JPH08267851A - Recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To embody a recording apparatus with a universal cassette which automatically executes an adaptation control to sizes of papers with using basic composition elements of the apparatus without requiring a special detecting mechanism for detecting the size of papers in the cassette and without requiring a user to set/input a paper size. CONSTITUTION: The apparatus has a size-distinguishing means 200 and a size data-updating means 107. When a first printing is carried out after the apparatus is turned ON and after a cassette is opened/closed, the kind of the size of a paper fed to a printing part from the cassette is detected by tone distinguishing means 200 based on an output of a paper feed sensor. The paper size data detected by the distinguishing means is updated/stored in a nonvolatile size memory as a data-storing place by the updating means 107. A printing- controlling means obtains the paper size data from the size memory before the printing process is started.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording device used not only as a single recording device for a personal computer or a word processor, but also as a facsimile recording unit or a copying machine.
In particular, the present invention relates to a recording apparatus in which a universal cassette of a type that can accommodate a plurality of different-sized sheets and collectively stores an arbitrary-sized sheet is openably and closably combined with a recording apparatus main body.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As is well known, in a general universal cassette, members for positioning sheets to be stacked and stored are movable, and A5, A4, B5, B4, etc. can be stored in the same cassette. It has a structure that fits multiple types of paper sizes. Of course, different sizes of paper cannot be mixed and stored, but one size of paper selected by the user can be stored.

Most of the recording apparatuses using the universal cassette have a function of automatically detecting the size of the paper stored in the cassette, and various kinds of recording apparatuses based on the paper size are actually used when the printing process is executed. Take control. The content of the paper size adaptive control differs depending on the recording device for personal computer, the facsimile recording unit, the copying machine, and the like. As an example, in the personal computer recording device, when the paper size specified on the personal computer side and the paper size stored in the cassette are different, the user is informed of that fact and control is performed to prompt an appropriate change procedure. . Further, the facsimile machine controls to print the received image data by reducing it to a size corresponding to the size of the paper stored in the cassette or dividing the image data into a plurality of pages for printing.

As a mechanism for automatically detecting the size of the paper stored in the cassette, the set position of the movable positioning member in the cassette (the position can be changed according to the size of the paper stored) is set on the recording apparatus main body side. In general, a mechanism for detecting with a plurality of photoelectric sensors appropriately arranged.

Although not limited to the universal type, the cassette opening / closing sensor for detecting the opening / closing of the cassette and the cassette by the operation of the paper feeding mechanism are basic components in the recording apparatus with the paper cassette. A paper feed sensor that detects the papers that are taken out one by one from the paper and sent to the printing unit at a predetermined position, and a paper that is sent to the printing unit by controlling the execution timing of the printing process based on the output of the paper feeding sensor. If the printing is being executed when the opening and closing of the cassette is detected by the print control means and the cassette open / close sensor, the operation is appropriately interrupted, and the interruption processing is performed when it is detected that the cassette is closed. There is an interrupt control means to cancel.

[0006]

The addition of a mechanism for automatically detecting the size of the paper in the cassette on the recording apparatus body side with the adoption of the universal cassette leads to a considerable increase in the cost of the apparatus. We would like to eliminate the paper size detection mechanism in device designs that strongly aim to reduce costs. Some recording devices with universal cassettes achieve this. It is a method of manually inputting the size of the paper stored in the cassette using the operation panel. Therefore, it imposes an operational burden on the user, is very troublesome, and may forget or erroneously input the setting of the paper size, and a printing trouble due to a setting mistake is likely to occur.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object thereof is not to provide a dedicated paper size detecting mechanism in a cassette but to allow a user to set and input the paper size. Rather, the object is to provide a recording apparatus that can automatically perform adaptive control with respect to the paper size by using the basic components of the recording apparatus.

[0008]

Therefore, in the present invention, a cassette open / close sensor for detecting the opening / closing of the universal cassette, and a sheet which is taken out from the cassette one by one by the operation of the sheet feeding mechanism and sent to the printing section. And a print control unit that controls the execution timing of the print processing based on the output of the paper feed sensor to print on the paper fed to the printing unit. The size of the paper is detected based on the output of the paper feed sensor for the paper sent from the cassette to the printing unit at the first print execution after the power is turned on and at the first print execution after opening / closing the cassette. And a sheet size information detected by the size discriminating means before the printing control means executes the printing process. Was added and the size information updating means for updating stored in the nonvolatile size memory is information storage location to obtain information.

Also, at the first printing execution after the power is turned on and at the first printing execution after the cassette opening / closing, the old paper size information stored in the size memory and the new paper size detected by the size discriminating means are detected. Compare the information and if both paper size information is different,
It is desirable to add recovery printing control means for reprinting the same content in an appropriate size based on the new paper size information. When the new paper size information is smaller than the old paper size information, the recovery print control unit reduces the same content and prints it again, or reduces the same content and prints it in multiple pages. The configuration is

Further, in a multi-stage cassette type in which a plurality of universal cassettes are combined in the main body of the recording apparatus so as to be openable and closable, the cassette open / close sensor and the size memory are provided corresponding to each cassette. The processing of the size discriminating means and the size information updating means is also performed for each cassette. In this case, the old paper size information stored in the size memory corresponding to the selected cassette and the size discrimination means at the time of the first printing after the power is turned on and the first printing after the opening / closing of the cassette are performed. The detected new paper size information is compared, and if the both paper size information is different, a recovery printing control means is provided for selecting another cassette and printing the same content again in an appropriate size.

[0011]

In the state where the paper size in the cassette is continuously used without being changed, the paper size information stored in the size memory and the paper size in the cassette match, so that the correct print control is always performed. Is done. When the paper size of the cassette is changed, the size of the paper actually fed at the time of the first printing after that is automatically detected, and the paper size information of the size memory is updated. Therefore, since the correct paper size is recognized by the print control means from the next time onward, correct print control is performed.

At the time of the first print execution after the paper size is changed, there is a problem that the paper size recognized by the print control means and the paper size actually fed do not match, which is caused by the recovery print control. Means are supplemented by proper reprinting.

[0013]

FIG. 1 shows a schematic layout of a mechanism system of a recording apparatus using an electrophotographic universal cassette according to an embodiment of the present invention. The photosensitive drum 1 built in the main body case 20 is rotationally driven in the arrow direction. Around the photosensitive drum 1, a charger 2 for uniformly charging the drum surface and a laser scanner 3 in order along the rotation direction.
An exposure unit that irradiates the drum surface with an optical image to be printed to form an electrostatic latent image, a developing unit 4 that sprinkles toner on the drum surface to develop the electrostatic latent image, and a paper sheet 9 contacts the drum surface. A transfer roller 5 for transferring the toner image onto the paper 9,
A static eliminator 6 for irradiating the surface of the drum with light to remove residual charges, and a cleaner 7 for wiping off the residual toner on the surface of the drum to collect it in the developing device 4 are provided.

A large number of standard plain papers 9 are stocked in the above-mentioned universal cassette 10. The cassette 10 is combined with the lower part of the main body case 20 in a slide opening / closing manner. The paper 9 is taken out one by one from the cassette 10 by the paper feed roller 11, fed between the photosensitive drum 1 and the transfer roller 5 by the registration roller 12, and further passed between the photosensitive drum 1 and the static eliminator 6 to the fixing device 8. Really
It passes through here and is discharged. The image transferred onto the sheet 9 when passing between the photosensitive drum 1 and the transfer roller 5 is fixed when passing through the fixing device 8.

A paper feed sensor 13 is arranged near the registration roller 12, and the paper 9 transported by the paper feed mechanism is detected by the paper feed sensor 13. Also the main body case 2
At 0, a cassette opening / closing sensor 21 for detecting opening / closing of the cassette 10 is attached.

A schematic structure of an electric control system of this recording apparatus is shown in FIG. The microcomputer 14 is in charge of sequence control and data processing that control the overall operation of the device.
Not all the inputs and outputs of the controlled object by the microcomputer 14 are shown in FIG. 2, but only the main ones are shown.

That is, the microcomputer 14 receives the key input from the operation panel 18, displays the operation panel 18, various kinds of processing for the print image data stored in the image memory 17, and a motor for rotating the photosensitive drum 1. 15, control of the paper feed mechanism 16 including the paper feed roller 12 and the registration roller 13, control of the high voltage power supply of the charger 4,
Optical image formation control by the laser scanner 3, motor and bias power supply control of the developing device 4, rotation control of the transfer roller 5, high voltage power supply control of the charging device in the roller, lighting control of the static eliminator 6, and fixing device 8. Various controls, such as rotation and heating controls, are associated and performed in a unified manner.

The non-volatile size memory 19 stores size information indicating the classification of the sizes of the sheets 9 accommodated in the cassette 10 as follows, and is used at the first printing execution after the power is turned on and when the cassette is opened / closed. At the time of the first print execution after that, the size information is updated and stored as follows. When executing the print control, the microcomputer 14 first recognizes the size of the paper 9 in the cassette 10 by checking the paper size information stored in the size memory 19, and executes the print control according to the paper size. To do.

The characteristic control contents of the present invention are summarized in the flow chart of FIG. When the power of the recording apparatus is turned on, the main routine (printing control) of FIG. 3 is executed. First, in step 100, each unit is initialized to create a standby state in which printing can be started immediately. This initialization processing includes processing for setting the size confirmation request flag F1 to "1". When the initialization process is completed, the process waits for a print request to be issued in step 101.

While the recording apparatus is powered on, the open / close state of the cassette 10 is always checked, and the interrupt process shown in FIG. 5 is executed when the cassette 10 is opened / closed. That is, when it is detected by the output of the cassette open / close sensor 21 that the cassette 10 is opened, the process proceeds from step 301 to 302, and the operation is appropriately interrupted according to the operation state such as the print control at that time to enter the standby state. Then, when it is detected that the cassette 10 is closed again, steps 303 → 304 → 30
5, the size confirmation request flag F1 described above is set to "1" to release the suspended state and enable normal operations such as printing.

In the print control of FIG. 3, step 101
When the print request is accepted, the process proceeds to step 102, where it is checked whether the size confirmation request flag F1 is "1". As described above, the size confirmation request flag F1 is set to "1" in the initialization process (100) immediately after the power is turned on, and is also set to "1" when the opened cassette 10 is closed ( 304).

The description will proceed assuming that the flag F1 is "0". In this case, the process proceeds to step 103, and normal print processing is executed. That is, the information in the size memory 19 is read to recognize the size of the sheet 9 in the cassette 10, and the image data is prepared so that the sheet 9 of that size is printed. Further, the paper feed mechanism is activated to take out one sheet of paper 9 from the cassette 10 and feed it toward the photosensitive drum 1.
Printing is executed by controlling each unit in synchronization with this paper feeding operation.

Next, the operation when the flag F1 is set to "1" will be described. In this case, step 102
Branch from step 104 and the print processing of step 104 and step 20.
The paper size discrimination processing of 0 is executed in parallel. The content of the print processing 104 is the same as that of step 103 already described, and the paper size is recognized from the information in the size memory 19,
The printing process is executed assuming that the paper 9 fed from the cassette 10 has that size.

Details of the paper size discrimination processing 200 are shown in FIG. First, at step 201, the sheet feed sensor 13 waits for the leading edge of the sheet 9 to be detected. Paper feed sensor 1
When the output of No. 3 is turned on, the process proceeds to step 202, and the paper passing time after that is counted. If the paper feeding mechanism is operating normally, the feeding speed of the paper 9 is constant.
The time from when the paper feed sensor 13 is turned on until it is turned off again corresponds to the length of the paper 9. In step 203, it is checked whether or not the count value in step 202 is abnormally large, in step 204, it is checked whether or not the paper feed sensor 13 is turned off, and the process returns to step 202 until the sensor 13 is turned off. Count the time. If the paper 9 is jammed, the sensor 13 remains on and the count value becomes abnormally large. In that case, step 2
The process proceeds from 03 to 206 and paper jam handling processing (JAM processing) is performed.

When the output of the paper feed sensor 13 is turned off, the counting of the paper elapsed time is stopped, and the size of the paper 9 that has passed is judged in step 205. That is, the counted elapsed time of paper corresponds to the length of the paper 9, and the paper size can be determined by distinguishing which paper size the length belongs to.

When the print process 104 and the paper size discrimination process 200 are executed in parallel, the process proceeds to step 105 of FIG. 3 and the size confirmation request flag F1 is reset to "0". In the next step 106, the size memory 1
Old paper size information stored in 9 and step 20
The new paper size information checked in 0 is compared to check whether the two match or do not match. If they match, the process directly returns to step 101 and waits for the next print request.

If the old and new paper size information does not match, the process proceeds to step 107 and the new paper size information is stored in the size memory 19. Then, the process proceeds to the recovery printing process of step 108. This recovery printing process 10
In step 8, first, it is checked whether or not all the image data to be printed can be printed because the paper size recognized by the print control is different from the actual paper size. If the actual paper size is larger, there will be no missing prints, and even if the actual paper size is smaller, there will be no missing prints if the size of the printing image is very small. If there is no print failure, the same content is not reprinted. If there is a print failure, perform image reduction processing to print the same content on the new size paper 9, or
If the image does not fit on the page, the image is divided into a plurality of pages and reprinting control is executed. After the recovery printing process having the above contents, the process returns to step 101.

Next, a case of a multi-stage cassette type recording apparatus in which a plurality of universal cassettes can be mounted in the recording apparatus main body will be described. In this case, the size memory is set for each cassette. Of course, a cassette open / close sensor is also provided for each cassette. The paper size discrimination process and size memory update process for each cassette are the same as in the previous embodiment. The recovery printing process may be the same as that of the previous embodiment, but if there is a plurality of cassettes and the recovery printing process becomes necessary when printing on the paper in one cassette, the paper in another cassette will be used. Reprinting may be performed for the.

[0029]

According to the present invention, the adaptive control for the paper size can be automatically performed by using the basic components of the recording apparatus, and the dedicated sensor mechanism for detecting the paper size in the cassette. Is unnecessary and therefore the cost of the device can be significantly reduced. Moreover, unlike the method of allowing the user to set and input the paper size, there is no trouble in operation, and troubles due to operation mistakes can be prevented. In particular, by adding the recovery printing processing execution means, no inconvenience is caused at the first printing after the paper size change.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic layout of a mechanical system of a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an outline of a control system in the recording apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an outline of a control procedure related to paper size adaptive control in the recording apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an outline of a control procedure related to paper size adaptive control in the recording apparatus.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an outline of a control procedure related to paper size adaptive control in the recording apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Photosensitive Drum 2 Charging Device 3 Laser Scanner 4 Developing Device 5 Transfer Roller 6 Electrifier 7 Cleaner 8 Fixer 9 Paper 10 Universal Cassette 11 Paper Feeding Roller 12 Registration Roller 13 Paper Feeding Sensor 14 Microcomputer 15 Drum Motor 16 Paper Feeding Mechanism Part 17 Image memory 18 Operation panel 19 Size memory 20 Body case 21 Cassette open / close sensor

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A universal cassette capable of accommodating a plurality of different size sheets and accommodating any one size sheet together is openably and closably combined with a printer body, and the cassette is opened and closed. A cassette open / close sensor for detecting the fact that the paper is fed, and a paper feed sensor for detecting at a predetermined position the paper that has been taken out of the cassette one by one by the operation of the paper feed mechanism and sent to the printing unit, and the output of this paper feed sensor A recording device having a print control means for controlling the execution timing of the printing process based on the above and performing printing on the paper fed to the printing unit, at the time of the first printing execution after power-on and after the cassette opening / closing. The size of the paper based on the output of the paper feed sensor regarding the paper fed from the cassette to the printing unit at the time of the first printing execution In a non-volatile size memory, which is an information storage location where the print control unit obtains the paper size information prior to executing the printing process. A recording apparatus comprising a size information updating unit for updating and storing. 2. The old paper size information stored in the size memory and the new paper size detected by the size discriminating means at the first printing execution after power-on and at the first printing execution after opening / closing the cassette. The recovery printing control means for comparing the information and reprinting the same content in an appropriate size based on the new paper size information when both paper size information are different is provided. The recording device according to 1. 3. The recovery print control means reduces the same content and prints it again if the new paper size information is smaller than the old paper size information, or reduces the same content and prints a plurality of pages. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording apparatus is divided into and printed. 4. A plurality of universal cassettes are combined with a printer body so as to be openable and closable, respectively, and each cassette has a cassette open / close sensor and a size memory, and the size discriminating means and the size information updating means. 2. The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the processing is also performed for each cassette. 5. The old paper size information stored in the size memory corresponding to the selected cassette and the size discrimination at the first printing execution after power-on and at the first printing execution after opening / closing the cassette. Compared with the new paper size information detected by the method, if both paper size information are different, a recovery print control means is provided to select another cassette and reprint the same content in an appropriate size. The recording device according to claim 4, wherein