JPH09136439A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To attain both of high printing speed and peak current restraint in a printing device used for POS, handy terminal, measuring instrument and so on. SOLUTION: A plurality of recording heads 2a, 2b having a coloring element for printing in a vertical row are classified into two groups to be installed. While the group of one recording head 2a is coloring an odd-numbered column in one character, the group of the other recording head 2b colors an even- numbered column for printing. It is thus possible to attain high-speed printing with a power source of low capacity.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a POS (Point).
of sales), a handy terminal, a printing device such as a printer for a small recording terminal used for a measuring instrument and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a printing apparatus that prints characters and the like by horizontally scanning a recording head in which color-developing elements for printing are arranged in a vertical line, a plurality of recording heads are provided, and each recording head has a printing range. There has been proposed a structure in which high speed printing is realized by sharing the above. For example, in JP-A-59-12853, as shown in FIG. 5, two recording heads 13a,
13b to the carriages 12a and 12b,
The distance between the carriages 12a and 12b should be 1/2 of the maximum print width of the printer.
To the timing belt 14 with fixing plates 15a and 15a, respectively.
It is described that the printing speed can be doubled by fixing the printing speed to b and applying a printing command from a microcomputer (not shown) to each of the recording heads 13a and 13b.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional printer, the current of the recording head is expressed by [the number of simultaneous color-developing elements × (head applied voltage / resistance value of head color-developing element)]. If there are many color-developing elements, the peak current during printing will increase. Moreover, if a plurality of recording heads are mounted to increase the printing speed, the peak current will become enormous, and the current fluctuation range will be large when the number of colored dots forming characters is small, and a large capacity power supply will be available. However, they have a problem that they are not desirable as a printing device for a small recording terminal.

The present invention solves such a conventional problem,
An object of the present invention is to provide an excellent printing apparatus suitable for a small-sized recording terminal printer or the like, which can mount a plurality of recording heads to improve the printing speed and can suppress the peak current.

[0005]

In order to solve this problem, a printing apparatus according to the present invention has a plurality of recording heads in which color-developing elements for printing are arranged in a row in a row and divided into two groups. In addition, the color-developing column position of the characters to be printed is recorded so that the printhead of one group develops the odd-numbered columns in one character while the printhead of the other group develops the even-numbered columns. The head group is divided into an odd-numbered column and an even-numbered column to print an odd number of characters in the lateral dot number. According to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a printing device such as a printer for a small recording terminal, which can suppress a huge peak current and a large current fluctuation range, can dispense with a large-capacity power supply, and can perform high-speed printing.

[0006]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The invention according to claim 1 of the present invention is such that a recording medium is conveyed by a conveying section and a recording head is scanned laterally with respect to the recording paper so that the number of dots in the horizontal direction is odd. It consists of a printing section for printing individual characters and a driving section for driving this printing section. The printing section is divided into two groups of recording heads in each of which color-forming elements for printing are arranged in a vertical line. A color-developing column for the characters to be printed so that the printheads of one group develop the odd-numbered columns in one character while the printheads of the other group develop the even-numbered columns. The position is divided into an odd-numbered column and an even-numbered column for each head group, and compared with the case where simultaneous color development is performed without dividing the recording head group into odd-numbered columns and even-numbered columns. Flow Reducing the current, a large current variation width an enormous peak current is suppressed, has an effect that it is high-speed printing.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the invention according to the first aspect, the number of dots in the horizontal direction of a character to be printed is any one of 5, 7, and 9, and the flowing current It has an effect that it can be reduced more reliably.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, a plurality of recording heads in which color-developing elements for printing are arranged in a vertical line are divided into a plurality of groups. At the same time, when the print heads of one of the plurality of groups are coloring, the print heads of the other groups are colored so that the print heads of other groups do not develop color. It is configured to use a printing unit that is sequentially displaced by the color development time of one group or more, and the current that flows compared to the case where multiple recording heads are not divided into multiple groups and color is developed simultaneously. Is divided by the number of recording head groups on average, and a huge peak current and large current fluctuation range are suppressed,
It has the effect of enabling high-speed printing.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG. (Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a plan view showing a configuration of a printing apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a recording paper and 2a and 2b are recording papers. The recording head 3 is a carriage for holding the recording heads 2a and 2b, 4 is a rack engaged with the carriage 3 for moving the carriage 3 in the lateral direction, and 5 is the carriage 3 and the recording heads 2a and 2b in the lateral direction. A carriage motor 6 for moving the recording heads 1 to 2 is a platen which serves as a base for pressing the recording heads 2a and 2b against the recording paper 1 by the carriage 3, and a printer main body 7 which supports all the above-mentioned components.

FIG. 2 is a print state conceptual diagram showing the print area and the position of the recording head showing the concept of the print state according to the embodiment. The character configuration in this example is alphabetical and the width × length is 5 × 7. In addition, the case where the inter-character space is composed of one dot is shown. In FIG. 2, the total print area in the horizontal direction is 144 dots, and each of the two recording heads 2a, 2 has a plurality of color-developing elements in a vertical line.
b, and when the recording head 2a is at the first column position, the recording head 2b is located at the 72nd column,
That is, the structure is such that when the recording head 2a is located in the odd-numbered column, the recording head 2b is located in the even-numbered column.

When the recording head 2a develops color at the position of the first column as shown in FIG. 2 (a), the recording head 2b is located at the 72nd column (position of the space between characters), and the recording head 2a, 2b sequentially moves in the lateral direction while maintaining the relative positional relationship.
As shown in (b), the recording head 2b develops color at the position of the 77th column when it is at the position of the 6th column, and when the recording head 2a is at the position of the 72nd column, the recording head 2b moves to the 143rd column. It is arranged so that color is generated and printing of one line of characters is completed.

In addition, in the alphabetic character configuration, there are many color developments at both ends in the horizontal direction and the central column in the vertical direction. For example, as shown in FIG. When the character "E" is printed by the conventional printing apparatus, the first head of "D" (first column) is recorded by the recording head 2a and the first head of "E" (73rd column) is simultaneously recorded by the recording head 2b. In order to print, the total number of colored dots when printing both characters in the first column is 14,
Similarly, the total number of colored dots when printing both characters in the second column is 5
However, in the present embodiment, “D” of the recording head 2a
When the 1st column is printed, 7 dots are colored and the recording head 2
Since b is at the position of the space between characters (72nd column), the total number of colored dots of the recording head 2a and the recording head 2b is 7, and the second number of "D" of the recording head 2a is 2nd.
When the column (second column) is printed, 2 dots are colored, and the recording head 2b colors 7 dots in the first column (73rd column) of the character "E", so the total number of colored dots is 9 dots. As a result, the current flowing is reduced, high-speed printing is possible, the enormous peak current and the large current fluctuation range are suppressed, and a large-capacity power supply is not required.

In the present embodiment, two independent recording heads each having a color-developing element are provided in a vertical row, respectively. However, the odd-numbered column positions in one character to be printed and the next-adjacent even-numbered column positions. Corresponding to the column position of
It is also possible to use a recording head having a structure in which two recording heads each having a color-developing element are formed in one column. In this case, since the odd-numbered column position and the next-adjacent even-numbered column position are formed on the recording head, it is not necessary to adjust the positions of the two recording heads, and the members around the recording head can be reduced. , The same effect can be obtained.

(Embodiment 2) FIG. 3 is a print state conceptual diagram showing a print area and a position of a recording head showing a concept of a print state according to a second embodiment of the present invention. Two recording heads 2a, 2 each having a printing area of 144 dots and each having a plurality of color-developing elements in a vertical line.
b, and when the recording head 2a is at the first column position, the recording head 2b is positioned at the 72.5th column, that is, the color development column position of the recording head 2b is set to the color development column position of the recording head 2a ( 144 ÷ 2 + 0.5)
The configuration is shifted by the columns.

FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing the coloring states of the recording head 2a and the recording head 2b. When the recording head 2a finishes coloring, the recording head 2b starts coloring, and then when the recording head 2b finishes coloring. Recording head 2
Coloring of a starts, and the recording heads 2a and 2b sequentially move in the lateral direction while maintaining the relative position,
When the recording head 2a is located at the 71.5th column,
The recording head 2b is configured to color the 143rd column and complete the printing of one line of characters.

Therefore, the two recording heads 2a and 2b do not turn on at the same time to generate color, and it is possible to drive the two recording heads 2a and 2b with the peak current for one recording head. High-speed printing is possible, an effect of suppressing a huge peak current and a large current fluctuation width is obtained, and a large-capacity power supply is not required.

In this embodiment, two recording heads 2a and 2b are used, but the number of recording heads is not limited to two, and three or more recording heads n are mounted. Even with this configuration, the position between the recording heads is (144 ÷
n), the position is divided, and if that position is the nth recording head,

[0018]

(Equation 1)

By constructing a mutual positional relationship in which only the minutes are added, and by forming a timing chart in which the color development time of each recording head is sequentially shifted by the number of recording heads, a plurality of recording heads can be obtained with a peak current for one recording head. Can be driven, high-speed printing can be performed, and an enormous peak current and a large current fluctuation range can be suppressed, and a large-capacity power supply is not required.

[0020]

As described above, the printing apparatus according to the present invention is
Multiple recording heads are divided into multiple groups and mounted, and the color column position of the characters to be printed is divided into recording head groups for printing, or only one group of recording heads is always colored. With such a configuration, an enormous peak current and a large current fluctuation range can be suppressed, so that a large-capacity power supply is not required and high-speed printing can be achieved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing the configuration of a printing device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram showing a concept of a printing state in the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing a concept of a printing state in the second embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing a color-developed state of the recording head according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of an essential part showing the configuration of a recording head section of a conventional printing device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 recording paper 2a, 2b recording head 3 carriage 4 rack 5 carriage motor 6 platen 7 printer main body

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Keita Sakai 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A transport unit for transporting a recording sheet, a printing unit for scanning the recording head in a horizontal direction with respect to the recording sheet to print an odd number of characters having a horizontal dot number, and a printing unit The printing unit is composed of a plurality of recording heads in each of which a color-forming element for printing is arranged in a vertical line and the recording heads of one group When the color of the odd-numbered column of is printed, the print head of the other group colors the even-numbered column. A printing device configured to print separately on the column and in each. 2. The number of dots in the horizontal direction of a character to be printed is 5,
The printing device according to claim 1, wherein the printing device is any one of claims 7 and 9. 3. A plurality of recording heads in which color-forming elements for printing are arranged in a line in a vertical direction are divided into a plurality of groups, and the recording heads of one group among the plurality of groups are colored. In order to prevent the recording heads of the other plural groups from developing color while the recording is being performed, the printing units of the configuration in which the recording heads of the other groups to be colored next are sequentially shifted by the coloring time of the group that is coloring or more The printer according to claim 1, wherein the printer is used.