JPH11151819A - Printer printing system, and method for cleaning printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To allow a user to readily and accurately grasp a procedure of cleaning of a nozzle. SOLUTION: A cleaning determination/initiation process 2 determines a kind of cleaning to be executed and starts processes 3, 4, 5, or 6 corresponding to the kind of the cleaning and a cleaning time monitoring process 7. The cleaning time monitoring process 7 counts an elapsed time from the starting of the cleaning and measures a remaining time to the completion of the cleaning. The remaining time is indicated on a liquid crystal display 9 of a printer 1 or a display of a host computer 10 by transmitting it through a display process 8 and a host notifying process 12.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to nozzle cleaning of an ink jet printer, and more particularly to notification of a cleaning user.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In an injection printer, that is, a printer in which ink droplets are ejected from nozzles, ink is forcibly repeatedly ejected or sucked from nozzles in order to prevent or eliminate ink clogging in an ink supply system including the nozzles. So-called "cleaning" can be performed. This cleaning can be executed by a command from the operation panel of the printer or the host computer when the user desires. The printer itself also monitors time, monitors the amount of ink ejected, and monitors power on / off, and automatically executes cleaning at an appropriate timing. Further, when replacing the ink cartridge, a series of ink suctions and the like are performed more carefully than normal cleaning in order to fill the ink supply system with ink or remove bubbles that cause ink clogging. In the specification, this is referred to as "cleaning." The time required for these various cleanings is about several tens of seconds to several minutes.

[0003]

During cleaning, the user only knows that some operation related to ink maintenance is being performed. Some users do not know what the operation is and may mistake it as a failure. Further, even a user who has some knowledge may take a few tens of seconds to several minutes to clean, and may feel uneasy that a failure may occur. Due to such a misunderstanding, the user may turn off the power during the cleaning, and when the power is turned on later, the cleaning is repeated again from the beginning, and the expensive ink is wasted.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to enable a user to know that cleaning is being performed.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printer having a predetermined mechanism (for example,
A cleaning unit that performs cleaning of the ink supply mechanism); an information generating unit that generates cleaning information indicating that cleaning is being performed when the cleaning is being performed; and a notifying unit that notifies the user of the cleaning information. . According to this printer, the user can know that the cleaning is being performed, so that misunderstanding and anxiety as in the related art can be resolved.

Preferably, the cleaning information includes type information indicating the type of cleaning, and progress information indicating the progress of the cleaning. Then the user will see what kind of cleaning is currently being done,
You can see how far you have progressed. A typical example of the progress information is the remaining time of cleaning. Thereby, the user can know when cleaning ends.

[0007] The easiest way to keep track of the progress, such as the remaining time, is time counting. However, since the result calculated by the time count may not always coincide with the actual cleaning progress, in a preferred embodiment, the actual cleaning operation is monitored from time to time, and the time count result is calculated based on the monitoring result. Corrected.

[0008] Since the user is usually working in front of the host computer, it is desirable to send the cleaning information to the host computer and provide it to the user from the user interface of the host computer.

A printing system according to a second aspect of the present invention includes a printer and a host computer. The printer includes a cleaning unit that performs cleaning of a predetermined mechanism of the printer, and a cleaning unit that performs cleaning. An information generating unit that generates cleaning information indicating that cleaning is being performed, and a host notifying unit that notifies the host computer of the cleaning information,
On the other hand, the host computer includes a printer monitor for notifying the user of the cleaning information notified from the printer. According to this printing system, the user can know that cleaning is being performed by the printer while staying in front of the host computer.

A host computer according to a third aspect of the present invention, when connected to a printer, receives cleaning information indicating that the printer is performing cleaning from the printer, and notifies the user of the cleaning information. It has a printer monitor.

The printer monitor can be realized as a dedicated hardware circuit, but is typically realized by software. This printer monitor program is
It can be supplied to a computer through various types of memory such as a card type recording medium, a disk type recording medium, a semiconductor memory, or a communication network.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the printer of the present invention.

An ink jet printer 1 is connected to a host computer 10. The printer 1 includes, as functional modules relating to nozzle cleaning, a cleaning determination / startup process 2, a normal cleaning process 3, a strong cleaning process 4, an ink cleaning replacement process 5, a power-on cleaning process 6, and a cleaning time monitoring process 7. , Display process 8
And a host notification process 12. The printer 1 has a liquid crystal display (LCD) 11 for displaying various messages to the user. The host computer 10 has a resident printer monitor 11 for monitoring the status of the printer 1 and a printer driver 13 for sending various commands to the printer 1.

The cleaning decision / startup process 2 of the printer 1 includes a signal from an operation panel (not shown), a command from the printer driver 13, and time monitoring, ink ejection amount monitoring, power supply on / off monitoring, and ink cartridge replacement monitoring. The type of cleaning and whether or not to perform the cleaning are determined based on the result, and one of the normal cleaning process 3, the strong cleaning process 4, the cleaning process 5 after ink cartridge replacement, and the power-on cleaning process 6 is started. The normal cleaning process 3 is automatically started at an appropriate timing during the operation of the printer 1 and executes a standard cleaning sequence. The strong cleaning process 4 is based on a request from the user (that is, the operation panel or the printer driver 11).
From the cleaning process 3, and performs cleaning more strongly than the normal cleaning process 3. The ink cartridge replacement cleaning process 5 is started when the ink cartridge is replaced, and executes a careful cleaning sequence including ink filling. The power-on cleaning process 6 is started when the power is turned on, and executes a predetermined cleaning sequence.

These cleaning processes 3, 4,
The cleaning time monitoring process 7 is also started at the same time as one of the steps 5 and 6 is started. The cleaning time monitoring process 7 includes the cleaning processes 3, 4, 5, and 6
Then, the elapsed time is counted down from the cleaning time specified in advance for each of them, and the remaining time until the end of cleaning is measured. The measured remaining time is passed to the display process 8 and the host notification process 12. The display process 8 recognizes the type of cleaning based on the information from the cleaning determination / startup process 2, acquires the remaining time from the cleaning time monitoring process 7, and displays the information in the form of, for example, a text message on the LCD.
9 is displayed. Similarly, the host notification process 12 similarly recognizes the type of cleaning based on the information from the cleaning determination / startup process 2, acquires the remaining time from the cleaning time monitoring process 7, and sends the information to the host computer 10. Send to The printer monitor 11 of the host computer 10 displays the cleaning information notified from the host notification process 12 on a display screen (not shown) of the host computer 10.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a character message displayed on the LCD 9, and FIG. 3 shows an example of a display form of the remaining time displayed on the display screen of the host computer 10. As shown in FIG. 2, in a text message, for example,
Cleaning performed at the request of the user is "cleaning",
Cleaning after replacement of the ink cartridge is distinguished by a term such as “ink exchange”, and cleaning automatically performed by other printers is termed by “maintenance”, and the remaining cleaning time is indicated by, for example, “swing”. In addition, since a more detailed display is possible on the display of the host, for example, as shown in FIG. 3, a text message indicating the type of cleaning such as “cleaning”, “ink replacement”, “maintenance”, etc. In addition, the detailed time required for cleaning, the elapsed time, and the remaining time are displayed in a bar graph, a text message, or the like.

The operation of this embodiment for performing such display will be described below.

When the type of cleaning to be performed is determined, the cleaning determination / startup process 2 creates information indicating the individual element operations constituting the cleaning and the time required for each element operation, and stores the information in the internal memory. . The information is, for example, a schedule table 2 as shown in FIG.
0. The schedule table 20 of FIG. 4 is an example of the case of the normal cleaning process 3, and includes the element operations such as the wiping operation for wiping the print head, the main suction operation, the minute suction operation, the idle suction operation, and the pause operation. , And the time required for each element operation. The total time required for all element operations is the total time required for cleaning. According to the schedule table 20, the total cleaning time for normal cleaning is 60 seconds. The schedule table 20 has an operation pointer 21 pointing to a currently executed element operation in the table 20. The operation pointer 21 initially indicates the first element operation (wiping operation in FIG. 4).

The cleaning decision / activation process 2 activates the cleaning process 3, 4, 5, or 6 relating to the determined cleaning type, and simultaneously activates the cleaning time monitoring process 7. The cleaning determination / startup process 2 includes cleaning processes 3, 4, 5,
Or, after the activation of 6, the element operation that the cleaning process is executing is monitored, and every time the next element operation is started, the operation pointer 21 of the schedule table 20 illustrated in FIG. 4 is pointed to the next element operation. Update to

When the cleaning time monitoring process 7 is activated for the first time, the cleaning total monitoring time obtained from the schedule table 20 illustrated in FIG. 4 is first set in the down counter as an initial value of the remaining time, and then the cleaning time is monitored. The countdown is started, and the time is counted down one second at a time from the total cleaning time. Since then
The cleaning time monitoring process 7 is performed until the cleaning process 3, 4, 5, or 6 completes cleaning.
It is activated at one second intervals by the cleaning determination / activation process 2.

FIG. 5 shows a cleaning time monitoring process 7.
Shows the processing procedure executed each time is started.

When the cleaning time monitoring process 7 is started every second, the down counter is normally decremented by one (step 205). This countdown is performed until the down counter becomes zero (YES in step 204).
If 1 has been updated (YES in step 201), instead of counting down, the schedule table 20 is referred to and the time required for the element operation after the element operation indicated by the operation pointer 21 on the table 20 is totaled. The remaining cleaning time is recalculated, and the recalculated remaining cleaning time is set in the down counter (steps 202 and 203). The reason why the recalculation is performed every time the pointer is updated is to absorb an error between the down count and the actual progress of the cleaning. In the operation every one second, the remaining cleaning time indicated by the down counter is passed to the display process 8 and the host notification process 12 for displaying on the LCD 9 and the host display screen (steps 206 and 207).

According to the present embodiment, the type of cleaning being performed and the remaining cleaning time are displayed on the printer 1 and the host computer 10, so that the user can easily and accurately grasp the progress of cleaning. In addition, the conventional problem of misunderstanding and anxiety of the user is solved.

The present invention can be carried out in embodiments other than the above embodiment. For example, the progress of the cleaning can be notified to the user by a voice message.
The various processes described above do not necessarily need to be computer software, and can be realized by a dedicated hardware circuit. The present invention not only cleans the ink supply system of an inkjet printer, but also in the future,
When a printer that performs cleaning of another mechanism appears, the present invention can be applied to the cleaning.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a text message of a cleaning type and a remaining cleaning time displayed on an LCD of a printer.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a display example of a type of cleaning and a remaining cleaning time displayed on a host computer.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a cleaning schedule table created in a memory of a printer.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure of a cleaning time monitoring process.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Printer 2 Cleaning decision / startup process 7 Cleaning time monitoring process 9 LCD 10 Host computer 11 Printer monitor 12 Host notification process

Claims (9)

[Claims] A cleaning unit that performs cleaning of a predetermined mechanism; an information generation unit that generates cleaning information indicating that cleaning is being performed when the cleaning is being performed; and a notification unit that notifies the user of the cleaning information. And a printer with. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the cleaning information includes at least one of type information indicating a type of the cleaning and progress information indicating a progress of the cleaning. 3. The printer according to claim 2, wherein the progress information includes a remaining time of the cleaning. 4. The printer according to claim 2, wherein said information generating means has means for calculating said progress information by time counting, and means for correcting the result of said time counting based on the operation of said cleaning means. . 5. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the notifying unit notifies the user of the cleaning information through a host computer connected to the printer. 6. A printer, comprising: a printer; and a host computer, wherein the printer performs cleaning of a predetermined mechanism of the printer, and that the cleaning is being performed when the cleaning is being performed. And a host notifying unit for notifying the host computer of the cleaning information, wherein the host computer includes a printer monitor for notifying a user of the cleaning information notified from the printer. Equipped printing system. 7. A printer monitor which, when connected to a printer, receives cleaning information indicating that the printer is performing cleaning from the printer, and notifies the user of the cleaning information.
Host computer for the printer. 8. When the computer is connected to a printer, the printer receives cleaning information indicating that the printer is performing cleaning from the printer, and notifies the user of the cleaning information as a printer monitor. A computer-readable program recording medium carrying a computer program for causing a computer to function. 9. A step of performing cleaning of a predetermined mechanism of the printer, a step of generating cleaning information indicating that the cleaning is being performed when the cleaning is being performed, and a step of transmitting the cleaning information to a user. The method of cleaning the printer.