JPS59199262A - Dot impact type printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enhance the reliability of a character to a large extent by preventing printing disorder caused by the damage of a head pin, by selectively driving each head pin at a specific printing position performing the printing inspection of each head pin provided to a head from the output signal from a piezoelectric converting part during driving. CONSTITUTION:When printing operation is over, CPU101 performs printing inspecting treatment according to the printing inspecting program next stored in program memory 100. When CPU101 confirms that all head pins PIN1 ... PIN8 are normally operated, carriage motor driving data is sent to an IO control circuit 105 in order to return a printer head HD to a usual predetermined printing position to return the printer head to a definite position and control is further returned to a printer controlling program to prepare the next usual printing treatment. Because each head pin is practically operated and the operative state is confirmed by a physical means, the reliability of a printing character is enhanced and printing operation with reliability is secured.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a dot-in-print type serial printer used in a data processing device that handles character information.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

In recent years, serial printers used in data processing devices that handle text information have replaced type-type serial printers by selectively driving multiple wire dot bins (hereinafter referred to as head pins) arranged in a row. 2. Description of the Related Art So-called dot-in-paper serial printers that print characters in predetermined dot matrix units are widely used.

In conventional dot impact printers of this type,
There is no inspection function to confirm whether the printed characters truly comply with the received printing data, and there is no effective inspection method other than the user's visual judgment of the printing results (printed characters) on the printing paper. did not exist.

In the above-mentioned dot-in-no-gukt type Zorinta, even if one of the head pins of the plurality of head pins is damaged, an accident is likely to occur in which the characters are mistakenly recognized as similar characters, so reliability of the printed characters is most strongly required. However, as mentioned above, in the past, there is no inspection function for printed characters, so it is necessary to improve the quality of each part of the printer head, maintenance of parts, etc. to prevent damage to the head pin, damage to parts around the head bin, and malfunctions. The reliability of printed characters can only be met by preventing accidents caused by printing. Furthermore, the user must directly visually judge the print result or the internal mechanism of the head to detect damage to the dobbin. For this reason, there has been a problem in the past in that the reliability of printed characters is extremely low.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and provides a dot system that can automatically and reliably detect printing defects due to damage to the head bin, etc. without manual intervention, and thereby significantly improve the reliability of printed characters. The purpose is to provide an impact type glitterer.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention provides a piezoelectric transducer that detects the impact pressure of each of the head pins provided in the head at a specific printing position of the print head in a dot impact type Glink, and for example, during normal printing, each head pin of the head is connected to the The head pin is selectively driven at a specific printing position, and each head pin provided in the head is inspected for marking based on the output signal of the piezoelectric transducer at that time. It is possible to prevent problems in advance and greatly improve the reliability of characters.

[Embodiments of the invention]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1st
The figure is a circuit block diagram in one embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, lθ0 is a program memo that includes a print inspection program, a glinter control program, etc., which will be described later. J (P
RO-MgM), 101 is this program memory 10
Print processing control according to the program of 0, and external device (E
This is a CPU that controls data transfer between the computer and the computer (X-DV).

lθ26-i This is an interface circuit (EX-INF) for exchanging data with an external device. 103 is a character having print matrix data (dot/turn data) for each of various printable characters for converting character data sent from an external device into character numbers/turns specific to that data. Noenerator (CG).

104 is a print character memory (PD-MEM) that stores print character data sent from an external device. 10
5 is a glitter head (each head bin magnet 107 of the HD unit..., head carriage motor (M) 10B
, and ■0 control circuit (IOC), 1 which inputs and outputs various control signals for driving and controlling the paper feed motor, etc. (not shown).
06. is the driver (DRvt) of the head bin magnet 107, and 1062 is the helad carriage motor 1.
This is a 0B driver (DRY 2 ). ll0A,l
10B is a piezoelectric transducer (5ENA, 5E) for detecting head bottle impact pressure provided at a specific printing position on the platen (P).
NB), its specific mounting position, configuration, etc. will be described later. Reference numeral 111 denotes an impact detection circuit (SDT) that detects the impact pressure output signals of the piezoelectric converters 110a and 110B, which shapes the waveform of the high-level impact pressure signals obtained from the piezoelectric converters 110a and 110B, and converts them into logic signals. Output as a “1” level detection signal.

112 holds the detection signal output from the impact detection circuit 111 in an internal flip-flop (F/F), and sends it to the CPU via a data bus (DATA-BUS).
Impact detection interface circuit (S
-INF). The flip-flop (F/F) provided in this impact detection interface circuit is a logic
1'' level impact pressure detection signal is received, the set state is reached, and a specific control signal (R
ESgT) k: Resets are controlled in response to the signal.

Figure 2 shows the mounting positions of the piezoelectric transducers 1 OA and 11 OH. One piece is provided at each position. Note that arrow a in the figure indicates the paper feeding direction of the printing paper (pp);
c indicates the moving direction of the printer head (HD).

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing the configuration of the piezoelectric converter 110 and 110B, in which eight heladbins (PIN
A printer head (HD) in which 1-PIN a ) are arranged in a row is shown. In the figure, 2θ1 is the head bin (PINl, PIN2...).

A protective metal plate that becomes the contact surface (impact surface) of the PINs), 2
θ2 is an insulator, 203 is a pair of electrodes 204, 204B
It is a pressure-sensitive conductive rubber sandwiched between. Then the head bin (
When the PINi) is driven and impact pressure is applied to the protective metal plate 201, a force is applied to the pair of electrodes 204 via the insulator 202.
The pressure-sensitive conductive rubber 203 sandwiched between the electrodes 204B is pressurized, and due to the resistance change of the pressure-sensitive conductive rubber 203 (resistance → small resistance), the level is higher than that of the electrode 204B (10 V). ) is output.

This high-level (+V) impact pressure detection signal is subjected to multi-waveform shaping by the impact detection circuit 111, and is output to the fritsunoflora f provided in the impact detection interface circuit 112 as a logic tt 1 y+ level impact pressure detection signal. (F/F)
is supplied to the set input terminal of

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the processing flow of the print inspection program executed under the control of the CPU 101. Here, the inspection program is executed after waiting for the end of the normal printing process to prepare for the next normal printing. When executing this print inspection program, the CPU
101, Garta bus 109, and IO control circuit 1
05 to the head bin magnet 107. ...driver 106. Table 1 shows the format of the test data supplied.

Table-1 Here, DI * Dl +...ID8 is each head bin (PINl) provided in the printer head (HD).
.

PIN2. ..., PINs) is ``1'' in the inspection data bit (inspection data 1).
), head bin PIN 1 is driven, and when D8="1" (inspection data 8), head bin PIN 8 is driven.

FIG. 5 shows each of the above inspection data 1, 2. ...8(Dl t
Dl,...Ds) and their inspection timings.

Here, the entire operation of one embodiment will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5. First, the normal printing operation will be explained. CPU
1θ1 executes a program processing operation for normal printing according to a lifter control program stored in the program memory 100.

Print character data supplied from an external device is sequentially stored in print character memory 104 via interface circuit 102f. After inputting this print character data, print instruction command data is sent from the external device, and when this command data is accepted by the CPU 101, the CPU 101 sequentially reads the print character data from the print character memo IJ 104 and prints the print character data. The character generator 103 obtains dot matrix data unique to the character generator 103 and passes the dot matrix data to the IO control circuit 105 together with all carrier motor drive data. 0 control circuit 10
5 supplies the input carriage motor drive data to the driver 1062. The driver lθ62 drives the carriage motor 108 according to the inputted carriage motor drive data, and moves the printer head (HD) to the digit position according to the data. Furthermore, the IO control circuit 10
5 transfers the input dot matrix data to the driver 10
61. The driver Iσ61 inputs each bit of the input dot matrix data (Di r D2 +
...Ds) Plural (8) Heradbin magnets 107 according to the content. . . selectively drives the magnet corresponding to the dot position selected and designated by the above bit. As a result, the selectively driven bed bin comes into contact with the grating (CP) via the ink ribbon and printing paper, and dot printing is performed. Such printing operations are repeatedly executed to print dot matrix characters on the printing paper according to the print character data read out from the print character memory 104.

When the normal printing operation as described above is completed, CPU J
01 then executes a print inspection process according to the print calibration program stored in the program memory 100. First of all, the printer head (HD
) is moved onto the piezoelectric transducers 110A and 110B provided at a specific printing position on either the left or right side of the grating (P). At this time, the CPU 101 selects one of the specific printing positions that is the shortest distance from the printer head (CHD) at the current position, based on the position data of the hend carrier at the end of normal printing and the above-mentioned specific printing position data. , and move the printer head (f(D)k) to the selected specific printing position.
Carriage motor drive data for moving is 10
The signal is sent to the control circuit 105. The IO control circuit 105 sends the input carriage motor drive data to the driver lθ62. The driver 1062 drives the carriage motor 10B in accordance with the input carriage motor drive data, and moves the printer head (HD) attached to the head carriage to the selected specific printing position.

When the CPU J OJ confirms that the printer head (HD) has been moved to the above-mentioned specific printing position, the CPU J OJ sequentially reads the inspection data shown in Table 1 from data TC8 to data TC8.
As shown in Figure 5, Tl lT2 ++T
At the 8th timing, the work was completed.

It is sent to the driver 1061 via the control circuit 105. The driver 1061 is the inspection data TCI, Te3゜...,
When TC8fc is received, each data (Dl.

The head bin magnet 107 corresponding to the dot position specified by D2+..., Ds) is selectively driven, and the corresponding dot bin is driven to impress.In other words, when the inspection data Tel shown in Table 1 is The head bin PIN 2 is selectively driven by being input to the driver 1061 at the T1 timing shown in FIG. is selectively driven. In this way, the inspection data TCI, Te
3,..., Te3, head bin (PIN 1
r PIN 2 1..., PIN8) one by one at a predetermined timing ("1, 'r21..., T8
) are sequentially stamped. At this time, headbin (PIN)
i) comes into contact with the piezoelectric converter 110k (or 110B) provided at the selected and specified specific printing position, and the pressing force causes the piezoelectric converter 1 to OA (or 1
10B) A high-level impact pressure detection signal is output,
After this signal is converted by the impact detection circuit 111 into an impact pressure detection signal of the logic u11) level, the impact detection circuit 111
~7147 is sent to the circuit 112 and held in the flip-flop (F/F) of the interface circuit 112. That is, the flip-frog (F/F) becomes set. Each time the CPU I 01 outputs inspection data, it processes t, (j==1.2, . . . as shown in FIG. 5).

8) Depending on the timing, use the above Fritsuno 70 Tsubu (F/
F) and select each head bin to be inspected (
PINI, PIN2, -, PINB)
Determine whether or not the engine is operating normally. At this time, CP
U I 01 is a vc specific control signal (Rli; SET) every time the contents of the flip-flop (F/F) are read.
) is sent to the impact detection interface circuit 112 to release (reset) the held state of the frizz (F/F). In this way, the CPU 101 checks each head bin (PIN 1 * PIN 2 1 . . .) according to the test data Tel, Te3, .

PINa) is operating normally, and if an abnormality is detected (i.e., if the read content of F/F is 10", it is an error in the printer control program. Transferring control to the processing routine, the CPU 101 processes all the hardbins (PIN1) as described above.

When it is confirmed that all the PIN2+..., PINs) are operating normally, carriage motor drive data is sent to the IO control circuit 105 in order to return the printer head (HD) to the predetermined normal printing position (regular position). is sent to return the printer head (HD) to its normal position, and control is then returned to the printer control program to prepare for the next normal printing process. A series of these print inspection processing flows is shown in FIG.

As described above, each head bin (PINI I PIN2...) provided in the printer head (HD).

Since the operation of the printer is checked, erroneous printing due to damage to the head bin, etc. can be reliably detected, and the reliability of printed characters can be greatly improved. In other words, for example, when a character (number) that should originally be printed as "4" is printed as "4", it will be misread as "1", and especially when printing with important meaning, such as when printing amount data, , becomes a big problem.

In this case, conventionally, the above-mentioned erroneous printing can only be detected by visually observing the print result, so if the erroneous reading is made, the erroneous printing will be overlooked, and therefore the reliability of the printed characters is nil. On the other hand, in the print inspection means according to the above embodiment, each head bin is actually operated and its operating state is confirmed by physical means, so the reliability of printed characters is greatly improved. This ensures reliable printing operation.

In the above-mentioned embodiment, explanation was given using a printer head with eight head bins as an example, but the invention is not limited to this, and printer heads with different bin configurations such as 16 or 24 bins may also be used. The present invention can be easily realized. In the above embodiment, one piezoelectric transducer is provided on each side of the grating (P, ), but the structure is not limited to this. A configuration may be adopted in which one or three or more piezoelectric transducers are provided at one position. or,
In the above embodiment, the piezoelectric transducer is constructed using pressure-sensitive conductive rubber, but it can also be realized by a pressure-sensitive detection mechanism.

Further, in the above embodiment, the inspection operation is started upon completion of normal printing, but the inspection operation is not limited to this, for example, means performed prior to the start of normal printing, a specific carry during normal printing,
It may be a means to be carried out at the time of a turn, or a structure to be carried out at any time.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described in detail above, according to the dot impact type grinder of the present invention, it is possible to automatically and reliably correct printing defects due to damage to the head bin, etc., without manual intervention, thereby improving the reliability of printed characters. It can be significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure (1) is for explaining one embodiment of the present invention.
Is the diagram an example configuration? FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the mounting position of the piezoelectric transducer in the above embodiment, and FIG.
4 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure of the piezoelectric transducer in the above embodiment, FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing the inspection processing flow, and FIG. 5 is a timing chart showing inspection data and inspection timing. 100...Norogram memory (PRO-MEM),
lθ1...CPU, 102...Interface circuit (EX-INF), 103...Character generator (CG), 104...Print character memory (PD-M)
gM), 105...■0 control circuit (IOC), 106.
．． 1062-)' Raiha (DRV L, DRV
2), 107,-. ...Head bin magnet, 108...Head carriage motor (M), 109...Data bus (DA
TA-BUS), 110A, 11OR...Piezoelectric conversion unit (5ENA, 5ENB), 111...Impact detection circuit (SDT81 to 2...Impact detection interface circuit (S-INF), P. ...Platen, HD
...Printer head. Applicant's representative Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue Figure 3 RESET ----------□Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Claims] a piezoelectric transducer provided within a movement range of a dot-impact print head for detecting the impact pressure of each of a plurality of head bins provided in the print head and converting it into an electric signal; a circuit for supplying a drive signal to a specific hard bin; and a circuit for sampling a signal sent from the piezoelectric converter when a drive signal is supplied to a specific hard bin by this drive signal supply circuit. A □ dot impact type printer, comprising: a circuit for recognizing the stamping state of each of the head bins from the content of the sampled signal and inspecting the stamping of each of the head bins.