JPH04348979A - Thermal printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To miniaturize the thermal printer and improve the sales service by automatically carrying out optimum recovery processing according to a cause of an error and an operation state when the error occurs. CONSTITUTION:When a certain error occurs, an error detecting means 20 automatically detects its error cause. At the same time, a state detecting means (CPU) 11 automatically detects an operating state in occurrence of the error, for instance, in printing, in feeding paper, or in cutting paper. Then, a recovery processing selection means 2, 3 read and select a recovery processing method corresponding to the automatically detected error cause and state from a memory means 4. The recovery control means (CPU) 11 controls by driving an engine necessary for performing the selected recovery processing means. Thereby, the title thermal printer can be miniaturized and besides sales service is improved.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal printer.

0002

[Prior Art] A paper feeding mechanism including a feed motor and a feed roller, a thermal head arranged in a line in a direction perpendicular to the paper conveyance direction, a paper cutting mechanism, etc. are equipped with an engine, and the thermal sensitive 2. Description of the Related Art So-called thermal printers, which print on paper using a thermal head, are widely used. For example, ECR as a terminal machine of POS system
When used as a printing device, printing data is transmitted from a host computer as a host device, and the thermal printer temporarily stores this transmitted data and controls the drive of the above-mentioned mechanisms and the thermal head in a timely manner. to print. Generally, the items to be printed include receipts handed to customers and journals used as store copies.

One of the features of such a thermal printer is that
The printing speed is fast because it prints in the width direction of the paper, that is, all digits at once. However, in the line direction, one character is often printed in two stages, for example, on the upper side and on the lower side. By the way, in conventional thermal printers, if there is an error such as receipt paper end, journal paper jam, cutter home position error, etc., printing is stopped, and the recovery processing method is uniquely determined regardless of the cause of the error. There is. For example, a typical conventional recovery processing method is to continue the next printing operation following the printing state at the time the printer was stopped after error recovery.

That is, when the normal process is to print "ABC...HIJ" on the receipt paper P using the above two-step method as shown in FIG. 8(A), the printer stops at position X1 as shown in FIG. 8(B). In this case, the method is to continue printing from the bottom after the error has been recovered. In this way, if the recovery processing method is the only one, in the case of the above-mentioned method of continuing printing after error recovery, the inertia of the feed motor, including the inertia of the paper feed mechanism, will be affected until the paper comes to a complete standstill in response to the printer stop command. Considerable coasting occurs due to braking characteristics, etc. Therefore, if the printer stops at position (line spacing)
When stopping at 1, a space is created between the upper and lower sides of one character, resulting in poor print quality. It has no practical value when creating a receipt.

[0005] To solve this problem, a thermal printer equipped with a receipt reissue function has been proposed. According to this, according to the receipt reissue function, it is possible to issue a normally printed receipt as shown in (A) regardless of whether the printer is stopped.

[0006]

[Problem to be Solved by the Invention] However, in today's world, where not only print quality but also printer miniaturization, work speed, and resource saving are more strongly required, it is no longer acceptable to easily implement the above-mentioned receipt reissue function. ing. That is, when the printer stops at position X1 in FIG. 8(B),
Due to the mechanical structure of the printer, there is a considerable distance between the thermal head and the cutter, so in order to reissue a receipt, the receipt must be fed by a length L, which not only goes against the speed of work. The paper P is wasted.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 8(C), for example, 3
If the printer stops at line 29 (position X1) on a receipt that prints line 0, in addition to the above problem,
It is necessary to reprint from the line (position X4), which significantly slows down the work. Moreover, especially in thermal printers that have a function to output receipts later, it is necessary to store the print data transmitted from the host computer for a predetermined period of time in order to perform the reissue function, which increases the storage capacity and costs. invite.

On the other hand, considering journals, unlike receipts, they are not issued to customers, so the characters printed on journals are usually small and the line spacing is narrow to save resources and make printers more compact. Figure 8 (C
) If there is a print equivalent to reissue, it will remain as a record, increasing complexity at the usage stage and making accurate evaluation difficult.

[0009] No matter what kind of recovery processing method is adopted, as long as it is the only method, other problems unique to that method will arise.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a thermal printer that can automatically perform optimal recovery processing depending on the cause of the error and its operating state.

[0011]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides an error detection means for detecting various causes of errors, and an error detection means for detecting various error causes in a thermal printer having a thermal head arranged in a line in a direction perpendicular to the paper conveyance direction. a state detection means for detecting the operating state at the time, a storage means for storing a plurality of recovery processing methods corresponding to the cause of the error and the operating state, and a response based on the detection signal from the error detection means and the state detection means This thermal printer is equipped with a recovery processing method selection means for reading a recovery processing method, and a recovery control means for driving and controlling an engine necessary for carrying out the selected recovery processing method.

0012

[Operation] In the present invention, when a certain error occurs, the error detection means automatically detects the cause of the error, and at the same time, the state detection means detects the operating state at the time of error occurrence (for example, during printing, paper feeding, paper cutting). Automatically detect. Then, the recovery processing method selection means reads and selects a recovery processing method corresponding to the automatically detected error cause and condition from the storage means. Here, the recovery control means drives and controls the engine necessary to implement the selected recovery processing method. Therefore, if the cause of the error and the recovery processing method most suitable for the operating state at the time of the error are stored in advance in the storage means, it is possible to satisfy both of the requirements such as speeding up the work and saving resources.

[0013]

Embodiments Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. This thermal printer is configured as shown in Fig. 1, and in addition to the normal printing processing function, it is equipped with error detection means, state detection means, storage means, recovery processing method selection means, and recovery control means, and it is equipped with error detection means, state detection means, storage means, recovery processing method selection means, and recovery control means. The system is configured to automatically select and execute the recovery process that is most suitable for the operating state at the time. Note that the thermal printer in this embodiment is a POS system including a host computer 1.
It is used for ECR (electronic cash register) as a terminal machine of the system.

An overview of the host computer 1 and ECR will now be described with reference to FIG. In Figure 1, EC
The control unit 10 of R includes a CPU 11, a ROM 12, and a RAM 1.
3, a CG (character generator) 14, a shared RAM 15, and an interface (INT) 16. 35 (driver 3
4) etc. are connected. However, in FIG. 1, the keyboard, drawer, display unit, etc. are not shown.

On the other hand, the host computer 1 has a CPU 2
, ROM 3, RAM 4, etc., and is configured to transmit product data and the like to the control section 10 of the ECR and receive its sales results. Here, in this embodiment, the error detection means, state detection means, and recovery control means are ECR (1
0) side, that is, the thermal printer side, and the storage means and recovery processing method selection means are provided on the host computer 1 side. Of course, everything (error detection means, state detection means, storage means, recovery processing method selection means, control means) can be implemented as a configuration provided on the thermal printer side.

Now, the error detection means is for automatically detecting various causes of errors in the thermal printer, such as receipt paper end as shown in FIG. Each error cause is temporarily stored in the RAM 13 as shown in FIG. 2(A). On the other hand, the status detection means is a means for automatically detecting the operating status of the thermal printer itself when an error occurs.
In this embodiment, it consists of a CPU 11, and the detection operation state is also R.
It is stored in AM13. The operating status can be roughly divided into whether or not the printing operation is in progress as shown in ST11, 13, 16, and 18 in FIG. 4, and the details are shown in FIG. 2(B).

Next, the storage means is a means for storing recovery processing methods R1 to R7 (for example, "R1 processing" is continued after error recovery) as shown in FIG. It is stored in correspondence with the . In this embodiment, R of the host computer 1
It is configured with AM4. It may be formed from ROM3.

Note that the recovery processing R2, R3,
The long receipt of R6 and R7 means that the paper is sent by a distance considerably longer than the line spacing. Further, the CPU 2 and ROM 3 of the host computer 1 constitute a recovery processing method selection means for reading a corresponding recovery processing method based on detection signals from the error detection means (20) and the state detection means (11). This detection signal is transmitted through the shared RAM 15 of the control section 10. On the other hand, the selected recovery processing method is also shared R.
It is configured to be transmitted to the control unit 10 via AM15.

Next, the recovery control means is for driving and controlling the engines necessary for carrying out the selected recovery processing method in a timely and mutually linked manner, and in this embodiment, as shown in FIGS. 4 to 6 RO to store programs
It is composed of an M12 and a CPU 11 that executes the M12.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained mainly in FIGS. 4 to 6.
Explain with reference to. When a limit switch or the like 20 serving as an error detection means operates and detects the cause of the error, the cause of the error is stored in the RAM 13 as shown in FIG. 2(A). At the same time, the CPU 11 as a state detection means detects the operating state at the time of error occurrence and stores it in the RAM 13 as shown in FIG.

That is, in FIG. 4, when an error occurs (S
(YES at T10), the operation status such as whether printing is in progress is determined in ST11, 16, and 18, and an error status [Fig. 2 (B)] is set (ST12, 17).
, 19). If printing is in progress, it is determined in ST13 whether there is a line spacing, and if it is a line spacing, the process proceeds to ST15 via the line spacing set in ST14. On the other hand, if the paper is being fed, ST16 and ST17 are executed, and if the paper is being cut, ST16 and ST17 are executed.
After passing through T18 and T19, the process proceeds to ST20.

[0022] In ST20, the error status set above is referenced to perform an error analysis, and error status factors corresponding to the recovery processing (R1 to R7) of FIG. 3 are set (ST21). This error status factor, that is, the error detection means (20) and the state detection means (1
The detection signal detected in step 1) is transmitted to the host computer 1 (ST22). These series of operations are performed by the CPU
11, ROM12, RAM13, shared RAM15
This will be carried out in collaboration with the following.

[0023] Thus, the recovery processing method selection means (2, 3) on the host computer 1 side stores the storage means (14).
), selects a recovery processing method corresponding to the received detection signal from among those shown in FIG.
Send to.

[0024] Here, the CPU 11 and ROM of the control unit 10
When the determination is YES in ST23 of FIG. 5 following ST22 of FIG. ST36,3 in Figure 6
7).

That is, in the case of the above R1 process (ST24
If the answer is YES), printing is continued after error recovery (see FIG. 3), so printing is continued based on the previously stored printing data (ST36). The printing mode is as shown in FIG. 7A when the operating state is printing. X1 is the printer stop position based on the occurrence of an error. In such a case, the error cause is 08 in FIG. 2A: cutter home position error, etc., and this is selected when the operating state at the time of error occurrence is between lines.

Note that the mode shown in FIG. 7(A) is permissible when paper P is a receipt, as long as it does not look like a receipt. Of course, this is completely permissible in the case of journals. In other words, this is effective when stopping between lines as shown in FIG. 9, etc., and the print quality is not impaired, paper is not wasted, and work can be done more quickly.

If it is determined in ST25 that R2 processing is to be performed, the long receipt flag is turned ON in ST26, and printing is continued after the paper is fed longer than the line spacing (ST36).
). This is effective when the cause of the error is the receipt paper end or receipt paper jam. In the case of R3 processing, the long receipt and cut flag are turned on (ST
27, 28), and then printing processing (ST36) is performed. If NO is determined in ST27, in the following R4 to R7 processes, it is better to have the host computer 1 send the print data again than to search for the next print start position from the previously stored print data. Since this is a recovery processing method that has been considered convenient, the buffer (RAM 13) is cleared in ST29.

Furthermore, in the case of R5 and R6 processing (ST30
, 32), the message print flag is turned ON in ST31 and printing processing is performed (ST36). In the case of R5 processing, as shown in 7(B), after printing the error message, the contents (A to J) whose printing was interrupted when the error occurred are printed again, and then the next contents (N to V) are printed again. Print. Here, there is a meaning to once clearing the buffer as described above.

When it is determined that R7 processing is required (NO in ST34), the cut flag is turned ON (ST35), and after printing a message (discard) as shown in FIG. -Cut along the Y line. Therefore, S
Error processing is performed at T36 and T37, and after this processing is completed, new printing processing is performed (ST10 and ST40).

According to this embodiment, the error detection means (20), the state detection means (11), and the storage means (4)
), recovery processing method selection means (2, 3), and recovery control means (11, 12) are provided to automatically detect the cause of the error and the operating state at the time of error occurrence, and execute the optimal recovery processing according to the situation. Since the printer is configured to do this, it is possible to speed up printing operations, save resources, and improve printing quality while reducing size and cost.

Furthermore, since the storage means (4) is constituted by the RAM 4 on the side of the host computer 1, it can be commonly used for a large number of thermal printers (ECR) connected thereto, and the recovery processing method can be used to identify the cause of the error and the operation. If it is rewritten according to the situation, the thermal printer can be optimally operated and has wide applicability. Of course, the storage means (4) may be constructed from a ROM or an EP-ROM and may be implemented as fixed data.

[0032]

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, an error detection means, a state detection means, a storage means, a recovery processing method selection means, and a recovery control means are provided, so that the Since it is configured to automatically perform optimal recovery processing, it can eliminate the disadvantages of paper waste and multi-line duplicate printing caused by conventional uniform processing, speeding up printing work, saving resources, and improving printing quality. This can be achieved at the same time, and it can also greatly contribute to downsizing the device and improving sales services by reducing the amount of journal paper that can be accommodated.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the cause of an error.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the operating state when an error occurs.

[Figure 4] Flowchart for explaining the operation (
1)

[Figure 5] Flowchart for explaining the operation (
2).

[Figure 6] Flowchart for explaining the operation (
3).

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining the results of recovery processing.

FIG. 8 is a diagram for explaining problems with conventional thermal printers.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining recovery processing when the printer stops between lines.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Host computer 2 CPU (recovery processing method selection means) 3 R
OM (recovery processing method selection means) 4 RAM (storage means) 10 control unit 11 CPU (state detection means, recovery control means)
12 ROM (recovery control means) 13 RAM 14 CG 15 Shared RAM 16 Interface 20 Limit switches (error detection means) 31
Thermal head 33 Roll feed motor 35 Journal feed motor

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a thermal printer having a thermal head arranged in a line in a direction perpendicular to a paper conveyance direction, an error detection means for detecting various causes of errors and a state for detecting an operating state when an error occurs. A detection means, a storage means for storing a plurality of recovery processing methods corresponding to error causes and operating states, and a recovery processing method for reading a corresponding recovery processing method based on detection signals from the error detection means and the state detection means. A thermal printer comprising a selection means and a recovery control means for driving and controlling an engine necessary for carrying out a selected recovery processing method.