508, 509, 510), and it is checked whether the contents of the counter have become zero (510). If the counter is zero, recording ends (511), but if it is not zero, the process returns to the loop (503) that checks whether the counter contents are 3 or more, and repeats the same recording operation until the counter reaches zero. Repeat.

Through the above control operations, it is possible to obtain the desired number of copies set by the operation panel 19.

In this embodiment, three recording units are provided, so
In the case of two-sheet copying, copies can be obtained at twice the speed of the conventional method, and in the case of three-sheet copying, copies can be obtained at three times the conventional speed. Of course, even when the desired number of copies is four or more, the recording time is significantly reduced. Although three recording units are provided in this embodiment, it is of course possible to use two or four or more recording units.

FIG. 5 shows a second embodiment of the invention.

In FIG. 5, parts having the same functions as those in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numerals. The recording device in FIG.
Control is performed according to the control circuit shown in FIG. 3 and the control flowchart shown in FIG. According to the control flowchart of FIG. 4, the first recording section, the second recording section, and the third recording section are used preferentially in this order. Therefore, in FIG. 1, the recording paper in the first paper feed cassette 115 runs out earlier than the recording paper in the second and third paper feed cassettes 215, 315. The same applies to the ink tanks 113, 213, and 313.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the recording paper storage capacity of the paper feed cassette is increased from the third paper feed cassette 315' to the second paper feed cassette 315'.
paper feed cassette 215', first paper feed cassette 1
The number was increased in order of 15'.

Further, the amount of ink stored in the ink tanks is set to increase in the order of third ink tank 313', second ink tank 213', and first ink tank 113'.

With this configuration, even if only the first recording section of both the cassette and the ink tank is consumed quickly, there is no need to replenish them frequently.

As described above, this embodiment includes a plurality of recording sections that simultaneously record on a recording member, a setting means that sets the number of recording sheets, and a recording section that simultaneously records among the plurality of recording sections according to the set number of recording sheets. Since the apparatus includes recording part selection means for selecting a part, it is possible to obtain a plurality of recorded members recorded in an extremely short time.

Furthermore, if the set number of recording sheets is N and the number of recording units is M (M≧2), then when M>N, priority is given to the recording unit to be used, so the user can select the recording unit to be used. It is very convenient as there is no need to go through the trouble of selecting the section.

Further, this embodiment includes M recording units (M≧2) that simultaneously record on a recording member, and a plurality of paper feed cassettes provided for each of the M recording units and storing the recording member. and a setting means for setting the number of recording sheets N, and when N is smaller than M, the recording section to be used is prioritized, and the storage capacity of the paper feed cassette is adjusted according to the priority of the recording section. This is convenient for the user, since it is not necessary to frequently replenish the recording material in the paper feed cassette corresponding to the recording section with a high priority.

Although an inkjet head has been described as a recording head in the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to inkjet recording, and is also applicable to thermal recording, electrostatic recording, etc.

Further, in the embodiment, the information recorded in the recording apparatus is exemplified by document information read by a solid-state image sensor, but the recorded information may also be character/graphic information obtained by a character generator or the like.

As explained above, according to the present invention, the same image data input from the input means is not directly output to the plurality of recording means, but the same image data input from the input means is supplied to the plurality of recording means. Buffer means are provided, and the same image data is output from the plurality of buffer means to the plurality of recording means, so that all the recording operations of the plurality of recording means are completely synchronized with the input of image data from the input means. It becomes possible to record the same image on a recording material at high speed and satisfactorily using a plurality of recording means without requiring much effort.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 is a schematic diagram of a recording device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an input device applied to the present invention, FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an electric circuit in the apparatus of FIGS. 1 and 2, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the process of recording multiple sheets using the recording apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the recording apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is CCD, 4 is memory, 12,
13 and 14 are recording heads, 18 is a control circuit, and 19
is the operation panel, 100, 200, 300 is the recording section, 101, 201, 301 is the recording paper, 115,
Reference numerals 215 and 315 indicate paper feed cassettes, respectively.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An input means for inputting image data; a plurality of recording means for recording an image on a recording material based on the image data; an import means for acquiring sheet number data indicating the number of recorded images; a plurality of buffer means to which the same image data input from the input means is supplied; a plurality of output means for outputting the same image data from the plurality of buffer means to the plurality of recording means; and the capture means. and a selection means for selecting one or more recording means to output image data from the plurality of output means based on the number of sheets data taken in by the plurality of output means, and indicating the number of sheets to be formed by the plurality of image formation means. When the number of sheets data is captured, the same image data inputted from the input means is output to each of the plurality of recording means via the plurality of buffer means, so that the same image data is stored in the plurality of recording means. An image recording device that records images on a recording material.