JPS62113571A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a character font to be used in common and enable the capacity of a character font generating means to be conserved, by simultaneously moving a face-side recording head and a back-side recording head rectilinearly along a recording medium in opposite directions and simultaneously recording on both sides of the recording medium. CONSTITUTION:When performing printing, a motor 1 is driven to rotate, for example, in the direction of an arrow, whereby each part is moved as indicated by arrows. Namely, pulleys P1, P5 are driven to rotate in the same direction through a belt B4, a belt B1 is circulatively moved, a pulley P2 is driven to rotate in the same direction as that of the pulley P2 is driven to rotate in the same direction as that of the pulley P1 through a belt B3, and a belt B2 is circulatively moved in the same direction as that of the belt B1. Printing heads 2, 3 are coupled respectively to an upper-side part of the belt B1 and a lower-side part of the belt B2, so that they are simultaneously moved rectilinearly in opposite directions. The printing heads 2, 3 are simultaneously driven to generate heat, whereby printing is simultaneously conducted on both face and back sides of a printing paper. Accordingly, printing can be performed by using a common character font on the face side and the back side thereof.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a recording device, and more particularly to a recording device that simultaneously records characters, symbols, nine images, etc. on both the front and back sides of a recording medium.

[Prior Art] As this type of recording device, there is a thermal printer that simultaneously prints on both the front and back sides of a recording medium.

According to the conventional configuration of this printer, two thermal heads arranged with a recording medium sandwiched between them are driven while simultaneously moving linearly in the same direction along the recording medium, and dot recording of characters, symbols, etc. is performed via a thermal transfer ink ribbon. are recorded simultaneously on both the front and back sides of the recording medium.

[Opening/closing point to be solved by the invention] However, according to the configuration of the printer described above, recording is performed while moving the two heads for front side recording and back side recording in the same direction. The moving direction of the head during recording is opposite between the front and back surfaces. Therefore, in order to record characters, in addition to the usual character font for the front side (dot/% turn), a reverse character font for the back side is required. That is, there is a problem in that a large-capacity character generator for generating character fonts is required, resulting in high costs.

This problem is not limited to simultaneous double-sided recording using a thermal method, but is a common problem when dot recording is performed using other methods such as an inkjet method.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the recording apparatus according to the present invention, a plurality of recording heads for dot recording are arranged facing each other on both the front and back sides of the recording medium, The recording heads on the front side and the back side are simultaneously driven while linearly moving in opposite directions along the medium to perform recording on both sides at the same time.

[Function] According to this configuration, when recording on both sides simultaneously, the moving direction of the recording head when viewed toward the recording surface of the recording medium is the same on the front and back sides, so that the same direction is used when recording characters. Text fonts can be used.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, details of embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the attached drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of the main parts of a thermal printer employing the present invention.

In the same figure, the reference numeral 5 indicates the printing paper of the recording medium, and the zero paper setting member 6, which is set at the printing position by the paper setting member 6, has the same printing line on the front and back sides of the printing paper 5, although the details will not be described. It supports the printing paper 5 in an open state.

Near the surface of the printing paper 5 on the lower side in the figure and near the back surface on the 1 side,
The printing paper 5 is printed via a thermal transfer ink ribbon (not shown), respectively.
Print heads 2 and 3, which are composed of thermal heads that print dots on the front and back sides of the paper, are arranged facing the printing paper 5 at the same height as the above-mentioned printing line position, and are installed in parallel with each other. It is provided so as to be slidable along the printing paper 5 on a guide bar.

On each side of the print head 2.3, there is a power transmission belt Bl for moving the head along the print paper 5.
, B2 are connected, and the belts Bl and B2 are stretched between the pulleys Pi and P3 and between the pulleys P2 and P4, respectively.

Further, a pulley P5 having a smaller diameter than the pulley P1 is fixed concentrically to the pulley P1, and a bell B3 is stretched between the pulley P5 and the boo 922.

Further, a belt B4 is stretched between the pulley Pi and the drive wheel of the motor of the drive source indicated by reference numeral 1.

When printing with such a head moving mechanism, the motor 1 is driven to rotate in the direction shown by the arrow, for example, so that the operation of each part is as shown by the arrow, and the pulleys Pi and P5 are driven to rotate in the same direction via the belt B4. belt B1 circulates, and pulley P2 is connected to pulley P via belt B3.
The bell (B2) is rotated in the same direction as the bell (B2), and the bell (B2) circulates in the same direction as the bell (B1). The print heads 2 and 3 are respectively bell) B1. Since they are connected to the upper and lower sides of B2, they are simultaneously moved linearly in opposite directions.

By driving the print heads 2.3 to generate heat at the same time, printing is simultaneously performed on both the front and back sides of the printing paper 5. Moreover, since the reprinting heads 2.3 are supported at the same height at the same print line position and their guide bars are parallel to each other, printing is performed at the same print line position on both sides.

Here, since the moving directions of the print head 2.3 during printing are in opposite directions as described above, the moving direction of the print head 2.3 when viewed toward the printing surface of the printing paper 5 is the same on the front and back surfaces. become the direction. Therefore, it is possible to print using the same character font on both the front and back sides.For example, as shown in the figure, if the direction of movement of the print head when facing the printing surface is set to the right as usual, then You can use common character fonts.

Note that if the belt B3 is placed across the belt instead of in the oven as shown, the print heads 2 and 3 will move in the same direction as in the conventional case.

On the other hand, in the configuration shown in FIG. 1, the heat generation drive control of the print head 2.3 is performed by the control section 9 via a head driver indicated by the reference numeral 7.8.

The control unit 9 is composed of a known microcomputer,
Built-in ROM (read only memory) not shown, RO
The entire printer is controlled according to a control program stored in M and a control code of data input from an external post system (not shown), and printing is performed according to print data input from the host system.

The control unit 9 has a built-in character generator (not shown) that generates character fonts, but as described above, in this embodiment, the same character font can be used on both the front and back sides of the printing paper 5, so the character generator is not required. For example, only character fonts for normal tables are stored.

In addition, the control unit is connected to the control system of each mechanism of the printer (not shown), including the drive control system of the motor 1 and the drive control system of the paper feed mechanism of the printing paper 5, but other than these, Especially in connection with double-sided recording, the page break counter 10. A front page buffer 11 and a back page buffer 12 are connected.

Among these, the page break counter IO is input from the host system to the control unit 9 along with print data, and is counted up by the control unit 9 in response to a page break control code that instructs a page break. The print data input during this period is the print data on the front side, and is
'' indicates that the print data inputted is the print data on the back side.

Also, front page buffer it and back page buffer 1
2 is for temporarily storing front side print data and back side print data separately among the print data input from the host system.

Next, the control operation performed by the control section 9 during printing based on the above configuration will be explained with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 2.

To start the operation, the control unit 9 sets a new print paper 5 on the paper setting member 6 by driving the print paper automatic loading mechanism (not shown) in step 51, or waits for the print paper 5 to be set in the case of manual loading, and then Then, in step S2, the page break counter 10 is reset.

Next, in step S3, printing or control data is input from the host system in a predetermined data format, and when l data is input, the process advances to step S4.

In step S4, the count of the page break counter 10 is "
If it is "0", that is, if the print data for the front side is being input, the process advances to step S5; otherwise, the process jumps to step S8. Step S
In step S5, it is determined whether the input data is a page break control code or not, and if it is not, and if it is print data, the process advances to step S6 and the print data is stored in the front page buffer IO. Although not shown here, if the input data is not print data but a control code other than a page break control code, the process proceeds to a processing routine (not shown) that performs control corresponding to the control code.

After step S6, the process returns to step S3, and the operations of steps 83 to S6 described above are repeated, and the input of print data on the front side and its storage in the front page buffer 11 are repeated.

When a page break control code is input during this repetition, the process jumps to step S7 and the page break counter l is input.
The value of O is counted up by rlJ, and the process returns to step S3.

In step S3, data is input again, and in step S4
Then, it is determined again whether the value of the page break counter 10 is rOJ or not, but this time it is rlJ, so the process jumps to step S8.

In step S8, as in step S5, it is determined whether the input data is a page break control code or not. If not, the process proceeds to step S9, and the print data is stored in the back page buffer 12. do.

After that, the process returns to step S3, and steps S3 to S4. S
8. The loop of S9 is repeated, and the input of the print data on the back side and its storage in the back page buffer 12 are repeated.

When a page break control code is input during this repetition, the process jumps to step SIO.

In step SIO, the front page buffer 11 is
．． The print data stored in the back page buffer 12 is simultaneously printed on both sides, that is, the print data is transferred from both buffers while driving the motor 1 to linearly move the print heads 2 and 3 in opposite directions as described above. are sequentially extracted and a corresponding character font is generated by a character generator, and the print head 2 is
．． 3 to simultaneously print on the same line position on both the front and back sides of the printing paper 5. This is continued until the print data in both buffers is exhausted, and it goes without saying that during this time, paper feed operations for line breaks may be performed as necessary.

When printing is finished in this way, a page break is performed in step Sll, which in this case means a page break for two pages, the printed paper is ejected, and then the process proceeds to the first step S1. Return and repeat the above operation.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to simultaneously print the same line on both the front and back sides of the printing paper 5 using a common character font, that is, a character font for the front side. Therefore, the capacity of the character generator can be saved significantly compared to the conventional case by the amount of character font for the back side. In addition, other character fonts such as italic, superscript, and subscript can be stored in the character generator in place of the character font for the back side, and these can be used to perform a wider variety of printing than before.

It goes without saying that the structure similar to the above-described embodiment can be realized not only by the thermal method but also by other dot recording methods such as the inkjet recording method.

[Effect] As is clear from the above description, in the recording apparatus of the present invention, a plurality of recording heads for dot recording are arranged facing each other on both the front and back surfaces of the recording medium, and the recording heads on the front and back sides are simultaneously moved linearly in opposite directions along the medium to record on both sides at the same time. Simultaneous recording can be performed, the capacity of the character font generating means can be significantly reduced compared to the conventional method, and manufacturing costs can be reduced. Alternatively, even if the capacity of the character font generation means is kept the same, more character fonts can be stored in the same means than before, and more diverse printing and recording can be performed.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic configuration of main parts of a thermal printer according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a control procedure by the control section in FIG. 1. 1...Motor B1-B4...Belt P
1~P5...Pulley 2, 3...Print head '5.
... Print paper 9 ... Control unit 10 ... Page break counter 11 ... Buffer for front page 12 ... For 3 pages / To the old woman [8th 1st
figure

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plurality of recording heads for recording dots are arranged facing each other on both the front and back sides of a recording medium, and the recording heads on the front side and the back side are driven while simultaneously moving linearly in opposite directions along the medium to print on both sides. A recording device characterized in that it is configured to perform recording simultaneously.