JPH0664237A - Recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To realize printing recording of high image quality by constituting a driving control part so that two steps of single phase excitation and two-phase excitation are set to one unit to control a stepping motor in a plurality of units and the image data of a plurality of lines are recorded in synchronous relation to the drive timing of the motor. CONSTITUTION:In a facsimile apparatus, the receiving data transmitted to a modem 13 is converted to a digital signal which is, in turn, once accumulated in the line buffer of a memory part (line buffer) 14 to be transmitted to a plotter part (stepping motor, recording paper, recording part) 15 to apply recording to recording paper. In this case, the stepping motor transferring recording paper in the plotter part 15 is changed over to one of a two-phase exciting system always exciting two phases and a 1-1 phase exciting system repeating single phase excitation and two-phase excitation alternately to be driven and, in the 1-2 phase exciting system, two steps of single phase excitation and two-phase excitation are set to one unit and the driving of the stepping motor is controlled in a plurality of units. The image data of two lines are recorded on recording paper in this drive timing.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

The present invention relates to a single printer,
Further, the present invention relates to a recording device used as a plotter part of a facsimile machine or the like, and more particularly to a recording device which drives a stepping motor by a 1-2 phase excitation method in which 1-phase excitation and 2-phase excitation are alternately repeated.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a recording device such as a thermal recording type, a dot impact type, or a laser beam type (electrophotographic type) has been widely used as a plotter section of a facsimile machine or the like. Many adopt a stepping motor that rotates in the drive source.

A conventional recording apparatus of this type is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open No. 2-65560.
The excitation method of the stepping motor is 2-phase excitation or 1-2.
The sub-scanning line density is changed by switching to the phase excitation method. That is, by changing the motor excitation method from the 2-phase excitation method to the 1-2-phase excitation method, the feeding amount of the recording paper within a predetermined time is reduced to about 1/2.

Here, the difference between the two-phase excitation method and the 1-2-phase excitation method will be described. The stepping motor used in the conventional recording apparatus has a movement angle of 7.5 degrees in one step in the case of two-phase excitation, but in the case of 1-2 phase excitation, it is 3.
I only have a moving angle of 75 degrees. Further, in the two-phase excitation, two phases are always excited, whereas in the one-two-phase excitation, the case of exciting one phase and the case of exciting two phases appear alternately. From this, it can be easily inferred that the output torque and the reaction speed are different between the one-phase excitation and the two-phase excitation in the 1-2 phase excitation. Therefore, when there is a load, the feeding amount of the recording paper does not reach half in many cases in one-phase excitation.

[0005]

FIG. 6 is a characteristic diagram showing the amount of movement of the recording paper by the 1-2 phase excitation method in the conventional recording apparatus. The illustrated 1-2 phase excitation is 100 pps
(Pulse Per Second) motor control sporadically 2
It shows an example of data printing for each line subjected to phase excitation and one-phase excitation. As shown in the figure, when trying to print different data for each excitation by driving the motor of 1-2 phase excitation, the movement amount of the recording paper in the 1 phase excitation state and the movement amount of the recording paper in the 2 phase excitation state However, there is a problem that the feeding accuracy of the recording paper becomes non-uniform, and uniform printing cannot be performed, so that high image quality cannot be obtained.

In addition, regarding the angular accuracy of one step of the motor, when the load is small, there is almost no difference between the two-phase excitation and the 1-2-phase excitation, which is about 0.5 degree. Therefore, in the case of 2-phase excitation, 0.5 / 7.5, or 1
In the case of -2 phase excitation, the value is 0.5 / 3.75, so that the 1-2 phase excitation, which has a smaller movement angle of 1 step, is less accurate per step than the 2-phase excitation, and the unevenness is caused. High risk of printing. As described above, the tendency of uneven printing is increased when the rotation speed of the motor is low, and the disadvantage of the 1-2 phase excitation whose rotation speed is slower than the 2-phase excitation cannot be denied.

Further, the stepping motor driving method includes a constant voltage driving method and a constant current driving method, both of which are often used, but the latter has a drawback of high cost. Therefore, the constant voltage driving method has become the mainstream in recent recording devices. However, this constant voltage driving method is basically unsuitable for minute drive control of the motor, and is a cause of the uneven printing.

Therefore, in the invention of claim 1, in the 1-2 phase excitation system in which the two-phase excitation and the one-phase excitation are alternately repeated, the sporadic or intermittent motor drive by the one-phase excitation alone is modified. By rotating the motor in multiple units, with two steps combined with phase excitation as one unit, rotation control that guarantees a uniform amount of movement of the recording paper is realized, and
It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording apparatus that overcomes the disadvantages of low-voltage driving and the disadvantages of low-speed rotation and realizes high-quality print recording.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, the motor is driven in units of two steps, which is a minimum combination unit of two-phase excitation and one-phase excitation, so that the recording is performed on the recording paper in association with the main drive control. It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording apparatus that realizes high-quality print recording at low cost by minimizing the configuration of peripheral devices such as a recording unit that performs the above. Then 2
In order to drive the motor step by step, it is necessary to print and record data for two lines on the recording paper in accordance with the motor drive. However, in order to transfer the data from the line buffer to the recording unit, a predetermined transfer time, for example, 1
It takes 0 ms, and the data transfer is performed sequentially for the first line, the second line and the transfer time. Here, paying attention to the drive timing shown in FIG. 6, this is two-phase excitation,
This is an example in which one-phase excitation is sporadically performed, and the drive interval is 10 ms. On the other hand, when the motor is driven in units of 2 steps, the drive interval becomes 5 ms. Therefore, for example, in the case of continuously printing and recording the n line and the (n + 1) line in FIG. 6, the two-phase excitation pulse that drives the first step at 0 ms and the one-phase excitation pulse that drives the second step at 5 ms. A pulse will be output. Therefore, when the one-phase excitation pulse is output at 5 ms intervals (at 5 ms), the second line is still on (n
Data of line +1) has not been transferred to the recording unit,
Continuous recording of 2 lines according to motor drive in 2 step units is not possible.

Therefore, according to the third aspect of the invention, from the time when the data of the first line is transferred to the recording unit and printing is possible,
By delaying the print timing of the first line in anticipation of the data transfer time of the second line, the first and second lines are delayed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording apparatus which realizes continuous recording of two lines. In this case, in FIG. 6, the printing timing of n lines and the driving timing of the first step are delayed by 5 ms, but when the recording unit is a thermal recording unit using a thermal recording member such as a thermal head, The delay reduces the temperature of the thermal head,
There is a possibility that it may not be possible to heat to the proper temperature at the time of 5 ms. This becomes remarkable especially when there is a lapse of time until the printing of the nth line which is the first line.

Therefore, according to the invention of claim 4, when the printing timing of the first line and the driving timing of the first step are delayed, the preliminary printing is performed within this delay time so that the heat is generated before the main printing. An object of the present invention is to provide a recording device that preheats a recording member to a certain temperature to ensure an appropriate recording temperature in the main printing. Next, the print pulse applied to the thermal recording member, for example, the thermal head during the preliminary printing is not applied to all the heads, but is applied according to the data of the first line. Therefore, if the data of the first line is all white, there are no pixels for preheating, and there is no effect of preprinting.

Therefore, the invention according to claim 5 provides a recording apparatus which guarantees a preliminary printing effect by writing the data of the second line twice when the data of the first line is all white. Has an aim. However, in this case, the transfer of the data of the second line from the line buffer to the recording unit is completed at 10 ms in FIG. 6 as described above. Therefore, the transfer of the data of the second line is not yet completed at the printing timing of the first line, that is, the driving timing of the first step, which is 5 ms in the above description. Therefore, the original print timing of the first line is 0 m
10m delayed from the point s by exactly one data transfer time
It is necessary to delay the print timing of the first line until time s.

Therefore, in the invention according to claim 6, the print timing of the first line is delayed in anticipation of the data transfer time of the second line, so that the data transfer of the second line is completed and the first line is reserved. It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording device capable of printing. Further, in the invention according to claim 7, by setting the recording energy of the preliminary printing to a value lower than the recording energy of the main printing, the heat generation temperature during the preliminary printing is suppressed to the coloring temperature or less, and it is originally an all white line. An object of the present invention is to provide a recording device that prevents recording on a certain first line.

Next, in the prior art, when all the data of one line is white, in order to shorten the recording time, or in the case of a facsimile machine, the communication time is shortened in order to shorten the communication time. A method of transporting only the recording paper without recording (printing) the line has been adopted. This is generally called a white line skip. A conventional recording apparatus of this type is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 59-63885, but in the white line skip, the motor is step-fed without performing the data transfer.
The throughput is increased by cutting down the time required for unnecessary data transfer.

If there is at least two kinds of the amount of conveyance (movement amount) of the recording paper, and one does not have the amount of conveyance twice as large as the other, the above-mentioned white line skip becomes ineffective. . That is, there is no effect unless the conveyance time of the recording paper is faster than the recording time of one line. The two types of movement amounts, that is, the motor drive corresponds to the two-phase excitation method and the 1-2-phase excitation method. It should be noted that, in a facsimile apparatus, the above-described conveyance amount of the recording paper generally corresponds to the sub-scanning line density.

However, such a conventional white line skip has not been a particular drawback, but if the motor is driven in units of two steps, it is performed in units of one step and one line. It is necessary to consider the white line skip of. Therefore, the invention according to claim 8 provides a recording apparatus that realizes a white line skip suitable for driving a motor in two-step units by performing a white line skip when both two lines are all white data. It is an object.

Further, in the ninth aspect of the invention, in the halftone mode, since there is no all white line in advance and skip operation is not performed, the all white line determination process is omitted and the process is simplified and speeded up. It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording device that aims.

[0018]

The invention according to claim 1 is
In order to achieve the above object, a stepping motor is step-driven by a 1-2-phase excitation method in which one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation are alternately repeated, recording paper fed in predetermined steps by driving the stepping motor, and In a recording device including a recording unit that prints and records image information for each line on a recording paper, and a line buffer that stores image information of a plurality of lines printed and recorded by the recording unit in advance for each line, A drive control unit that controls the driving of the stepping motor in a plurality of units with two steps of excitation and two-phase excitation as one unit, and image information of a plurality of lines in the recording unit in synchronization with the drive timing of the plurality of units. A recording control unit for continuously recording on recording paper.

According to a second aspect of the invention, in order to achieve the above object, in the recording apparatus according to the first aspect,
The stepping motor drive is controlled in units of two steps of phase excitation and two-phase excitation as one unit, and the image information of two lines is recorded in the recording unit in synchronization with the drive timing in which the two steps are regarded as one unit. It is characterized by continuously recording on recording paper.

Further, in order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 3 is the recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the printing timing of the first line is recorded before the second line by the recording section. Is delayed by an amount corresponding to half the data transfer time after the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit, and the drive timing of the first step of the stepping motor is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit by the first line. Is delayed by a maximum of half the data transfer time after the data is transferred.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the invention according to claim 4 is the recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the recording portion is a heat-sensitive recording portion using a thermal recording member,
It is characterized in that a recording unit is provided and preliminary printing is performed within a delay time until the printing timing of the first line. Further, in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the invention according to claim 5 is the same as claim 3
In the recording apparatus described above, when the recording unit is a thermal recording unit using a thermal recording member, the drive timing of the first step and the print timing of the first line are delayed when the data of the first line is all white. , The preliminary printing is performed on the first line by the data of the second line.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, in the recording apparatus according to the fifth aspect, the drive timing of the first step and the print timing of the first line are set to the data transfer time. It is characterized in that the printing timing of the first line is delayed by half, and the printing timing of the first line is delayed by the total data transfer time after the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit.

Further, in order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 7 sets the recording energy of the preliminary printing to a value lower than the recording energy of the main printing in the recording apparatus according to claim 5 or 6. It is characterized by having done. Further, in order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 8 is characterized in that, in the recording apparatus according to claim 5, white line skipping is performed when both two lines are all white data.

In order to achieve the above object, the invention according to claim 9 is characterized in that, in the recording apparatus according to claim 8, white line skip is prohibited in the halftone mode.

[0025]

In the invention having the above-mentioned structure, the drive control unit performs two steps of one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation in one step.
The drive of the stepping motor is controlled in units of a plurality of units, and the recording control unit causes the recording unit to continuously record the image information of a plurality of lines on the recording paper in synchronization with the drive timing of the plurality of units.

According to the invention of claim 2 having the above-mentioned structure, the stepping motor drive is controlled in one unit with two steps of one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation as one unit.
The image information of two lines is continuously recorded on the recording paper by the recording unit in synchronization with the driving timing in which these two steps are taken as one unit. Further, in the invention according to claim 3 having the above structure, the printing timing of the first line recorded before the second line by the recording unit is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit. Then, the driving timing of the first step of the stepping motor is delayed by a time corresponding to half of the data transfer time, and at most half the data transfer time after the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit. Delay by the time equivalent to.

Further, in the invention having the above structure, when the recording section is a thermal recording section using a thermal recording member, the recording section is set within a delay time until the printing timing of the first line. And perform preliminary printing. Further, in the invention according to claim 5 having the above structure, when the recording section is a thermal recording section using a thermal recording member, when the data of the first line is all white, the drive timing of the first step and Delay the print timing of the first line to
Preliminary printing is performed on the line with the data of the second line.

Further, in the invention having the above-mentioned structure, the drive timing of the first step and the print timing of the first line are delayed by half of the data transfer time, respectively, and the print timing of the first line is changed. After the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit, a total of the data transfer time is delayed. In the invention according to claim 7 having the above structure,
Set the recording energy for preliminary printing to a value lower than the recording energy for main printing.

Further, in the invention having the above structure, the white line skip is performed when both of the two lines are all white data. Further, in the invention having the above structure, the white line skip is prohibited in the halftone mode.

[0030]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described below based on examples.
FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing a facsimile apparatus to which a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the invention described in any one of claims 1 to 9 is applied. First, the configuration will be described. In the figure, a central control unit 11 is composed of a microcomputer system and manages and controls the entire facsimile apparatus. Upon reception, data is transmitted from the line to the modem 13 via the line control circuit 12, and the modem 13
At, the analog signal is modulated into a digital signal.
The modulated data is temporarily stored in the line buffer of the memory unit 14 and then transferred to the plotter unit 15 which is the recording apparatus of the present invention. The plotter unit 15 records the image on a recording paper at a predetermined resolution and outputs the image. To be done.

The scanner section 16 decomposes the original image into pixels with the same resolution as the plotter section 15, and converts each pixel into an image signal. The operation section 17 is provided with various operation buttons, a numeric keypad, etc., and is an area for an operator to arbitrarily operate the facsimile apparatus. The operation section 17 also specifies the recording linear density in the plotter section 15 (that is, the excitation method that determines the amount of movement of the recording paper). can do. Further, operation guidance, messages to the operator, etc. are displayed on the display unit 18.

In the above structure, the plotter unit 15 has
A stepping motor is provided to convey the recording paper in predetermined steps, and the stepping motor has a two-phase excitation method or a one-phase excitation method that always excites two phases according to the recording linear density. Step driving is performed by switching to either the 1-2 phase excitation method in which the two-phase excitation is alternately repeated. Further, the plotter unit 15 is provided with a recording unit for printing and recording image information for each line on recording paper fed stepwise, and the recording system thereof is a thermal recording system, a dot impact system, a laser beam system, or an inkjet system. Although various methods such as a method can be used, in the present embodiment, the thermal recording unit uses a thermal recording member such as a thermal head, a line head, a serial head.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the central control unit 11 is provided with a drive control unit and a recording control unit, and the plotter unit 15 has a motor excitation method of the 1-2 phase excitation method. Functions as follows. That is, the drive control unit controls the driving of the stepping motor in a plurality of units, with two steps of one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation in the 1-2 phase excitation method as one unit. In addition, the recording control unit,
In synchronization with the driving timing of the stepping motor driven by the plurality of units, image information of a plurality of lines is continuously recorded on the recording paper by the recording unit.

In the second aspect of the present invention, the motor is driven in units of two steps, which is a minimum combination unit of two-phase excitation and one-phase excitation. In this case, the drive control unit operates in two steps. The stepping motor is driven in units, and the recording control unit causes the recording unit to continuously record the image information of two lines on the recording paper in synchronization with the drive timing in which two steps are taken as one unit.

The image information of a plurality of lines which is printed and recorded by the recording unit of the plotter unit 15 is stored in the line buffer of the memory unit 14 for each line in advance, and is recorded in the recording unit when the number reaches a predetermined number. Transferred. Therefore, if the number of lines continuously recorded by the recording unit is N, N
= 2n (where n is an integer other than 0), and at this time, the minimum number M of storage lines required for the line buffer is
N (= 2n) <M. Therefore, since n> 2 in the embodiment described in claim 1, the number of lines in the line buffer becomes M> 4, and n in the embodiment described in claim 2.
Since = 1, the number of lines in the line buffer is M> 2.

Next, the operation will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a characteristic diagram showing the amount of movement of the recording paper by the 1-2 phase excitation method in the plotter section of FIG. Note that FIG.
In the example shown in (1), the stepping motor is driven in one unit with two steps of one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation as one unit. As shown in the figure, by performing the one-phase excitation after the two-phase excitation, this excitation period is, for example, 5 ms.
The motor can be linearly stepwise driven in 15 ms, and the amount of movement of the recording paper at this time can be made substantially equal without distinction between two-phase excitation and one-phase excitation. This is 20
Corresponding to a 0 pps motor drive, by continuously controlling the 1-phase and 2-phase excitation timing, it is possible to smooth the movement change of the recording paper. This difference is clear when comparing FIG. 2 and FIG.

Further, image information of two lines, for example, n lines, is synchronized with the motor driving in units of two steps.
By continuously recording the data of (n + 1) lines, the amount of movement of the recording paper is uniform, so that the lines can be printed on the recording paper at an equal pitch. in this way,
In this embodiment, the motor is driven in units of two steps, which is a minimum combination unit of two-phase excitation and one-phase excitation, so that the recording paper moves even if the number of excitation phases is different in the 1-2-phase excitation method. The amount can be made constant, and since the number M of line buffers can be minimized, for example, the main drive control can be realized with a small-scale and low-cost configuration. Further, since the amount of movement of the recording paper can be made constant, printing and recording on the recording paper can be carried out at an equal pitch, and the recording quality can be improved.

Although FIG. 2 shows the embodiment in which the motor is driven in units of 2 steps, it is also possible to drive the motor in units of 2n steps. In this case, in a wide range, for example, n to (in FIG. 2). Since the range up to (n + 5) can be excited at once, the frequency of intermittent excitation can be suppressed,
The amount of movement of the recording paper is further quantified. Therefore, the amount of movement of the recording paper can be made constant even if the recording medium is driven at a low speed and the stop voltage driving is disadvantageous to the minute rotation, and high-quality recording can be obtained at low cost.

Further, according to this embodiment, since two lines are continuously recorded by starting the excitation from either one of the 1-2 phase excitation system, there is an advantage that the start of the line for continuous recording is stable. is there. Further, if the recording unit is a thermal recording device using a thermal head, the number of times of preliminary printing can be reduced by performing continuous recording, and thus recording can be performed with low energy.

The invention according to claim 3 will be described below based on embodiments. First, the configuration will be described. In FIG.
The recording control unit of the central control unit 11 controls the plotter unit 15 to change the print timing of the first line recorded before the second line from the line buffer of the memory unit 14 to the plotter unit 1.
After the data of the first line is transferred to 5, the data is delayed by half the data transfer time. On the other hand, the drive control unit of the central control unit 11 sets the drive timing of the first step of the stepping motor at the maximum after the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer of the memory unit 14 to the plotter unit 15. Delay by half the time.

Next, the operation will be described with reference to FIG. 3A and 3B are timing charts of motor driving by the 1-2 phase excitation method in the plotter unit of FIG. 1, where FIG. 3A is a data latch state of the line buffer, FIG. 3B is a data decoding processing state, FIG. 7C is a detail mode motor drive state, and FIG. 7D is a semi-super fine mode motor drive state according to the first embodiment.
FIG. 6E shows a motor drive state according to the second embodiment in the semi-super fine mode. Also in the present embodiment according to the third aspect of the invention, the operation will be described based on the motor drive of 2-step unit and 2-line continuous recording.

As shown in FIG. 3A, the line buffer of this embodiment stores four lines of line data. Data is set in these line buffers after the decoding process for each line shown in FIG. 3B is completed. It is assumed that this data processing takes time on the fourth line, and data transfer takes t = 10 ms. That is, the black portion shown in FIG. 3A indicates the line buffer transfer time t.

The first data transfer timing is the time A when the data for two lines for continuous recording is stored in the line buffer, that is, the time of 10 ms. At 20 ms, which is 10 ms after the time A, the data of the first line n is completely transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit. Simultaneously with the completion of this transfer, as shown in FIG. 3D, the data of the first line n is taken into the thermal head by the latch pulse.

In this embodiment, the delay of printing and driving timing is executed here. That is, when the data of the first line n is fetched by the latch pulse (20 m
s) enables printing and driving, but at this point the first
When the printing of the line n is executed, the data transfer of the second line (n + 1) is not yet completed at the time when the printing is completed, that is, at the time of 15 ms. Therefore, the first line n
Therefore, continuous recording of the second line (n + 1) cannot be performed.

Therefore, from the time 20 ms at which the data of the first line n has been transferred to the recording unit and printing is possible, the print timing of the first line n is set to the print timing of the first line n in anticipation of the data transfer time of the second line (n + 1). The time is delayed by half the time t to reach the time point of 25 ms. Thereby, the first and second two-line continuous recording is realized. On the other hand, the step motor drive timing is also delayed by t / 2 hours in accordance with the delay in the print timing. This operation timing is shown in FIG. However, this delay time is the maximum, and is not limited to this when, for example, a motor having a poor response due to the start-up characteristics and load characteristics of the motor is used. That is, as shown in FIG. 3E, the delay time can be shortened and the drive timing of the first step can be limited to t / 4 hours. In the case of FIG. 3 (e),
The reduction of delay time is only for drive timing,
The print timing is the same as in FIG.

While delaying the printing timing of the first line and the driving timing of the first step,
At the time of 20 ms, the data of the second line of continuous 2-line printing is transferred. The second line is printed at 30 ms. Further, the next print control, that is, (n +
2), the process moves to the print control of the (n + 3) th line, and the data of the 2nd line is stored in the line buffer, and the printing is not performed until the 2nd line can be continuously printed. That is,
The next data transfer is not performed until the 40 ms point marked B. After that, the control as described above is repeated to perform continuous recording of two lines.

As described above, in this embodiment, the print timing of the first line is delayed by half the data transfer time t, and the drive timing of the first step is delayed by a maximum of half the data transfer time t. The excitation speed of the motor can be made constant regardless of the sub-scanning line density, and the stable paper feeding accuracy of 2-line continuous recording can be maintained.

The detail mode shown in FIG. 3C is a mode in which the amount of movement of the recording paper is about 1/2 of that in the standard mode, and the semi-super fine mode shown in FIG. 3D is the standard mode. Compared with, the amount of movement of recording paper is about 1/4
This is the mode. 4 in detail mode
The motor is driven step by step and continuous printing is performed while writing one line of data twice.

Further, the above-mentioned embodiments according to claims 1 to 3 can be implemented even if the recording system of the plotter section 15 is other than the thermal recording system. Hereinafter, the invention according to claim 4 will be described based on examples. First, the configuration will be described. In FIGS. 1 and 3D, when the recording unit of the plotter unit 15 is a thermal recording unit using a thermal recording member such as a thermal head, the central control unit 11 delays the printing timing of the first line. Within time t / 2, the printing unit of the plotter unit 15 is used to perform preliminary printing (preheating).

Next, the operation will be described. FIGS. 3D and 2 show the preliminary printing P performed within the delay time t / 2 until the printing timing of the first line. The preliminary printing P is performed by the data of the first line, and in the illustrated example, it is performed by the data of each line of n, n + 2, and n + 4.

Here, the preliminary printing timing coincides with the first half of the delay time t / 2 in synchronization with the data latch timing of the first line shown in FIG. 3D.
However, the preliminary printing timing is not limited to the illustrated embodiment, and may be, for example, the latter half of the delay time t / 2 or the entire delay time t / 2. Note that FIG.
In the case of the embodiment (e), the preliminary printing is performed within the delay time t / 4.

As described above, in this embodiment, the preliminary printing is performed by using the delay time t / 2 set for continuous recording of two lines, so that even when the printing interval is opened by the intermittent printing. Preheating can be performed prior to the main printing, and no particular time is required for preliminary printing, so the recording speed does not slow down. Hereinafter, claim 5
Alternatively, the invention described in 6 will be described based on examples.

First, the structure will be described. In FIG. 1, when the recording unit of the plotter unit 15 is a thermal recording unit using a thermal recording member such as a thermal head, the central control unit 11
When the data of the first line is all white, the drive timing and the print timing are delayed, and the second line is added to the first line.
Preliminary printing is performed according to the line data. FIG. 4 is a characteristic diagram showing the movement amount of the recording paper by the plotter unit of FIG. 1 when the data of the first line is all white. In the figure, the drive timing of the first step and the print timing of the first line are each delayed by half the data transfer time t. That is, due to the delay of t / 2 hours, the printing timing of the first line is delayed by the total data transfer time t after the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit. This delay time is
The pre-printing timing of No. 2 is used as the basic tone.

Next, the operation will be described. When the data transfer time t from the line buffer of the memory unit 14 to the recording unit of the plotter unit 15 is at least 10 ms, as shown in FIG. 3C or 5C, drive control of 1-2 phase excitation If one reception data is written twice in (1), the data transfer time t and the print drive timing are synchronized, so that the delay control as described above is not necessary.

However, when it is considered that one received data is printed once for one pulse of 1-2 phase excitation drive without writing twice, two lines as shown in FIG. 2 should be printed continuously. Is ideal considering the amount of movement of the recording paper. When such two-line data control is performed, considering the printing timing of the thermal pulse in FIG. 2, unlike the continuous thermal pulse output in FIG. 5C, the off time is opened for 10 ms every two lines of data. . That is, in FIG. 2, the time periods are 15 ms to 25 ms and 35 ms to 45 ms.

Therefore, as described above, the preliminary printing P for outputting the recording energy of the thermal pulse is executed in advance according to the data information to be printed before the actual data. However, if the data of the (n + 2) th line in FIG. 2 is all-white data, the thermal head is actually printed in the preliminary printing P of 20ms to 25ms and the actual printing of the (n + 2) th line of 25ms to 30ms in FIG. The recording energy will not be output. For this reason, the thermal head turns off the printing energy from 15 ms to 30 ms.

Therefore, in this embodiment, as shown in FIG.
When data is accumulated in the line buffer of the memory unit 14, that is, when the latch pulse of 20 ms is output and the first line of the two-line continuous print control is completely white, the central control unit 11 controls the motor drive timing. change,
In addition, the data of the preliminary print Pw is printed as the data of the second line which is not all white. As a result, the thermal head can be warmed before actual recording.

Specifically, as shown in FIG. 4, originally (n +
2) The timing for printing the data of the line is t / 2
Delayed by time, latch timing of the first line 20m
At the time of 30 ms, which is delayed by the data transfer time t from s, the 1-2 phase drive of the motor is performed, and the preliminary printing Pw is performed in 30 ms to 35 ms according to the data of the (n + 3) th line.

As described above, in this embodiment, when the data of the first line is all white, the printing timing and the driving timing are delayed, and the preliminary printing is performed by the data of the second line. It is possible to avoid the printing and surely enhance the preliminary printing effect. Further, in the present embodiment, since the printing timing of the first line is delayed in anticipation of the data transfer time of the second line, meaningless preliminary printing without data can be avoided and the preliminary printing can be reliably performed. .

The invention according to claim 7 will be described below based on embodiments. First, the configuration will be described. In FIG.
When performing the preliminary printing P or Pw based on the data of the first line (FIG. 2) or the data of the second line (FIG. 4), the central control unit 11 determines the recording energy of the preliminary printing P or Pw as the recording energy of the main printing. Set a low value for.

Next, the operation will be described. In order to reduce the recording energy of the preliminary print P or Pw to the main print, the embodiment shown in FIG. 2 or 4 is controlled to a time shorter than the print time of the main print. In addition to such time control, for example, the voltage value applied to the thermal head is varied, or the applied pulse is stopped when the temperature of the thermal head is detected and a predetermined preliminary printing level is reached. Can be considered.

As described above, in the present embodiment, the heat generation temperature at the time of preliminary printing can be suppressed to the coloring temperature or less, and it is possible to prevent recording on the first line, which is originally an all-white line.
Hereinafter, the invention according to claim 8 will be described based on examples. First, the configuration will be described. In FIG. 1, when both two lines are all white data, the central control unit 11 skips white lines.

Next, the operation will be described. FIG. 5A shows a case where two lines are all white data in the above two-line continuous printing control. Here, all white data is
The data is between 25 ms and 35 ms. Further, in the figure, a triangle mark is a data latch timing by the thermal head. That is, 10m of the data latch timing
Start to transfer data to the thermal head before s.

It is already known that the data is all white data when two lines of data are accumulated in the line buffer before the transfer to the thermal head and printing is started. Therefore, when both lines are all white, the data transfer and the strobe of the thermal head are stopped and only the motor is driven by 10 m in the first half as shown in FIG. 5B.
It takes about s (20 ms to 30 ms) to prepare for the next data transfer. At this time, the latch pulse is also stopped as indicated by an inverted triangle at 20 ms and 25 ms.

FIG. 5C shows the 1-2 phase 200 pps.
2 shows an example in the case of writing twice on one line by the motor drive. Here, when there are at least 4 lines of buffer for saving data, control is performed so that two lines are printed even in the main print, and if both lines are white lines, the motor drive is set to 2 200p during phase excitation
Speed up printing by moving at ps. At this time, the next data is stored in the remaining two lines of the buffer even when the two-phase 200 pps driving the motor is performed. By such control, the data printing time is shortened.

As described above, in this embodiment, when two lines are all white data, the motor drive is operated at the time t for one data transfer, and the white line skip for two lines is performed. Throughput can be increased by cutting down the time required for unnecessary data transfer. Hereinafter, the invention according to claim 9 will be described based on examples.

First, the structure will be described. In FIG. 1, the central control unit 11 prohibits the white line skip in the halftone mode in which the image recorded by the plotter unit 15 is a photograph or the like. Next, the operation will be described. The motor driving state in the halftone mode is shown in FIG.
As shown in 25 ms to 35 ms, even if two lines are all white data, white line skip is not performed, and all white data is recorded as it is for both lines. This is because in the case of halftone, there is almost no possibility that all white data will be continuous, and thus the control of ignoring is more efficient than the control taking white line skip into consideration.

As described above, in the present embodiment, in the halftone mode, it is assumed that there is no all-white line in advance, and the skip operation is not performed. Therefore, the all-white line determination process is omitted, and the process is simplified and speeded up. Can be planned
Throughput can be increased.

[0069]

As described above, according to the recording apparatus of the first aspect of the present invention, the drive controller has the one-phase excitation and the two-phase excitation.
The driving of the stepping motor is controlled in a plurality of units with two steps of phase excitation as one unit, and the recording control unit continuously records the image information of a plurality of lines in a recording unit in synchronization with the driving timing of the plurality of units. Since the recording is performed on the recording medium, it is possible to realize the rotation control that guarantees the uniform movement amount of the recording paper, and it is possible to realize the high-quality print recording while overcoming the disadvantages of the low voltage driving and the disadvantages of the low speed rotation.

According to the recording apparatus of the second aspect of the present invention, the stepping motor drive is controlled in units of two steps of one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation, and these two steps are performed in one unit. Since the image information of two lines is continuously recorded on the recording paper by using the recording unit in synchronization with the drive timing, the peripheral device including the recording unit that performs the print recording on the recording paper in association with the main drive control. It is possible to realize the high-quality print recording at a low cost by minimizing the configuration of.

According to the recording apparatus of the third aspect of the present invention, the printing timing of the first line recorded before the second line by the recording unit is changed from the line buffer to the recording line of the first line. After the data is transferred, it is delayed by a time corresponding to half of the data transfer time, and the drive timing of the first step of the stepping motor is maximum after the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit. Since it is delayed by a time corresponding to half the transfer time, the motor excitation speed can be made constant irrespective of the sub-scanning line density, and stable paper feeding accuracy for two-line continuous recording can be maintained.

According to the recording apparatus of the fourth aspect of the invention, when the recording section is a thermal recording section using a thermal recording member, the recording section is within the delay time until the printing timing of the first line. Since the pre-printing is performed by performing the pre-printing, the pre-heating can be performed prior to the main printing even if the printing interval is opened by the intermittent printing, and it is not necessary to set the time for the pre-printing. Will not be late.

According to the recording apparatus of the fifth aspect of the invention, when the recording section is a thermal recording section using a thermal recording member, the first step is performed when the data of the first line is all white. Drive timing and the printing timing of the first line are delayed, and the preliminary printing is performed on the first line with the data of the second line. Therefore, the preliminary printing with the all-white data can be avoided and the preliminary printing effect can be surely improved. .

According to the recording apparatus of the present invention, the drive timing of the first step and the print timing of the first line are delayed by half the data transfer time, and the print timing of the first line is delayed. Since the data of the first line is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit, the data transfer time is totally delayed, so that meaningless preliminary printing without data can be avoided and reliable preliminary printing can be performed.

According to the recording apparatus of the seventh aspect of the invention, since the recording energy of the preliminary printing is set to a value lower than the recording energy of the main printing, the heat generation temperature during the preliminary printing is equal to or lower than the coloring temperature. Therefore, it is possible to prevent recording on the first line, which is originally an all-white line. Also,
According to the recording apparatus of the eighth aspect, since the white line skip is performed when both of the two lines are all white data, it is possible to shorten the time required for unnecessary data transfer and increase the throughput.

According to the recording apparatus of the present invention, the white line skip is prohibited in the halftone mode. Therefore, the determination process for all white lines can be omitted to simplify and speed up the process. Therefore, the throughput can be increased.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing a facsimile apparatus to which a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the invention described in any one of claims 1 to 9 is applied.

FIG. 2 is a characteristic diagram showing the amount of movement of the recording paper by the 1-2 phase excitation method in the recording apparatus according to claims 1 to 4.

FIG. 3 is a timing chart of motor driving by a 1-2 phase excitation method in the recording apparatus according to claims 1 to 4, wherein FIG. 3A is a data latch state of a line buffer,
6B is a data decoding processing state, FIG. 7C is a detail mode motor driving state, FIG. 7D is a semi-super fine mode motor driving state according to the first embodiment, and FIG. e) shows a motor drive state according to the second embodiment in the semi-super fine mode.

FIG. 4 is a characteristic diagram showing the amount of movement of the recording paper by the 1-2 phase excitation method in the recording apparatus according to claims 5 to 7.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of the recording device according to claim 8;
It is a timing chart of the motor drive by a two-phase excitation method, the figure (a) is a motor drive state of the halftone mode which records all the white data of Claim 9 as it is, and the figure (b) is a claim. 8 shows a motor drive state showing a white line skip, and FIG. 8C shows a motor drive state in which one reception data is written twice in the 1-2 phase excitation method.

FIG. 6 is a characteristic diagram showing a movement amount of a recording paper by a 1-2 phase excitation method in a conventional recording device.

[Description of Reference Signs] 11 central control unit (drive control unit, recording control unit) 14 memory unit (line buffer) 15 plotter unit (recording device, stepping motor,
Recording paper, recording section)

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location B41J 19/92 9212-2C H04N 1/12 Z 7205-5C 1/31 9186-5C

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A 1-phase excitation and a 2-phase excitation are alternately repeated 1-
A stepping motor that is step-driven by a two-phase excitation method, a recording paper that is fed in predetermined steps by driving the stepping motor, a recording unit that prints and records image information for each line on the recording paper, and a printing unit that prints. In a recording device including a line buffer that stores image information of a plurality of lines to be recorded for each line in advance, the stepping motor is driven in a plurality of units with two steps of the one-phase excitation and the two-phase excitation as one unit. Recording comprising a drive control unit for controlling, and a recording control unit for causing the recording unit to continuously record image information of a plurality of lines on recording paper in synchronization with the drive timing of the plurality of units. apparatus. 2. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein driving of the stepping motor is controlled in units of two steps of one-phase excitation and two-phase excitation as one unit, and driving timing in which these two steps are set as one unit. A recording apparatus, wherein the image information of two lines is continuously recorded on a recording paper in synchronization with the recording unit. 3. The recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the recording timing of the first line recorded before the second line by the recording unit is transferred from the line buffer to the recording unit. From the line buffer, the drive timing of the first step of the stepping motor is delayed by a time corresponding to half the data transfer time. A recording device characterized by delaying by a time equivalent. 4. The recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein when the recording unit is a thermal recording unit using a thermal recording member, the recording unit is preliminarily printed within a delay time until the printing timing of the first line. A recording device characterized by performing. 5. The recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein when the recording section is a thermal recording section using a thermal recording member, when the data of the first line is all white, the drive timing and the first step of the first step are set. A recording device characterized by delaying the printing timing of one line and performing preliminary printing on the first line with the data of the second line. 6. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the drive timing of the first step and the print timing of the first line are each delayed by half the data transfer time, and the print timing of the first line is output from the line buffer. A recording apparatus, wherein a total of the data transfer time is delayed after the first line data is transferred to the recording unit. 7. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the recording energy of the preliminary printing is set to a value lower than the recording energy of the main printing. 8. The recording apparatus according to claim 5, wherein when both two lines are all white data, white line skipping is performed. 9. The recording apparatus according to claim 8, wherein white line skip is prohibited in the halftone mode.