JPH04144777A - Digital imaging system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To repair a system quickly by a constitution wherein the content of abnormality is detected upon occurrence of abnormality, thus detected content of abnormality and data representing a countermeasure therefor are delivered to another imaging system and then imaging operation is commanded. CONSTITUTION:When one digital imaging system No.1 out of a plurality of interconnected digital imaging systems No.1-No.6 malfunctions, for example, an abnormality detecting means 140 detects the content of abnormality and delivers thus detected content of abnormality and data representing a countermeasure therefor to other digital imaging systems No.2-No.6 thus commanding image formation. The user then confirms the content of abnormality printed out by a recording means 103 for the digital copiers No.1-No.6 and takes countermeasure thus printed out. According to this constitution, the system can be repaired quickly.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a digital image forming apparatus that reproduces and records digital image information using a recording device such as a printer, and particularly relates to a digital image forming apparatus that reproduces and records digital image information using a recording device such as a printer. The present invention relates to a forming device.

[Conventional technology]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when a printer and a host computer are connected and an abnormality occurs in the host computer, it is known to have the printer output the details of the abnormality.

Also, when multiple printers are connected, if paper-end occurs when printing out with one printer, and at this time the same size paper is in another printer, the output may be sent to that other printer. is also known.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, there is no known function in the past that allows multiple digital image forming devices such as digital copiers and facsimiles to reproduce and record digital image information on recording devices such as printers to print out abnormalities by connecting and communicating with each other. do not have.

Therefore, for example, if an abnormality occurs in a digital copying machine,
The normal operation display displays symbols that correspond to the serviceman's call instructions, and when a jam occurs, the location of the occurrence and a simple note are displayed, but what should the user do? Since the user cannot know in detail whether the contents are abnormal or how to remove the jam, the user has to read the service manual, which is troublesome.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a digital image forming apparatus with improved operability by printing out abnormalities and countermeasures.

[Means to solve the problem]

The present invention provides a recording means (10) for recording digital image information.
3) in the digital copying apparatus, an abnormality detection means (140) for detecting the content of the abnormality when an abnormality occurs.
and a control means (+40) that sends data indicating the content of the abnormality detected by the abnormality detection means (140) and its countermeasures to other digital image forming apparatuses connected to the digital image forming apparatus and instructs them to form images. ) ;

Note that symbols in parentheses indicate corresponding elements in the embodiments shown in the drawings and described later.

[Effect]

According to this, for example, when a plurality of digital image forming apparatuses are connected, if some abnormality occurs in one digital image forming apparatus, the abnormality detection means (140
) detects the content of the abnormality and controls the control means (140) accordingly.
) sends data indicating the content of the abnormality and its countermeasures to other digital copying apparatuses and instructs them to form images, so the user can read the recording means (10) of the other digital copying apparatuses.
3) The device can be repaired quickly by following the abnormality details and their treatment printed out from 3).

Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of embodiments with reference to the drawings.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 shows a digital copying machine N091 as an example of the present invention and other digital copying machines (NO, 2, NO, 3, NO, 4, N
0, 5° NO, 6) are connected to each other with a connector via a communication cable. The communication cable communicates address information, data contents, control information, etc. that are output from or input to the digital copier. The digital copying machine NO.I is different from other digital copying machines (NO, 2, NO, 3, NO, 4°N (L5.
No. 6) and its mechanism and electrical components have the same configuration. The dual port RAM+07 has an area A for output data and an area B for received data, and each area A and area B has an area corresponding to the number of digital copiers (six). . In this embodiment, the number of digital copying machines shown in FIG. 1 is six, but the number is not limited to six.

FIG. 2 shows an outline of the structure of the mechanical part of digital copying machine No. 1, and FIG. 3 shows an outline of the arrangement of the electrical part of digital copying machine N011.

First, referring to FIG. 2, the mechanical parts of the digital copying machine No. 1 are mainly divided into a scanner unit 101 that reads the image of the original document 1, and a printer unit 103 that records the image on recording paper.

A document 1 is placed on a platen (contact glass) 2 and illuminated by an exposure lamp 3. The reflected light from the original 1 passes through a lens array 4 and is sent to a line image sensor C.
It enters CD5. Exposure lamp 3. The lens array 4 and the CCD 5 are mounted on a carriage (not shown), and are driven from right to left by a carriage drive motor 23 when reading the original 1, and are driven from right to left by the carriage drive motor 23 when reading the original 1 placed on the scanner 2.
scan the entire surface.

Referring to FIG. 3, the reflected light from the original 1 is reflected by the CCD 5.
The signal is converted into an electrical signal, subjected to necessary processing by the scanner unit 101 and the image processing unit 102, and input to the LD (laser diode) drive circuit 130 of the printer unit 103.

The LD drive circuit 130 energizes L D +31 and
A modulated laser beam is emitted from D.

Referring again to FIG. The laser light emitted from the LD 131 is reflected by the polygon mirror 6, passes through the fθ lens 7 and the mirror 8, and is irradiated onto the photoreceptor drum 9 to form an image.

The polygon mirror 6 is fixed to the rotating shaft of a polygon motor 10, and the polygon motor 10 rotates at a constant speed to rotationally drive the polygon mirror 6.

As the polygon mirror 6 rotates, the laser beam is scanned in a direction perpendicular to the rotation direction (clockwise) of the photoreceptor drum 9, that is, in a direction along the drum axis.

After the surface of the photoreceptor drum 9 is uniformly charged by a charger 11 connected to a negative voltage high-voltage generator (not shown), the surface of the photoreceptor drum 9 is charged depending on whether the laser light irradiated from the printer unit 103 is turned on or off. A potential distribution corresponding to the on/off pattern is formed. Furthermore, since the laser beam is modulated to be turned on/off in accordance with the black/white of the pixel at the scanning position of the image to be written, the potential distribution formed on the photoreceptor drum 9 will vary depending on the shading of the image to be recorded. consistent with the distribution. As a result, the original 1 is placed on the surface of the photoreceptor drum 9.
An electrostatic latent image is formed according to the density of the image, and when this electrostatic latent image is developed by the developing unit 12, a toner image is formed on the surface of the photoreceptor drum 9.

On the other hand, the recording paper 17 stored in the cassette 16 is fed by the paper feeding operation of the paper feeding roller 18, and the recording paper 17 is fed out by the paper feeding operation of the paper feeding roller 18.
The photoreceptor is sent in the direction of the photoreceptor drum 9 at a predetermined timing. While the recording paper 17 passes under the photosensitive drum 9,
The toner image is transferred to the recording paper 17 by the action of the transfer charger 13.
is transferred to the recording paper 1 by the action of the separation charger 14.
7 is peeled off from the photoreceptor drum 9.

The peeled recording paper 17 is sent to the fixing unit 21,
The toner that was transferred there is fixed to the recording paper 17,
The recording paper 17 to which the toner is fixed is discharged onto the tray 22.

Further, the toner remaining on the surface of the photoreceptor even after the transfer is removed by the cleaning unit 15.

See Figure 3. The electrical components of the digital copying machine mainly include a scanner unit 1019 that reads the original 1 and outputs an image data signal; an image processing unit 1029 that processes the image data signal; a printer unit 103 that performs printing based on the image data signal. A synchronization control unit 105 that generates a synchronization signal and matches the timing of signal exchange between each unit and between each element within the unit. An operation display section 106 for inputting and displaying various processing modes. Dual port RAM1 for inputting and outputting signals with other digital copying machines
07. Communication interface 108. Depth inch 109 for selecting and specifying the number of the copying machine (in this embodiment, N0
91) and a system control unit 104 that controls these units.

In the scanner unit 101, the signal output from the CCD 5 is converted into an 8-bit digital signal by the A/D conversion circuit +10, and the signal is converted into an 8-bit digital signal by the shading correction circuit II+.
is input.

The shading correction circuit 111 is a circuit that performs corrections for uneven illuminance of the exposure lamp 3, uneven sensitivity of the light-receiving element inside the CCD 5, and dark current.

The scanner unit 101 also includes a carriage drive motor 23 and a motor control circuit +
It has 12.

The image data signal output from the shading correction circuit I11 is sent to the MTF correction circuit 1 of the image processing unit +02.
20 is input.

The MTF correction circuit 120 is a circuit that performs filter processing on the input image data signal, and increases the clarity of the image and removes noise.

The image data signal output from the MTF correction circuit +20 is input to the scaling processing circuit +21.

The scaling processing circuit 121 enlarges/reduces the input image data signal in the main scanning direction (the direction in which the CCDs 5, which are line image sensors, are lined up). Also, the sub-scanning direction (direction perpendicular to the line of CCD 5, which is a line image sensor)
Enlarging/reducing is performed by controlling the rotational speed of the carriage drive motor 23.

The image data signal output from the scaling processing circuit 121 is
Binarization processing circuit 122 and original size detection circuit 123
is input.

The binarization processing circuit 122 is a circuit that performs dither processing on the 8-bit multivalued image data signal output from the scaling processing circuit +21 and outputs a binary image data signal. Further, the document size detection circuit +23 is a circuit that detects the density difference between the document 1 placed on the platen 2 and the document pressure plate 24 to detect the size of the document 1.

The image data signal output from the binarization processing circuit 122 is input to the LD drive circuit 130 of the printer unit 103.

The LD drive circuit 130 drives the LD according to the image data signal while correcting fluctuations in laser light output due to temperature and the like.
131 and causes the LD 231 to emit a modulated laser beam.

Note that the character generator 124 performs image processing when creating a format to be output from a printer according to the present invention.

The system control unit 104 includes a CPU 140 . ROM 141 in which a program for performing a series of operations is stored;
The microcomputer includes a RAM 142, an I10 board 143, and the like, and controls the entire copying machine.

FIG. 4 shows the appearance of the operation display section +06 mentioned above. Ten (1o) km 1 for setting the number of copies, also clear key 62. Start key 63 for copy start.
Mode clear key 64 to initialize various modes.
Enter key 65 degrees to be pressed for recognition when entering numerical values in special mode; interrupt key 66 to set and cancel interrupt mode; mode selection key to select various other modes (paper selection, scaling, image density, etc.) It has group 67. Further, the display section 68 is composed of a liquid crystal (LCD), and has a fixed pattern (display) section 69 that displays the mode status such as the number of copies, and a character (dot) display section 70 that can display characters. . Further, an output instruction key 71 is provided for printing out the information contents when an abnormality or the like occurs in the copying machine.

Next, FIGS. 5a and 5b show the processing operations of the CPU 140 in the digital copying machine N001 shown in FIG. 1.

As shown in FIG. 5a, when the power is turned on, the CPU 140 sets the processing mode etc. to the initial state (Step 1: hereinafter, the word "step" will be omitted in parentheses). Next, read the set input (2), and when each part becomes ready (
3) Check whether the start switch 63 is turned on (4).

If the start switch 63 is not turned on, other key manual processing, mode processing, etc. are performed (5), and the number No. i specified by the dip switch 109 is read (6). Here, the dip switch 109 is designated as No. 1. Next, area A of the dual port RAM 107
Write the ready state in the NO,i, that is, No,1 area (7), and then read the data of NO,i (No,1) in area B of dual port RAM+07 (8) . Check whether the data contains any instructions to print out9)
If there is nothing to instruct, return to step 2, but if there is an instruction to print out, press No.i in area B.
(NO, 1) Please print out the notification information determined in the "abnormality information output process" described later.10)
After clearing (11) the data of O,t (NO, 1), return to step 2.

When the start switch 63 is turned on in step 4, the number No. i specified by the dip switch 109 is read, and the dual port R is turned on to start the copying operation.
A busy state is written in NO,i (NOj) of area A of AM+07 (12). Thereafter, normal copying operations such as original image reading scanning (13), image processing (14), and copying control (15) are performed. Then, it is checked whether or not an abnormality has occurred in the copying machine (16). If there is no abnormality, the process returns to step 2, but if an abnormality has occurred, the number N021 specified by the dip switch 109 is read.

No. i of area A of dual port RAM 107
Write to (NO, I) that it is busy (17)
, executes abnormality information output processing (18).

FIG. 5b shows the contents of the abnormality information output process J (18).

First, the CPU 140 determines whether a malfunction such as an abnormality or a jam has occurred (81), and when an abnormality occurs, the CPU 140 checks whether the digital copier No. If so, check whether the output instruction key 71 shown in FIG. do. In other words, check whether the scanner is abnormal or not +84), if the scanner is abnormal, store the corresponding data 185), if not abnormal, then check whether the lens is abnormal or not 186), if the lens is abnormal. If there is, the corresponding data is stored (+87), and if there is no abnormality, the developing motor, fixing section, etc. are sequentially checked to see if they are abnormal (not shown).

After that, the number No. specified by the dip switch 109,
Read i (18g). Here, the dip switch 109 is designated as No.1. Next, register J
is set to 1 ([9), and it is checked whether the value of j (=1) is equal to the value of 1 read earlier (+90). Here, i=1, and J and 1 are equal, so j is 2 (=
1+1) and +95), then compare j and 1 again. If the two are different, check whether J is 7 or more, that is, the value of j is greater than the number of copying machines (6>+91>
, If it is 6 or less, the contents of the data No. j of area A of dual port RAM +07 are read (192),
If the data indicates a ready state (193)
, No., j of area B of the dual port RAM 107 is designated for writing, and a printout instruction and abnormal data contents are output in accordance with the format (194). Also,
If the content of the data does not indicate a ready state in step 193, J is incremented.

For example, if an abnormality occurs in digital copying machine N021, it is determined whether j=2, that is, the status of digital copying machine N022 is ready or busy, and if it is ready, it is formatted into digital copying machine No. 2. Therefore, the printer of digital copying machine N022 outputs a format corresponding to the abnormality information that has occurred in digital copying machine NOj. At this time, if the status of digital copier N022 is busy, it is checked in the same way whether the status of the next digital copier No. 3 is ready, and from the digital copier in the ready status, the digital copier The format corresponding to the abnormality information that has occurred in No. and I is output.

Note that the digital copying machine N shown in FIGS. 5a and 5b
The operation processing contents of the CPU] 40 in [CPU in O, I] are similar to those in other digital copying machines (NO, 2, NO, 3゜N
Since the processing operation is the same as that of the digital copying machine No. 0, 4, NO, 5, NO, 6), for example, if an abnormality or jam occurs in the digital copying machine No.
11 printers or other digital copiers (NO, 3
, NO, 4, 'NO, 5, NO, 6).

As a result, the printer outputs the format shown in FIGS. 6a and 6b. In other words, when an abnormality occurs, one format is output for each abnormality, such as the date and time of occurrence, the number of the abnormal machine, and the details of the abnormality, etc., as shown in Figure 6a. One format such as the date and time of occurrence, the number of the malfunctioning machine, the contents of the malfunction, etc. as shown in FIG. 6b is output.

In this embodiment, the formant output instruction is performed by pressing the output instruction key 71 shown in FIG. 4, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the output may be forced.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, when some kind of abnormality occurs in one digital image forming apparatus when a plurality of digital image forming apparatuses are connected, for example, the abnormality detection means (140) detects the content of the abnormality, In response, the control means (140) sends data indicating the content of the abnormality and its countermeasures to other digital copying apparatuses, and instructs them to form images. ) The device can be quickly repaired by following the printed out abnormalities and their remedies.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows a digital copying machine No. 1 showing an embodiment of the present invention.
, 1 and other digital copy machines NO, 2, NO, 3, NO,
FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the connection state of 4°NO, 5 and N006. FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing an outline of the structure of the mechanical part of digital copying machine No. 1 shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an outline of the configuration of the electrical components of digital copying machine No. 1 shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 4 is a plan view schematically showing the operation display section 106 of the digital copying machine NO, I shown in FIG. 5a and 5b are flowcharts showing the processing contents of the CPU 140 of the digital copying machine No. 1 shown in FIG. 6a and 6b are plan views showing an example of a format output from the printer unit 103 of the digital copying machine No. 2 shown in FIG. 1 when an abnormality or malfunction occurs in the digital copying machine No. 1. It is. l: Original 2 Nibraten 3: Exposure lamp 4
: Lens array 5: CCD 6: Polygon mirror 7゛fθ lens ・8゜mirror 9: Photosensitive drum 1O, polygon motor 11: Charger 12. Developing unit 13: Transfer charger 14: Separation charger 15: Cleaning unit 16 Two cassettes 17: Recording paper 1g, 19:
Paper feed roller 20 Ni registration roller 2C fixing unit 22 Ni dori 23: Carriage drive motor 24: Document pressure plate 71: Output instruction key 101:
Scanner unit 102: Image processing unit 103: Printer unit (recording means) 104 System control unit 105: Synchronization control section 106: Operation display section 107: Dual port RAM
108: Communication interface 109: Date switch 110: A/D conversion circuit 124: Character generator 140: CPU (abnormality detection means, control means) 141: R
OM 142°RAM Darkness, l-Darkness, 6: Digital copier Fig. 6a Fig. 6b

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] In a digital image forming apparatus including a recording means for recording digital image information, an abnormality detecting means for detecting the content of the abnormality when an abnormality occurs; and another device connected to the digital image forming apparatus. 1. A digital image forming apparatus comprising: a control means for sending data indicating the nature of the abnormality detected by the abnormality detecting means and countermeasures thereof to the digital image forming apparatus to instruct image formation thereof.