JPH05104796A - Electrophotographic printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To protect an apparatus from various obstacles by eliminating dead time in a series of printing operations and by preventing cut paper from stopping on the way when the cut paper is sucked into a printer so that printing is conducted thereon. CONSTITUTION:In a printer controller 1 by microprogram control, the remaining capacity of printing data for one page to be drawn in a drawing memory 4 is detected by a drawing part 3 so that the end of drawing of the printing data for one page is estimated and cut paper in a hopper 11 is sucked into a printer before the end of drawing for one page.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electrophotographic recording type printer, and more particularly to a microprogram controlled electrophotographic recording type printer for sucking and printing a cut sheet inside the printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an electrophotographic recording type printer of this type, the start of sucking a cut sheet for printing into the printer is to finish drawing one page of print data.
Alternatively, it is performed at the start of drawing the print data for one page.

[0003]

In the conventional electrophotographic recording type printer described above, since the cut sheet is sucked into the printer at the end of drawing the print data for one page,
Since the start of image exposure on the photosensitive drum is waited until the cut sheet is sucked and reaches a predetermined position, there is a disadvantage that wasteful time is generated in a series of printing processes.

When the cut sheet is sucked into the printer at the start of drawing the print data for one page, the cut sheet is sucked into the printer when the print data has a long drawing time, and then the cut sheet for one page is drawn. Since the cut sheet stops at a predetermined position until the drawing of the print data is completed, there is a drawback that the cut sheet may curl or an error may occur in the print position.

[0005]

An electrophotographic recording type printer of the present invention has a drawing memory, and a microprogram controlled electrophotographic recording type printer which draws a cut sheet in a sheet cassette into the printer for printing. At
The end of drawing one page in the drawing memory is predicted by the microprogram, and the cut sheet is sucked into the printer before the drawing of the print data for one page is completed.

When drawing in the drawing memory, it may be possible to predict the end of drawing the print data for one page by detecting the remaining amount of print data to be drawn.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the electrophotographic recording type printer of the present invention.

The electrophotographic recording type printer of this embodiment comprises a printer control section 1 under microprogram control and a printer mechanism section 6. The printer control unit 1 controls the host interface unit 2 that receives and analyzes the data transmitted from the host device, the drawing unit 3 that draws the analyzed data in the drawing memory 4 for one page, and the printer mechanism unit 6. And a printer mechanism control unit 5 for controlling the printer mechanism. Then, the printer mechanism unit 6 attaches the print data of the photoconductor drum 7 and the drawing memory 4 to the photoconductor drum 7 by the image exposure unit 8 that exposes the print data of the surface of the photoconductor drum 7 to the photoconductor drum 7 by the developing unit 9. A transfer unit 10 that transfers toner to a cut sheet, a hopper 11 that stores cut sheets to be printed, and a sheet conveyance path 1
2 and.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described.
The data from the host device received by the host interface unit 2 of the printer control unit 1 is analyzed and sent to the drawing unit 3. When the end code of the data for one page is analyzed by the host interface unit 2, the drawing unit 3 is instructed to start drawing, and the drawing unit 3 starts drawing the print data in the drawing memory 4. The drawing unit 3 always detects the remaining amount of print data when drawing in the drawing memory 4, and can obtain the time until the drawing is completed from this remaining amount. When the drawing of the print data for one page is completed, the drawn data in the drawing memory 4 is immediately sent to the image exposure unit 8 and is exposed on the photosensitive drum 7. The printer control unit 1 prints the front end of the cut paper that is printed when the first 1-dot line of the page exposed on the photosensitive drum 7 reaches the transfer unit 10 via the developing unit 9 by the rotation of the photosensitive drum 7. The portion is also controlled so as to reach the transfer portion 10.

This control method is as follows. The time when the cut sheet is sucked from the hopper 11 and reaches the transfer unit 10 through the sheet conveyance path 12 is defined as T1. Further, the time from the position of the image exposure unit 8 to the position of the transfer unit 10 by rotating the photosensitive drum 7 is T2, and the time obtained by subtracting T2 from T1 is T3. As described above, the drawing unit 3 can obtain the time from the remaining amount of print data until the drawing of the print data for one page is completed when drawing in the drawing memory 4.

Assuming that one page of print data is currently being drawn in the drawing memory 4, when the time until the end of drawing obtained by the drawing unit 3 reaches T3, the drawing unit 3 A command for inhaling cut paper is issued to the printer mechanism control unit 5,
As a result, the cut sheet is sucked into the printer from the hopper 11 of the printer mechanism section 6. Further, when the drawing of the print data for one page is completed, the drawn data is immediately transferred from the drawing memory 4 to the image exposure unit 8.

By controlling in this way, the cut portion of the cut sheet does not stop after being sucked, and the print portion at the leading end is transferred to the transfer portion 10.
The first 1-dot line of the page exposed on the photoconductor drum 7 also reaches the transfer portion 10 when it reaches. in this case,
Since the drawn data is transferred to the image exposure unit 8 immediately after the drawing is completed, it is possible to save a wasteful time of waiting for the transfer of the drawn data to the image exposure unit 8.

[0013]

As described above, the electrophotographic recording type printer of the present invention predicts the end of drawing the print data for one page in the drawing memory by the microprogram, and finishes drawing the print data for one page. By sucking the cut sheet into the printer before starting, the wasteful time does not occur in the series of printing process, and there is an error in the curl of the cut sheet or the printing position due to the cut sheet being stopped halfway. It also has the effect of preventing the occurrence of obstacles.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of an electrophotographic recording type printer of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Printer Control Section 2 Host Interface Section 3 Drawing Section 4 Drawing Memory 5 Printer Mechanism Control Section 6 Printer Mechanism Section 7 Photosensitive Drum 8 Image Exposure Section 9 Developing Section 10 Transfer Section 11 Hopper 12 Paper Conveying Path

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A microprogram-controlled electrophotographic printer that has a drawing memory and sucks a cut sheet in a sheet cassette into the printer for printing.
An electronic photograph in which the end of drawing one page in the drawing memory is predicted by the microprogram, and the cut sheet is sucked into the printer before the drawing of the print data for one page is completed. Recording method printer. 2. The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein when drawing in the drawing memory, the end of drawing of the print data for one page is predicted by detecting the remaining amount of print data to be drawn. Photo recording printer.