JPH03288658A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform a vertical writing processing in a short time by a method wherein a printing head can be rotated through an angle of at least 90 degrees in the line direction of a printing element, and the disposing angle of the printing head is changed in accordance with a printing format. CONSTITUTION:A printing head 11 of a serial type is mounted on a carriage 18, which is disposed on a head guide shaft 15 so as to be longitudinally reciprocated. The printing head 11 is disposed so as to be rotated through an angle of at least 90 degrees in the line direction of a printing element 10. The head 11 is rotated through 90 degrees so that the feed direction of slip paper 14 is set at an angle of 90 degrees to the arrangement direction of the element 10, and the paper 14 is driven and printed at a constant speed in an arrow direction. For example, when a vertical printing is made on the paper 14 lengthwise by two lines, the head 11 is fixed on the first line, a stepping motor is driven, the printing paper is fed at a constant speed, and the head 11 is driven at predetermined timings to print the first line. Next, the paper is reversely fed to an initial position, and the head 11 is moved to the adjacent line to print the second line. In this printing method, a printing processing can be accomplished in a remarkably short time.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to a printer that prints on slip paper, and more particularly to a slip printer that prints on slip paper, in which the print head is attached by rotating the angle. The present invention relates to a control method for forming character fonts by driving a movable print head or transporting printing paper.

[Prior art] Conventionally, slip printers etc. have 7 or 9 bins.
Character fonts and the like are printed while driving a print head having a pin printing element at a constant speed at an angle of 90 degrees with respect to the conveying direction of the printing paper. For example, if the slip paper is wider than the width of the slip printer's paper insertion opening, a method has been used in which the slip paper is inserted into the printer longitudinally and printed.

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] When trying to insert a slip sheet of standard format into a printer in the longitudinal direction, the print head is driven left and right even if the desired characters themselves are required in the longitudinal direction of the standard format. The format is formed by conveying the slip paper while forming the character font. For this reason, there is a problem in that the printing time is long and the throughput for printing one sheet of paper is reduced.

Furthermore, when forming a character font in the longitudinal direction of the slip paper, vertical writing processing is required, which increases the burden on the software, requires processing time, and results in a reduction in throughput.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a slip printer which eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks, allows the print head to be mounted at a rotatable angle, and allows the printing direction to be conveniently selected.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention includes a drive mechanism that drives a print head in which a plurality of printing elements are arranged in a row from side to side, and a paper feed mechanism that drives printing paper back and forth. This printer is characterized in that the arrangement angle of the print elements of the head in the column direction can be rotated by at least 90 degrees, and the print head arrangement angle can be varied depending on the printing format to vary the printing procedure.

[Embodiment] FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the printer of the present invention, and is a schematic diagram of a print head and a mechanism for conveying slip paper. FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b) are explanatory diagrams for explaining a method for printing horizontally written characters, and FIGS. 3(a) and (b) are explanatory diagrams for explaining a method for printing vertically written characters, respectively. The present invention will be explained in detail below using the above drawings.

Reference numeral 11 denotes a print head, which is a serial type print head in which a plurality of print elements 10 are arranged in a row. This print head is mounted on a carriage 18 that is arranged on a head guide shaft 15 so as to be movable back and forth in the left-right direction. Furthermore, this print head is installed on the carriage so that it can rotate at least 90 degrees in the column direction of the print elements.

The arrangement angle of the head may be set manually or automatically.

A drive source for reciprocating the carriage in the left-right direction is a carriage drive motor 12, and generally a step motor is used. The rotational motion of the step motor is transmitted to the belt 16 via gears, and the carriage 18 to which this belt is fixed drives the rad 11 to be conveyed left and right to print, thereby printing. Reference numeral 13 denotes a paper feeding motor which serves as a driving source for a paper feeding mechanism for conveying the slip paper 14 back and forth, and similarly a step motor is used.

This power rotates the paper feed roller 17 via gears to feed the paper.

For example, when trying to print a horizontal printing format as shown in FIG. Printing is performed in a timing sequence as shown in FIG. 2(b). That is, the carriage motor 12 for head conveyance is started up to a constant speed region,
Desired characters can be printed by applying a predetermined drive pulse to the printing pad 11 within the constant speed region.

Furthermore, it is well known that after one line of printing is completed, a space between lines is obtained by a step motor for feeding the paper, and the explanation thereof will be omitted.

In FIG. 2(b), 21 indicates the drive timing and speed when moving the head in the left-right direction, 22 indicates the timing of energizing the print head, and 23 indicates the drive timing of the paper feed motor.

It goes without saying that it is possible to print using the same method even in a printing format where vertical characters are the main character, as shown in Figure 3 (a), but printing multiple digits in the longitudinal direction of the printing paper is also possible. In such a case, the printing method described above takes an extremely long printing time. In other words, this results in a significant drop in throughput. Further, there is a problem in that the burden on the software becomes heavy, the processing time increases, and the throughput is reduced.

FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b) show that the print head 11, which is the main object of the present invention, is rotatable by at least 90 degrees.
FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a printing apparatus of the present invention in which printing procedures vary depending on the print format.

Rotate the print head 11 by 90 degrees so that the paper feeding direction of the slip paper 14 to be printed and the arrangement direction of the printing elements are 90 degrees.
The print head is set so as to form an angle of 100 degrees, and printing is performed while driving the slip paper at a constant speed in the direction of the arrow.

2 in the longitudinal direction of the slip paper as shown in Figure 3(a).
For print formats that print vertical characters in columns,
The print head is fixed to the first row, the step motor for paper feeding is driven, the print paper is conveyed at a constant speed, and the print head is driven at a predetermined print timing to execute printing on the first row. Next, the slip paper is conveyed back to its original position, and the print head is further moved to the adjacent column to perform printing on the second column. The line spacing between characters can be easily set by the number of steps of the paper feed motor.

FIG. 3(b) shows the timing at this time, 31 indicates the movement timing of the print head, 32 indicates the drive timing of the print head, and 33 indicates the drive timing and speed of the paper feed motor.

As shown in the figure, when returning the printing paper to its designated position,
By driving the step motor at high speed in the opposite direction to convey the printing paper, it is possible to further improve the throughput.

[Effects of the Invention] According to such a printing method, in the conventional example, a series of printing was not completed unless the movement of the print head and paper feeding were frequently repeated, but in the case of two columns, printing can be performed twice. This means that the printing process can be executed in an extremely short time.

The font data for the character m is separated into dot data according to the horizontal printing direction and stored in the ROM.
In the conventional example, when writing vertically, it was necessary to develop the character font for vertical writing before starting the printing operation.

According to the present invention, there is no need to develop font data even for vertical printing, and it is possible to use the data extracted from the ROM as is.

Therefore, the time required to process data for printing can be reduced and throughput can be significantly improved.

In addition, it has the advantage of contributing to improved printing quality as there is no need for a change in the middle of a character.Furthermore, by making the print head rotatable, it is also possible to print slanted characters. It has the advantage of being possible.

FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b) are explanatory diagrams illustrating a method of printing vertically written characters.

10...Printing element 1]...Print head 12... Carriage drive motor 13...Paper feed motor 18... Carriage that's all

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) A drive mechanism that drives a print head in which a plurality of print elements are arranged in a row left and right, and a paper feed mechanism that drives print paper back and forth; The arrangement angle in the column direction can be rotated by at least 90 degrees,
A printer characterized in that the print head arrangement angle can be varied depending on the print format to vary the printing procedure. 2) When performing horizontal printing to print characters arranged at 90 degrees with respect to the paper feeding direction of the printing paper, set the print head so that the printing elements are arranged in the same direction as the printing paper feeding direction, Character fonts, etc. are printed by transporting the print head left and right, and during vertical printing in which the printing elements are arranged in the same direction with respect to the paper feed direction of the printing paper, the arrangement direction of the printing elements is set relative to the paper feed direction. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the print head is set so that the print head is arranged at an angle of at least 90 degrees, and character fonts and the like are printed by conveying the printing paper at a predetermined driving speed.