JPH06143583A - Print controller for ink jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily execute stressing of a character, sorting of contents, etc., by dividing a character row to be formed arbitrarily into a plurality of parts, and arbitrarily designating a character height and a character width in a range of heights and widths of characters to be printed by the use of ink jet. CONSTITUTION:Step waves of blocks are so prepared in a video RAM 21 that heights of characters can be designated at the respective blocks. Further, a column counter 6 for switching the character width at each block in synchronization therewith is provided, and control RAM 13 is provided as means for switching it in response to necessity during printing. As a result, since the arbitrary height and width of the character can be designated at arbitrary place of the character row, high lighting of the character and sorting of the contents can be easily executed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print control device for an ink jet printer according to a charge control system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional apparatus cannot freely specify the height and width of a character in the middle of a print character string. Also, in multi-stage printing, it was not possible to freely specify the height and width of characters for each stage.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to make it possible to specify an arbitrary character height and character width at an arbitrary position in a character string.

[0004]

[Means for solving the problems] A step wave for each block is prepared in advance so that the height of a character can be specified for each block, and a means for switching as needed during printing and synchronization therewith Then, a means for switching the character width for each block is provided.

[0005]

[Function] The height of characters can be specified for each block.
The magnitude of the charging voltage signal can be changed and the height of the character can be changed by preparing the staircase wave for each block in advance and switching it as needed during printing. Further, in synchronization with this, by switching the character width for each block, the width and height of the character can be changed at the same time.

[0006]

1 is a block diagram of a print control device for an ink jet printer according to the present invention. The microprocessor (MPU) 1 is a main circuit element that controls the overall control of the inkjet printer, and the ROM 2 is a read-only memory that stores programs and control data necessary for the MPU 1 to operate. The RAM 3 is a rewritable memory that temporarily stores data and the like handled by the MPU 1 during execution of the program. Bus line 4
Is a signal line for transmitting a data signal, an address signal and a control signal of the MPU 1.

A first-in first-out register (FIFO) 5 stores dot data of a character pattern output from the MPU 1 in 1-byte units. FIF
The output of O5 is guided to the selector (C) 8. The selector (C) 8 converts 8-bit dot data output from the FIFO 5 in parallel into serial signals by sequentially selecting and outputting the 8-bit dot data.

A peripheral interface adapter (PIA) 11 mediates input / output of various signals. The buffer (A) 12 has a function of connecting the data bus (D signal) in the MPU bus line 4 to the data bus (D signal) of the control RAM 13 and specifying a data flow direction. The control RAM 13 is the M
Various control information necessary for sequentially executing print control by the PU1 according to a predetermined procedure is accumulated.
The selector (E) 14 is for switching the address information given to the control RAM 13.

The spread switch 15 is for setting the utilization rate of ink particles continuously generated from the nozzles (allocation rate to matrix = thinning rate). The excitation setting switch 16 sets the frequency of the excitation signal applied to the nozzle 32 and specifies the generation cycle of ink particles generated from the nozzle 32. The frequency dividing counter 17 outputs the signal output from the oscillator 18 to the thinning switch 1
5, Divide based on the setting value of the excitation setting switch 16,
The count signal OT1 for obtaining the staircase wave data for generating the charging voltage, the thinning-out timing signal OT2, and the excitation signal OT3 for exciting the nozzle 32 are generated.

The column counter 6 repeatedly operates at a cycle of a number including the number of print dots in the vertical direction and the number of idle dots for adjusting the character width. The total number of dots is P of PIA11.
It is given by A0 to PA7. The staircase wave counter 19 receives a clear signal for each column from the column counter 6, and thereafter counts sequentially from 0 to 1 dot every ascending order. The output (OT1) of the counter is given to the selector (F) 22. The output signals of PB0 to PB2 of PIA11 are also given to the selector (F) 22. This signal, which will be described in detail later, specifies the format. The output of the selector (F) 22 is given to the video RAM 21.
The buffer (B) 20 is used for data input / output of the video RAM 21. The video RAM 21 stores the staircase wave according to the designated format, and also includes information on the character height. The shift register 24 outputs dot data (output port QC) corresponding to ink particles in the charge control target column and dot data (output ports QA, QB, QD, QE) corresponding to ink particles before and after the same. is there. The dot data corresponding to the front and rear ink particles is used for distortion correction, and the description thereof is omitted here.
The AND gate 29 is an AND gate for generating a charging voltage signal, and is composed of 12 AND gate elements corresponding to each bit of the 12-bit digital signal given from the video RAM 21, and each AND gate element is a video RA.
In addition to one of the signals given from M21, the dot data outputted from the output port QC of the shift register (B) 24, and the column print area signal outputted from the control RAM 13 so as to specify the timing for printing one row of the matrix , The print start signal output from the output port OT3 of the PIA 11 and the output port O of the frequency division counter 17
The thinning-out timing signal output from T2 is commonly input. The D / A converter 30 is for converting the digital charging signal output from the AND gate 29 into an analog signal, and is an amplifier (AMP) 31 in the subsequent stage.
Amplifies its output to a charging voltage. The nozzle 32 ejects the pressurized ink and gives vibration to the ink according to the excitation signal to identify the particle formation. The charging electrode 33 is
The ink ejected from the nozzle 32 is arranged so as to surround a position where the ink is turned into particles, and the charging voltage is applied to charge the ink particles. The deflection electrode (+) 34, the deflection electrode (-) 35, and the high voltage source 36 form a deflection electric field in the ink particle flight path, and the ink particles 37 that fly in the deflection electric field.
Is deflected according to the amount of charge.

The conveyor belt 42 carries a workpiece 40 to be printed by an ink jet printer and conveys the workpiece 40 at a predetermined constant speed in a direction orthogonal to the deflection direction of the ink particles 37. The gutter 38 is arranged in the flight path of the unused ink particles so as to capture and collect the unused ink particles not used for dot printing. The sensor 39 is the work 4 conveyed by the conveyor belt 42.
The detection of the arrival of 0 is used to execute the printing (charging) control in synchronization with the passage of the work 40 in the printing area facing the nozzle 32. The input panel 41 is used to set print contents (characters), specify the height and width of characters, and specify the type of matrix. With the above, the description of the configuration of the present invention is completed, and then a printing example of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. Figure 2-Print example (1) has 5 matrices
X7 (horizontal x vertical) but block 2 compared to block 1
Has a larger character height and character width.
Conventionally, when the matrix is the same, only the same character height and character width can be set. Further, in the case of two-step printing as shown in FIG. 2-Printing example (2), it becomes possible to change the character height of the upper and lower characters. See also FIG.
-It is possible to change the matrix and further change the character height even in the case of one-step printing as in the printing example (3).

In order to freely control the character height and character width as shown in FIG. 2, the present invention takes the following measures. First, it was decided to control the charging voltage applied to the charging electrodes block by block because the character height is the inkjet of the charging control system.

In the case of FIG. 2 (printing example (1)), the staircase wave for block 1 and the staircase wave for block 2 are preliminarily video RA
This is a method of preparing in M21 and switching and printing for each block. In Figure 3, block 1 of printing example (1)
An example of a staircase wave corresponding to 2 is shown. All the staircase data,
It is stored in the video RAM 21 and its calling address is as shown in FIG. First, (2-0)-(2
The 6th bit of -5) is an address to input the step of the staircase wave. As shown in FIG. 3, each time the step of the staircase wave is stepped up by a binary number, the value of the data also increases. Although it becomes larger, block 2 is larger than block 1. This indicates that the block 2 has a higher character height. Returning to FIG. 6, further, (2-
6) to (2-8) will be described. This bit is a designation of the format, and when the staircase wave is different for each block, it is switched by this format. Explaining the printing example (1) in FIG. 2, the usage is such that the block 1 is the format 0 and the block 2 is the format 1.

When actually printing, block 1
Staircase wave, that is, format 0, PB0 of PIA11
~ PB2 gives an instruction in advance (in this example, 0,
(0,0) When printing of block 1 is completed, PIA11 of format 1 is set before printing of block 2 is started.
Is designated by PB0 to PB2 (= 1 in the case of this example,
0,0). In this way, by changing the format in the middle of printing, the height of characters can be changed for each block. Further, (2-9) to (2-12) in FIG. 6 are addresses for distortion correction and are not related, and therefore description thereof will be omitted.

In the case of FIG. 2-printing example (2), it is not necessary to have a staircase wave for each block, and the charging voltage may be changed according to the character height on the upper side and the lower side as shown in FIG. In this case, it is not necessary to prepare two types of formats.

In the case of FIG. 2-printing example (3), it is possible to make the heights of characters uniform even if the blocks have staircase waves as shown in FIG. 5 and the matrices are different. In this case, two types of formats are required, and it is necessary to switch the formats after printing block 1.

Regarding the character width, when different staircase waves are used for each block as shown in FIG. 2-printing example (1) and FIG. 2-printing example (3), set the character width for each block. You can Character width is PA0 of PIA11
It is performed by the 8-bit output signal of PA7. This signal is a character width setting value and an initial setting value input A to H of the calling line counter 6.
It is in. That is, the count cycle of the column counter 6 is controlled by this value. If the cycle of the column counter 6 is short, the cycle of the staircase wave counter that rotates in synchronization with the cycle is naturally shortened, the printing speed is increased, and the width of the character is narrowed. On the contrary, if the cycle of the column counter 6 is long, naturally the cycle of the staircase wave counter that rotates in synchronization with it is also long, the printing speed is low, and the width of the character is wide. In this way, the object of the present invention can be achieved by switching the character width setting value for each block during printing.

Next, the data processing executed by the MPU 1 for print control will be described. This embodiment is configured so that the print content is set in advance before the printing operation is started. FIG. 7 is a processing flow for this presetting.

In process 100, the instruction signal from the input panel 41 is checked to see if the print content has been changed. If there is, process 101 is executed. If not, process 10
Move to 2. As an outline of the operation of the process 101, since the previously input data is stored in the RAM 3, it is determined whether the data is replaced with new data or added. When executing printing, the printing data stored in the RAM 3 is referred to during printing.

At step 102, it is checked whether the character height is changed. If so, the process 107 is executed. If not, process 1
Move to 03. In process 107, the video RAM and the control RAM are rewritten according to the character height instruction. In addition, PIA11 (PA0-PA7, PB0-
PB2) is also set as necessary. The following processing 103,
If even one of all of 104, 105, and 106 needs to be switched, the process 107 is executed. If there are multiple changes, they are collectively changed in the process 107. Figure 7
In the process 106, changing the posture means that the character (inverted /
Upright) It means switching.

The role of the control RAM 13 will be described. Basically, the same address as the video RAM is given. Therefore, the data in the control RAM is read out in synchronization with the staircase wave. FIG. 8 shows allocation of output data from the control RAM 13. (2-0) to (2-2) of the control RAM 13 are data selection instructions and are A, B and C inputs of the selector C (8). The selector C (8) converts the 8-bit parallel signal output from the FIFO (5) into a serial signal. The (2-3) of the control RAM 13 is a bit indicating whether the video data is valid. (2-4) of the control RAM 13 is FIFO
This is a read command for (5).

[0022]

According to the present invention, since an arbitrary character height and character width can be designated at an arbitrary position in a character string, there is an effect that it is possible to easily emphasize a character or classify a content.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an inkjet printer according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a printing example using the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing staircase wave data of a printing example (1).

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing staircase wave data of a printing example (2).

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing staircase wave data of a printing example (3).

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing address allocation of a video RAM.

FIG. 7 is a key input processing flow chart.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing output data allocation of a control RAM.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Microprocessor (MPU), 6 ... Column counter,
13 ... control RAM, 19 ... staircase wave counter, 2
1 ... Video RAM.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Internal reference number FI technical display location B41J 2/51 2/485 19/32 9212-2C 19/96 A 9212-2C 9012-2C B41J 3 / 04 104 H 9211-2C 3/10 101 E 8703-2C 3/12 L

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. Ink particles are jetted from a nozzle and vibrated at a constant cycle to atomize the ink at a constant cycle, and a staircase-shaped charging signal is applied to a charging electrode to thereby form the ink particles. A character string to be formed in an ink jet printer that forms characters by imparting electric charge to the particles and vertically deflecting the charged particles by flying in a deflection electric field to relatively move the object to be printed substantially at right angles to the vertical deflection of the ink particles. Inkjet characterized by being divided into arbitrary plural parts, and for each block divided into the plural parts, the height of the character and the width of the character can be arbitrarily specified within the range of the height and width of the character that can be printed by the inkjet Printer print controller. 2. In claim 1, when a plurality of character strings are stacked in the height direction and printed in multiple stages at once, the character string for each stage is divided into arbitrary plural parts and divided into the plural parts. A print control device for an ink jet printer, wherein the height and width of a character can be arbitrarily specified for each block. 3. The number of vertical dots and horizontal dots of a dot matrix for dividing a character string to be formed into arbitrary plural parts and forming one character in each of the plural divided parts according to claim 1 or 2. A print control device for an inkjet printer, wherein the height and width of a character can be arbitrarily specified for each block even when the number is arbitrarily specified and each block is printed in a different matrix.