JPH042107B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Industrial Application Field The present invention relates to a multicolor recording device, and in particular to a multicolor recording device, which has a simple structure and can be used in recorders, plotters, etc. to continuously write letters, numbers, special symbols, etc. The present invention relates to a multicolor recording device.

BACKGROUND TECHNOLOGY Methods for recording characters, numbers, symbols, etc. in recorders, printers, plotters, etc. connected to meters and calculators can be roughly divided into continuous writing methods and continuous writing methods, for example.
There is a method of displaying dots in a 5x7 dot matrix.

A typical example of the continuous writing method is the so-called
One example is Y Protsuta. The X-Y plotter has a servo mechanism that moves in the horizontal direction (X direction) and a servo mechanism that moves in the vertical direction (Y direction) with respect to the recording paper, and continuously writes letters and numbers in a single stroke. There are two types of servo mechanisms for positioning the pen: analog and digital. The X-Y plotter is convenient because it can draw arbitrary figures continuously, but it has the disadvantage that it is relatively expensive because it requires servo mechanisms in both the X and Y directions.

In order to avoid this drawback, a drum-type
-Y plotter has also been proposed, but the cost reduction effect is only slight and a satisfactory solution has not been obtained.

On the other hand, dot-type printers have a positioning function only in the X direction, and characters and numbers are displayed in a dot matrix. Although dot-type printers are generally cheaper than X-Y plotters, they have the inherent drawback that the dot display is difficult to read. Particularly, in the method of wire dot printing via an ink ribbon, the drawback that the dots tend to be unclear is unavoidable.

Problems to be solved by the invention Therefore, the problems to be solved by the invention are as follows:
The purpose of this invention is to eliminate both the disadvantage of high cost of the continuous writing method and the disadvantage of blurring of the dot matrix method at once.

Means for Solving the Problems Referring to FIG. 1, FIG. 2, and FIG.
The main carriage 12 has a main carriage 12 that moves only in the first axis direction, which is shown in FIG. The first axial movement is performed by the guide rail 10
guided by the main feed wire 15 (Fig. 3)
It is controllably driven by a main feed mechanism that includes.
In the illustrated example, a multi-colored electromagnetic recording pen A,
B, C, and D are the shafts 22 (fourth
(Fig.) is held for swing control.

The sub-carriage 100 has balls 101 and 102.
(Fig. 3) to the main carriage 12.
It is constructed so as to be movable in a second axial direction that makes an angle with the axial direction. Top wall 12b of main carriage 12 (Fig. 2)
is rotatably provided with a timing belt 50 driven by a sub-feed mechanism stepping motor 51, a protrusion 100a of a sub-carriage 100 is fixed to this timing belt 50, and the sub-carriage 100 is rotated in the second axis direction. Driven steplessly. Electromagnetically actuated continuous writing pens E and F are held on a shaft 122 (FIG. 5) on the sub-carriage 100 in a controllably oscillating manner. The drive stroke of the subcarriage 100 in the second axial direction is sufficient to be equal to the height of one character continuously written by the continuous writing pen E or F in the second axial direction.

Function A case in which the function of the multicolor recording device according to the present invention is applied to a recorder will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 7. Measured values such as temperature and pressure are recorded by electromagnetic recording pens A, B, C, and D of the main carriage 12 on recording paper 2 fed out in the direction of arrow P by roller 1 in FIG. It is printed as a color-separated dot record 3 (FIG. 1). A dot record is sufficient for such a record, and it does not need to be a continuous line like a single stroke.

Various character records 4 printed on the recording paper 2 in FIG. 1 are continuous records of the continuous movement of the sub-carriage 100 driven by the rotation of the main feed wire 15 of the main feed mechanism and the timing belt 50 of the sub-feed mechanism. By plotting with pens E and F, a continuous line is clearly drawn. Moreover, the sub-carriage 100 does not need to have a complicated servo mechanism, and only needs to have a sub-feeding mechanism with a stroke equal to the height of the character record 4 in the second axial direction, so it can be manufactured at low cost.

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in more detail with reference to examples shown in the accompanying drawings. 1 to 6 show the structure of an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a recorder.
Figure 1 is a front view from the direction of arrow I in Figure 2;
The figure is a plan view, Fig. 3 is a rear view taken from the direction of arrow III in Fig. 2, Fig. 4 is a partially cutaway left side view taken from the direction of arrow III in Fig. 2, and Fig. 5 is a side view taken from the direction of arrow III in Fig. 2. 6 is a perspective view of the cassette holding member.

In the illustrated example, the roller 1 shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 is
On the recording paper 2, which is fed out in the direction of arrow P,
Process variables such as temperature, flow rate, pressure, etc. are printed in multiple colors as dot records 3 in FIG. 1, and continuous letters, numbers, and symbols are also printed in multiple colors as character records 4.

To explain the structure of the multicolor recording device, a guide rail 10 parallel to the roller 1 extends in a first axis direction, such as the X axis of a Cartesian coordinate system, and is fixed to a recorder body (not shown). be done. Bearing 11 (4th
The main carriage 12 is connected to the guide rail 1 via the
It is slidably attached to 0. Main carriage 12
A ball bearing 13 rotatably attached to the rear end engages with a guide plate 14 arranged parallel to the guide rail 10, and the main carriage 12
This prevents undesired rotation during movement in the X-axis direction. The main carriage 12 is fixed at one point on the main feed wire 15, and the entire print head is freely moved in the first axis direction along the guide rail 10 by the main feed wire 15, which moves according to the rotation of the main feed motor (not shown). is positioned. Positioning is performed by analog or digital methods, but
Since the details are outside the gist of the present invention, the explanation will be omitted.

As shown in the left side view of FIG. 4, the main carriage 12 includes a bottom portion 12a, a top wall 12b and a side wall
It has c. The bottom plate 20a of the cassette holding member 20 shown in FIG. 6 is secured to the bottom 12a of the main carriage 12 by screws 40. The shaft 22 is held between opposing bearing portions 20c bent into a U-shape from the bottom plate 20a of the cassette holding member 20. A plurality of pen holders 23 are swingably locked to this shaft 22, and a cassette pen 24 is inserted into the pen holders 23.

The top portion 20d of the cassette holding member 20 is attached to the top wall 12 of the main carriage 12 by screws 21 shown in FIG.
It is fixed at b. To guide the pen holder 23,
A guide groove 20e is provided in the cassette holding member 20.
A return spring 25 is disposed between the bottom plate 20a of the cassette holding member 20 and the pen holder 23, and the action of the spring 25 pushes the pen holder 23 and the cassette pen 24 upward, that is, in the direction away from the recording paper 2, and the pen of the cassette pen 24 is pushed up. Keep the tip away from the recording paper 2 at all times.

The pen tip is located on the bottom plate 20 of the cassette holding member 20 (FIG. 6) fixed to the main carriage 12.
It is held properly by the guide groove 20f provided in a. An armature 26 made of a magnetic material is fixed to the back surface of the pen holder 23 (FIG. 4). A yoke 28 having a coil 27 shown in cross section in FIG. 4 is fixed to the main carriage side wall 12c through the yoke hole 20g of the cassette holding member 20 so as to face the armature 26. Therefore, if the coil 27 is energized,
The armature 26 is attracted to the yoke 28.

The magnetic attraction force applied to the armature 26 overcomes the upward force of the return spring 25 and rotates the pen holder 23 clockwise around the shaft 22 as shown in FIG. let At this time, the guide groove 20f of the cassette holding member 20 smoothly guides the vertical movement of the cassette pen and restricts the error of the pen tip in the X direction (FIG. 2). The cassette pen 24 can be attached to and detached from the pen holder 23 with a slight force while holding the protrusion 29 with a fingertip.

Referring to FIG. 2, the multicolor printhead of the illustrated embodiment has four recording pens A, B, C, and D comprised of four cassette pens 24 held directly in the main carriage 12. Each recording pen is filled with ink of a different color, such as purple, blue, green, or brown. Preferably, recording pens A, B, C and D
are held at regular intervals to facilitate correction of the pen tip pitch when printing dot records 3 in different colors while raster scanning from the left end to the right end of the recording paper 2. Recording pens A, B, C, and D can move in the X-axis direction but cannot move in the Y-axis direction.
Such color dot printers are known.

An important feature of the present invention is that the continuous writing pens E and F are attached to the multicolor recording device so as to be freely movable in two axes, for example, the X and Y axes, and the main carriage 12 is movable in the X-axis direction. In some cases, the movable stroke or range of movement of the continuous writing pen in the Y-axis direction is selected to correspond to the height in the Y-axis direction of characters, numbers, symbols, etc. to be continuously written.

To explain the continuous writing pens E and F with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5, a sub-carriage 100 (FIGS. 3 and Figure 5) is provided. The protrusion 100a of the sub-carriage 100 is fixed to one point of the timing belt 50 (FIG. 2) of the sub-feed mechanism rotatably provided on the top wall 12b of the main carriage. As the timing belt 50 rotates clockwise or counterclockwise in FIG. 2, the subcarriage 100 smoothly moves forward or backward relative to the main carriage 12 in the Y-axis direction. Balls 101 and 102 (FIG. 3) are placed between V-shaped grooves formed opposite to each other in both carriages to smoothly guide the movement of the sub-carriage 100. FIG. 6 shows the cassette holding member 20.
An example of a V-shaped groove 20h formed integrally with the groove is shown.

The rotation of the stepping motor 51 (FIG. 3) that drives the timing belt 50 is controlled by the pinion 52.
(FIG. 2) and a composite gear 53 to appropriately reduce the speed and control the rotation of the timing belt 50 in minute steps, for example, 0.35 mm/step. Accordingly, the movement of the subcarriage 100 in the Y-axis direction is also controlled with an accuracy of, for example, 0.35 mm/step.

A shaft 122 corresponding to the shaft 22 of the main carriage 12 is provided on the sub-carriage 100 (FIG. 5), and a pen holder 123 with an armature 126 is pivotally supported on this shaft 122. A cassette pen 124 constituting continuous writing pens E and F is inserted into the pen holder 123. When the coil 127 mounted on the sub-carriage 100 is energized, the yoke 128 attracts the armature 126, the cassette pen 124 is tilted, and its tip contacts the recording paper 2. When the stepping motor 51 is operated in this state, a line in the Y-axis direction can be drawn on the recording paper 2. If the excitation current of the coil 127 is cut off, the return spring 1
25 pushes up the cassette pen 124 and the pen tip leaves the recording paper 2.

In short, continuous writing pens E and F having the same mechanism as the four recording pens A, B, C and D on the main carriage 12 are mounted on the sub-carriage 100.

In the illustrated example, the leaf spring 30 in FIG.
02 and press it downward (upward in FIG. 3) to prevent play in the movement of the sub-carriage 100. Ball 101 during long-term use,
A suitable ball retainer (not shown) may be provided to prevent ball 102 from slipping out of the V-shaped groove.

In the illustrated example, the continuous writing pen E is filled with red ink, and the continuous writing pen F is filled with black ink. Generally, a black pen F is used to print the table and character record 4 in FIG. 1, and a red pen E is used when an abnormality such as alarm operation or scale over is performed.

Continuous writing pens E and F can be used to print dot records 3 in Figure 1, but to prevent tabulation or printing pens from drying up, it is recommended to use these pens for dot recording all the time. It may be advantageous in some cases.

FIG. 7 shows an example of how to write characters according to the present invention. The stepping motor 51 first rotates clockwise in FIG. 2 in response to a command from a microcomputer (not shown), and stops when the arm 54 attached to the pinion 52 comes into contact with the stopper 55. This position is the reference position of the sub-carriage 100, and the positions of the pen tips of continuous writing pens E and F in the Y-axis direction are
Aligned in a straight line in the axial direction.

When the positioning mechanism in the X-axis direction operates, the tip of the black pen F is first placed at the reference position 200 in FIG. When printing letters A, B, and C in Figure 7, the positioning mechanisms in the X-axis and Y-axis directions operate while the pen tip is raised, and the pen tip is at position 20.
Sent to 1. Here, as explained above, coil 1
27 lowers the pen tip and brings it into contact with the recording paper 2, and by rotating the main feed mechanism wire 15 and the sub feed mechanism timing belt 50, characters are drawn through positions 201, 202, 203, and 204 in the stroke order of arrow _R1. Write A. After pushing up the pen tip at position 204 and moving it to position 205, the character B is written passing through positions 205 and 206 in the stroke order of arrows R ₂ and R ₃ . Push up the pen tip at position 206 and move it to position 207, then move to positions 207 and 2 in the stroke order of arrows R ₄ and R ₅ .
Write the letter C that passes through 08.

The character shape and stroke order are stored in a character generation ROM (not shown).

When printing of one line is completed, a line feed is started and the characters of the next line are printed.

In addition to letters and numbers, special symbols and figures are included in the above ROM.
If they are stored in the memory, those symbols and figures can also be printed continuously in the same way. If positional information is commanded for each line, even a large figure that spans adjacent lines can be printed as a continuous large figure by repeating printing for each line using the continuous writing pins E or F.

In Figure 7, for the sake of simplicity, we have shown continuous writing characters equivalent to 5x7 dots, but continuous writing equivalent to 24x24 dots is also possible, and kanji can also be written. However, when printing high-quality characters, the printing speed decreases.

As is clear from the above, the sub-carriage 100 of the present invention can be moved in the Y-axis direction or other suitable second direction by one row.
It is sufficient if it is movable in the axial direction. The number of steps required for one line depends on the nature of the characters and symbols to be printed, but normally 7 steps (alphanumeric characters) to 36 steps (kanji characters) are sufficient.

If the secondary carriage 100 has a capacity of 36 steps per line, printing several alphanumeric lines of 7 steps at the same time can be easily accomplished by software processing.

In the above explanation, it is assumed that the recording pins A, B, C, and D cannot move in the Y-axis direction, but the sub-carriage 100 is designed to be large enough to carry these recording pens, and the six-color pens are used to draw characters and figures. etc. may be written continuously. However, in this case, since the mass of the movable part increases, the operating speed in the Y-axis direction decreases. A power source such as the stepping motor 51 for driving the sub-feeding mechanism cannot have a large capacity due to space constraints, and an increase in mass is disadvantageous because it reduces response.

Recording pens A, B, C, D and continuous writing pen E,
F is not limited to a cassette pen, but may be any pen of any structure suitable for the printer. Further, the control for raising and lowering the pen is not limited to the electromagnetic type, but may be any type such as electrostrictive type, pneumatic type, or any other type suitable for the purpose of the present invention.

It is also possible to replace the stepping motor 51 with another power source, such as a DC motor with a feedback element. In addition, main carriage 1
A power source for the sub-feeding mechanism is not mounted on the main carriage 12, and the eccentric shaft parallel to the guide rail 10 is mounted on the main carriage 12.
It is also possible to pass it through the top and position it in the Y-axis direction by rotating its eccentric shaft. This Y-axis direction positioning includes an analog method and a digital method. The first axis direction, which is the moving direction of the main carriage 12, and the second axis direction, which is the moving direction of the sub-carriage 100, do not necessarily have to be orthogonal coordinate axes, and if italic characters are used, they may be slightly different from orthogonal. It is also expected that it would be advantageous to shift the

Effects of the Invention As explained above, since the multicolor recording device according to the present invention uses a subcarriage with a simple structure,
It has the following effects.

(b) Letters, numbers, symbols, figures, etc. can be written continuously at a small cost, and records are much easier to read and clearer than the conventional dot method.

(b) Dot records and continuous writing records can be printed clearly in multiple colors.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an elevational view of a multicolor recording device according to the present invention;
Figure 2 is its top view, Figure 3 is its back view, and Figure 4 is its top view.
The figure is its left side view, Figure 5 is its right side view, and Figure 6 is its right side view.
The figure is a perspective view of the cassette holding member, and FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of continuous writing operation. 1...Roller, 2...Recording paper, 3...Dot recording, 4...Character recording, 10...Guide rail, 1
1...Bearing, 12...Main carriage, 13
... Ball bearing, 14 ... Guide plate, 15 ... Main feed mechanism wire, 20 ... Cassette holding member, 20a ... Bottom plate, 20b ... Vertical plate, 20c ... Bearing section, 21, 40 ... Screw, 2
2,122...shaft, 23,123...pen holder, 24,124...cassette pen, 25,12
5... Return spring, 26,126... Armature,
27, 127... Coil, 28, 128... Yoke, 29... Protrusion, 30... Leaf spring, 50... Timing belt, 51... Stepping motor,
52...Pinion, 53...Compound gear, 54...
Arm, 55...Stopper, 100...Subcarriage, 101, 102...Ball, 200...Reference position, 201-205...Position.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A main carriage installed on a guide rail extending in the first axis direction so as to be slidably controlled so as to be driven by a main feed mechanism, and a plurality of different color pens held by the main carriage. , a sub-carriage installed on the main carriage so as to be movable in the second axis direction forming an angle with the first axis direction; A multicolor recording device comprising: a sub-feeding mechanism that is driven stepwise; and a pen held by the sub-carriage in a freely controllable swing manner. 2. A multicolor recording device according to claim 1, comprising a pen held in the main carriage so as to be swingable and controllable. 3. The multicolor recording device according to claim 1, wherein the first axis and the second axis are horizontal and vertical axis directions of an orthogonal coordinate system. 4. The multicolor recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sub-feeding mechanism is provided with a stepping motor for driving. 5. The multicolor recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a stopper of the sub-feeding mechanism is provided on the main carriage, and the coordinate origin in the second axis direction is the position of the stopper.