JPH091819A - Ink jet recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To obtain an ink jet recording apparatus capable of accurately controlling the residual amt. of ink by providing a detection processing means operating the residual amt. of ink after an optical sensor detects that the residual amt. of ink becomes little and a means storing the operated residual amt. of ink. CONSTITUTION: A float lowers as ink is consumed and cuts off the light of an optical sensor 5 when ink lowers to the vicinity of the bottom part of a cartridge to be detected. At this time, a CPU 101 can know that ink is near to an empty state. In this case, the amt. of the ink housed in a memory device 104 becomes 1000c as the initial value of an estimated residual amt. The value of the amt. of the ink housed at the time of the operation related to the consumption of ink is substracted by the subtraction value corresponding to the consumption of ink from 1000c being a prescribed value. When this residual amt. becomes 0c or less, ink is judged to be wholly consumed and this state is let know as a warning by display device 105.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional ink jet recording apparatus, a method as shown in FIG. 7 has been used to detect the presence / absence of remaining ink in an ink cartridge. FIG.
FIG. 6D is a diagram illustrating a remaining amount detecting operation of the conventional inkjet recording apparatus.

In FIG. 7 (a), 1 is ink, 2 is a cartridge for storing ink 1, and 3 is an ink tank made of a material having a smaller specific gravity than ink 1 for detecting the amount of ink. Denoted at 4 is a separating plate for limiting the moving direction of the fluff 3 to the vertical direction, and a gap is provided between the upper bottom portion and the lower bottom portion to allow the ink 1 to freely flow in and out. Reference numeral 5 denotes an optical sensor, which causes a change in an electric signal when the descent 3 is lowered and cut off. The ink 1 is stored in the cartridge 2. The inside of the cartridge 2 is separated by the separation plate 4, so that the skid 3 can move only in the vertical direction. Now, as shown in FIGS. 7 (a) and 7 (b), when the ink amount is sufficient, the uki 3 is located above the optical sensor 5 and the optical sensor 5 is not shielded. Then, as the ink 1 is consumed, the ink 1
The surface of the liquid drops, and Uki 3 floating near the liquid also comes down. When the ink 1 is further consumed, as shown in FIG.
As shown in (d), when the liquid level reaches near the lower bottom thin portion in the cartridge 2, the optical sensor 5
Is shielded from light, and the state where there is no ink 1 is detected.

[0004]

However, in the conventional ink jet recording apparatus, since the fluffy ink 3 is sinking from the liquid surface, even when the optical sensor 5 detects it, the ink that can still be used on the lower bottom portion of the cartridge 2 is used. 1 is left. In this state, it is judged that the ink is empty,
If you forcibly stop the operation on the recording device side until it is replaced with a new cartridge, the remaining ink will be wasted, and if the warning display that the ink is low is displayed, the user side will It is necessary to perform the recording while monitoring until the ink becomes empty. If the monitoring is neglected, it is possible that the recording is performed without the ink and the necessary information is not recorded. As described above, the conventional ink jet recording apparatus has a problem that it is not possible to precisely manage the remaining ink amount.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an ink jet recording apparatus capable of accurately managing the ink remaining amount.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An ink jet recording apparatus according to the present invention comprises an optical sensor for detecting that the ink level is low, and an optical sensor for detecting that the ink level is low. It has a detection processing unit for calculating the remaining amount of ink, and a storage unit for storing the remaining amount of ink obtained by the detection processing unit.

[0007]

With the above arrangement, the detection processing means performs fine residual amount management after the optical sensor detects that the residual amount of ink is low. As a result, not only the user can be freed from the troublesome remaining amount management, but also waste of ink can be suppressed.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an ink jet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. The same components as those shown in FIG. 7 showing the conventional configuration will be designated by the same reference numerals and the description thereof will be omitted.

In FIG. 1, a CPU (central processing unit) 1
01 is for controlling the operation of the entire printer.
2 is stored in the OM (Read Only Memory) 102 and
~ Operates according to the control program according to the flowchart of Fig. 6. Here, the detection processing means corresponds to the CPU 101. RAM (random access memory) 103 has
A work area is provided for temporarily storing various data for operating the printer.

The storage device 104 is a memory in which stored data is not destroyed even when the power of the printer main body is turned off, and specifically, a RAM with backup, an EEPROM, a flash memory or the like is used. The display device 105 informs the presence or absence of the detected ink remaining amount, and informs the user of the presence or absence of the ink by an image or a sound. Of course, the output of the optical sensor 5 is transmitted to the CPU 101.

The ink jet recording apparatus of this embodiment has the above-mentioned structure, and its operation will be described below with reference to FIGS.

First, the operation of the entire ink jet recording apparatus will be outlined with reference to FIG. The CPU 101 starts operating when the power of the printer is turned on (step 20
1) First, an initializing operation (step 202) is performed as an initial setting of the operation of the printer, and an initial setting (step 203) for detecting the presence or absence of the remaining ink amount is performed.

After that, the actual operation is started, but in the example, for simplification, the processing related to the consumption of the ink 1 and the other processing not related to the ink 1 are described separately. In this example, as the operation of consuming the ink 1, a purging operation (forced suction of ink) is performed at power-on or after being left for a long time to prevent clogging of the ink 1 (step 20).
4, 205), a saliva ejection (ink ejection in a region other than the printing area) operation that is appropriately performed before printing to stably eject the ink 1 (steps 206 and 207), and ejects the ink 1 from an arbitrary nozzle on the recording paper. Printing operation (steps 208 and 209) for forming characters and other processing (step 21)
(0, 211) is terminated (step 2
12), the operation is repeated as necessary until the state of the end of operation (step 213) is reached.

Purge processing in FIG. 2 (step 20)
5) is executed by calling the purge processing routine shown in FIG. That is, the purge operation is performed (step 4
02), 50c (C is a constant) is set to the subtraction value S (step 403), and the detection process shown in FIG. 3 is performed (step 301).

Next, the spitting process in FIG. 2 (step 2
07) is executed by calling the saliva discharge processing routine shown in FIG. That is, a spitting operation is performed (step 502), and the subtraction value S is set to 10c (step 5).
03), the detection process shown in FIG. 3 is performed (step 30).
1).

The printing process in FIG. 2 (step 20)
9) is executed by calling the print processing routine shown in FIG. That is, the one-line character number counter COUNT is initialized to zero (step 602), each time one character is printed (step 603), the character number counter COUNT is incremented (step 604) until one line is printed ( Step 605), Steps 603-60
Repeat the process of 4.

When the printing of one line is completed, the value of COUNT * 1C is set in the subtraction value S (step 60
6), the detection process shown in FIG. 3 is performed (step 301).

As described above, the subtraction value S is set in accordance with the amount of the ink 1 consumed in each operation, and the detection process based on the subtraction value S is performed.
Note that the subtraction value S in this embodiment is only one example, and can be variously changed according to the actual consumption amount of the ink 1 in the inkjet recording apparatus.

Next, the detection processing routine shown in FIG. 3 will be described. As described above, the subtraction value S is set in accordance with the operation performed immediately before the detection processing routine is called. In step 203 of FIG. 2, the storage flag FD is set to 1 and the storage ink amount ZD is set to 0. The storage flag FD and the in-storage ink amount ZD are values stored in the storage device 104 that retains the contents even when the power of the entire inkjet recording apparatus is turned off.

In the detection processing routine, first, at step 302, it is checked whether the optical sensor 5 is shielded from light. If it is not shielded from light, the flag K is set to 0 (step 314), the value 0 of this flag F is set to the storage flag FD (step 311), and the detection processing routine is exited.

In step 302, if the optical sensor 5 is shielded from light, the storage flag FD is read, the value is set to the flag F (step 303), and it is checked whether the value of the flag F is 0 (step). 304). If the flag F is 0 here, it means that the optical sensor 5 is shielded from light for the first time, so the estimated in-quantity ZAN is set to the specified value 1000c (step 305), and the flag F is set to 1 (step 306). ), And proceeds to step 307.

On the other hand, if the flag F is not 0 in step 304, the stored ink amount ZD is set in the estimated ink amount ZAN (step 313) and the process proceeds to step 307.

In step 307, the estimated ink amount ZAN
From the above, a value obtained by subtracting the subtraction value S set according to the operation as described above is substituted into the estimated ink amount ZAN, and the substituted estimated ink amount ZAN is stored in the storage device 104 as the stored ink amount ZD. By this processing, the remaining amount of ink 1 is finely calculated according to the operation performed immediately before, and the current ink 1
Is reflected as the stored ink amount ZD.

Next, at step 309, the estimated ink amount Z
It is checked whether or not AN becomes 0 or less, and if it becomes 0 or less, it is displayed on the display device 105 in which the amount of ink 1 has become empty to notify the user. On the other hand, if it is not less than 0, this display is not performed.

Then, the value of the flag F is stored as the in-storage flag FD of the storage device 104 (step 311), and the detection processing routine is exited.

Next, a series of operations of the ink jet recording apparatus of this embodiment will be described. In the state where the ink cartridge 1 is filled with the ink 1, the uki 3 is not detected by the optical sensor 5. The ink 3 is lowered as the ink 1 is consumed, and when the ink 1 is lowered to the vicinity of the bottom of the cartridge 2, the ink 3 is shielded from the optical sensor 5 and detected. At this time, the ink 1 is still a little left in the cartridge 2, and the CPU 101 can know that the ink 1 is almost empty.

When such a state occurs during the operation of the printer, as described above, the stored ink amount ZD of the storage device 104 becomes 1000c as the initial value of the estimated remaining amount. However, after this, ink 1 is replenished or ink 1
When the cartridge 2 is replaced with another cartridge 2 containing a large amount of "," the next time, the process jumps to steps 302, 314, and 311 and the flag F becomes 0, so the remaining amount management by software is canceled. Then, the remaining amount of the ink 1 is not managed until the ink 1 is consumed again and the uki 3 shades the optical sensor 5.

In the operation after the estimated remaining amount is written, the value of the stored ink amount ZD in each processing routine at the time of the operation relating to the consumption of the ink 1 is 100 as the specified value.
The subtraction value S corresponding to each ink consumption is subtracted from 0c. In each routine, the remaining amount is estimated, and when the remaining amount becomes 0c or less, it is judged that the ink 1 is completely consumed for the first time, and the display device 105 gives a warning of ink replacement or ink replenishment.

[0030]

The ink jet recording apparatus of the present invention has an optical sensor for detecting that the remaining amount of ink is low, and the remaining amount of ink after the optical sensor detects that the remaining amount of ink is low. Since it has the detection processing means for calculating the value and the storage means for storing the remaining amount of ink obtained by the detection processing means, it is possible to manage the remaining amount finely, and to minimize the cost and waste of ink as much as possible. You can

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an inkjet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of an inkjet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an inkjet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an inkjet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of an inkjet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an inkjet recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7A is a diagram illustrating a remaining amount detection operation of a conventional inkjet recording device. FIG. 7B is a diagram illustrating a remaining amount detection operation of a conventional inkjet recording device. d) Explanatory drawing of remaining amount detection operation of a conventional inkjet recording apparatus

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Ink 5 Optical Sensor 101 CPU 102 ROM 103 RAM 104 Storage Device 105 Display Device

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. An ink jet recording apparatus having a recording head for ejecting ink from an ejection port and an ink container for supplying to the recording head, and an optical sensor for detecting that the remaining amount of ink is low, After the optical sensor detects that the remaining amount of ink is low, it has a detection processing unit for calculating the remaining amount of ink, and a storage unit for storing the remaining amount of ink obtained by the detection processing unit. Characteristic inkjet recording device. 2. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the optical sensor is shielded / transmitted by a float formed so as to move up and down according to the liquid surface of the ink. 3. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the storage means holds the remaining amount of ink when power is not supplied. 4. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the detection processing means obtains the remaining amount of ink by different numerical values set for each of the purging operation, the spitting operation, and the printing operation. 5. The ink jet recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising display means for displaying to the user when the remaining amount of ink obtained by the detection processing means becomes less than or equal to a predetermined value.