JPS6112379A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an inexpensive high-performance recorder capable of minute paper feeding by using motive power for feeding a carriage, by providing a ratchet means fitted to a paper-feeding means and a means for driving a single ratchet tooth of the ratchet means by a plurality of operations. CONSTITUTION:Where the carriage 6 operates a lever 14, the operable range of the lever 14 is from a point P4 to a point P0, and the operable range of a ratchet wheel 11 is from a point P3 to the point P0. The ratchet wheel 11 has 12 teeth, and when an arm 14a of the lever 14 is moved over a full stroke, the wheel 11 is rotated by 1/12 of rotation per one stroke. A carrier motor 7 is rotated 22 steps when moving the carriage 6 from the point P4 to the point P0, and is rotated 20 steps when moving the carriage 6 from the point P3 to the point P0. In addition, by moving the arm 14a over a half storke, the ratchet wheel 11 and, hence, a platen roller 2 can be rotated by half of the amount in the above operation to provide a half line pitch, so that special recording such as recording subscripts and minute characters can be performed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a recording apparatus, and more particularly to a recording apparatus that forms recording lines at a predetermined pitch using a paper feeding means.

[Prior Art] Various recording devices such as daisy-wheel printers, dot matrix printers, and thermal transfer printers are known, but most of these types of devices generally use a feed roller such as a platen roller to feed recording paper in a predetermined amount at a time. The data is transferred to form a record line.

There are two main ways to drive the feed roller: one is by using a dedicated motor (often a stepping motor), and the other is by transmitting the power of a motor for driving the carriage to the feed roller through a mechanism such as a one-turn clutch or ratchet. Two methods are known. Although the former method allows sophisticated control such as recording of subscripts, superscripts, ruled lines, and graphic characters by minute line spacing, it has the drawback of being extremely expensive. Although the latter method is low cost, it has the drawback that it cannot perform the above-mentioned advanced recording control.

[Objective] The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a low-cost and highly functional recording device that has a simple and inexpensive structure and is capable of finely feeding paper using the power of carriage feeding. The purpose is to

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on the example shown in the drawings. However, below, an example related to a thermal printer will be shown.

In the figure, the reference numeral 1 indicates the chassis of the main body of the recording apparatus. A platen roller 2 is rotatably supported on left and right side walls 1a and 1b of the chassis 1. However, the rotational direction of the platen roller 2 is restricted only in the direction indicated by an arrow 13 by a one-way clutch 12 provided on the side wall la. The platen roller 2 has a platen portion made of a soft rubber body on a rotating shaft, and has the functions of both a paper feed roller and a platen. A recording paper 21 is wound on this platen roller 2 .

A guide shaft 3 and a guide rail 4 are installed between the side walls 1c and lb of the chassis 1, and a carriage 6 on which a thermal head 5 is mounted is attached to these guide members so as to be slidable in the left and right directions in the figure. There is. The carriage 6 is connected to a part of a belt 9 stretched over pulleys 8.8 provided on the left and right sides of the chassis 1, and is reciprocated left and right by a carrier motor 7 connected to a right boob 98. Here, it is assumed that the carrier motor 7 is constituted by a stepping motor.

As shown in the figure, in this embodiment, the platen roller 2 is offset from the entire movable range of the carriage 6 by the left and right side walls 1a and 1b, and the recording rack 5
is attached to the left front surface of the carriage 6, so the movement range of the left end of the carriage 6 is from PO to P2. Among these, the range P1 to P2 is the recording scanning range. In particular, point P1 is the home position, and this carriage position is the sensor 1 composed of a photo sensor etc.
Detected by 9.

Further, in the range PO to PI, the carriage 6 operates the platen 8-14 by means of a protrusion 6a provided in front of the left end of the carriage 6, and moves the platen through the ratchet wheel 11 attached to the rotating shaft of the platen roller 2. The roller 2 is rotated to perform a paper feeding operation.

The lever 14 is formed into a substantially L-shape, and is attached to the chassis 1 with a shaft 1.
It is pivotally supported via 4a. A spring 15 is attached to the arm 14c of the lever 14 on the side operated by the carriage 6, thereby biasing the lever 14 in the direction of the arrow 16. At this time, the arm 1 on the opposite side of the lever 14
A stopper 18 is provided so that 4b stops at the position shown by the dotted line.

When the carriage 6 operates the lever 14, the lever 14
The operable range of the ratchet wheel is from point P4 to PO, and the operable range of the ratchet wheel is from point P3 to PO. In this embodiment, the number of steps of the carrier motor 7 for transporting the carriage 6 from point P4 to PO is 2.
2 steps, and 20 steps from point P3 to PO.

FIG. 2 shows a side view of the drive mechanism for the platen roller 2 using the lever 14 and the ratchet wheel 11.

The ratchet wheel 11 has a number of teeth of 12T as shown in the figure, and one stroke of the arm 14a of the lever 14 produces 171 teeth.
It is rotated two revolutions at a time. The pitch of the ratchet and the number of teeth are determined by the diameter of the platen and the predetermined row pitch (here, 1/6
(in inches) is set appropriately according to the paper feed amount.

When the arm 14a makes a full stroke, the front end of the arm 14a first comes into contact with the rear part of the teeth of the ratchet wheel 11 at position P3', as shown by reference numeral 31, and by pushing this, the ratchet wheel 11 moves in the direction of the arrow. Rotate in 13 directions. In FIG. 2, the positions of the arm 14a corresponding to the positions PO, P3, and P4 of the left end of the carriage 6 in FIG. 1 are indicated by symbols PO°, P3', and P4°, respectively.

At this time, the front end of the arm 14a moves from position P4' to PO'. The number of steps of the carrier motor 7 at this time is 22 steps from position P4' and 20 steps from position P3'' to position PO'.

Thereafter, as the carriage 6 returns, the rear slope 14d of the arm 14a moves along the front slope of the ratchet teeth.
The ratchet wheel 11 returns to its original position P4'' by the biasing force of the spring 15. At this time, the ratchet wheel 11 is prevented from rotating in the opposite direction by the action of the one-way clutch 12. 14
is made of semi-elastic material such as plastic, or
Alternatively, it is preferable to bias and support it from below using a spring or the like.

In addition, by half-stroking the arm 14a, the ratchet wheel 11, that is, the platen roller, is rotated by half of the above, and the row pitch is half (1/12 inch).
can be formed. As shown at the bottom of FIG.
Move a by 12 steps from position P4'. At this time, the ratchet wheel 11 is sent to the position shown by the broken line and stopped, so the arm 14a moves in parallel as shown by the arrow 31a.

In the manner described above, the feeding operation of two sheets of recording paper made of thermal paper or the like is performed. The recording paper 21 is pressed against the platen roller 2 by the pinch roller 20 and is fed in close contact with the platen roller 2. In the above example, the lever 14 is made to make a full stroke and a half stroke, but since the operating range of the lever 14 is the number of steps of the carrier motor 7, which is 20 steps, any number of steps within this range can be used in combination. This allows various line feed controls to be performed as described later.

Next, the operation of the above overall configuration will be explained. At the start of recording, the left end of the carriage 6 is located at the home position P1.

When print data is prepared in a print control unit composed of a microcomputer (not shown) or the like, the carrier motor 7 is driven and the carriage 6 is moved rightward in FIG.

When the recording pad 5 is fed to a position facing the recording paper 21 placed on the platen roller 2, the recording pad 5 is moved by a driving means such as a solenoid provided on the carriage 6.
is pressed by the platen roller 2.

As shown in the front view in FIG. 3, the recording head 5 has a substrate 22 on which heating resistors 23 for forming a predetermined number of dots are arranged in a vertical row at a pitch of 1/60 inch. There is. As the carriage 6 moves, these heating elements 2
3 is driven according to recording data, and characters, images, etc. are recorded on recording paper 21 made of thermal paper.

When recording of one line is completed, the carrier motor 7 is reversely rotated to move the carriage 6 to the left in FIG. 1 to perform a carriage return. When the carriage 6 is further moved from the home position P1, the protrusion 6a of the carriage 6 comes into contact with the arm 14a of the lever 14, and the platen roller 2 is rotated as described above to feed the paper by a predetermined amount (1/6 or 1712 inch) is carried out.

A plurality of recording lines are formed on the recording paper 21 by repeating the above operations.

Next, control when subscript and superscript printing is performed using half the line pitch will be explained.

The subscript and superscript are characters indicating a subscript or a power number, as shown in the figure. Figure 4 (A)
As shown in , when performing subscript printing with the subscript "2" attached to the character rAJ, first print the first character "A" in recording line 41, and then perform a 1/2 line feed using the above procedure. Let's do it.

In FIGS. 4(A) and 4(B), numerals 41 to 43 indicate the center of each recording line. Subsequently, in this recording line 42, a small subscript "2" is printed using only the upper four heating elements 23 of the recording head 5 in FIG. After that, a 1/2 line feed is performed again, and the character "B" is printed on the recording line 43.

The stroke of the lever 14 during the above operation is indicated by symbols p and q in FIG. Line breaks to recording lines 41-42 are achieved by stroke p.

In the case of a line feed to the next recording line 43, the first 1/2 line feed (
Stroke p) causes the ratchet teeth to move to position P3°~
Since the lever 14 is at the midpoint of PO', that is, 10 steps from position PO', the lever 14 is stroked 20 steps from position P3' to position PO' (stroke q). When carrying out 1/2 line feed continuously in this way, the lever 14 is made to make a full stroke and a half stroke every other time as shown by stroke pr.

In the case of superscript, as shown in FIG. 4(B), after printing the letter "A" on the recording line 41, a line feed of 1/2 line is performed, and in the recording line 42, the lower part of the recording head 5 is printed. The character "3" is printed using only the four heating elements. The movement of Shihachi-14 at this time is the same as in the case of FIG. 4(A). Furthermore, a line feed of 1/2 line is performed, and the character rBJ is printed in the recording line 43.

As described above, subscripts and superscripts can be recorded with only a line feed amount of 1/2 line.

Furthermore, according to this embodiment, the 11/2 line feed is limited to 1/2 line feed.
It is also possible to perform a line feed such as 2 (3/2) lines. In this case, as the strokes of the lever 14 are shown by symbols s and t in FIG. 5, a line feed of 1112 lines is performed by a full stroke and a half stroke at the first line feed,
At the next line break, perform two consecutive full strokes. By repeating this operation, a line pitch 1.5 times the standard can be achieved. The reason why the second stroke is different from the first is that the ratchet wheel 11 stops at a position advanced by half a frame due to the first line feed, as described above.

Furthermore, according to this embodiment, a line pitch of up to 1/20 line can be achieved by utilizing the stroke of the lever 14 for 20 steps of the belt 7. In other words, if the standard row pitch due to the full stroke of the lever 14 is 1/6 inch, it is 17120.
Minute line feed up to inches is possible. For example, position P
4' to the lever 14 to set the number of steps of the motor 7.1.
2.3...19.20゛ steps are sequentially stroked to make the recording paper 21 l/20 lines (1/1
20 inches).

By utilizing the above control, it is possible to print both standard characters and fine characters having twice the resolution as shown in FIGS. 6(A) and 6(B). 6th for standard printing
As shown in Figure (A), characters with 8 dots at a pitch of 1/60 inch are printed at a standard line pitch of 1/6 inch. In the case of fine printing, one character is formed by dots with a pitch of 1/120 inch, as shown in FIG. 6CB).

In the case of fine print in Figure 6 (B), one line of characters is 1/2
It can be formed by two-pass printing with a line feed of 0 line pitch (1/120 inch) in between.

In other words, after a line feed with a 1/20 line pitch, the necessary dots determined as appropriate are printed in the second pass between the vertical dots of the standard characters on the first line, using a recording head of 8 vertical dots with a 1760 inch pitch. character structure (horizontal 5 out
Fine character structure with twice the resolution (5 out of 8 horizontally, 16 vertical dots)
can be obtained.

Line feeding in the above printing operation is performed as follows. Here, a case will be described in which fine characters are recorded at a standard line pitch of 176 inches as shown in FIG. 6(B). First, the center of the recording pad 5 is moved to a straight line position indicated by reference numeral 44, and printing of 8 vertical dots is performed. Next, move the carriage 6 by one step from position P3 in Fig. 1 to l/20.
A line feed (1/120 inch) is performed, and further 8 vertical dots are recorded. Lever 14 at this time
The stroke of is indicated by the symbol U in FIG.

Next, move the carriage 6 to position PO and press the lever 14.
When the is fully stroked (symbol V in Figure 5), the ratchet
Since the teeth of the print wheel 11 rotate from the stop position by 19 steps corresponding to the number of steps of the motor 7, the recording paper is moved by 19/120 inches. If the same operation as above is performed at this position, fine characters can be recorded at a line pitch of 176 inches.

Here, FIG. 7 shows the driving pulses for the recording head 5 in the above fine character printing. The upper two rows of FIG. 7 show the drive pulses for the first pass and the second pass in fine print, respectively, and the bottom row shows the drive pulses for standard characters. As shown here, in the case of fine print, the energization time is shorter than in the case of standard characters, and the energization time of the second pass is also shorter than that of the first bus. This prevents the consumption of more power than necessary and prevents the density from increasing too much and reducing the recording quality.

As described above, according to this embodiment, arbitrary minute line feeding can be achieved using a simple and inexpensive structure using a lever and a ratchet wheel, similar to the conventional structure using a dedicated drive means for line feeding.

Although the embodiments have been described above for a thermal printer using thermal paper, it goes without saying that the above technique can be implemented in other types of recording apparatus such as wire dot printers and thermal transfer printers.

In addition, although the above example shows fine characters being recorded by 1/2 dot pitch line feed and 2-pass printing, it is also possible to record fine characters using 1/3 dot pitch line feed and 3-pass printing, etc. By setting the number of steps of the motor 7 for feeding, various fine characters can be recorded.

Also, the line spacing of subscripts and superscripts is not limited to the 1/2 line pitch shown in the example, but is 1/2 line pitch.
Various feed amounts may be used, such as three lines. In addition, although the above example has shown an embodiment in which line feeding is performed using a carriage drive motor, line feeding may be performed using other driving means such as an ink ribbon winding motor, a recording head loading/unloading motor, etc. You can also do it like this. Further, although the above embodiment shows a configuration in which paper is fed by a cylindrical platen roller, the present invention can also be implemented in a recording apparatus that uses a conveyor belt or the like to convey recording paper to form recording lines. Of course.

Further, the mechanism for preventing the ratchet from reversing may be one that provides the ratchet wheel with a force that resists the rotational force that reverses the ratchet wheel 11 that is generated when the lever 14 moves backward and passes over the ratchet teeth, and may be a simple friction mechanism. . Furthermore, by smoothing the movement of the escape mechanism when the lever 14 moves back, the reversing force applied to the ratchet wheel is reduced, and a special anti-reversing mechanism is not provided, and the constant friction load of the paper feed mechanism is used to control the ratchet wheel. It can also be used as a reversal prevention means.

[Effects] As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, the ratchet means attached to the paper feeding means, the means for preventing the paper feeding means and the ratchet means from being driven in opposite directions, and the ratchet means Because it has a configuration in which a means is provided to drive a single ratchet tooth by multiple actuations, minute recording line pitch control is possible, making it possible to perform special recording such as subscript, superscript, fine characters, etc. It is possible to provide an excellent recording device that has a simple structure and is inexpensive.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a top view schematically showing the structure of a thermal printer adopting the present invention, Fig. 2 is a side view schematically showing the structure around the ratchet wheel in Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is the same as Fig. 1. 4A and 4B are front views showing the structure of the recording head of
) is an explanatory diagram showing subscript and superscript printing, Figure 5 is an explanatory diagram showing details of minute line feed operation by the ratchet wheel, and Figures 6 (A) and (B) are recording of standard characters and fine characters. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing recording head drive pulses in fine print and standard character recording. 2...Platen roller 5...Recording head 6...
Carriage 7... Belt 11... Ratchet wheel 14... Lever 15... Spring 20 Figure 3

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) A recording apparatus characterized by comprising: a ratchet means attached to the paper feeding means; and means for driving a single ratchet tooth of the ratchet means by multiple operations. (2) The recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the driving means is driven by a carriage on which a recording head is mounted. (3) The recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the carriage drives the driving means outside the recording area of the recording head. (4) Any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the paper feed pitch corresponding to the minimum feed pitch of the driving means is set smaller than the dot pitch of the dot matrix to be recorded. Recording device described in section