JPH05318985A - Multiple pen type plotter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To control various kinds of pens accurately by a metahod wherein the pen of a multiple pen type plotter is composed of a multiple lead pencil, and a transfer distance of a tip which ascends as the lead is worn away and omission of the lead caused by descent of the tip when the pen is up, are detected. CONSTITUTION:In a plotter capable of exchanging many kinds of pens, a multiple-lead pencil 30 having a plurality of pieces of lead built-in is used for each pen. That is, a tip 51 holding a tip part of the lead, a pencil holder having a chuck 52 built-in, a lead holder which is connected thereto and contains a plurality of pieces of feed lead 55 and the lead 56 in writing, etc., are arranged in the multiple lead pencil 30. Further, a coil spring is made to lie between the chuck 52 and at least a lead holder 58. Then, a transfer distance of the tip 51 which axcends as the lead 56 wears is detected. Besides, by descent of the tip 51 when the pen is up, omission of the lead is detected. Then, slide-out of the lead or exchanging of the pen is controlled based on each detected result.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a plotter device,
In particular, it relates to a multi-pen plotter device using a pencil (pencil lead) as a writing means.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a device of this type has a function of feeding a lead into a pencil body in accordance with the amount of the lead worn by a writing operation, and replacing the lead with another pencil when the lead is lost.

Explaining a little more concretely, this type of pencil is represented by a tip knock type pencil and an upper knock type pencil. In the former tip knock type pencil, the tip that holds the tip of the lead with detent is pushed into the upper pencil body as the tip of the lead wears,
The structure is such that the tip tip pulls out the lead by the amount of lead wear when pen-up. Also, in the latter upper knock type pencil that knocks out the upper part to send out the core like a general pencil, the position of the pencil body and the tip of the core with respect to the writing surface is detected, and the writing with the tip of the core in contact with the writing surface is performed. The structure is such that the wear state of the lead is detected by the position signal in the state and the lead feeding operation is performed according to the wear amount. In this case, the tip is moved upward as the tip of the lead wears, but the tip does not pull out the lead during pen-up.

[0004]

In the former tip knock type pencil, the writing operation of the short line segment requires a large number of operations of the chuck for holding the lead in the pencil body, and the lead is sent out each time the pen is moved up. There is a problem with durability. Further, in this method, since the holding force of the core detent portion in the tip end is large, it is difficult to discharge the worn residual core, and it is difficult to adopt it as a multi-core pencil in the plotter device. It was

Further, in the latter upper knock type pencil, since the lead is fed out according to the wear of the lead, the number of operations of the chuck for holding the lead in the pencil body is small, particularly in the writing operation of the short line segment. It has a longer life than the tip knock type pencil. However, when it is used as a pencil of a plotter device, a new lead pushes against a worn residual lead from above, making it difficult to perform leadless detection by moving the tip tip in a writing state. Therefore, in the conventional type, it is necessary to perform the automatic core feeding operation by integrating the wear amount of the core obtained each time the position of the core of a certain length is detected and calculating the residual core.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a multi-pen plotter device capable of reliably and stably performing centering operation and core feeding operation with a simple structure.

[0007]

In order to solve these problems, in the present invention, an upper knock type pencil is improved. The amount of wear of a lead by writing is detected in a writing state and the amount of wear is detected. According to the above, centering operation is performed, and at the time of pen-up, coreless detection is performed by moving the tip of the tip downward with respect to the pencil body, so that stable core feeding operation is realized with the multi-core pencil.

[0008]

First, a general knock type multi-core pencil is shown in FIG. In the figure, the pencil 30 is the tip 5
1. A pencil holder 53 containing a chuck 52, and a plurality of supply cores 5 connected to the pencil holder 53.
5, and a lead holder 58 that incorporates the rear portion of the writing lead 56;
It has a cap 59 for closing the upper opening of the lead holder 58 and a knocking disk 60 provided at an appropriate position on the outer periphery of the lead holder 58. In addition, 61 is the lead holder 5
8 is a coil spring arranged between the chuck 52 and 62, and 62 is a coil spring arranged between the chuck 52 and the tip 51. In addition, 46 m is a pen type mark provided on the outer periphery of the pencil holder 53.

A centering operation and a core feeding operation in the pencil having such a structure will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. FIG. 2 illustrates the centering operation. In FIG. 2A, the chuck 52 eats the core 56, and the tip of this core goes downward from the tip chip 51 via the detent rubber 51a embedded in the tip chip 51. It is in a state where it is possible to write down with an appropriate amount protruding. In this state, the springs 61 and 62 give a proper spring bias to the lead holder 58, the chuck 52, and the tip 51. (B) shows a state in which the lead is worn by the writing operation and the tip 51 is pushed upward from the position indicated by the broken line. P is a core consumption amount, and the movement of the tip 51 is detected by a sensor to perform centering operation. At this time, the spring 62 is compressed according to the movement of the tip 51. In (c), as the centering operation, when the pencil is knocked in the direction of the arrow at the time of pen-up, the lower part of the chuck 52 opens and the tip 5
1 shows a state in which the detent rubber 51a holds the core and the core is pulled out. At this time, 61 and 62 are compressed according to the knock amount. In (d), after the knocking operation in (c), the lead holder 58 returns upward and the chuck 52
Indicates a closed state.

FIG. 3 illustrates the operation without a core.
In (a), most of the core is consumed, the tip of the residual core 56 is held by the return rubber 51a embedded in the tip chip 51, and one supplied core 55 remains in the core holder 58. Indicates that (B) shows that the chuck 52 is pushed by knocking the pencil in the arrow direction in the centering operation.
The lower part of the core is opened, and the supplied core 55 moves downward through the chuck 52 and comes into contact with the rear end of the residual core 56. B indicates the contact portion between the cores 55 and 56. (C)
Shows the state in which the lead holder 58 returns upward (in the arrow direction) after the knocking operation, and the chuck 52 is closed. (D) shows a state in which the residual core 56 is worn by the writing operation and the tip 51 is pushed upward, but the rear end of the residual core 56 is not held by the chuck 52 at the time of pen-up. Therefore, in the pen-up operation, the tip 51 is
It returns downward with the residual core 56 held in the detent rubber 51a. Therefore, the coreless core feeding operation is performed by the output signal of the sensor that detects the movement of the tip chip 51, and the supplied core 55 discharges the residual core 56 to the outside to complete the core feeding operation. The configuration of a system that performs such a core feeding operation and its operation will be described below.

FIG. 4 shows a system configuration of a multi-core feeding system used in the multi-pen plotter device of the present invention. In FIG. 4, a control device 70 includes a CPU 71, a memory (ROM) 72 and a memory. (RAM) 73, I / O7
4, display panel 75, X-axis motor (Mx) 76, Y-axis motor (My) 77, control circuit 78 for controlling these motors, D / A converter 79, control circuit 80 for controlling up / down of the pen, The pen drive coil PU, the speed detection coil 42, the Z-axis position detector 43, the pen type discriminator 46, and the pen drive unit PU shown in FIG.
The pen drive control is performed based on the drawing data supplied to the I / O 74 from another device.

FIG. 5 shows a pen carriage 16 of a plotter device to which the pencil drive unit PU shown in FIG. 4 is mounted.
1 and the positional relationship between the pencil 30 mounted on the pen carriage 16 is shown. In the figure, the pen carriage 16 includes a pen drive coil 41 that performs up and down movements of the pencil, a speed detection coil 42 that detects the up and down speed of the pencil, and a Z axis that detects the position of the Z axis (up and down direction) of the pencil. A position detector 43, a holder 45 provided on the pen carriage for holding the pencil 30, and a pen type mark 46m provided on the outer periphery of the pencil holder 53 is used to determine whether or not the pen in the writing state is a pencil. The pen type discriminator 46 for discriminating the pen type of the pencil 30, the tip tip sensor 46s for discriminating whether or not the pencil 30 to be used is an upper knock type pencil, and detecting the wear amount of the lead during writing operation, etc. Have.

As the tip chip sensor 46s described above, a magnetic sensor, an optical sensor, a contact sensor or the like can be used. The operation when these are used will be described below.

(1) In the case of using a magnetic sensor, for example, a part or the whole of the moving tip chip 51 is made of a magnetic material, and a detection coil or a Hall element, an MR sensor is provided by analog or digital magnetization. Is used as an analog or digital position signal to detect the amount of movement of the tip and judge as the amount of core wear and the signal without core. These sensors are extremely small and can be embedded in the pen carriage part or the pen finger part. In this case, when the cylindrical tip 51 is magnetized in the length direction as shown in FIG. 6A, the output signal from the tip sensor 46s, which is a magnetic sensor, is an analog signal output corresponding to the movement amount. Becomes

(2) When using an optical sensor, the tip 5
The movement amount of 1 is about 3 mm, which is an ON / OFF detection signal in a general optical sensor. However, by using a plastic fiber, the movement of the tip can be detected as a reflection or transmission type optical sensor. By continuously changing the reflection density of the tip chip in the moving direction, the output of the reflection type sensor
Obtained as an analog signal. 6 (b) and 6 (c),
An example of a transmission type optical sensor is shown.
The fibers F1a and F1b are arranged to face each other, and the fiber F
Light from a light emitting diode which is a light source is guided to 1a,
A light receiving element is attached to the fiber F1b. When the tip 51 moves up and down, the optical path between the fibers F1a and F1b described above is cut off to obtain the above-mentioned detection signal of a binary level. These signals are the conditions for starting the knocking operation for centering operation and the knocking operation for core feeding operation. By doing so, the amount of movement of the tip 51 can be read in units of 0.1 mm. FIG. 6C is an example in which two sets of the optical sensor system of FIG. That is, in this case, the tip 51 is formed in a stepwise cross section, and different stairs are detected by different optical sensor systems.

(3) In the case of the contact sensor, by making the tip chip a semiconductor or a conductor, the movement of the tip chip is electrically resistance between the contact sensor in contact with the tip chip and the sleeve in which the tip chip moves. It is detected as a value or the like and obtained as an ON / OFF signal or an analog signal.

Next, centering and core feeding operations will be described with reference to FIG. In the writing operation, the type of the pencil 30 is checked in step S11 under the control of the CPU 71. If the pencil 30 used is a general pen, the process proceeds to step S12 and general pen control is performed. If the pencil 30 to be used is an upper knock type multi-core pencil, the process proceeds to step S13. This pencil check is performed by the pen type discriminator 46 and the tip sensor 46s attached to the pen carriage 16. In addition, information on the pencil used is stored in the memory 73.
In step S13, the pencil 30 is moved down and the pencil 30 is placed in the writing state.
Then, the process proceeds to step S14 to check the presence or absence of the core. In this coreless check, it is checked whether or not the movement of the tip 51 due to wear of the core is a set condition (for example, the movement amount is 1 mm and the previous writing distance is 50 cm or more). If there is a core, the process moves to step S15 to continue the drawing operation.

If it is determined in step S14 that there is no core, the process moves to step 16 to perform the pen-up operation, and the process moves to step S17 to detect the movement of the tip chip 51 by the tip chip sensor 46s. In this case, when the tip 51 does not move during the pen-up operation,
It is determined that there is a core, and the process proceeds to step S19 and the pencil 3
Knock the upper part of 0 to perform centering and continue the drawing operation. Further, if the movement of the tip 51 is confirmed at the time of pen-up, it is determined in step S18 that there is no center.
If it is determined that there is no core, the process proceeds to step S20 to perform the core feeding operation and discharge the residual core. In order to confirm this core feeding operation, pen down is performed in step S21, and the coreless state is checked again in step S22. If no core is detected, the pen-up operation is performed in step S23, and the core is confirmed again by the output of the tip chip sensor 46s in step S24.

If it is determined in step S25 that there is no lead, it is determined that the lead holder 58 does not have a lead, and a new pencil is replaced in step S27. If no centering is confirmed, the process proceeds to step S26, the upper portion of the pencil 30 is knocked to perform centering, and the drawing operation is continued.

[0020]

As described above, when the core feeding system for the multi-core pencil according to the present invention is used, centering operation and
The core feeding operation can be performed reliably, stably and effectively with a simple structure.

[0021]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a cutaway cross-sectional view of an essential part showing an example of an upper knock type multi-core pencil used in the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the upper knock type multi-core pencil in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the operation of discharging the residual core of the upper knock type multicore pencil of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a system configuration of a multi-core feeding system used in the multi-pen plotter device of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a side view showing the structures of a pen and a pen carriage of the plotter used in the multi-core feeding system.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a moving tip and a detection sensor of an upper knock type multi-core pencil.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining operations of centering and core feeding using the plotter device of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 16 Pen Carriage 30 Pencil 42 Speed Detection Coil 43 Z Axis Position Detector 45 Holder 46 Pen Type Discriminator 46m Pen Type Mark 46s Tip Tip Sensor 51 Tip Tip 51a Detent Rubber 52 Chuck 53 Pencil Holder 55 Lead 56 Writing Lead ( Residual core) 58 Core holder 59 Cap 61 Spring 62 Spring 71 CPU 73 Memory (RAM) 74 I / O 75 Display panel 76 X-axis motor 77 Y-axis motor 78 Control circuit 79 D / A converter 80 Control circuit F1a, F1b Fiber

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A plotter device capable of exchanging a wide variety of pens, wherein the pen has a plurality of cores incorporated therein, and a tip, which holds the tip of the core with a detent, a chuck, a core holder, and these. It consists of a multi-core pencil consisting of a coil spring that biases the space between them, and a means for detecting the amount of movement of the tip that moves upward due to wear of the core, and no lead by moving the tip downward when pen-up A multi-pen plotter device comprising: a means for detecting the position of the pen, and a control means for controlling centering or pen replacement by the output of these detecting means.