JPH1120196A - Recovery apparatus of ink-jet printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To eliminate complicated operations and reduce the generation of printing failures, by automatically carrying out a recovery operation of an ink discharge state. SOLUTION: This apparatus compares the present time read out from a timer circuit with a previous purge time stored in a purge time memory. As a result of the comparison, if 15 or more days have passed since a previous suction operation (S1), a purge process is repeated three times (S2, S4, S6). If the past time is shorter than 15 days over 10 days (S3), the purge process is carried out twice (S4, S6). When the past time is shorter than 10 days over 5 days (S5), the purge process is carried out once (S6). An ink discharge state is thus recovered. Thereafter, the present time of the timer circuit is written in the purge time memory (S7), thereby updating the previous purge time. Printing is conducted then (S8). Since the purge process is executed in accordance with the past time after the previous suction operation before printing is started, the printing is carried out with the ink discharge state kept good.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a recovery device for an ink jet printer, and more particularly to a recovery device for an ink jet printer that can automatically perform a recovery operation of an ink ejection state at a predetermined timing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an ink jet printer that discharges ink from a print head having a plurality of ink discharge ports and prints on recording paper has been put to practical use. In this ink jet printer, ink ejection failure may occur due to the generation of air bubbles inside the print head during use or the adhesion of ink to the surface of the ink ejection port. In addition, even when the printer is left unused for a long period of time, ink clogging occurs in the ink discharge ports, resulting in defective discharge. If printing is performed in a state where there is a discharge failure, a print failure will occur. In such a case, a purge process is performed to restore a good discharge state. This purging process is a process in which a suction cap is put on the print head to seal it, and then a negative pressure is generated by a pump to suck the ink inside the print head. Therefore, by performing the purging process, the ink ejection state can be recovered.

[0003]

However, such a purge process is performed after a user confirms a print defect.
Since it is executed by a manual operation, there is a problem that a user is required to perform a complicated operation and a printing failure occurs at least once.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems. By automatically performing a recovery operation of an ink ejection state, a complicated operation by a user can be eliminated, and a printing failure can be prevented. It is an object of the present invention to provide a recovery device for an ink jet printer that can reduce the number of occurrences.

[0005]

In order to achieve this object, a recovery device for an ink jet printer according to claim 1 has one or a plurality of ink discharge ports, and discharges ink from the ink discharge ports. A print head that prints on a print medium; and a suction unit that suctions ink from an ink discharge port of the print head to recover an ink discharge state. The apparatus includes a time measuring means for measuring time, and a control means for executing a suction operation by the suction means when an elapsed time measured by the time measuring means exceeds a predetermined time.

According to the ink jet printer recovery device of the present invention, when a suction operation for sucking ink from the ink discharge port of the print head is performed by the suction device, the timing device performs the operation after the suction operation. Is elapsed. The control means causes the suction means to execute the suction operation again when the elapsed time measured by the time measurement means exceeds the predetermined time, thereby recovering the ink ejection state. Therefore, after the execution of the suction operation, the ink ejection state is automatically recovered after a predetermined time has elapsed.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recovery device for an ink-jet printer according to the first aspect, wherein the time-measuring means performs a suction operation by a current-time time-measuring means for measuring a current time and the suction means. A suction time storage means for storing the suction time performed, the suction time stored in the suction time storage means and the current time measured by the current time clock means,
The elapsed time after execution of the suction operation by the suction means is counted.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided the ink jet printer recovery device according to the first or second aspect, wherein the control means controls the suction as the elapsed time measured by the time measurement means becomes longer. The amount of suction by means is increased.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the recovery apparatus for an ink jet printer according to any one of the first to third aspects, the control means controls the suction operation before the start of a printing operation by the print head. The suction operation is performed by the means.

[0010]

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a multifunctional peripheral device 1 equipped with a recovery device for an ink jet printer according to one embodiment of the present invention. The multifunction peripheral device 1 has various functions such as a facsimile function, a printer function, a scanner function, a copy function, and a video printer function, and performs full-color printing for printing performed when executing these functions. The printer is equipped with an ink jet printer 26 capable of performing the following operations.

As shown in FIG. 1, an apparatus main body 2 of the multi-functional peripheral device 1 is formed in a box-like body, and an operation panel 3 is disposed at a front portion of an upper surface thereof. The operation panel 3 has “0” to
Various buttons such as a numeral button 3a of "9" and a start button 3b are provided, and various operations are performed by pressing these buttons. The initial setting of the current time described later is also performed by operating each button on the operation panel 3. A liquid crystal (LCD) display 6 is provided at the rear of the operation panel 3, and the setting status of the multi-function peripheral device 1 and various operation messages are displayed as necessary. When the multi-function peripheral device 1 is in the standby state, the current time set via the operation panel 3 is displayed on the LCD display 6.

At the rear of the LCD display 6, there is provided an original placing section 4 on which a facsimile original transmitted to the facsimile apparatus 51 at the time of the facsimile function and a copy original copied at the time of the copy function can be stacked. I have. The various originals placed on the original placing section 4 are conveyed into the apparatus main body 2, and the scanner 19 reads an image drawn on the surface of the original. The document from which the image has been read is further conveyed and discharged in a stackable manner to a document discharge unit 9 provided below the operation panel 3.

A cassette insertion portion 5 is provided at a rear portion of the document placing portion 4. A paper cassette capable of stacking and storing a plurality of recording papers P is detachably attached to the cassette insertion portion 5 (not shown). The recording paper P is supplied from a paper cassette attached to the cassette insertion portion 5, is used for printing by an inkjet printer 26 described later, and is discharged from a recording paper discharge portion 10 provided below the document discharge portion 9. Is done. A video signal input terminal 7 is provided adjacent to a lower right portion of the recording paper discharge unit 10.
A video signal (image data) output from a video camera or the like connected to the video signal input terminal 7 is taken into the multifunctional peripheral device 1 and printed in full color by an ink jet printer 26 capable of full color printing.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the ink jet printer 26 housed inside the apparatus main body 2 of the multi-function peripheral device 1. The ink jet printer 26 is a serial printer that performs printing by moving the print head 65 in the directions indicated by arrows A and A.

The frame 6 of the ink jet printer 26
Reference numeral 3 denotes a platen roller 61 for conveying the recording paper P.
Is rotatably attached to the platen roller 61.
A guide rod 62 is fixed to the frame 63 in parallel to the guide rod 62. A carriage 66 on which a print head 65 is mounted is supported on the guide rod 62 so as to be movable in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the recording paper P is transported. This carriage 66
Is a drive pulley 68 rotated by a carriage motor 67 provided on one side of the frame 63 and a driven pulley 6
The belt is moved in parallel with the platen roller 61 along the guide rod 62 via the belt 70 stretched between the belts 9.

The print head 6 mounted on the carriage 66
5 includes four color ink tanks 65a to 65d, each of which is filled with four color inks of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow in order from the left in FIG. These four colors of ink are ejected from a plurality of nozzles (ink ejection ports) provided in the print head 65, and full-color printing is performed on the recording paper P. Each of the ink tanks 65a to 65d is individually detachable, and is configured such that only the ink tanks 65a to 65d that are short of ink can be individually replaced.

On the other side (left side in FIG. 2) of the frame 63,
A recovery mechanism 71 for recovering the ink ejection state is provided. The recovery mechanism 71 includes a suction cap 72 that seals all nozzles of the print head 65 at one time, and a projecting member 73 that projects the suction cap 72 toward the print head 65 is attached to the back surface of the suction cap 72. Have been. One end of the protruding member 73 is in contact with the surface of a protruding lever 74 formed in an arc shape, and when the protruding lever 74 is moved from the state of FIG.
At the same time, the suction cap 72 protrudes toward the print head 65. Therefore, after the carriage 66 is moved to the position indicated by the alternate long and short dash line in FIG.
And can be hermetically sealed.

The arrow B and the opposite arrow B of the projecting lever 74
The movement in the direction is performed by the cam body 7 rotated by the motor 75.
6. The rotation of the cam body 76 also drives a suction pump (not shown). The suction pump performs a suction operation via a suction tube 77 connected to the non-suction surface of the suction cap 72. When the suction pump is operated with the print head 65 covered with the suction cap 72, The ink is sucked from the nozzles of the print head 65,
The ink ejection state is restored.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of the multi-function peripheral device 1. The multi-functional peripheral device 1 is formed by connecting two units, a facsimile unit FU and a printer unit PU, to each other via an interface 30. Facsimile unit FU is C
PU11, ROM12, RAM13, EEPROM1
4. Network control unit
15, a modem 16, an encoder 17,
It comprises a decoder 18, a scanner 19, an operation panel 3, an LCD display 6, a video signal input terminal 7, a document sensor 8, and a timing circuit 28, which are interconnected via a facsimile control circuit 20.

The CPU 11 controls the facsimile control circuit 2 based on various signals transmitted and received through the NCU 15.
It controls each unit connected to 0 and executes a facsimile operation and the like. The ROM 12 is a non-rewritable memory for storing various control programs 12a executed by the multifunction peripheral device 1, and the RAM 13 is a rewritable memory for storing various data. EEPRO
M14 is a rewritable nonvolatile memory.
The data stored in the PROM 14 is
Is maintained even after the power is turned off. The EEPROM 14 is provided with a purge time memory 14a. The purge time memory 14a stores the time (including the date) of the previous purge process (suction operation).

The NCU 15 performs operations such as transmitting a dial signal to the telephone network (telephone line 52) and responding to a call signal from the telephone network (telephone line 52). The modem 16 modulates and demodulates image data via the NCU 15, transmits the modulated data to the facsimile apparatus 51, and transmits and receives various procedural signals for transmission control. The encoder 17 encodes image data or the like of a document read by the scanner 19 for compression, and the decoder 18 decodes encoded data such as received facsimile data. It is. The scanner 19 is for reading an image of a document inserted from the document placing section 4 into the apparatus. Document sensor 8
Is a sensor for detecting whether or not a document is placed on the document placing portion 4, that is, detecting the presence or absence of the document.

The clock circuit 28 is a current time (including a date).
In order to continue measuring the current time even after the power of the multi-function peripheral device 1 is turned off, the driving battery 28 is used.
a. The initial setting of the current time in the clock circuit 28 is performed via the operation panel 3. Timing circuit 28
Is output to the LCD display 6 to display a clock when the multifunction peripheral device 1 is on standby, that is, when each operation function is stopped. Further, the current time of the clock circuit 28 is read out by the printer unit PU after execution of the purge process, and is written in the purge time memory 14a of the EEPROM 14.

The facsimile unit FU is NC
U15, it is connected to the partner facsimile machine 51 via the telephone line 52.

The printer unit PU includes a CPU 21 which is an arithmetic unit and a control program 22 which is started by the CPU 21 to start printing processing shown in the flowchart of FIG.
a, a ROM 22 that stores a and the like, a RAM 23 that includes various work memories that are referred to and updated when the CPU 21 is executed, a print memory that stores print data, and the like;
Personal computer as main device (hereinafter "PC")
) 53 to which a personal computer interface 24 is connected, and a character generator (hereinafter referred to as “CG”) 25 for storing vector fonts such as characters for printing.
And the inkjet printer 26 described above. These are interconnected via a printer control circuit 27. In addition, the interface 24 for personal computers
Is, for example, a parallel interface conforming to the Centronics standard, and the multi-function peripheral device 1 is connected via a cable 54 connected to the interface 24.
Transmission and reception of data with the PC 53 are enabled.

Next, the printing process executed by the printer unit PU of the multifunctional peripheral device 1 configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. This printing process is a process executed when some printing is performed in the multi-function peripheral device 1. That is, this process is executed when printing data received by facsimile or when printing data input from the PC 53.

In this printing process, first, the current time read from the clock circuit 28 and the previous purge time (the time when the previous suction operation (recovery operation) was performed) stored in the purge time memory 14a are first determined. It is compared (S1). As a result of the comparison, if 15 days or more have passed since the previous suction operation (S1: Yes), the ink discharge state is extremely poor, so the purging process (suction operation) is repeated three times. (S2, S4, S6), the ink ejection state is recovered.

If the elapsed time from the previous suction operation is 10 days or more and less than 15 days (S1: No, S3: Yes),
The purge process is repeated twice (S4, S6) to recover the ink ejection state. If the elapsed time from the previous suction operation is 5 days or more and less than 10 days (S3: No, S5:
Yes), the purging process is executed once (S6), and the ink ejection state is recovered.

After the execution of the purge process (S6), the current time measured by the clock circuit 28 is stored in the purge time memory 14.
a (step S7), the time at which the purge process was performed (previous purge time) is updated, and then printing is performed (S7).
8), end the printing process. As described above, before the printing (S8) is performed, the purge process is performed according to the elapsed time from the previous suction operation. Therefore, even when a long time has elapsed since the previous suction operation, the ink ejection state is not changed. And printing can be performed. Moreover, the longer the elapsed time, the greater the number of executions of the purge process, and the greater the amount of ink suction, so that the ejection state can be reliably recovered.

The elapsed time from the previous suction operation is 5
If it is less than day (S5: No), it is considered that the ink ejection state is still good, so in this case,
Printing is performed without performing the purging process (S8), and the printing process ends. When the purge process is performed, the ink is sucked, so that the consumption of the ink is accelerated. However, if the ink discharge state is not deteriorated for less than 5 days, the purging process is not performed, so that the ink can be effectively used without being inadvertently consumed.

Further, as described above, since the suction cap 72 of the recovery mechanism 71 seals all the nozzles of the print head 65 at once, the recovery operation (purge processing) of all the nozzles is performed once by operating the suction pump. Can be done. When the elapsed time from the previous suction operation becomes long, it is considered that clogging occurs almost uniformly in all nozzles. Therefore, by performing the suction operation for all the nozzles at once as in the recovery mechanism 71 of the present embodiment, the purge process before printing can be efficiently completed in a short time. It should be noted that the control means described in claim 1 corresponds to each processing of S1 to S6 in FIG.

As described above, the present invention has been described based on the embodiments. However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various improvements and modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. Can easily be inferred.

For example, in the recovery mechanism 71 of this embodiment, all the nozzles (ink discharge ports) of the print head 65 are sealed at once by the suction cap 72, and the suction operation of all the nozzles is performed at once. However, the suction operation for all the nozzles may not be performed at once but may be performed a plurality of times a little at a time. For example, a suction operation may be performed for each of the ink tanks 65a to 65d.

In this embodiment, if 15 days or more have passed since the last suction operation (S1: Yes), the purging process is repeated three times (S2, S4, S6), and the previous suction operation is performed. If 10 days or more and less than 15 days have passed since (S1: No, S3: Yes), the purging process is repeated twice (S4, S6). However, instead of changing the number of executions of the same purging process depending on the elapsed time as described above, the amount of ink suction is not changed.
The number of times of execution of the purge process may be set to one, and the amount of ink suctioned in that one time may be changed. That is,
By changing the suction time and the suction force, the amount of ink suction is changed.

[0034]

According to the ink jet printer recovery device of the present invention, when a predetermined time has elapsed after the execution of the suction operation (recovery operation) for sucking ink from the ink discharge port of the print head, the recovery operation is performed again. The suction operation is performed, and the ink ejection state is restored. Therefore, the operation of recovering the ink ejection state is automatically performed after the elapse of a predetermined time, so that a complicated operation by the user is not required and the number of times of printing failure can be reduced.

According to the ink jet printer recovery device of the present invention, in addition to the effects of the ink jet printer recovery device of the present invention, the current time clock means for clocking the current time and the suction performed by the suction operation. A suction time storage means for storing a time, and an elapsed time after execution of the suction operation is measured by the current time and the suction time. If the suction time storage means is not provided and the elapsed time after the execution of the suction operation is counted only by the current time counting means, the value of the current time counting means must be reset every time the suction operation is performed. The current time measured by the time measuring means cannot be used for other purposes. However, as described above, in addition to the current time counting means, the suction time storage means is provided, so that once the current time is set in the current time counting means, the set time is set every time the suction operation is performed. The current time can be measured without resetting (without breaking). Therefore, the time measurement of the current time by the current time clock means can be made effective independently of the suction operation, so that there is an effect that the current time can be used for other purposes, for example, clock display. is there.

According to the ink jet printer recovery device of the third aspect, in addition to the effects of the ink jet printer recovery device of the first or second aspect, the longer the elapsed time after the execution of the previous suction operation, the longer the ink Although the degree of clogging of the discharge ports increases, the amount of ink suctioned by the suction means is increased by the control means. Therefore, even when the elapsed time after execution of the suction operation is long, there is an effect that the ink ejection state can be surely recovered.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in addition to the effects of the first aspect of the present invention, the control means controls the suction operation before starting the printing operation. Is performed, it is possible to obtain a good printing result by restoring the ink ejection state before printing, and to avoid performing useless suction operation when printing is not performed. is there. This is because the ink ejection state is recovered by the suction operation, but if the suction operation is performed more than necessary, the consumption of the ink is inadvertently accelerated.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a multifunction peripheral device equipped with a recovery device of an inkjet printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the ink jet printer.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration of the multi-function peripheral device.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a printing process executed by a printer unit of the multi-function peripheral device.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Multifunction peripheral device 14 EEPROM 14a Purge time memory (suction time storage means) 26 Inkjet printer 28 Timekeeping circuit (timekeeping means, current time clocking means) 65 Print head 71 Recovery mechanism (suction means) 72 Suction cap FU Facsimile unit PU printer Unit P Recording paper (printing medium)

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A print head which has one or a plurality of ink discharge ports, discharges ink from the ink discharge ports to perform printing on a print medium, and suctions ink from the ink discharge ports of the print head. A recovery unit for an ink jet printer, comprising: a suction unit that recovers an ink ejection state by performing a suction operation by the suction unit; and a predetermined time elapsed by the timer unit. A recovery unit for the ink-jet printer, comprising: a control unit that executes a suction operation by the suction unit when a time is exceeded. 2. The aforesaid time counting means includes: a current time counting means for counting a current time; and a suction time storage means for storing a suction time at which a suction operation is performed by the suction means. 2. A recovery device for an ink jet printer according to claim 1, wherein an elapsed time after execution of the suction operation by said suction means is measured by the suction time stored in the storage means and the current time measured by said current time clock means. . 3. The ink jet printer recovery device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit increases the suction amount by the suction unit as the elapsed time measured by the clock unit increases. . 4. The ink jet printer recovery device according to claim 1, wherein the control unit causes the suction unit to execute a suction operation before the printing operation of the print head is started. .