JPS62284775A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To markedly increase recording speed, by causing the driving periods of driving means for relative movements in first and second directions to overlap each other and varying the overlap period according to the velocity of the relative movement in the first direction. CONSTITUTION:After a carriage motor 6 and a line feed motor 7 are started, the driving timings thereof are controlled by a concurrent processing of a controlling part 3, and the period of time tLF required for completing a line feed being carried out is calculated for causing a carriage return to appropriately overlap the line feed. Reciprocal scanning of a recording head 5 along a recording medium is performed only after a ramp-up time (a) of the carriage motor becomes large, and recording is performed during both a forward movement and a backward movement of the head 5. When the ramp-up of the carriage motor 6 is finished, the head 5 is driven based on recording data to form one line of record. Accordingly, the relative movements of the head and the recording medium in two directions are carried out in an appropriately overlapping manner, thereby markedly enhancing recording efficiency.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention 3. Detailed Description of the Invention [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a recording apparatus, particularly a recording head having a predetermined recording method, and a recording medium having first and second recording heads perpendicular to each other. This invention relates to a printing apparatus that performs printing scanning by moving relatively in the direction of .

[Prior Art] Various line printers used as recording output devices for computer systems and the like are known as recording devices such as those described above. Various recording methods can be used for recording, such as the impact method, thermal transfer method, and inkjet method, but in most devices, a recording medium such as paper is loaded onto a cylindrical platen, and the recording head is mounted parallel to the recording medium. The mounted carriage is caused to reciprocate and scan, and after one line of printing main scanning is completed, the platen is rotated to convey the printing medium and sub-scanning is performed.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In the above method, the carriage returns to the home position at the end of one line of recording main scanning (or the recording main scanning direction is changed in the case of reciprocating recording). Includes actions. These two operations have long been controlled by two independent signals in line printers. Therefore, even today, many devices perform operations corresponding to the carriage return signal and line feed signal when they receive each signal from the host device, so even if the processing speed of other recording periods is improved, , the above-mentioned control sometimes reduced the overall processing speed.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above problems, in the present invention, a recording head having a predetermined recording method and a recording medium are moved relative to each other in first and second directions perpendicular to each other. In the recording apparatus that performs recording scanning by moving the first and second
A configuration is adopted in which the driving periods of the means for driving the relative movements in the directions are overlapped, and the overlapping periods are changed in accordance with the moving speed of the relative movement in the first direction.

[Operation] According to the above configuration, the relative movements of the recording head and the recording medium in different directions, which were conventionally performed independently in different periods, can be accurately overlapped, thereby improving the recording processing of the apparatus. Speed can be significantly increased.

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail based on the example shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the main parts of a recording device that employs the present invention. In FIG. control unit 3
This is an interface part that converts the data into a format that can be processed.

The recording data transferred from the host is temporarily stored in a RAM 9 provided as a buffer memory. A control unit 3 composed of a microcomputer element or the like sequentially records data transferred from the host device and stored in the RAM 9 using a recording mechanism 4 in response to display and operation input from an operation unit. Note that the reception process from the host device to the buffer memory for data transfer is performed by the interface unit 1 in parallel with the recording process.

The recording mechanism 4 includes a recording head 5 of a predetermined type such as an inkjet type or an impact type, a carriage motor 6 that reciprocates a carriage on which the recording head is mounted in a first direction of a recording medium, and a carriage motor 6 that moves the recording medium in a first direction. It is composed of a line feed motor 7 that performs line feed by moving in a direction perpendicular to the line feed direction.

Next, the operation of the above configuration will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. Figure 2 shows the control section 3 in Figure 1.
It shows the control procedure.

It is stored in the RO, M element 8. In the apparatus of this embodiment, a plurality of recording speeds can be selected depending on the configuration (resolution) of recorded characters, etc., and in the following processing, it is assumed that a predetermined recording scanning speed has been selected in advance.

When performing a recording operation, the control section 3 first causes the interface section 1 to receive recording data transferred from the host device in step S1 of FIG. 2, and stores it in the RAM 9, which is a buffer memory.

In step S2, it is determined whether the received code is a recording command, and if it is a recording command, the process moves to step S2'; otherwise, the process moves to step S3.

In step S2', a one-night ramp-up time is stored in the work area A (consisting of a register or a memory area) according to the recording speed to be recorded next, and the process moves to step S4.

In step S3, processing corresponding to the control data received in step S1 and recording data are stored.

As will be described later, in the procedure shown in FIG.
, after the line feed motor 7 is started, the driving timing is controlled simultaneously with the processing of each step by parallel processing such as a timer interrupt of the control unit 3 (or by other control means), and the driving timing is controlled simultaneously with the processing of each step. In the flow, the line feed is in progress (or may have ended) due to the drive of the line feed motor 7.

Therefore, in step S4, in order to appropriately overlap the carriage return with the line feed, the time tLF until the end of the currently ongoing line feed is calculated, and this time value tLF is the time it takes for the carriage motor 6 to reach a steady speed after starting. It is determined whether it is equal to or smaller than the ramp-up time (the ramp-up time a and the ramp-down time C, which will be described later, change depending on each recording speed).

In step S4, the process moves to step S5 only when the ramp-up time a of the carriage motor becomes long. Otherwise, the carriage reaches a steady speed and recording starts before the line feed is completely finished. In order to prevent the storage device from being put away, step S4 is repeated to wait.

In step S5, the scanning direction of the recording head 5 is determined. In this embodiment, the recording head 5 is moved by the carriage motor 6.
is scanned reciprocally along the recording medium by the driving force of
Therefore, here, it is determined whether or not forward recording is being executed, and the direction of rotation when the carriage motor is activated in step S6 or S7 is determined.

In steps S6 and S7, the carriage motor is ramped up in the forward direction (in the case of forward printing) or in the reverse direction (in the case of backward printing) based on the determination in step S5, respectively. As a result, the carriage carrying the recording head is accelerated in the corresponding direction.

When the ramp-up of the carriage motor 6 is completed, the scanning speed of the recording head 6 reaches a certain speed, so in step S8, the recording head 5 is driven based on the recording data stored in the RAM 9, and one recording line is recorded. form.

When the recording in step S8 is completed, the process moves to step S9, where the carriage motor 6 starts ramping down in order to change the recording direction, and the process moves to step 510. Step S
In IO, line feed is started, but the transition from step S9 to step SIO is performed immediately after starting the carriage motor 6 in step S9, that is, as in the case of steps S6 (or S7) to 58, the recording head The line feed process is started without waiting for the speed to reach a steady speed (speed O in this case).

The line feed process started in step 510 is ended by driving the line feed motor 7 for a predetermined time by the control unit 3 and then ramping it down (the ramp down starting step is not shown).

According to the above configuration, the start of the main scan of the recording head, the start of the line feed, and the end period of the carriage scan are controlled to overlap in step S4.35 and steps S7 and S8, respectively. This makes it possible to significantly improve the recording speed compared to a method in which carriage return and line feed are performed sequentially. This situation will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4.

FIG. 4 shows the control of the carriage motor and line feed motor in the conventional system, and in the figure, symbols (a) and (e) indicate the period of steady speed of the carriage motor and the line feed motor, respectively.

Further, symbols a and C are ramp-up and ramp-down times of the carriage motor, and symbols d and f are ramp-up and ramp-down times of the line feed motor. As shown in FIG. 4, the recording time for one line is the sum of the times a to f, and if n lines are to be recorded, a processing time n times the time a to f is required.

On the other hand, according to this embodiment, as shown in FIG.
Since the ramp-down time f of the carriage motor 6 overlaps with the ramp-up time a of the carriage motor 6, the recording time of one line is the sum of times s, d, c, and f. Further, when the recording speed becomes faster, the overlap between carriage return and line feed is increased accordingly, allowing more efficient processing.

In addition, in this embodiment, even if the recording speed is set to a different value, the carriage return and line feed superimposition periods are set accordingly, so that the recording position may shift or inappropriate superimposition of operations may occur. No malfunctions occur.

Note that in this embodiment, since printing is performed only while the carriage is scanning at a steady speed, problems such as printing position deviation do not occur.

In the above embodiment, a configuration is shown in which printing is performed on both the outward and homeward paths of the carriage, but the same can be applied to an apparatus that does not perform printing on the backward path after recording one line, but only returns the carriage to its home position. configuration can be implemented. In this case, carriage return and line feed are overlapped.

Regarding the recording method of the recording head, various types can be used, such as a wire dot matrix head, a thermal head, and an inkjet head.

[Effect] As is clear from the above, according to the present invention, recording scanning is performed by relatively moving a recording head having a predetermined recording method and a recording medium in the first and second directions perpendicular to each other. In the recording apparatus, driving periods of the means for driving relative movements in the first and second directions are overlapped,
, and this superimposition period is changed in accordance with the moving speed in the first direction of the relative radial/movement, so that the recording head and the recording medium can be moved in two directions, which were conventionally performed independently. The relative movement of the parts is performed with appropriate overlap,
The efficiency of recording processing can be significantly improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the main parts of the recording apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flow chart diagram showing the control procedure of the control section of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 shows the recording operation according to the present invention. FIG. 4 is a timing chart showing the operation of a conventional recording apparatus. 1... Interface section 4... Recording mechanism 5...
Recording head 6... Carriage motor 7...
7 ports of line feed motor a device, Flow No. 111ii11 Φ11 Frost pki 111θ flow 1000 YA Toro Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a recording apparatus that performs recording scanning by relatively moving a recording head having a predetermined recording method and a recording medium in first and second directions perpendicular to each other, relative movement in the first and second directions. 1. A recording apparatus characterized in that the driving periods of the means for driving the respective parts are overlapped, and the overlapping period is changed in accordance with the speed of movement in the first direction of relative movement.