JPS60131284A - Controlling method for printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent a white paper from being generated, by a method wherein an error in operation of a printing part is detected, and an error in forming printing image information in a controller is also detected, in a laser printer or the like. CONSTITUTION:A CPU203 constantly monitors the laser printer 100, and when a status other than select/deselect status (a) is transmitted, it discriminates whether or not a paper 113 is to be discharged. When the paper 113 is to be discharged, the CPU203 sends a paper-discharging command to a printer 100, and when the error status is discriminated to be one requiring a recovering treatment, the CPU203 conducts a recovering treatment. When an operation for forming printing information and font information on a memory 202 is completed, the CPU203 feeds a printing-starting command, and after a predetermined period of time determined by the printing speed and the size of a paper elapses, the CPU203 discriminates the detection of page delimitter information, and when the information is not detected, generation of a white paper is displayed on a console display device 301. Accordingly, the generation of a white paper can be confirmed, and the recovering treatment is conducted by again feeding image information.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention detects various errors occurring in a printer,
The present invention relates to a printer control method for controlling printer operations.

[Prior art]

English as one of the output devices of the computer.

2. Description of the Related Art A laser printer is a device that prints a large amount of information such as numbers, kanji characters and figures (hereinafter simply referred to as characters) at high speed. A laser printer is an output device that writes print image information (hereinafter simply referred to as image information) corresponding to printed characters sent from a control device onto a photoconductor using a laser tip, and obtains a printed image using an electrophotographic method. High-speed printing of +1,000 to 18,000 lines per line is possible.

The ilI control device converts the input character information into image information stored in the control device's font memo i''ζ and outputs it to the laser printer, and also monitors the status (state) occurring in the laser printer and updates it as appropriate. The status of such a laser printer includes a registration error in which a printed image is not formed at a predetermined position on the paper, a feed error in which there is an abnormality in the running of the paper, a paper jam in which the paper jams, and a paper out-of-paper error. Errors in the paper feed system such as vapor end, timing errors that cause the rotation of the photoconductor drum coated with the photoconductor on which image information is written to be out of synchronization, scanner errors that cause the writing of image information to become out of sync, and laser power errors that occur. There is a mechanical error status such as a decreasing laser power error.

For each of the above-mentioned error statuses, the control device performs recovery processing for recoverable error statuses, stops the operation of the laser printer for unrecoverable error statuses, and notifies the operator of the occurrence of the error status. That's what I was doing.

By the way, in addition to the above-mentioned paper feeding-related error status and mechanical-related error status, there is an error status related to image information. For example, a font error occurs when there is no image information corresponding to text information, and a white paper says that when the image information is MM or there are various types of image information,
When the speed at which image information is sent from the control device becomes slower than the printing speed of a laser printer that performs constant high-speed printing, white areas appear on the printed paper, but conventionally errors related to such image information occur. There was a problem in that no detection was performed on the status, much less recovery processing or notification to the operator was performed.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and provides a printer control system that detects error statuses related to image information itself, including various error statuses related to paper feeding systems and laser printer mechanisms, and performs appropriate control. The purpose is to provide a method.

[Structure of the invention]

Therefore, in the present invention, when creating print image information based on character information input to a control device, the presence or absence of image information corresponding to the character information is detected, and further, when sending the created image information to the printer, Second, the error status regarding the image information is detected by detecting whether or not the transmission of the image information is completed within a time corresponding to the printing speed of the printer.

〔Example〕

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a laser printer 100 to which a printer control method according to the present invention is applied, and a control device 200 that detects errors in the printer 100 and controls the printer 100.

When character information output from an output device (not shown) is input via the interface 201 and stored in the memory 202, a central processing device (hereinafter abbreviated as CPU)
203 accesses the magnetic disk 300 connected to the Shokyo control device 200, transfers image information corresponding to the input character information to the memory 202 via the interface 201, and stores print information and image information. Create font information to include. This image information is a dosoto matrix pattern of m rows and n columns determined corresponding to character information, and is constituted by a binary code that takes 1'' or 0''. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing print information created in the memory 202. This printing information consists of, for each piece of character information, a font name that is the name of the character information, a printing position on the paper where the character information is to be printed, and a font address that indicates the position where the image information corresponding to the font name is stored. Further, page precipiter information is added to the end of each print information for one page of paper to be printed, and image end information is added to the end of all print information (see FIG. 2(a)).

For example, when character information corresponding to "L", "A", S", "Eu, Bb" is input, each print information has a font name of "I L H1"A IT, II S)",
E″″R”, the print position is I!ol to j05, the font address is AL, AA, As, AE, AR (second
(see figure Φ)). In creating this print information, CPU2
03 displays the font error on the console message 301 when there is no image information corresponding to the character information, that is, when a font error is detected. Also, the third
The figure is an explanatory diagram showing font information created in the memory 202. This font information is composed of a font name for each character information, an image length indicating the length of image information corresponding to the font name, and image information (see FIG. 3(a)). For example, 'L', 'A'', 'S',
When the printing information corresponding to "E" II RII is created (see Figure 2 (bJ)), the font information will have the font name II L II, II A"ZflS", '"
, °°R'', the image length is the product of m and n, and the image information is the dontomatolinks pattern corresponding to the character information ζ (see Figure 3 (b)). Each bit string L1.L2.Lm.

AI... is expressed in units.

The control device 200 monitors the status of the laser printer 00, controls the operation of the laser printer 00, and sends image information in the memory 202 to the laser printer 100.

Note that the image information is first accessed sequentially by referring to the printing information, then the bit strings of each row of each image information are sequentially transferred to the corresponding line memories LM1 to LMm, and then the laser printer 100 is accessed for each line memory LMI to LMm. will be sent to. For example, “L”, A
When image information corresponding to ", 'S,'E", and 'R' is stored in the memory 202, as shown in FIG.
Bit strings Ll, Al,
,,,.

bit string L2.R1 is stored in line memory LM2. A2゜・
, R2 is the bit string Lm in the line memory LMm.

Am, . . . , Rm will be transferred, respectively.

Furthermore, the control device 200 displays the error status that has occurred in the laser printer 100 on the console display 301 as necessary, and provides instructions to the operator.

The image information sent from the control device 200 is transferred from the line memories LMI to LMm to the interface 201.
and input to the buffer memory 102 via the interface IOI, the print unit 103 outputs the data to the control device 2.
A print image is formed based on the image information according to the control of 00.

Specifically, the printing section 103 is as shown in the perspective view shown in FIG. 4, and when the photoconductor drum 104 rotates under the operation control of the control device 200, a photoconductor is first deposited by the charger 10'5. A charge is applied to the surface of the photosensitive drum 1040, and then laser light 107 sent out from the laser light source 106 is transmitted to the control device 200 by the optical modulator 108.
The light is modulated by the image information output from the rotary polygon mirror 109 and the F-θ lens 110, and enters the photosensitive drum 104.
An electrostatic latent image corresponding to image information is formed on the surface of the photoreceptor drum 104 by the rotation in the F2 direction and the rotation of the photoreceptor drum 104 in the F2 direction. This electrostatic latent image is visualized by a developing device 111, and the resulting toner image is pre-charged by a transfer device 112 and F
The image is transferred onto paper 113 that is fed in three directions. Thereafter, residual toner on the surface of the photosensitive drum 104 is removed by a cleaning device 114, and the toner image transferred to the paper 113 is fixed by a fixing device 115.
Each time a sheet is ejected from the laser printer 100, this is detected and the control device 200 is notified of the detection of the sheet. Each time the control device 200 is informed that the paper 113 has been ejected, it adds one to the ejection counter to count the number of sheets 1' of the paper 113 ejected, that is, the number of sheets to be recorded.

Note that the laser printer 100 has a recording density of 12 pixels/
sn, scanning line density is 12 lines/yxw, maximum print width is 361 corresponding to Japan F-Standard (JIS) 8 rows and 4 size.
The effective scanning rate of the ib laser beam, that is, the ratio of the maximum printing width to the blind scanning length, is 0.7, the paper feeding speed, that is, the sub-scanning speed, is 501111/sec, and the printing scanning frequency is 1'2 x 12 x 364 X'. 50'/0.7
"' 3.744 MHz. Also, the laser beam 1'07 sent out from the laser light source 106 contains air bubbles such as helium ions, helium cadmium, argon ions, etc., in accordance with the sensitivity characteristics of the photoconductor. A suitable one is selected from a laser or a semiconductor laser.As the photoconductor to be deposited on the photoreceptor drum 104, one of selenium, cadmium sulfide, and an organic photoconductive material is used.

Furthermore, the determination unit 116Fi determines the status of the printer 100 based on the detection results of the required number of sensors 117 provided at predetermined positions in the laser printer 100, and transmits this to the control device 200, which informs the control device 200 of the printer. 100 statuses are detected. The status determined by the determination unit 116 includes the status of the laser printer 10.
In addition to select/deselect that indicates whether or not 0 can be printed, processing errors such as registration error, feed error, paper jam, paper end, timing error, scanner error, laser power error, etc.
- Has status.

Next, it is detected by the laser printer 100, and the control device 200
The status detection performed by will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

The CPU 203 constantly monitors the status transmitted from the laser printer 100, and when a status other than the select/deselect is transmitted (step 501).
), it is determined whether or not to eject the paper 113 from the laser printer 100 according to the type of the status (step 5).
02), when discharging the paper 113, the paper 113
1 is added to the ejection counter that counts the number of sheets ejected, and the laser printer 100 is commanded to eject the paper 113 (step 503). Furthermore, when it is determined that the status of the laser printer 100 is an error status that requires recovery processing (step 504), recovery processing is performed (step 600). As shown in the flowchart shown in FIG. 6, this recovery process depends on the type of status, and when operator intervention is required, a message to that effect is displayed on the console display 301.In step 601), the recovery process After completion (step 602), the process immediately returns to monitoring the status of the laser printer 100 (see FIG. 5).

Next, error status detection regarding image information detected on the control device 200 side will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

(υ Steps 701 to 703 CPU 203
The print information and font information (second
After completing the creation of (see Figures and Figure 3) (Step 7
01), the ejection counter and the precipitator counter, which is incremented by l every time the page delimiter information is detected, are cleared to zero (step 702), and a print start command is sent to the laser printer 100 (step 703).

(2) Step 704 to Step Flow 6 The laser printer 100 that receives the print start command starts operation and prints 1 sheet of paper.
13 reaches a predetermined position near the transfer device 112, it sends a page synchronization signal to the control device 200. When the CPU 203 detects the input of the page synchronization signal (step 704), it starts a built-in timer to start measuring time (step 7).
05) The image information stored in the memory 20 is transferred to the laser printer 10 via the 2-in memories LMI to LMm.
0 (step 706).

(3) Step 707 The CPU 203 determines whether or not page delimiter information has been detected after a certain period of time has elapsed, that is, after the required time determined by the printing speed of the laser printer 1009 and the size of the paper 113, If the page pre-V error information is detected, the process proceeds to step 708; if not detected, the process proceeds to step 610.

(4) Steps 708 and 709 Delimiter counter 1 is added (Step 708), and it is determined whether the serial number and image end information are detected (Step 709)
. Then, when the image end information is not detected, the line stays
Proceeding to knob 203, steps 703 to 708 are repeatedly executed until armpit image detection information is detected. Further, when image end information is detected, the process advances to step 710.

(5) Step 710 The value of the delimiter counter is compared with the value of the above-mentioned discharge counter, and if the comparison results match, the process for detecting the error status is terminated, and if they do not match, step 62
Go to 0.

(6) Step 610 A message is displayed on the CPtJ 203ti console display 301 indicating that the image information is too complex and there is a blank area on the paper 113, that is, a white paper, and the process proceeds to Step 701.

(7) Step 620 The CPU 203 displays on the console display 301 that the paper 113 ejected from the laser printer 100 includes blank paper, and after sending out all image information, creates print information and font information. The image information is then sent to the laser printer 100 again.

Note that in this embodiment, the determination of the error status in the laser printer 100 and the detection of the error status in the control device 200 are performed at the same time.

Furthermore, although the printer in this embodiment is a laser printer,
The present invention is not limited to this, and status detection can be applied to printers using other methods as long as a status related to image information is generated.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, by measuring the time it takes to send image information to a laser printer,
Be able to recognize the occurrence of a white paper.

Also, if there are blank pages in the printed paper,
Recovery processing will be performed by sending the image information again.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a laser printer and its control device to which the printer control method according to the present invention is applied, and FIGS. 2 and 3 are prints created by the memory of the control device shown in FIG. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of image information stored in the line memory; FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the printing section of the laser printer shown in FIG. 1; FIGS. 6 to 8 2 is a flowchart of a process for detecting an error status of the laser printer shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 100... Laser printer, 101, 201... Interface, 1O2... Buffer memory, 103
...Print section, 104...Photosensitive drum, 105
... Charger, 106 ... Laser light source, 107 ... Laser light, 108 ... Light modulator, 109 ... Rotating polygon mirror, 110 ... Fa lens, 111 ... Development - 1
112...Transfer device, 113...Paper, 114...
Cleaning device, 115... Fixing device, 116... Judgment unit, 1
17...Sensor, 200...Control device, 202...
・Memory, 203...Central processing unit (CPU), 30
0...Magnetic disk, 301...Console display. Figure 2 (a) (b) Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) In a method for controlling a printer having a print section and a control device that creates print image information and sends it to the print section, an operation error in the print section is detected and the print image information in the control device is detected. A printer control method for detecting production errors and performing predetermined processing in response to the detection. C) The error in creating the print image information is detected when the sending of the print image information is not completed within a set time corresponding to the printing speed of the printer. How to control the printer.