JPS6260869B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to magnetic printer devices that provide high resolution and high speed printing.

Prior Art In a magnetic printing apparatus, a recording head scans a rotating printing drum having a magnetic material on its surface to form a magnetic latent image on the drum, and then this latent image is coated with magnetic toner or ink. Once developed, this developed image can be transferred to ordinary recording paper using a pressure-type or electrostatic transfer roller, or the magnetic latent image can be transferred to a magnetic layer of each magnetized pixel body without developing the magnetic latent image. Obtain an image of magnetic toner or ink directly on the recording paper using attraction force.

In such a magnetic printing device, the print quality, particularly the resolution, depends primarily on the size and pixel density of the magnetized pixel bodies or pixel points magnetized by the recording head. In the conventional magnetic printing method using current recording heads, it is necessary to reduce the size of the magnetized pixel body and increase the pixel density, that is, to improve the spacing between the pixel points, especially in the direction transverse to the rotational direction of the drum, that is, in the direction of the drum axis. There are limits to shortening the interval.
This is because it is currently technically and economically difficult to keep the width of each shielded recording head core below a certain limit. Therefore, recording head cores with the minimum possible width are arranged in parallel as close as possible as a group of head cores corresponding to pixel points forming a unit character, and a unit record composed of this group of recording head cores is formed. Even if the head performs magnetic scanning, the lateral spacing between the magnetized pixels cannot be reduced below a certain limit because of the limited lateral width of the recording head core. As a result, there is a limit to the ability to clearly print fine print and to dramatically increase image resolution, and there has been a strong desire to shorten the horizontal spacing between pixels. However, there is no practical limit to the vertical spacing between image dots, since there is no technical problem in increasing the impression scanning speed relative to the rotational speed of the drum.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION In view of the problems of the conventional type described above, an object of the present invention is to arrange a plurality of head cores at equal intervals,
Based on the idea of repeating the operation of moving this by an integral multiple of the recording pitch interval and then moving it by the product of this recording pitch and the number of head cores, and performing scan conversion using multiple pattern memories, we developed a track reduce the gap between
An object of the present invention is to obtain a magnetic printer device capable of printing images with high precision and high speed.

Structure of the Invention The present invention comprises a rotating magnetic recording drum, a magnetic head that receives a recording signal on the drum to form a magnetized pixel body, and a sub-scanning means that moves the magnetic head in the axial direction of the magnetic recording drum. In a magnetic printer device that forms a magnetized pixel body at a predetermined recording pitch and visualizes it with magnetic toner, the magnetic recording head has a core width approximately equal to the recording pitch and the recording pitch is arranged in the drum axis direction. The recording head has a plurality of head cores arranged at equal intervals of an integral multiple of the recording pitch, and after moving the magnetic recording head by the integral multiple of the recording pitch, the product of the integral multiple of the recording pitch and the number of head cores is calculated. a plurality of pattern memories that hold recording signals supplied to the plurality of head cores and are alternately switched between writing and reading; It has means for distributing the read signal from the pattern memory to each head core, and a register for sequentially shifting each distributed signal in synchronization with a pixel synchronization signal synchronized with drum rotation and sending a recording signal to each head core. A magnetic printer device is provided, which includes a recording signal supply circuit that provides a recording signal.

Embodiment A magnetic printer device as an embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in FIGS. 1 to 6. The overall configuration of the magnetic printer device is shown in FIG. 1. Character codes and control codes output from a computer 1 are decoded by an interface 2, and the character codes to be printed are sent to a control section 3. Control part 3
creates a character pattern group corresponding to a character code group for at least one line, scans and converts the character pattern group into a line scanning signal, and sends it to a printer section 4 having a plurality of recording heads. Printer section 4
receives the line scanning signal and applies it to each corresponding recording head, and performs predetermined mechanical and electrical control for recording to create a print. The interface 2 is configured to correspond to individual computers.

Regarding printers using the magnetic printing method, see Japanese Patent Publication No. 50-23767 (Magnetic Printing Apparatus) and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 104836 (1982) (Magnetic Recording Method and Apparatus of the Magnetic Printing Method) filed by the present applicant. can do. FIG. 2 shows an example of a mechanism of a printer section in a magnetic printing method. The printing drum 201 has a magnetic thin film on its surface and rotates in the direction of the arrow. The magnetic head 202 scans and magnetizes the pixel bodies on the drum based on the input pixel signals to form a magnetic latent image. The formed magnetic latent image is brought into contact with the toner or ink 203, and the magnetized pixel body magnetically attracts and attracts the magnetic toner or ink 203 due to residual magnetism, and a developed image of the attracted toner or ink is formed on the magnetic latent image. do. The formed developed image is transferred onto the recording paper 205 by sequentially bringing the recording paper 205 into pressure contact with the developed image using the transfer roller 204 . In order to obtain copies of the input image with the same content, the above process and the transfer process may be repeated for the number of copies. A cleaner for residual toner, an erasing head for erasing latent images on the drum, a fixing device, a recording paper supply mechanism, etc. are installed as appropriate.

As shown in FIG. 3, the magnetic recording head 202 is driven by a feed screw 301 and a guide bar 302.
The printing drum 201 moves in the axial direction as shown by the arrow. The feed screw 301 is rotated by a pulse motor 303, and the printing drum 201 is rotated by a main motor 304. By controlling the pulse motor 303, the recording head 202 can be moved by an arbitrary amount. The pulse motor and feed screw are selected so that the time it takes for the recording head to move one pitch is sufficiently shorter than the rotation of the drum.

The arrangement of the magnetic cores of the magnetic recording head 202 is as follows.
The manner in which the printing drum 201 is scanned by this is shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 4, in the magnetic recording head 202, a plurality of cores 401 to 404 are arranged in a line in the head feeding direction at intervals that are an integral multiple of the recording pitch and at the minimum interval that is structurally close to each other. ing. The thickness of the core, ie, the track width, is equal to or close to the recording pitch. The four cores 401, 402, 403, 404 are spaced at a distance T
is 4 pitches and T = 4d, and the core thickness is 1 pitch d.
It is shown as belonging to.

As shown in Fig. 5, the head performs recording by scanning the circumference of the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 13th lines in the 0th rotation, and after one rotation, the head deviates by one line. In the 1st rotation, the 2nd, 6th, 10th and
Recording is performed by scanning the circumference of 14 lines. Then, in the second rotation, the 3rd, 7th, 11th and 15th
On the circumference of the line, in the third rotation, the fourth, eighth,
Scan and record the circumference of the 12th and 16th lines.

After the recording of the third revolution is completed, the head shifts by 13 lines before starting the recording of the fourth revolution. This number "13" corresponds to {(number of head cores - 1) x core pitch + 1}. Thereafter, the same steps as described above are repeated to perform recording over all pixels of the drum.

Regarding head deviation, when one drum rotation period is divided into recording time and head deviation time, the head deviation time is sufficiently small compared to the recording time.
Head feed rate is selected. For the 13th line deviation after recording the third rotation, if a feed rate that allows deviation in a sufficiently short time cannot be selected, 1
The entire rotation time can be allocated to head feed. This increases the recording time by 25%. FIG. 5 shows this case.

FIG. 6 shows a control section that generates control signals for realizing the scanning mode shown in FIG. 5. Pattern memories 603 and 604 are two sets of memories for scan conversion.
Each one holds a character pattern for one line, and each bit on the memory corresponds to each pixel in an area for one line on the drum. The pattern memory is divided into four parts corresponding to the areas recorded by each head, and its address consists of a line number indicating the head feeding position and a dot number indicating the position in the circumferential direction of the drum. The two sets of pattern memories 603 and 604 operate so that when one is writing (W), the other is reading (R) at the same time, and their roles are alternated in synchronization with the recording of each row. . The memory address is
The write address designated by the write address counter 605 and the read address designated by the read address counter 606 are switched by the address switching circuit 607 to become the address of each memory. The read/write control circuit 6 performs memory read/write and address switching so that reading and writing are performed alternately.
Controlled by 09. Character pattern memory 60
Reference numeral 2 denotes a memory that stores all character patterns printed by the device and allows character patterns corresponding to appropriately addressed character codes to be read out at a necessary access speed, and is usually an IC memory.

The shift register converts 4-bit parallel data into serial data. A character pattern specified by the character/code to be printed is retrieved from character pattern memory 602 and stored in pattern memory A. As shown in FIG. 5, the data of the line corresponding to recording head 0 is read out at least one bit at a time in the order of the rotational direction of the drum, that is, by line scanning, as shown in FIG. 5, and after passing through the buffer register AO. The signal is stored in the shift register BO and sequentially shifted to become a line scanning signal, which is sent to recording head 0 and recorded on the drum. Similarly, corresponding areas of recording heads 1, 2, and 3 are sequentially read out and used as line scanning signals. Here,
Storage and shifting in the shift register is performed in synchronization with a pixel synchronization signal synchronized with drum rotation, and 1
During one storage period in the shift register, reading corresponding to all heads and storing in the buffer register are performed sequentially. The functions of buffer registers and shift registers solve problems related to the fact that the memory addresses corresponding to each head are different and must all be read out within one pixel time, and the memory access speed. . The number of bits read in one access, that is, the number of bits in the buffer memory and shift register, is usually selected to be the smallest value, taking into account the access speed of the memory.

Although typical embodiments of the present invention have been described above, various modifications are possible without being limited thereto. For example, although the pattern memory is divided by the number of heads in one address space in the above example, it is also possible to use four sets of memories each of which can be read independently. Writing is performed using a common address space as described above. In that case, the data in the areas corresponding to each head can be read out simultaneously, so the line scanning bit rate can be made even higher than above. Note that a buffer register is not required. Further, although the number of head cores is four in the above description, it is not limited to this. If the number of head cores is large,
Although the recording time decreases approximately inversely with the number of head cores, the cost of the heads and pattern memory increases, so recording speed and economy are generally determined together.

Further, in the above description, the capacity of the pattern memory is set to be the size of one row, but the capacity is not limited to this, and can be made smaller or larger than this. If the size is small, for example half a line, one line can be printed by repeating the above procedure twice. However, writing the character font into the pattern memory is performed by dividing the character font into two equal parts. If you make it larger,
Similarly, for example, two rows of data may be written into one pattern memory. Generally, the capacity of a pattern memory is determined by taking into account the size of the character font (for example, 5 x 7 dots for alphanumeric characters and 32 x 32 dots for kanji), the number of head cores, economic efficiency, and recording speed.

Moreover, although the case where character data is printed has been described above, the present invention is not limited to this, and can also be applied to graph data by writing the graph data into the pattern memory.

Effects of the Invention According to the present invention, in a magnetic printer device, a plurality of head cores are arranged at equal intervals, and after moving the head cores by an integral multiple of the recording pitch interval, the head cores are moved by the product of the recording pitch and the number of head cores. In addition, scan conversion is performed using multiple pattern memories, thereby reducing the gap between tracks and printing images with high precision and high speed. A printer device is obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of a magnetic printer device as an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the mechanism of the printer section in the device shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the device shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the core arrangement of the magnetic recording head in the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the magnetic recording head on the printing drum in the apparatus shown in FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a control section in the apparatus shown in FIG. 1. 1...Calculator, etc., 2...Interface, 3
...Control unit, 4...Printer section, 201...Printing drum, 202...Magnetic head, 203...Toner, 204...Transfer roller, 205...Recording paper,
301...Feed screw, 302...Guide bar, 3
03...Pulse motor, 304...Main motor, 4
01, 402, 403, 404... Core of magnetic recording head, 601... Character code, 602... Character pattern memory, 603, 604... Pattern memory, 605... Write address counter, 6
06...Read address counter, 607...Address switching, 608...Line counter, 609...
...Read/write control, 610, 611...Register.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A rotating magnetic recording drum, a magnetic head that receives a recording signal on the drum to form a magnetized pixel body, and a sub-scanning means that moves the magnetic head in the axial direction of the magnetic recording drum. In a magnetic printer device that forms a magnetized pixel body at a predetermined recording pitch and visualizes it with magnetic toner, the magnetic recording head has a core width approximately equal to the recording pitch and the recording pitch is arranged in the drum axis direction. has a plurality of head cores arranged at equal intervals of an integral multiple of the recording pitch, and after moving the magnetic recording head by the integral multiple of the recording pitch, the magnetic recording head is moved by the integral multiple of the recording pitch and the number of head cores. sub-scanning control means for controlling the sub-scanning means by repeating this movement; a plurality of sets of pattern memories that hold recording signals supplied to the plurality of head cores and are alternately switched between writing and reading; It has means for distributing the read signal from the pattern memory to each head core, and a register for sequentially shifting each distributed signal in synchronization with a pixel synchronization signal synchronized with drum rotation and sending a recording signal to each head core. What is claimed is: 1. A magnetic printer device comprising: a recording signal supply circuit having a recording signal supply circuit;