JPS61261079A - Printing-testing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a printing-testing system which makes it possible to check at a glance whether or not a disabled printing element is present and what- numbered printing element is disabled, by a printing the first straight lines obtained by sequentially selectively driving one of printing element, a plurality of the second straight lines obtained by driving a plurality of printing elements simultaneously and intermittently, of printing elements simultaneously and intermittently, and numbers indicating the printing order of the first straight lines. CONSTITUTION:The horizontal line under numeral '1' is the line printed by the uppermost one of the printing elements. The vertical line 9'' in a pattern 9 can be obtained by simultaneously driving all the printing elements, and the vertical lines 9 is intermittently printed for each picture element or for each predetermined number of dots. In the result of printing of the test pattern on a recording paper where abnormality is present, a horizontal line is not printed under numeral 6, from which it is observed at a glance that the 6th printing element from the top on the printing head is disabled. Accordingly, when a disable printing element is present, it is readily observed what-numbered printing element the disabled element is, and printing quality can be inspected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a printing test method for a printing device equipped with a print head configured by arranging a plurality of printing elements that form one dot on recording paper.

[Prior Art] In dot matrix printers such as dot impact printers, thermal printers, and inkjet printers that are equipped with a plurality of dot-type printing elements on a print head, it is difficult to maintain print quality when some printing elements become unable to print. cause deterioration.

For example, inkjet printers.

Ink may not be ejected due to ink clogging, in which case printing must be performed again after the printing function is restored. Therefore, if it is possible to know in advance whether or not all printing elements print normally before printing again, the printer can be used efficiently without wasting printing. Furthermore, if there is a print element that cannot print, it would be convenient for maintenance of the print head if it was possible to easily know the element number of that element.

However, since characters were printed during test printing using conventional printers, there was a drawback in that it was difficult to determine at a glance whether there were any unprinted dots. In recent years, in particular, the number of dots per character has increased with the aim of improving print quality, making it difficult to determine whether there are missing dots using conventional print test methods.

[Objective] The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks and provides a printing test method that allows you to see at a glance whether or not there is a printing element that cannot be printed, and if there is a printing element that cannot be printed, the number of the printing element. The purpose is to

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

Figure 1 shows an example of a normal printing test pattern based on the method of the present invention. The print head (not shown) used in this printing test consists of eight printing elements arranged in the vertical direction (sub-scanning direction). Characters, symbols, etc. are printed on the recording paper by moving the print head facing the recording paper in the horizontal direction (main scanning direction) and moving the recording paper up and down. be exposed.

In the printing test based on the method of the present invention, first, numbers 1 to 8 in FIG. 1 are printed by one scan of the print head.
After feeding the recording paper, pattern 9 on the second line is printed. The horizontal line 8' in this pattern 9 is obtained by sequentially driving only one printing element at a pixel rate or a predetermined dot unit as the print head moves in the horizontal direction. The printed element number (
For example, the horizontal line below the number "1" is printed by the topmost printing element. Also, vertical line 8# in pattern 9 is obtained by driving all printing elements at once, and is printed at a rate of 1 pixel or a predetermined dot (
For example, the vertical line 8 is printed intermittently in units of 8 dots.

Figure 2 shows a second example of printing when there is an abnormality obtained on the recording paper as a result of printing the test pattern of Figure 1.
In the case of the figure, since the horizontal line below the number B is not printed, it can be seen at a glance that the sixth printing element from the top on the print head is unable to print.

In this way, according to this example, if there is a print element that cannot be printed, it is easy to know what print element it is.

In the examples shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the test pattern is shown when the number of printing elements is 8, but the number of elements is not limited to this, and the same applies to other numbers of dots, for example, 24 dots. Of course, it is possible to perform a printing test using In particular, when the number of dots is large, it becomes difficult to see which dots are not printed, so the printing test method of the present invention is an extremely effective means. Further, the present invention can be applied to wire dot printers, triple printers, etc. in addition to inkjet printers.

[Effect] As explained above, according to the present invention, one
Since printing a straight line by driving only one printing element is performed sequentially for all printing elements,
The effect is that it is easy to see whether or not there is a printing element that cannot be printed, and furthermore, a number indicating which element the above-mentioned straight line was printed is printed,
Since all the elements in the print head are driven simultaneously to print the straight lines that divide the above-mentioned straight lines, it is possible to easily see at a glance which printing element is unable to print. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a plan view showing an example of a normal printing test pattern based on the method of the present invention, and Fig. 2 shows an abnormal pattern obtained on recording paper when printing using the printing test pattern of Fig. 1. FIG. 1 to 8...Numbers, 9...Patterns, 9'...Horizontal lines, 9''...Vertical lines. Figure 1 Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a printing test method for a printing device equipped with a print head configured by arranging a plurality of printing elements that form one dot on recording paper, only one printing element among the printing elements is sequentially selected. a first straight line obtained by moving the print head or the recording paper a certain length while driving; and a plurality of second straight lines obtained by simultaneously and intermittently driving a plurality of the print elements. and a number indicating the printing order of the first straight line to inspect printing quality.