JPH10105295A - Battery built-in electronic equipment and print control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide the battery built-in type electronic equipment and print control method which prevents print interruption due to battery exhaustion and eliminates the loss of print data resulting from battery replacement. SOLUTION: A printer-incorporated personal computer which uses a battery having a CPU inside, etc., judges whether or not data to be printed can be printed with the current battery rest from the amount of the data to be printed and recent battery consumption (S11) before the data begin to be printed by using the battery, and does not starts the printing operation, but displays a request for battery replacement on a host display unit and starts printing operation associatively after transition to a suspend state and replacement (S12 and S13) unless the printing can not be completed, thereby eliminating the interruption of printing due to the exhaustion of the battery during the printing and the loss of the print data resulting from the battery replacement.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to an electronic device with a built-in battery and a printing control method.

More specifically, the present invention relates to an electronic device with a built-in battery and a print control method suitable for performing print control at the time of printing in a battery-driven printer-containing personal computer having a CPU therein. is there.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a portable information device such as a personal computer with a built-in printer is configured to be operable by a power supply such as a battery in order to be used in a portable manner. At the time of printing using a battery in such an information device, the remaining amount of the battery is monitored by the CPU or the sub CPU on the host side. When the host becomes inoperable, the host stops printing arbitrarily and shifts to the suspend mode regardless of the progress of printing.

[0004]

However, in the above-described conventional example, unprinted data among the print data transferred to the printer is lost due to the interruption of printing, and when resuming after battery replacement, printing is restarted from the beginning. There was a problem that there was no alternative.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide
An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic device with a built-in battery and a print control method that prevent printing interruption due to battery exhaustion and eliminate loss of print data due to battery replacement.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to an electronic apparatus using a battery as an operation power supply, and a remaining amount detecting means for detecting a current remaining amount of the battery; Calculating means for predicting the required amount of printing of the battery based on the amount of data to be calculated, and comparing the required amount of printing predicted by the calculating means with the current remaining battery level obtained by the remaining amount detecting means. And comparison means for performing the comparison. Here, when it is determined by the comparing means that printing is not possible, a battery replacement request is displayed without starting printing, and a battery replacement mode is entered. The calculating means performs a calculation based on the total number of printing commands when estimating the required battery amount before starting printing. That is, when estimating the required amount of battery before the start of printing, the arithmetic means performs an arithmetic operation in which the number of bytes of a print command transferred per unit time is associated with the amount of battery reduction.

Alternatively, the calculating means performs a calculation based on the number of ink dots ejected per unit time when estimating a required battery amount before printing starts. Further, the calculating means can perform a calculation based on the moving amount of the carriage per unit time and the driving amount of the paper feed motor when estimating the required battery amount before the start of printing. In this case, it is preferable that the required energy is tabulated in advance for each movement amount of the carriage and each operation of the paper feed motor, and these values are integrated to calculate the required battery amount.

The functions of the arithmetic means and the comparing means can be executed by a processor of a portable personal computer having a built-in printer. In this case, a battery replacement warning is displayed by a built-in liquid crystal display.

In the printing control method according to the present invention, when an electronic device incorporating a printer is operated by a battery, the required printing amount of the battery is estimated and calculated based on the amount of data to be printed, and the required printing amount and the current printing amount are calculated. Then, it is determined whether or not printing is possible by comparing the remaining amount of the battery.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In one embodiment of the present invention, in a personal computer with a built-in printer using a battery or the like having a CPU therein, before printing starts during operation using the battery, Determines whether printing is possible with the current battery level based on the amount of data to be printed and the recent battery consumption. If printing is not possible, the printer does not start printing and displays and suspends a battery replacement request on the host display. By interlocking the start of printing after the state transition / exchange, the printing data is prevented from being lost due to the interruption of the printing due to the consumption of the battery during the printing and the replacement of the battery.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a personal computer (hereinafter abbreviated as a personal computer) according to a first embodiment of the present invention. The personal computer 1 includes an apparatus main body 101, a keyboard 102, an upper cover 104 having a display unit 103, a printer 2, and other components. The upper cover 104 is rotatably attached to the apparatus main body 101 via hinges 104a provided at both ends of the rear edge. Thus, when the present apparatus is used, the upper cover 104 is opened to a position where the display unit 103 is easily viewable by the rotation thereof.
When not in use, it can be closed and function as a cover.

As the display element of the display unit 103, a liquid crystal display element is used because the display unit can be made thin.
The built-in printer 2 has an opening (not shown) that can be opened and closed by an operator, so that the print head can be replaced. The host 1 is internally connected to the personal computer 1. Normally, a printing operation is performed by mounting an ink jet type print head or the like on a carriage portion of the printer. Reference numeral 3 denotes a recording sheet.

FIG. 2 shows a schematic block diagram of a host computer and a printer.

First, in the host computer, the main control is performed by a central processing unit (CPU) 11.
0, and the basic control is indicated by (BIO
S). The application program is read out via the floppy disk controller 111 or the hard disk controller 112, and is read from the system memory 113.
Execute the program using. At this time, as a screen display method, characters are displayed on the liquid crystal using the LCD controller 114, and key input from the keyboard is performed via the keyboard controller 115.

Here, the numerical processor 116 is a CP
This is to support arithmetic processing for U110. The real-time clock 117 indicates the current elapsed time, and the operation is performed by the dedicated battery even when the power of the entire system is turned off. DM
The A controller 118 performs data transfer without a CPU in order to perform high-speed data transfer between memory and memory, between memory and I / O, and between I / O and I / O. The interrupt controller 119 receives an interrupt of each I / O and performs processing according to the priority.

The timer has a free running timer of several channels and performs various time managements. Besides that,
There are a serial interface connected to the outside, an expansion port, and an LED that reports the operation status to the user.

In addition to the above-described controls of a general personal computer, a notebook personal computer must be compatible with at least two power sources of an adapter battery. In particular, power saving when using a battery is required. Having.

On-off of EL inverter circuit
Power supply to FDD / Power supply to HDD, print
er-off / RAM, a host power management unit (host PM) RAM that instructs time control of power supply to devices other than the VRAM, CLOCK control of the CPU and the like, and a power control procedure at the time of suspend resume.
It comprises a refresh controller for refreshing by switching between VRAM / CPU clock operations and a charge controller capable of driving the host while charging the secondary battery.

The printer is connected to the host computer by a general-purpose parallel interface.
Data transmission / reception is performed at the register level of the / O port, and the image of the connection is the same as when exchanging with an external printer.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control system of the printer unit. The main configuration is as follows.

Here, the CPU-P150 is a microprocessor-type CPU for performing main control of the printer unit.
PST for printer control & status port
The printer sends / receives printer status information and emulation setting information to / from a PST / IO register accessible from the host via the / IO register 151, and based on the state setting, a parallel interface (described later) from the host.
In accordance with printer commands and data obtained through the PIO / IO register 152 of the adapter unit, desired state processing and printing processing are performed on the CPU-P150 in accordance with programs and data previously microcoded and stored in a ROM-P153 described later. Perform using device / register / memory.

The ROM-P 153 includes programs corresponding to a recording control procedure, a print control procedure, a scan control procedure, and the like executed by the CPU-P 150, a character generator,
A ROM (Read Only Memory) for storing other tables and fixed data of default values.

TIMER1-P154 is a TIMER for obtaining a phase drive time of a paper feed motor (FM) / heater and other time timings.
5 is an RTC for knowing the elapsed time of the print head recovery operation.
(Real time clock). The composite control unit is composed of IF transfer control / power saving control / RAM access control, etc. Among them, RAM access control / printer control & status control / power saving control and the like are not controlled by the CPU-P150. Independent control is possible even during clock stop and default.

The above configuration is connected to the BUS of the CPU-P. The RAM-P 156 has a work area used as a register, a line buffer for storing print data / scan data for one line, a dot development buffer re-developed into dots, and an INPUT buffer from a parallel IF. In the random access memory, the RAM-P is connected to the complex control unit 157 by a RAM bus, and the RAM-control unit connects the RAM-P to the complex control unit 157, including a CPU-P described later,
Access from a plurality of control units is possible.

Each printer drive control signal is output from the composite control unit, and converted into drive levels such as FM / CM / Bj-Head / heater in the FM drive circuit 158 / CM drive circuit 159 / head driver 160 / heater driver 161. Then, the FM (feed motor) / CM (carrier motor) / each part of the ink jet head of the printer is driven. As a power saving control signal, Vcc1P-off / Vcc2P-off from the complex control unit
/ Vpoff, a printer-off / printer sensor / operation panel SW as an input signal, an LED driving signal of the operation panel as an output signal, and the like. Among them, the power supply of Vcc1-P is performed, and the power supply can be performed only to the composite control unit / CPU-P / RAM-P.

Vcc1P-off is set to Print
The power supply Vcc1P can be turned off at the changed OFF timing in accordance with the driving state of the printer by changing the r-off signal. That is, the power is not cut off when the head is in the cap open state, and no fatal trouble is caused.

The CM and the ASFM are configured such that the relay 162 switches the connection with the drive circuit according to a signal from the CPU. Usually, it is connected to CM.

FIG. 4 shows a block diagram of the complex control unit shown in FIG.

The functional blocks are mainly the RAM-P1 from the host via the parallel IF adapter 170.
IF data capture control unit 171 for storing parallel data on 56 input-buffers, printer control & status port unit 1 for mainly checking and controlling the status of the printer directly from the host side
72, a refresh control unit 173 for generating a refresh timing of the RAM-P, an IJ- which reads out one-line dot development data on the RAM-P and drives and prints an ink jet (IJ) head, and also controls phase excitation of the carrier. Head / CM controller 174 and printer port controller 175 for driving FM / heater / LED etc.
A RAM access control unit 176 that has an access right for each of the four access requests of the IF data capture control unit, the refresh control unit, the IJ-head CM control unit, and the CPU-P, and a printer that performs power saving control. PM part 1
77.

The power saving control will be described later.
The return to the normal processing state from the low power consumption mode in which the supply clock is stopped in the UP fault state is brought about by various interrupts that are centrally managed by the PM control unit, and the conditions for returning the CPU-P 150 are as follows. After it is set,
The signal is output as INT and the CPU-P resumes processing.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing a recording apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG.
Is mounted with a head cartridge 202 in which a recording head 200 and an ink tank 201 constituting a recording unit are connected. The recording head 200 of the carrier 203
One end on the side is fitted to a lead screw 213 rotatably attached to the chassis 204 so as to be slidable in the axial direction. The carrier 203 is configured to be able to reciprocate in the axial direction with the rotation of the lead screw 213 while the posture is always kept constant.

That is, the lead screw 213
As shown in FIG. 5, a lead screw gear 257 fixed to the left end of the screw and a pinion gear 256 fixed to the output shaft of the carrier motor 255 are fitted, and the lead screw 213 has a predetermined pitch spirally. A lead pin attached to the carrier 203 is fitted into the guide strip formed by the above. Therefore, the carrier motor 2
55 with the forward and reverse rotation of the lead screw 213
Is rotated, the carrier 203 reciprocates. The details of the scanning of the carrier 203 will be described later.

The recording head 200 is driven in synchronization with the reciprocating movement of the carrier 203 to discharge ink in accordance with a recording signal, thereby performing one-line recording on the recording material 3. That is, the recording head 200 includes a fine liquid ejection port (orifice), a liquid path, and an energy operation section provided in a part of the liquid path, and an energy for generating droplet forming energy to act on the liquid in the operation section. Generating means.

As an energy generating means for generating such energy, a recording method using an electrothermal converter such as a piezo element or the like, an electromagnetic wave such as a laser is irradiated to generate heat, and droplets are discharged by the action of the heat. There is a recording method using an energy generating means, or a recording method using an energy generating means for discharging a liquid by heating the liquid with an electrothermal converter such as a heating element having a heating resistance.

Among them, a recording head used in an ink jet recording method for discharging a liquid by thermal energy has a high density of liquid discharge ports for discharging a recording liquid to form a discharge droplet. Therefore, high-resolution recording can be performed. Among them, a recording head using an electrothermal transducer as an energy generating means can be easily made compact, and has a remarkable improvement in technology and reliability in recent semiconductor fields.
We can make full use of the advantages of C technology and micromachining technology,
This is advantageous because high-density mounting is easy and the manufacturing cost is low.

The operation when the present apparatus operates as a recording apparatus will be described together with the function and structure of each block. letter,
Alternatively, recording data to be recorded (or printed) such as an image is transferred under the control of the arithmetic control unit from the host side, and the controller receives the recording data and processes it as data to be recorded on recording paper by the recording head 1. I do. Further, under the control of the arithmetic and control unit, the controller sends print data to the print head 1 through the head connection line and the head connection unit, and drives the print head 200 in synchronization with the reciprocation of the carrier 203 to drive ink. By discharging in accordance with a recording signal, one line of characters or images is recorded on the recording material 3. That is, the recording head 200 includes a fine liquid ejection port (orifice), a liquid path, and an energy operation section provided in a part of the liquid path, and an energy for generating droplet forming energy to act on the liquid in the operation section. Generating means.

Normally, in order to perform printing by connecting a printer to the host, the host FD in FIG.
It is necessary to install a dedicated printer driver, an application program, and the like. After the installation, when the application program is started on the host side, the application program is expanded on the RAM and executed by the CPU.

Further, when the printer driver is activated and instructs the printer to print, the printer driver creates data for printing on the RAM and transfers the print data to the printer via the interface unit. Side receives the received data once into RAM-P
After expanding to the top, print.

FIG. 6 shows processing of the printer driver on the host side at the time of printing. First, step S1
Execute print data acquisition processing to check whether or not print data exists. If there is no data, repeat step S
Return to 1 and wait for print data to come. If the print data is obtained, the print command counter is incremented by 1 in step S2, and the print command is processed in step S3. After the end, the process returns to step S1 to check the print data again.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a battery consumption rate calculation process during printing. A step S4 checks whether or not the set unit time has elapsed, and if not, returns to the step S4 again. If the set unit time has passed in step S4, the value of the print command counter at that time is referred to in step S5, and is temporarily stored in the work.

In step S6, the remaining amount of the battery which was previously checked and stored in the work is read, and in step S7, the remaining amount of the battery checked this time is stored in the work. The remaining battery power is determined by the CPU on the battery side via an I / O register accessible from the host side.
Obtain from 120.

In step S8, the remaining battery level checked this time is subtracted from the previous battery remaining level,
(Consumption) Save to work. In step S9, the values of the print command counter and the set unit time detection timer are cleared, and the process returns to step S4.

FIG. 8 shows a print execution start process on the host side at the time of printing. First, it is checked in step S10 whether or not there is a print request. If not, the process returns to step S10 and waits for a print request. When a print request is received, it is determined in step S11 whether or not printing is possible based on the remaining battery level.

If printing is possible, the process proceeds to step S14 to start printing. If not, the process proceeds to step S12, where a message is displayed on the host-side display (printing disabled, battery replacement request). Actually, it is possible to shift to the suspend process for the battery replacement operation. After the display, the process proceeds to step S13, and waits for the completion of the exchange. Then, the process proceeds to step S14 to start printing (after resuming if suspended).

FIG. 9 shows the flow of the battery remaining amount check before the start of printing. First, step S15
Check the total number of print commands with. In step S16, the total number of print commands is divided by the print command counter to calculate the unit time required for printing.

In step S17, the required battery remaining amount can be determined by multiplying the unit time in step S18 by referring to the battery consumption. Based on the result, the process returns to step S11 in FIG. 8, and it is determined whether printing is possible or not by comparing with the current remaining battery level.

As described above, before starting printing, it is determined whether or not printing is possible based on the amount to be printed and the latest amount of printing and battery consumption, so that printing can be performed without battery replacement during printing. .

(Embodiment 2) In the first embodiment, the required amount of battery printing is calculated before printing.
The method of associating the number of bytes of the print command transferred per unit time with the reduction amount of the battery has been described, but the other conditions, for example, calculating the required printing amount of the battery based on the number of ink dots ejected per unit time. Such a configuration may be adopted.

In this case, a counter such as a printer-side composite control unit is provided for the number of ink dots to be ejected, and the counter value is updated according to the actual ejection. The value of this counter is transmitted to the host in response to an inquiry from the host. In order to calculate the number of dots of a file to be printed from now on, it is necessary to search a print spool file or the like.

(Embodiment 3) In Embodiment 1, in order to calculate the required printing amount of the battery before printing,
The method of associating the number of bytes of the print command transferred per unit time with the reduction amount of the battery has been described, but other conditions, such as the movement amount of the carriage per unit time and the motor drive amount such as the paper feed amount, have been described. The configuration may be such that the required printing amount of the battery is calculated.

In this case, required energy is tabulated for each operation, and the required energy is integrated to calculate the required battery amount. In order to calculate the moving amount operated in the file to be printed from now on, a print spool file or the like is searched and calculated from commands and data.

[0053]

As described above, according to the present invention, when there is enough remaining battery power, printing is properly performed to the end, and when there is no remaining battery power, printing is not started and battery replacement is not performed. Since the printing is executed after the request is displayed, it is possible to prevent the interruption of the printing by the low battery during the printing, the garbled data after the restart, and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the overall appearance of an information device incorporating a recording device to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram between a host and a printer.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a printer IF unit.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the inside of the composite control unit.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view illustrating a recording device and a print head.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating print command counting processing on the host side.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing printing-battery consumption update processing on the host side.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a print-start pre-process on the host side.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating a process for determining whether or not printing is possible based on the remaining battery power.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 personal computer (personal computer) 2 built-in printer 3 recording paper 101 device main body 102 keyboard 103 display unit 104 top cover 110 CPU 111 FDC 112 HDC 113 memory 114 LCD controller 115 keyboard controller 116 numerical operation processor 117 real-time clock 118 DMA controller 119 interrupt Controller 120 Battery-side CPU 150 CPU-P 151 PST-IO 152 PIO-IO 153 ROM-P 154 TIMER-P 155 RTC-P 156 RAM-P 157 Composite control unit 158 FM drive circuit 159 CM drive circuit 160 Head driver 161 Heater Driver 162 Relay switch 170 Parallel IF adapter 171 IF data capture control section 172 Printer control & status port section 173 Refresh control section 174 IJ head & CM control section 175 Printer port control section 176 RAM access control section 177 Printer PM section 200 Recording head 201 Ink tank 202 Head cartridge 203 Carrier 204 Chassis 213 Lead screw 255 Carrier motor 256 Pinion gear 257 Lead screw gear

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An electronic apparatus using a battery as an operating power supply, a remaining amount detecting means for detecting a current remaining amount of the battery, and an operation for predicting a required printing amount of the battery based on an amount of data to be printed. And a comparing means for comparing the required printing amount predicted by the calculating means with the current remaining battery power obtained by the remaining power detecting means. . 2. The battery according to claim 2, wherein when the comparison unit determines that printing is not possible, a battery replacement request is displayed without starting printing and a battery replacement mode is entered. Built-in electronic devices. 3. An electronic device with a built-in battery according to claim 1, wherein said calculating means performs a calculation based on a total number of print commands when estimating a required battery amount before starting printing. 4. The computing device according to claim 3, wherein the computing means predicts a required battery amount before printing starts, and performs a computing operation in which the number of bytes of a print command transferred per unit time is associated with the reduced battery amount. An electronic device with a built-in battery characterized by performing. 5. The battery built-in type according to claim 1, wherein said calculating means performs a calculation based on the number of ink dots ejected per unit time when estimating a required battery amount before starting printing. Electronics. 6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the calculating unit performs a calculation based on a moving amount of a carriage per unit time and a driving amount of a paper feed motor when estimating a required battery amount before printing starts. Electronic equipment with built-in battery. 7. A battery according to claim 6, wherein a required amount of battery is calculated by tabulating in advance a required amount of energy for each movement of said carriage and each operation of said paper feed motor, and integrating these values. Electronic equipment with built-in battery. 8. The electronic device with a built-in battery according to claim 1, wherein the functions of said calculating means and said comparing means are executed by a processor of a portable personal computer having a built-in printer. 9. The electronic device with a built-in battery according to claim 8, wherein an alarm for battery replacement is displayed by a built-in liquid crystal display. 10. When operating an electronic device including a printer on a battery, a required printing amount of the battery is estimated and calculated based on an amount of data to be printed, and the required printing amount is compared with a current battery remaining amount. And determining whether printing is possible.