JPS58131070A - Type system printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce a stop position error through improvement of a precision to search a home position (HP), by a method wherein a platen of a type housing body and the HP in a parallel direction are set in the proximity of a center. CONSTITUTION:A microcomputer (MPU)20, whereto a HP searching motion command signal is applied from a host computer 22, inputs a signal of a sensor, and after it is observed that an output signal of a HP sensor 17 is not brought to H, an applying voltage and a signal for controlling a direction are sent to a motor driver circuit 21 so that the circuit moves in a left movement direction at a constant speed. If the signal of the sensor 17 is brought to H, the number of self-moving pulses is preset to an up down counter 19, and a pulse generated by a slide direction encoder 18 is sent so that the counter 19 is caused to downcount. Based on the number of residual pulses obtained from the counter 19 and speed information obtained from a speed detecting circuit, the MPU20 adjusts a voltage applied to a slide servomotor 12 to regulate a speed, and when the residual pulse attains 0, the motor 12 is cuased to stop running.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a type printer, and more particularly to a type printer equipped with a controller suitable for increasing the accuracy of home position search and reducing the error in stop position.

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for kanji printers that have the same printing quality as conventional Japanese typewriters and can print faster, and as part of this demand, various types of type printers with built-in controllers are being researched. The biggest difference between kanji printers and typeface printers for English and kana characters is that there are many types of typefaces. For this reason, a method is used in which a type storage body containing a large number of type characters is moved two-dimensionally or three-dimensionally, an arbitrary type is selected, moved to a printing section, and printed using a printing hammer.

In order to move in each arbitrary dimension using the controller, the type storage body must be positioned at a home position which is the origin of movement. In conventional Dan printers, characters are printed from left to right, so the left end is the home position. In a type printer having a container housing a large number of type, it is necessary to replace some or all of the type in the type container due to a change in the font or size of the type, or a change in custom. This work may be performed during printing. For example, if a document is created in two types, Mincho and Gothic, the size of the type storage body is limited, so rounding or printing may be performed by replacing the type. I need to continue. At this time, move the type storage body to the -H home position so that the one-way dimension does not move, and compare it with the right exit for depositing the type aggregate stored in the type storage body,
If the other dimensions are freely movable and the printed characters are replaced one after another, and after completion, the home position positioning operation of the movable dimension is performed and control is performed to return it to the original position, the control is simple and the replacement work can be performed efficiently. However, when the home position is set at the left end, there is a drawback that the support structure becomes an obstacle and the necessary replacement work of the type assembly becomes troublesome.

10,000 In order to detect when the type storage body has moved to the home position, a position sensor must be provided.The six-position sensor is a combination of a light emitting element and a light receiving element, and a position sensor between the two is placed at the position of the type storage body. Photosensors, which detect by blocking light, and magnetic sensors, which detect magnetically, are often used. These sensors have a light receiving slit width, a light shielding plate width, and a magnetic detection width, so in order to accurately determine the position, it is necessary to use the rising or falling edge of the sensor output signal.

However, as mentioned above, if the home position is set near the center in order to eliminate the disadvantages of setting the home position at the edge, it is possible to set the home position near the center. It was found that search errors occur.

An object of the present invention is to facilitate the work of replacing a type assembly by setting the home position of the type storage body in the direction parallel to the platen (hereinafter referred to as the sliding direction) near the center, and to search for the position with precision. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a type printer that can control positioning.

The present invention sets the slide direction home position of the type storage body near the center of the slide movement range, and utilizes the sensor output signal when the detected object always moves from a predetermined constant direction with respect to the position sensor. 4, which is provided with a controller that performs a home position search operation.

An embodiment of the present invention will be explained below. Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the mechanical configuration of a type printer showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a sequence diagram for searching for the home position (hereinafter referred to as HP) in the sliding direction of the type storage body, and Fig. 3 is a A flowchart showing the HP search operation, and FIG. 4 is a control block diagram.

In FIG. 1, a comb-shaped type plate 1 that accommodates a plurality of type characters
A plurality of letters are stored radially in the type storage body 2.

The type storage body 2 is supported by a spline shaft 3 so as to be movable in a sliding direction and a rotation direction. The printing hammer 4 is fixed at the center in the sliding direction. Support substrates 5a, 5 of a mechanism in which two plates face each other with the type storage body 2 in between and pull out the type board 1 from the type storage body 2.
b. The support substrates 5a and 5b are connected to each other via a connecting bar 6, and are supported to the spline shaft 3 via a bearing, and are movable only in the sliding direction. A rack 7 and a light shielding plate 8 are attached to the connecting bar 6.
．． Permanent magnets 9a and 9b are attached, and each can only be moved in the sliding direction.

To move the type storage body 2 in the sliding direction, a control voltage is applied to a slide servo motor 12 in which a two-phase incremental slide direction encoder 11 is directly connected to the motor shaft, and driving force is transmitted from the pinion 13 and the rack HC. I will do it. Movement in the rotational direction is also achieved by applying a control voltage to a rotary servo motor 15, which has a two-phase incremental rotary direction encoder 14 directly connected to the motor shaft, to rotate the spline shaft 3 through a gear, and move the type storage body 2t. −
move. A signal for detecting the left movement limit in the sliding direction is generated when the permanent magnet 9a approaches the left limit lead sensor 10m, and a right movement limit signal is also generated by bringing the permanent magnet gb2 close to the right lead sensor 10b. It is occurring.

24 is a platen around which recording paper 25 is wound.

In the printing operation, first, the type storage body 2 is moved to the basic position, that is, HP, in both the rotational direction and the sliding direction, and then the servo motor 12.
15 to perform rotation and positioning in the sliding direction, the type plate drawer pulse motor 16 pulls out the type plate 1, and the printing hammer 4 is driven to print a predetermined character. Thereafter, information for selecting the next type is given and printing continues in the same manner.

Next, a method for searching for a homepage according to an embodiment of the present invention will be explained with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. The center of the type at the center of the type plate is set at a point t-HP where the center of the type is located in front of the center of the printing hammer 4. A slide direction home position photo sensor (hereinafter referred to as H
(referred to as P sensor) 17 is installed. Also, is there a limit lead sensor that detects the limit to which the type storage body 2 can move from side to side? - Install 10a and 10b at predetermined positions.

The HP is a certain distance from the sensor output signal that rises when the HP sensor 17 is shielded from light by the light shielding plate 8 moving from right to left.

When starting the HP search operation, the position of the type storage body 2 is not known. When performing a search according to the flowchart shown in FIG. 3 for the sake of convenience, there are the following three cases.

(1) Rising position of the output signal of the right limit lead sensor 10b 1it (C position) Rising position of the output signal of the HP sensor 17! 1t (person position) (case 11 in FIG. 2), the type storage body 2 is moved to the left at a constant low speed, and after detecting the person position, the movement detection pulse until HP is A number of movement commands are given to the servo motor controller to perform positioning control and stop at HP.

(21Person position and left limit lead sensor 1 excluding output signal ""H" (high) level section of HP sensor 17
If the position is between the output signal rising position (B position) of 0a (case (2) in Fig. 2), the type storage unit 2 is moved to the left at a constant low speed, and the B position is detected. If so, the moving direction is reversed, the person's position is raised, the position is controlled and moved to a constant position, and then the person is moved to the left again at a constant low speed, and the same operation as in (1) is performed.

(3) When the output signal of the HP sensor 17 is in the 1H" section (case (3) in Fig. 2), the type storage body 2 is
After death, the body is moved to the right at a certain position beyond the distance of H” section.
Perform the same operation as (1).

Next, the control method will be explained with reference to the control block diagram shown in FIG.

When the HP search operation command signal is given to the microcomputer (hereinafter referred to as MPU) 20 from the host computer 22, the MPU 20 takes in the sensor signal and other commands, and changes the output signal of the HP sensor 17 to "H". After checking that there is no movement, send a signal to control the voltage and direction of mark 7J11 to the motor driver circuit 21 so that the motor driver circuit 21 moves at a constant low speed in the left movement direction.At the same time, the output signal of the HP sensor 17 is @H"
We will continue to monitor whether this happens. When the output signal of the HP sensor 17 becomes 1H#, the number of self-moving pulses is preset in the up/down counter 19, and the pulses generated by the slide direction encoder 11 and the encoder clock generation circuit 18 are made to count down in the up/down counter 19. Send to. The NPU 20 detects the number of remaining pulses obtained from the up/down counter 19 and the speed detection circuit 2.
Based on the speed information obtained from step 3, the voltage applied to the slide servo motor 12 is adjusted to control the speed, and when the remaining pulses become 0, the applied voltage is set to 0 and the motor 12 is stopped. As a result, the stop position of the type storage body 2 becomes the HP position. The above operation is the operation TI) in FIG.

The operation of (2) is as follows. In the same way as the operation (1), move the type storage body 2 to the left at a constant low speed, and wait until the output signals of the HP sensor 17 and the left limit read sensor (hereinafter referred to as "left sensor") 10a become 1H". Monitor. When the output signal of the left sensor 10a becomes "H", the MPU 20 sends a negative number of self-moving pulses to be moved by a predetermined amount from the left sensor 10a to the up/down counter 19.
Preset to . Furthermore, the MPU 20
is moved to the right, and the motor driver circuit 21 is further controlled so that the voltage applied to the motor corresponds to the number of remaining pulses. When the type storage unit 2 moves to the right! When the 1C@light plate 8 crosses the HP sensor 17, the output signal of the HP sensor 17 becomes @H'', but this sensor output signal is ignored for control purposes.When the number of remaining pulses of the up/down counter 19 becomes 0 After setting the voltage applied to the busy slide servo motor 12 to 0 and stopping it, the same control as in (1) above is performed to search for HP and position the type storage body 2.Operation (3) in Fig. 2 The control is almost the same as (2).In the embodiment of the present invention described above, the type storage body 2 is cylindrical, but the present invention does not take the shape of the type storage body 2. do not have.

Further, a type printer in which only the type plate serves as a type storage body and moves in the sliding direction is also conceivable, and the present invention is similarly applicable to this type printer.

As described above, in the present invention, HP is set to be approximately the center of the range of movement of the type storage body in the direction parallel to the platen, making it easy to replace the type assembly. Since the output of the position sensor obtained when the printing type is moved is used to search for the fact that the type storage body is different from the home position, the search accuracy is improved, and therefore, the effect of improving the accuracy of positioning control can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the mechanical configuration, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the sequence of home position search operation, and FIG. 3 is a search operation flowchart.
FIG. 4 is a control block diagram. 1... Type plate, 2... Type storage, 8... Shading plate, 17... Slide direction home position photo sensor, Figure 2, foil, figure 3, figure 4/)? Continued from page 10 Inventor: Seiji Ise, 1-1-1 Higashitaga-cho, Hitachi City, Taga Factory, Hitachi, Ltd.0 Applicant: Hitachi, Ltd., 359-5-1, Marunouchi-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1.ml! A type storage body that stores a number of type letters is
In a movable type printer which is movable at least in a direction parallel to the platen and moves the type storage body so that the type corresponding to the characters to be printed is located in the printing section, the movement range of the type storage body in the direction parallel to the platen. A position sensor is provided to detect when the type storage body has reached the home position, setting the vicinity of the center of the type storage body as the home position in the direction, and detecting when the type storage body moves from a predetermined direction. The type printer is characterized in that a controller is provided for detecting that the type storage body has passed through the home position using the output signal of the position sensor.