JPH091887A - Method of setting initial position of carriage - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To propose a method of setting the initial position of a carriage capable of correctly positioning the carriage at the initial position at all times without regard to deterioration with time of the carriage driving system or changes of environmental conditions. CONSTITUTION: Upon setting the initial position for allowing the carriage 1 to movably scan the recording area, a moving initial position of the carriage is detected whether or not it is in a marginal area 6 (6A-6B) including the initial position, and the carriage 1 is led to the recording area side marginal position 6A in the marginal area 6, and moved to a recording area side position by only a predetermined distance therefrom, and then the carriage 1 is moved again toward the marginal area 6 from the moving position so as to pass through the marginal position 6A at a predetermined speed, thereby setting an initial position base on the marginal position.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a carriage initial position setting method, and more particularly to a carriage initial position setting method for a printing apparatus in which printing is performed by moving and scanning a carriage having a print head.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of recording apparatus, when setting an initial position at which a carriage is started to start recording, the carriage is detected by a sensor related to the initial position and is set. . Such an initial position is generally called a home position (HP), and is mounted on a carriage in an ink jet type recording apparatus, which is in high demand in recent years, and ink is ejected from an ink ejection port during the moving scanning to perform recording. The ink ejection surface of the recording head is covered by the HP with the HP and is wiped for cleaning. From this point as well, it is necessary to accurately position the carriage at the HP.

In the carriage initial position setting method disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-8563, a sensor for setting the initial position is provided, and the speed of the carriage when passing the sensor position is detected to detect the time. The carriage is stopped according to a preset condition only when the carriage speed is a predetermined designated speed.
Further, when the speed of the carriage is not the designated speed, the carriage is once moved in the opposite direction and the above operation is repeated so that the carriage is accurately guided to the initial position.

[0004]

However, in the conventional recording apparatus of this type, the position of the carriage before the power is turned on is not always changed due to an increase in sliding friction when the carriage moves due to aging, or an environmental change such as temperature and humidity. In addition to being inaccurate, the movement of the carriage itself is unstable. In addition, since the driving force itself of the carriage changes due to the fluctuation of the carriage driving power supply, the carriage may not be positioned within the allowable range at the preset initial position.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems,
An object of the present invention is to propose a carriage initial position setting method capable of accurately positioning a carriage regardless of changes over time of the carriage drive system, changes in environmental conditions, and changes in the carriage driving force.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, when the initial position for scanning and moving the recording area by the carriage having the recording means is set, the movement start position of the carriage is set to the above-mentioned value. Detecting whether it is in a limit area including the initial position, guiding the carriage to the limit position on the recording area side of the limit area, moving the carriage to a position on the recording area side by a predetermined distance, The initial position is set based on the limit position by moving the carriage again from the moved position toward the limit region and passing the recording region side limit position at a predetermined speed. Is.

[0007]

According to the present invention, the carriage is moved from the recording area side limit position of the preset limit area to the recording area side by a predetermined distance, and then is moved toward the limit area from here.
Since the initial position is set based on the limit position by passing the limit position at a predetermined speed, the initial position can be ensured even if the movement start position of the carriage is not accurate.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows the structure of the portion of the recording apparatus to which the present invention is applied that is involved in driving the carriage. Here, 1 is a carriage for mounting a recording head (not shown), which moves and scans along a guide shaft 2, and 3 is a timing belt for connecting the carriage 1 to and reciprocating the carriage 1 in the directions A and B. Reference numeral 4 denotes a carriage drive motor that drives the carriage 1 via the belt 3. Further, 5 is a sensor involved in detecting the initial position of the carriage 1 (hereinafter referred to as a position detection sensor), and 6 is a detection area in which the movement of the carriage 1 near the HP is detected by the position detection sensor 5 at each step as described later. Is. In order to make it easy to understand in the description below, the limit position in the A direction in the detection area 6 is 6A, the limit position in the B direction is 6B, and the movement of the carriage 1 in the B direction is restricted at the position 6B. And Here, the position detection sensor 5 capable of detecting the position of the carriage 1 with respect to the predetermined detection region 6 may be a known one such as one using optical means.

FIG. 3 shows the configuration of a control circuit for setting the carriage initial position according to the present invention. Here, 10 is a recording device (main body), 11 is a control circuit for the main body 10,
Reference numeral 12 is a central processing unit (CP) that controls the entire device.
U) and 13 are RAMs having recording data and a work area of the CPU 12, and 14 is a ROM storing various programs related to recording including control according to the present invention. Further, 15 is an information control circuit for handling print data and information to be sent to the printing apparatus 10, 16 is a drive source control circuit for controlling the drive of the carriage drive motor 4 of the printing apparatus 10 and other not shown transport system motors, Reference numeral 17 is a sensor provided in the recording apparatus 10, that is, a sensor control circuit that receives detection signals and exchanges detection command signals from various sensors including the position detection sensor 5 described above, and 18 is various control circuits. It is an I / O interface involved in the exchange of signals between the CPUs 15, 16 and 17 and the CPU 12. Also, 2
Reference numeral 0 is a power supply for the control circuit 11.

Next, according to FIG. 1, the procedure of the control operation at the time of setting the carriage initial position according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

In the carriage initial position setting mode after the power is turned on, it is first determined in step S101 whether or not the carriage 1 is positioned within the detection area 6 of the position detection sensor 5.
2 to determine. The position detection sensor 5 outputs, for example, a signal of "ON" when the carriage 1 is in the detection area 6, and outputs "OF" when it is outside the detection area 6.
Then, the signal "F" is output. Therefore, if the affirmative determination is made in step S101, that is, if the carriage 1 is located in the position detection area 6, the process proceeds to step S102, and the carriage drive motor 4 drives the carriage 1 to the A position.
Direction (scanning direction for printing) in one step, and the signal from the sensor 5 becomes “OF” in step S103.
It is determined whether or not it becomes "F".

If not "OFF", step S
Returning to step 102, the step is repeated step by step in the A direction until it becomes "OFF". Thus, at the time of "OFF", that is, when it is determined that the carriage 1 has exceeded the detection limit position 6A in the A direction in FIG. 2, the process proceeds to step S107, and the carriage is continuously moved in the A direction by a predetermined number of steps N steps. To do. Further, in step S101, a negative determination is made, that is, being outside the detection area 6 means that the detection limit position 6
If it is determined that the carriage 1 is positioned on the arrow A direction side of A, the process proceeds to step S104, where the carriage 1 is moved in the arrow B direction, that is, HP at a relatively high first speed.
Move to the side. Then, in the next step S105, it is determined whether or not the signal from the position detection sensor 5 is turned "ON", and the movement in step S104 is repeated until the signal is turned "ON".

If it is determined in step S105 that the signal from the sensor 5 has turned "ON", step S106
Then, the movement of the carriage 1 is once stopped and the process proceeds to step S107. This means that the carriage 1 has reached the detection limit position 6A from outside the detection area 6. Therefore, in step S107, the carriage 1 is newly moved N steps in the A direction from the detection limit position 6A, and then the process proceeds to step S108. Proceeding to step S109, the position detection sensor 5
Wait until the signal from turns ON. Here, H
The reason why the carriage 1 is returned at the second speed in the P direction is that the return movement is performed only by a slight step N, and the limit position 6A is accurately detected.

Thus, in step S110, the limit position 6A is reached.
The second speed when passing through is detected by a known speed detecting means, for example, a linear encoder arranged in the moving direction,
In step S111, it is determined whether or not the detected speed is within an appropriate permissible designated speed range. As a result of the judgment, if it is judged that the second speed is appropriate, the speed is kept as it is from the detection limit position 6A in the HP direction (B
Direction), move a predetermined number of M steps, and set H
The carriage 1 can be stopped at the P position. In addition, in the case of negative determination in step S111, step S
In step 113, the drive power (drive voltage or drive current) of the carriage drive motor 4 is changed. That is,
When the second speed of the carriage 1 is faster than the specified speed range, the drive source control circuit 16 is instructed to reduce the driving power so that the driving force of the motor 4 is decreased. The drive source control circuit 16 is instructed to increase the driving power so as to increase the driving force of No. 4.

Thereafter, the process proceeds to step S114, and it is determined whether or not the drive power changed here is within a changeable range stored in advance in the ROM 14. Then, if it is determined that the drive power changed in step S114 is out of the changeable range, the process proceeds to step S115 and error processing is performed. If it is determined in step S114 that it is within the changeable range, the process returns to step S101 again, and the following steps for initial position detection are repeated.

In the embodiment described above, a serial type ink jet recording in which ink is ejected toward a recording material and a recording head for recording is mounted on a carriage, and the carriage is moved along the recording material at a predetermined timing. Although the application example to the apparatus has been described, the application of the present invention is not limited to such an inkjet recording apparatus,
It goes without saying that it can be widely applied to other types of serial recording devices.

Further, the carriage driving form is not limited to the one driven via the timing belt connected to the carriage, but is also applied to the one driven via a screw gear, for example.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is detected whether or not the movement start position of the carriage is in the limit area including the initial position, and the carriage is set to the recording area of the limit area. Led to the side limit position, the carriage is moved to a position on the recording area side by a predetermined distance,
Since the carriage is moved again from the moved position toward the limit area and the recording area side limit position is passed at a predetermined speed, the initial position is set based on the limit position, so that there is a change over time. It is possible to prevent the operation of positioning the carriage at the initial position from becoming unstable due to wear of the carriage drive system and changes in environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity, and thus to prevent the initial position from being set incorrectly. Further, by controlling the driving force of the carriage, the positioning operation to the initial position can be made more reliable.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing a control procedure of a carriage initial position setting operation according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of a carriage drive system and a carriage initial position detection mechanism according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a control circuit configuration according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Carriage 3 Timing Belt 4 Carriage Drive Motor 5 Position Detection Sensor 6 Detection Area 6A, 6B Limit Position 10 Recording Device 11 Device Main Body Control Circuit 12 CPU 13 RAM 14 ROM 16 Drive Source Control Circuit 17 Sensor Control Circuit 20 Power Supply

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. When setting an initial position for scanning and moving a recording area by a carriage having a recording means,
Detecting whether or not the movement start position of the carriage is in a limit area including the initial position, guiding the carriage to a limit position on the recording area side of the limit area, and further moving the carriage by a predetermined distance to the recording area. Side position, the carriage is moved again from the moved position toward the limit area, and the recording area side limit position is passed at a predetermined speed to set the initial position based on the limit position. Carriage initial position setting method characterized by setting. 2. A driving means for moving and scanning the carriage has a variable driving force, and when the predetermined speed is out of a preset speed range, the preset speed range is set. The carriage initial position setting method according to claim 1, wherein the driving force is changed. 3. A moving speed when the carriage is guided to a limit position on the recording area side of the limit area is faster than the predetermined speed, and the predetermined distance is defined by counting the number of moving steps of the carriage by the driving means. The carriage initial position setting method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: 4. The recording means is an inkjet recording head for recording by ejecting ink, and means for protecting the ink ejection function for the recording head is provided in the limit area. 4. The carriage initial position setting method according to any one of 1 to 3.