JPH0635194B2 - Printer - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus capable of printing on the upper end of printing paper.

[Prior Art] In a conventional printing apparatus, in order to enable printing on the lower end of a printing paper, a paper pressing member having a plurality of pressure contact rollers that come into contact with the peripheral surface of the platen on the paper discharge side of the platen is rotated. It is movably mounted. Then, in order to feed the upper end of the print sheet between the pressure contact roller and the platen when the print sheet is attached, the sheet pressing member rotated by the biasing member to the closed position where the pressure contact roller and the platen come into contact with each other, The platen and the pressure roller are rotated to an open position separated from each other by an electromagnetic solenoid or the like. However, the printing apparatus provided with this type of paper pressing member requires many expensive parts, and the apparatus itself has a problem of high cost.

For this reason, the applicant of the present invention first rotates the paper pressing member from the closed position to the open position in association with the movement of the print head with respect to the one end side of the platen when mounting the print paper in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-21278. Then, a paper pressing device which can position the upper end of the printing paper between the pressure roller and the platen was proposed.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the printing apparatus provided with the above-described paper pressing device, the upper end portion of the printing paper supplied with the paper pressing member rotated to the open position is closed. Since the paper is fed to a position corresponding to the position, many unprintable margins are formed on the upper end of the printing paper. In particular, printing paper such as postcards having a small overall printing area needs to be printed on the upper end portion, but it is impossible to print on the upper end portion with the conventional paper pressing device. .

[Object of the Invention] An object of the present invention relates to an improvement of the invention of JP-A-60-21278, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus capable of efficiently printing on the upper end portion of a printing paper.

[Means for Solving the Problems] Therefore, according to the present invention, a first driving unit that rotationally drives the platen, a second driving unit that reciprocally drives the print head along a printing line of the platen, and a plurality of driving units are provided. The pressure contact roller is rotatably supported and moves between a closed position where the pressure contact roller and the platen contact each other on the platen rotation direction side from the printing position and an open position where the platen and the pressure contact roller are separated from each other. A sheet pressing member that is movably supported, an urging member that urges the sheet pressing member to the closed position, and when the print head moves to one end side of the platen, the print head moves in conjunction with the movement of the print head. An actuating member that moves the paper pressing member from the closed position to the open position against the urging force of the urging member, and the required amount of driving of the first driving means until the leading end of the printing paper reaches the printing position, and then the above-mentioned Second driving hand When the step is driven and the print head is print-controlled, and when the driving amount of the first driving unit accompanying the printing operation reaches the required amount,
The print head is moved back to the print position after the second drive means is driven so as to move the print head to one end side of the platen to move the paper pressing member from the closed position to the open position. Driving the second drive means to
The printing device is composed of the control means for controlling the printing so as to restart the printing operation.

[Operation of the Invention] Since the present invention is configured as described above, the first drive means is driven by the required amount, and the print head is print driven when the upper end of the supplied print paper reaches the print position. This enables printing on the upper edge of the printing paper. Then, the first driving means is driven by a required amount in association with the feeding of the paper during the printing operation, and when the upper end of the printing paper reaches the closed position of the paper pressing member, it is interlocked with the movement of the print head with respect to the one end side of the platen. Then, the paper pressing member is rotated from the closed position to the open position to position the upper end of the printing paper between the platen and the paper pressing member, and then the paper pressing is moved in accordance with the return movement of the print head with respect to the printing position. By returning the member from the open position to the closed position, the printing paper is pressed against the platen to restart the printing operation. As a result, it is possible to print on the upper edge of the printing paper, which could not be printed conventionally.

[Embodiment] The present invention will be described below according to an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a dot impact type printer.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a dot impact type printer according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a side view of the printer, and FIG. 3 is a schematic view of an operating member. A platen 5 is rotatably supported by a space (not shown in the drawing, and is shown by a chain line in FIG. 2). A step motor 7 (not shown in FIGS. 1 to 3) as a first driving means is connected to the platen 5, and the platen 5 is rotated in a required direction in accordance with the driving of the step motor 7. It Between the frames 3, a paper guide plate 9 curved according to the peripheral surface of the platen 5 is arranged so as to face the peripheral surface of the platen 5 on the paper supply side of the platen 5 with a required space. Mounted. 2 between the frames 3 corresponding to the paper guide plate 9
Book feed rollers 11 and 13 are in contact with the peripheral surface of the platen 5 on the sheet supply side and are rotatably supported. An elastically deformable paper holding film 15 made of synthetic resin is provided at the front end of the paper guide plate 9, and the upper end of the paper holding film 15 is almost entirely in the axial direction with respect to the peripheral surface of the platen 5 before the printing position of the platen 5. It is attached so as to abut over. A photocoupler 17 constituting a sheet detecting means is arranged in the notch 15a formed in the sheet pressing film 15. The photo coupler 17 includes a platen 5 and a paper feed roller 11.
A paper detection signal is output when the upper end of the printing paper 18 fed with the rotation of 13 has passed.

Two guide shafts 19 are horizontally provided between the frames 3 in parallel with the axis of the platen 5. A carriage 21 is supported on the guide shaft 19 so as to be slidable in the axial direction of the guide shaft 19. A carriage drive motor 23 (not shown in FIGS. 1 to 3) such as a step motor or a DC motor which constitutes a second drive means is connected to the carriage 21, and the carriage 21 is connected to the axis line of the platen 5. It is reciprocated in parallel with. A dot impact type print head 25 is mounted on the carriage 21. The print head 2
Reference numeral 5 magnetically drives a large number of built-in electromagnet devices based on the print data, and a print wire (not shown) corresponding to the electromagnet devices is print driven to print the print data in a dot matrix.

A pair of left and right paper bail arms 27 (only one of the paper bail arms 27 is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3) forming a paper pressing member is shown in FIG. 2 on the support shaft 26 fixed to the frame 3. It is rotatably supported between a closed position shown by a solid line and an open position shown by a double-dashed chain line. A support shaft 29 is fixed to the tip of each paper bail arm 27 so as to be substantially parallel to the axis of the platen 5.
A large number of pressure contact rollers 31 are supported on the support shaft 29 so as to be rotatable in the axial direction at required intervals. In addition, a large number of guide claws 33 are provided on the support shaft 29 to the press contact roller 3.
1 is attached to both shaft end sides. A pin 35 is fixed to the lower end of each paper bail arm 27.
The other end of a spring 36 as an urging means, one end of which is hooked in a hooking hole 3a of the frame 3 (shown by an alternate long and short dash line in FIG. 2), is hooked. As a result, the paper bail arm 27 is rotated clockwise around the support shaft 26 by the elastic force of the spring 36, and the press contact roller 31 is held in the closed position where it comes into contact with the peripheral surface of the platen 5. It

A three-armed actuating lever 37 forming a part of an actuating member is pivoted around a pin 41 erected on a support fitting 39 on the frame 3 corresponding to the right end side in the axial direction of the platen 5 shown in FIG. Supported as possible. The first arm portion 37a of the actuating lever 37 is loosely fitted into the lever opening 45 formed at the lower end portion of the paper bail arm 27 through the opening 43 formed in the frame 3. Second of the operating lever 37
A protrusion 47 is formed at the tip of the arm 37b. Then, when the carriage 21 moves to the right end side in the axial direction of the platen 5, the protrusion 47 slides on the cam surface 49a of the cam member 49 forming a part of the operating member attached to the carriage 21, and the pin 41 is moved. The actuating lever 37 is rotated counterclockwise as shown in FIG. An engaging recess 51 is formed at the tip of the third arm portion 37c of the operating lever 37. When the operating lever 37 rotates counterclockwise about the pin 41 as the protrusion 47 slides on the cam surface 49a, the engaging recess 51 is fixed to the carriage 21. Engage 53.

Next, referring to FIG. 4 showing an outline of control of the printer 1 configured as described above, a central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as CPU) 61 as a control means is provided with an external device (not shown) such as a computer and a keyboard. Connected via the interface 63, and print data of various types from the external device
Input to U61. A photo coupler 17 is connected to the CPU 61, and a paper detection signal is input from the photo coupler 17. The CPU 61 has a ROM 65 and an R
AM67 is connected respectively. The ROM 65 has a program data area 69, a pattern data area 71 and a step number data area 73. The program data area 69 stores various program data such as feeding data to be printed on the upper end of the printing paper 18 described later. The pattern data area 71 stores dot pattern data corresponding to various print data. The step number data area 73 has a first step number data N, which will be described later.
1 and the second step number data N2 are stored respectively.
The first step number data N1 is the photocoupler 1
It is the number of driving steps of the step motor 7 until the upper end of the printing paper 18 that has passed 7 reaches the printing position. Also,
The second step number data N2 is the number of driving steps of the step motor 7 until the upper end of the printing paper 18 that has passed through the photo coupler 17 reaches the closed position of the paper bail arm 27. The RAM 67 is an input buffer area 75
It has a print buffer area 77 and a step number counter area 79. In the input buffer area 75, for example, print data for one print line input from an external device is stored. The print buffer area 77 stores dot pattern data transferred from the pattern data area 71 based on the print data stored in the input buffer area 75. The step number counter area 79 sequentially increments each time the step motor 7 is driven by one step when a sheet detection signal is output from the photocoupler 17, and measures the feeding amount of the printing sheet 18.

A print head drive circuit 81 is connected to the CPU 61. The print head drive circuit 81 selectively drives the electromagnet device of the print head 25 based on the dot pattern data transferred from the print buffer area 77, and prints the print wire corresponding to the electromagnet device. The C
A platen drive circuit 83 is connected to the PU 61. The platen drive circuit 83 drives the step motor 7 based on the paper feed data input from an external device to feed the print paper 18. A carriage drive circuit 85 is connected to the CPU 61. The carriage drive circuit 85 drives the carriage drive motor 23 based on the print instruction data input from the external device to move the carriage 21. Further, the carriage driving circuit 85 drives the carriage driving motor 23 based on the paper bail opening command data, and moves the carriage 21 to the right end side in the axial direction of the platen 5 beyond the normal printing range.

Next, the paper feeding operation will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 5 shows a flow for printing on the upper end of the printing paper,
In FIGS. 6 to 8 showing the sheet feeding state and FIG. 9 showing the opening operation of the paper bail, the CPU 61 drives the step motor 7 based on the sheet feeding data input from the external device in step 91. . As a result, the printing paper 18 supplied between the platen 5 and the paper guide plate 9 is fed to the printing position side by the platen 5 and the paper feed rollers 11 and 13 which rotate in the opposite direction in synchronization with the platen 5. . Then, the CPU 61 determines whether or not the upper end of the printing paper 18 fed in step 93 has passed the photo coupler 17 and a paper detection signal has been output from the photo coupler 17. If the fed printing paper 18 has not been fed to the photocoupler 17 and the determination is NO, the process returns to step 91. On the contrary, a paper detection signal is output from the photocoupler 17, and the judgment is YES.
In the case of, in step 95, the CPU 61 executes the step number counter area 79 for each step driving of the step motor 7.
Is sequentially incremented by 1. Then, the CPU 61 determines in step 97 whether or not the number of steps stored in the step number counter area 79 has reached the number of steps of the first step number data N1 stored in the step number data area 73. And the step number counter area 79
The number of steps stored in is the first step number data N1.
If the upper end of the printing paper 18 has not reached the printing position within the number of steps of step 1), the determination is NO and the process returns to step 95. On the contrary, when the number of steps stored in the step number counter area 79 reaches the number of steps of the first step number data N1, the judgment is YES. At this time, as shown in FIG. 6, the upper end of the printing paper 18 mounted on the platen 5 is fed to the printing position. Next, the CPU 61 suspends the driving of the step motor 7 in step 99 and then moves the carriage 21 along the print line at the upper end of the print paper 18 to move the print head 25 to the dot pattern data transferred from the print buffer area 77. Printing is driven based on this. As a result, the print data is printed on the upper end of the print paper 18 in the dot matrix format.

Then, the CPU 61 sequentially increments the step number counter area 79 each time the step motor 7 is driven in accordance with the printing operation in step 101, and the step number stored in the step number counter area 79 becomes the step number of the second step number data N2. Determine whether or not
If the number of steps stored in the step number counter area 79 is less than or equal to the number of steps of the second step number data N2, and the upper end of the print sheet 18 is not fed to the position corresponding to the closed position of the paper bail arm 27, Step 10
When 1 becomes NO, the process returns to step 99. On the contrary, as shown in FIG. 7, the number of steps stored in the step number counter area 79 is the number of steps corresponding to the second step number data N2, and the upper end of the printing paper 18 is the paper bail arm 2
When the closed position 7 is reached and the determination is YES, the CPU 6
In step 103, the carriage drive motor 23 is driven based on the paper bail opening command data in step 103, and the carriage 21 is moved to the right end side in the axial direction of the platen 5 beyond the normal printing range. As a result, as shown in FIG. 9, the protrusion 47 of the second arm portion 37 causes the cam surface 49 of the cam member 49 to move.
9a is slid, and the operating lever 37 is rotated counterclockwise around the pin 41. Then, as shown in FIG. 8, the paper bail arm 27 engaged with the first arm portion 37a of the operating lever 37 as the operating lever 37 rotates causes the support shaft 26 to move against the elastic force of the spring 36. It rotates counterclockwise around the center and moves the pressure contact roller 31 from the closed position to the intermediate position. At this time, the guide claw 33 crosses over the upper end of the printing paper 18, so that the upper end of the printing paper 18 is positioned between the pressure roller 31 and the platen 5. Further, the engagement recess 51 of the third arm portion 37c engages with the engagement pin 53 to maintain the rotating state of the paper bail arm 27.

Next, the CPU 61 proceeds to step 105 to execute the carriage 21.
Is moving to the right end side of the platen 5 in the axial direction. When the carriage 21 is not moved to the right end side of the platen 5 in the axial direction and therefore the pressure contact roller 31 is not moved to the open position, the determination is NO, and the process returns to step 103. On the contrary, when the carriage 21 moves to the right end side in the axial direction of the platen 5 and the determination in step 105 is YES, the CPU 61 drives the carriage drive motor 23 in step 107 to move the print head 25 back to the original print position. To be done. At this time, the carriage 21
The engagement of the engagement pin 53 with the engagement recess 51 is released in accordance with the returning movement of the above, and the projection 47 of the second arm portion 37b returns to the original position while sliding on the cam surface 49a of the cam member 49. The operating lever 37 is rotated clockwise about the pin 41. As a result, the paper bail arm 27 is rotated by the elastic force of the spring 39 to a closed position where the pressure contact roller 31 and the platen 5 are in contact with each other, and presses the upper end portion of the printing paper 18 against the platen 5. At this time, the guide claw 33 guides the upper end of the printing paper 18 to the peripheral surface side of the platen 5 as the paper bail arm 27 rotates.
The printing paper 18 can be pressed against the platen 5.

Next, in step 109, the CPU 61 causes the carriage 21
The print head 25 is driven to print while moving along the print line, and required print data is printed on the print paper 18 in a dot matrix format.

The paper feeding action when printing is performed by providing a margin on the upper end of the printing paper 18 is the same as that described in JP-A-60-21278, and a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

As described above, in this embodiment, the printing operation is started when the upper end of the printing paper 18 is fed to the printing position before the closed position of the paper bail arm 27, and the upper end of the printing paper 18 is moved according to the printing operation. When the paper bail arm 27 is fed to the closed position, the paper bail arm 27
Is rotated once from the closed position to the open position to position the upper end of the printing paper 18 between the pressure contact roller 31 and the platen 5, and then the paper bail arm 27 is returned to the closed position for printing by the pressure contact roller 31. It is possible to print while pressing the paper 18 against the platen 5. Therefore, it is possible to print the print data without providing a blank portion at the upper end of the print paper 18.

In the above description, the actuating member is composed of the actuating lever 37 and the cam member 49 as shown in Japanese Utility Model Application No. 60-14424. However, a bevel gear is partially formed on the outer periphery and a shaft pin is erected. It may be an actuating member having a structure in which the member is rotatably supported at one end of the platen 5 and the bevel gear is meshed with a gear formed at the lower end of the paper bail arm 27. When the print head 25 moves to one end side of the platen 5, the operating member rotates the rotating member in a desired direction by an axial pin that abuts a part of the print head 25,
The paper bail arm 27 meshed with the bevel gear is rotated from the closed position to the open position.

In the above description, after the paper edge is detected by the detecting means 17,
Although the platen 5 is rotated by the required number of steps, the end of the sheet is brought into contact with the contact point between the platen 5 and the roller 11 or a stopper provided on the guide plate 9, and the platen 5 is rotated by the required number of steps from that state. You can also do it.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the present invention can provide a printing apparatus capable of efficiently printing on the upper end portion of a printing sheet.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the outline of a dot impact type printer, FIG. 2 is a schematic side view showing the side condition of the printer, FIG. 3 is a plan view showing the configuration of an operating member, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a block diagram shown in FIG. 5, FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the sheet feeding operation, and FIGS. 6 to 9 are explanatory diagrams showing the operation. In the figure, 1 is a printer as a printing device, 3 is a frame, and 5
Is a platen, 7 is a step motor as a first driving means, 17 is a photocoupler as a paper detecting means, 18 is a printing paper, 23 is a carriage driving motor as a second driving means, 25 is a print head, and 27 is a paper. Paper bail as a pressing member, 31 is a pressure contact roller, 36 is a spring as an urging member, 37 is an operating lever forming a part of the operating member, 49 is a cam member forming a part of the operating member, and 61 is a control. CPU as means, N1 is step number data according to the number of steps, and N2 is step number data according to the number of steps.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A first driving means for rotationally driving a platen, a second driving means for reciprocally driving a print head along a printing line of the platen, and a plurality of pressure contact rollers rotatably supported for printing. A sheet pressing member movably supported between a closed position where the pressure contact roller and the platen abut on the rotation direction side of the platen from a position and an open position where the platen and the pressure contact roller are separated from each other; A biasing member that biases the paper pressing member to the closed position, and a paper that resists the biasing force of the biasing member in association with the movement of the print head when the print head moves to one end side of the platen. An actuating member for moving the holding member from the closed position to the open position, and driving the first driving means by a required amount until the leading edge of the printing paper reaches the printing position, and then driving the second driving means and the printing. Heh When the amount of drive of the first drive means accompanying the printing operation reaches a required amount, the print head is once moved to one end side of the platen to move the paper pressing member from the closed position to the open position. Control means for driving the second drive means so as to move the print head to the print position, then driving the second drive means for returning the print head to the print position, and performing print control so as to restart the print operation. And a printing device. 2. The control means has a paper detection means before the printing position in the rotational direction of the platen, and drives the first drive means by a required amount based on a detection signal from the paper detection means. The printing device according to claim 1.