JPH04261884A - Printer or printer integrated type data processing apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce noise by stopping the driving of a fan at the time of the editing of a document and to perfectly eliminate the contamination of the surface of paper, the collapse of a character dot, the retransfer of an ink ribbon, the taking-up inferiority of the ink ribbon and the cutting thereof by preventing the temp. rise of a thermal head part by rotating the fan only at the time of a printing mode. CONSTITUTION:From the point of time when a printing mode is set by pushing a printing key (2b), the drive circuit of a fan 7 is driven by a printing mode check (24) through a CPU (21). Or, the fan 7 is driven when the temp. in the vicinity of a thermal head 16 reaches predetermined temp. or higher or a predetermined number or more of the lateral lines of a carriage are counted.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Field of Application] The present invention relates to an information processing device integrated with a printer or an information processing device output device such as a computer or a word processor, and in particular, the present invention relates to an information processing device integrated with a printer, or an information processing device output device such as a computer or a word processor. The present invention relates to a control method that eliminates problems such as print smudges and ribbon breaks and maintains print quality.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Currently known general printer-integrated information processing apparatuses are mainly those that do not have a fan or that operate a fan continuously.

0003

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] The former conventional type does not have a fan, so it is quiet when editing documents. However, since there is no fan, when printing documents, the printer is located at the top of the main unit, and is heated by the heat of the power supply, main board, CRT unit, etc., heat storage of the thermal head, line feed motor, carriage motor, ribbon, etc. Due to the heat inside the printer such as the feed motor, the temperature near the thermal head may drop below room temperature by 2.
Since the temperature rises by 0 to 25 Kelvin (=deg), printing stains occur and the printed paper becomes stained.

[0004] The latter has a fan and releases the heat inside the printer to the outside, so no printing stains occur, but noise is generated during document editing. With the spread of information processing devices, there are more opportunities to edit documents late at night at home or overtime at the office, and awareness of noise is increasing.

The object of the present invention is to eliminate noise when editing a document, dirt on the print surface during printing, crushed character dots, retransfer of the ink ribbon, poor winding of the ink ribbon,
The objective is to maintain good printing quality without causing ink ribbon breakage. If there is a sound problem when editing a document, it is necessary to stop the fan. Furthermore, in order to reduce the temperature rise during printing, it is necessary to rotate the fan and release the heat inside the housing to the outside. Temperature is a major cause of deterioration in print quality. This is due to the chemical properties of the ink ribbon. Generally, the melting point of the ink ribbon is 60 to 70 degrees Celsius, and when printing continuously without a fan, it is 20 to 25 Kelvin (=deg).
When printing at a room temperature of 35° C., the temperature near the thermal head reaches 55 to 60° C. As a result, the ink on the ink ribbon surface softens or melts, causing the above-mentioned problems. According to experiments, printing quality cannot be guaranteed unless the temperature near the thermal head is kept within 15 degrees Kelvin. The present invention reduces the temperature near the thermal head to 15 Kelvin by stopping the fan in document editing mode and driving the fan only in print mode.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide a printer or printer-integrated information processing device that achieves high print quality and is quiet with a structure and control that maintains the following.

[0006]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention mainly proposes the following three means.

(1) The fan is stopped during document editing mode, that is, keyboard input for creating a new document, updating a document, etc., and when a print mode signal is input, a signal is received from the CPU and the fan is controlled to be driven. Furthermore, the fan is stopped when the print mode ends.

(2) By using the printer's home position sensor (position sensor) and counting the number of reciprocations of the carriage, the fan is rotated after the carriage has moved sideways several times, and when the carriage is stopped, the paper By controlling the sensor signal change, the fan is stopped at the same time when there is no paper.

(3) A temperature sensor is disposed near the thermal head of the printer, and the fan is controlled to be activated when the temperature near the thermal head is 50° C. or higher, and stopped when the temperature is below 50° C. That is, by controlling the temperature near the thermal head, printing defects are prevented.

0010

[Operation] The temperature near the thermal head is determined by the self-heating of the thermal head itself, the heat generated by the power supply unit that supplies power to the printer, the carriage motor for driving the carriage inside the printer, and the line feed for feeding or ejecting paper. The temperature rises due to the heat of the motor, the ribbon feed motor for winding up the ink ribbon, the heat of the display CRT and CRT unit power supply, and the heat generated from the control board. If the temperature near the thermal head is around 60° C. for a long time, the ink on the surface of the ink ribbon will soften, causing printing stains, poor winding, and ribbon breakage. Therefore, the present invention aims to reduce the above-mentioned temperature rise. The present invention solves the problems of noise and temperature rise at the same time by controlling the fan. The solution to this problem is to stop the fan when used in document editing mode, and to drive the fan when used in print mode. Since "ON" and "OFF" control can be performed by software processing, it is easy and there is less chance of malfunction. Other methods include a method in which the number of times the carriage traverses is counted with a home position sensor to control the fan, and a method in which a temperature sensor is disposed near the thermal head to manage temperature and control the fan. Both control the "ON" and "OFF" states of the fans, and by managing the sensors and installing parts with stable quality, malfunctions will not occur. Since the fan is controlled while fully grasping the state near the thermal head, it is possible to prevent deterioration of printing quality and to reduce noise as much as possible.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Several embodiments of the structure of the present invention will be described below in order. The present invention relates to a control method and mechanism for reducing noise during document editing and stabilizing the print quality of a printer in a printer or printer-integrated information processing device. Before describing the control method of the present invention, an overview of the printer-integrated information processing device and the thermal transfer printer installed therein is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3.
Explain using.

As shown in FIG. 2, the printer-integrated information processing device includes a CRT 2, a CRT unit 3,
A floppy disk drive (FDD) 4, a power supply unit 5 for power supply, a main board 6, a fan 7, a thermal transfer printer 9, and the like are provided. 8 is a keyboard, which is connected to the main body through a jack.

[0013] When editing a document, after turning on the power,
By inserting a floppy disk into the D4 and inputting information using an input device such as the keyboard 8, commands are sent to the main board 6 to input characters, graphics, and the like. CRT
2 is a device that displays the input data.

When printing a document, by pressing the print key 26 from the keyboard 8, a control command is sent to the main board 6, and an operation signal is sent from the main board 6 to the thermal transfer printer 9 to drive it and print. The fan 7 releases the heat inside the fuselage to the outside and prevents the temperature from rising. 10 is a power switch.

An overview of the thermal transfer printer 9 and deterioration of print quality will be explained with reference to FIG. As shown in FIG. 3, the thermal transfer printer 9 includes a main body frame 11 and a carriage 12. The carriage 12 is supported by the main body frame 11 so that it can move laterally. A timing belt 14 driven by a carriage motor 13 is attached to the main body frame 1.
It is built between the left and right sides of 1.

A carriage 12 is coupled to the timing belt 14. As the carriage motor 13 rotates, the carriage 12 is moved transversely through gears. A platen 15 is arranged in front of the carriage 12 and extends along the traverse direction of the carriage 12. A thermal head 16 is provided in front of the carriage 12. A transfer paper 20 and an ink ribbon 19 are sandwiched between the thermal head 16 and the platen 15,
By heating the thermal head 16, the ink ribbon 1
9 is transferred to the transfer paper 20. In this way, thermal transfer is performed.

A line feed motor 17 is driven when the transfer paper 20 is discharged. 18 is an ink ribbon cassette.

[0018] The deterioration in print quality is largely caused by the temperature rise in the vicinity of the thermal head 16. That is ink ribbon 19
This is because the melting point of is generally set at 60 to 70°C.

If the ink ribbon 19 is left at around 55° C., the ink will begin to soften, and printing in this state will result in crushed character dots, poor winding of the ink ribbon 19, stains on the surface of the transfer paper 20, etc. Furthermore, the winding load of the ink ribbon 19 increases due to the ink ribbon 19 being wound up incorrectly, and the ink ribbon breaks, causing the thermal transfer printer 9 to lose its function.

Next, an embodiment and application example of the configuration of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

FIG. 1 is a three-dimensional perspective view showing the internal structure and external appearance of a printer-integrated information processing apparatus employing the present invention.

The fan 7 does not rotate immediately even after the power switch 10 is turned on. In other words, the fan 7 is controlled to remain stopped during document editing. The reason for this is that with the spread of information processing devices, people who edit documents late at night at home or during overtime at the office can
This is because I'm concerned about the sound. By the way, the noise level is 30.
It is generally said that even around 40 dB is a cause for concern. Therefore, stopping the fan 7 during document editing is effective.

However, if the fan 7 is removed, the internal temperature of the thermal transfer printer 9 during document editing is at a level of 11 to 12 Kelvin (= deg), which is a level that is not a problem, but when the document is edited and then printed, the thermal transfer printer 9 is driven. As a result, the temperature reaches 18 to 20 degrees Kelvin (deg), which rises to near the melting point of the ink in the ink ribbon 19 at a room temperature of 35°C, causing problems such as crushed character dots, smeared prints, and poor winding of the ink ribbon 19. let

The present invention solves the above problem by controlling the fan 7 to stop unless the print key 26 on the keyboard 8 is pressed, and when printing starts, the fan 7 is driven to prevent the temperature from rising. be.

According to experiments, the degree to which the heat source inside the printer-integrated information processing apparatus affects the temperature near the thermal head in the thermal transfer printer 9 is as follows: when the fan 7 is stopped, the CR
T unit 3 is 6.5 Kelvin (=deg), power supply unit 5 is 3.0 Kelvin (=deg),
The main board 6 has a temperature of 3.0 Kelvin (=deg), the thermal transfer printer 9 itself has a temperature of 6.5 Kelvin (=deg), and the total temperature is 19 Kelvin (=deg). However, it was experimentally confirmed that when the fan 7 is driven, the temperature can be reduced by 6 to 7 Kelvin (=deg), and no problems occur even when printing at a room temperature of 35°C.

FIG. 4 is a schematic operational circuit diagram of the present invention,
When the print key 26 shown in FIG. 1 or 2 on the keyboard 8 is pressed, the print mode is checked by the print mode check means 24 which is processed by the CPU 21 and software, and the CPU 21 sends a signal command to the fan 7 to control the fan 7. It is. In the figure, 5 is a power supply, TR is a transistor,
R1 and R2 each represent a resistor, and these constitute a fan driving device. 5, 6, and 7 show application examples. In FIG. 5, the temperature near the thermal head 16 in the thermal transfer printer 9 is detected by the thermistor 23, and the fan 7 is controlled to control the temperature around the thermal head. Manage.

FIG. 6 shows that by providing a position sensor 23 for checking the movement of the carriage in the thermal transfer printer 9,
Controls the fan 7.

FIG. 7 shows the carriage 1 of the thermal transfer printer 9.
The number of sheets to be printed is determined by counting the number of rows 2, and the fan 7 is driven when the number of sheets to be printed reaches a predetermined number at which the temperature rises.

FIG. 8 is an operational flowchart of a control mode using a temperature sensor.

After the device is started (step 51), it is checked whether the operating mode of the device is print mode (step 52). If the printer is in print mode, the process moves to a check for temperature rise within the printer (step 53), but if it is not print mode, the process moves to a fan stop routine (step 56). In step 53, it is checked whether the temperature inside the printer has reached a predetermined temperature, and if the temperature exceeds the predetermined temperature, the process moves to a fan starting routine (step 54). If the temperature is below a predetermined temperature, a stop routine (step 56) is entered. In the fan startup routine 54, the drive device for the fan 7 is operated to
In particular, it acts to cool the printer head. When the temperature drops from a predetermined value, the process moves to a fan stop routine (step 56), and the fan stops.

In this manner, the present invention allows the fan to be driven only when the apparatus is in the print mode and the temperature inside the printer exceeds a predetermined value. In other words, in this example, if the predetermined temperature has not been reached even in print mode, the fan is not driven and is quiet;
If the temperature drops after the fan is driven, the fan is stopped, thereby avoiding unnecessary fan drive and contributing to energy conservation.

Fine grain control is shown in FIGS. 5 and 8 above.
However, it is clear that the fan may be operated during the print mode, as shown in FIG. 4 for simplicity.

With the above configuration and control method, it is possible to provide a customer with a printer-integrated information processing device that is quiet during document editing and has stable print quality.

[0034]

Effects of the Invention As is clear from the description of each of the above embodiments, the present invention has the following effects.

(1) By stopping the fan when editing a document, the problem of the fan noise being bothersome when editing a document is resolved.

(2) By being able to efficiently reduce the temperature rise of the thermal head, it is possible to completely prevent stains on the paper surface, crushed character dots, retransfer of the ink ribbon, poor winding of the ink ribbon, breakage of the ink ribbon, etc. can.

(3) Furthermore, it is possible to cope with high-speed printing.

(4) Turn on the fan with software support
, "OFF" control is possible, and the number of occurrences of malfunctions can be significantly reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a printer-integrated information processing apparatus embodying the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view for explaining the outline of a printer-integrated information processing device.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view for explaining the outline of a thermal transfer printer.

FIG. 4 is a control block diagram for implementing the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a control block diagram using a temperature sensor.

FIG. 6 is a control block diagram using a position sensor.

FIG. 7 is a control block diagram applying carriage traverse counting.

FIG. 8 is an operation flowchart.

[Explanation of symbols]

1... Airframe frame, 2... CRT, 3... CRT unit, 4... F
DD, 5... Power supply unit, 6... Main board, 7...
Fan, 8...keyboard, 9...thermal transfer printer, 10...
Power switch, 11... Body frame, 12... Carriage, 13
... Carriage motor, 14... Timing belt, 15...
Platen, 16...Thermal head, 17...Line feed motor, 18...Ink ribbon cassette, 19...Ink ribbon, 20...Transfer paper, 21...CPU, 22...A/D converter, 23...Thermistor, 24...Software, 25 ...Paper guide, 26...Print key.

Claims (9)

[Claims] Claim 1: A printer comprising a platen for receiving paper, a carriage facing the platen and supported movably in the longitudinal direction of the platen, and a print head provided on the carriage, and printing is controlled by an information device or the like. The printer is characterized in that a frame body is provided with a fan for cooling the printer and a fan drive device for driving the fan, and the fan drive device is driven when a print mode is set by the information device or the like. printer. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein a temperature sensor is provided inside the printer, and the fan is rotated when the temperature near the internal thermal head exceeds a certain temperature. 3. According to claim 2, a temperature sensor is provided inside the printer, and a temperature increase value near the internal thermal head is 1.
A printer characterized in that a fan is rotated when the temperature near the thermal head reaches about 5 Kelvin (=15 deg) or more or about 50° C. or more. 4. In claim 3, a temperature sensor is disposed near the thermal head, and the fan is driven when the temperature near the thermal head is 15 Kelvin (=15 deg) or higher or 50° C. or higher, ) or 50°C. 5. A frame, a CRT provided in the frame,
This printer is equipped with a CRT drive unit that is also placed in the frame and a printer that is also built into the frame.
This printer has a platen that receives paper, a carriage that faces the platen and is supported so as to be movable in the longitudinal direction of the platen, and a print head provided on the carriage.This printer accepts print input from an input device such as a keyboard. In a printer whose printing is controlled by commands, a frame body is provided with a fan for cooling the printer and a fan drive device for driving the fan, and the fan drive device is configured to be able to be driven when a print mode is set by the input device. A printer-integrated information processing device characterized by: 6. In a printer that outputs characters, graphics, etc. in response to instructions from a printer-integrated information processing device or an information processing device such as a computer and word processor, the fan is activated by a fan rotation command signal simultaneously with the printing operation of the printer. A printer characterized by rotating a fan and stopping the fan at the same time as the printing operation is completed. 7. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the number of reciprocations of the printer carriage is checked using a home position sensor, and the fan is rotated after the plurality of reciprocations. 8. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the printer is a thermal transfer printer. 9. The printer or printer-integrated information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the printer is a dot printer.