JPS63109074A - Printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent failure to print a character or breakage of a printing head from being caused, by storing a printing position, returning a carriage to the stored printing position after replacement of a film ribbon, and the restarting the printing. CONSTITUTION:When a ribbon end flag F is set, a printing operation is stopped. Namely, a controlling circuit 31 stops a printing head 13, a carriage motor 40 and a paper-feeding motor 41 through a printing head-driving circuit 37 and a motor-driving circuit 38. With the printing operation thus stopped, the printing position on a text at a time when the ribbon end condition has been generated is stored in a step B14. When a film ribbon is replaced and a selected condition is provided, printing is restarted at the stored printing position, namely, the ribbon end flag F is reset, the carriage 12 is returned to the printing position, and the printing is restarted.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a printer device that uses a film ribbon for an impact printer in which ink is applied onto a transparent base film.

(Prior Art) In the case of a printer device (for example, a wire dot printer) that uses a film ribbon, printing is performed with a ribbon cassette (not shown) containing a film ribbon 11 mounted on a carriage 12 as shown in FIG. A head 13 applies an impact to a paper 15 on a platen 14 via a film ribbon 11 to form predetermined characters. The ribbon cassette generally stores a film ribbon 11 wound around a supply reel 16 and wound around a take-up reel 17. Therefore, the printer winds up the film ribbon 11 by rotating the take-up reel 17, and hits the print head 13 against the film ribbon 11 to sequentially print predetermined characters.

Here, the film ribbon 11 is such that the portion used for printing cannot be printed again. Therefore, if the film ribbon 11 wound around the supply reel 16 runs out while printing is being performed while winding the film ribbon 11, it will naturally become impossible to perform printing. Therefore, printers that use film ribbons like this! In 4iW, immediately before the currently used film ribbon runs out, it is necessary to notify the operator of this fact.

Therefore, in the conventional printer device, an optical sensor 18 is provided on the travel path of the film ribbon 11 from the supply reel 16 to the print head 13, and based on the detection result of the optical sensor 18, the ribbon end (film ribbon 11 is running out) is detected. ), and in the case of a ribbon end, a message to that effect is displayed on the front panel, etc.

To explain more specifically, as shown in FIG. 5, the film ribbon 11 starts with the part to which ink is attached (hereinafter referred to as a printable area) 21, and near the n end, the ink is attached to the film ribbon 11. A portion 22 that is not printed (hereinafter referred to as a non-printable area) appears. Therefore, as the film ribbon 11 approaches its end, the non-printable area 22 passes through the optical sensor 18, and the optical sensor 18 senses this and can detect the ribbon end state.

In this way, when a ribbon end condition is detected, a message to that effect will be displayed on the front panel, etc.
The operator can recognize that a ribbon end has occurred, and can promptly replace the film ribbon with a new one.

However, in conventional printer devices, the printing operation is not immediately stopped even when the ribbon end is detected, so the printing operation continues for a certain period of time after the optical sensor 18 detects the ribbon end. That will happen. Therefore, for example, if a film ribbon 11 with a sufficiently long non-printable area 22 is used, the non-printable area 22 will face the print head 13 when the ribbon end is detected. Therefore, print head 1
3 is driven on the unprintable area 22 for a certain period of time, and as a result, no printing is done within the certain period of time, resulting in missing printed characters.

On the other hand, for example, when a short film ribbon 11 with a non-printable area 22 is used, the printable area 21 comes to face the print head 13 when the ribbon end is detected. In this case, the print head 13 will drive over the same location in the printable area 21 for a certain period of time, and the film ribbon will be destroyed and the print head 13 will be driven for a certain period of time.
This was a factor causing wear and tear.

Furthermore, when replacing the film ribbon and restarting printing, conventional printer devices do not have a recovery function that prints again from the position on the text where the ribbon end was detected, so the host It is necessary to send the same text (print data) to the printer again, which has the drawback of significantly reducing print operability.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) As described above, in the conventional printer device, the printing operation continues for a certain period of time after the ribbon end is detected, which has the disadvantage of causing missing printed characters and damage to the print head. there were. Furthermore, since the printer does not have a recovery function to restart printing from the printing position on the text at the time when the ribbon end occurs, there is a drawback that the operability of the printer is significantly reduced.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is possible to restart printing from the printing position on the text at the time when the ribbon end occurs, without causing blurring of printed characters or damage to the print head. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a printer device that can perform the following functions.

[Structure of the invention] (Means and actions for solving the problem) That is,
The printer device according to the present invention includes a ribbon end detection means for detecting the ribbon end by the non-printable area near the end of the film ribbon, and the carriage is moved based on the detection of the ribbon end by the ribbon end detection means. At the same time as stopping, printing is stopped, the printing position at that point is memorized, and after replacing the film ribbon,
The carriage is returned to the memorized printing position and printing is resumed.

<Embodiment> Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of a printer device that performs printing by using a film ribbon 11 as shown in FIG.

That is, in FIG. 1, 31 is a control circuit that controls the entire device, and a system bus 32 connected to this control circuit 31 is connected to an interface 33, ROM 34, R
A M 35, a character generator (hereinafter referred to as CG) 36, a print head drive circuit 37, a motor drive circuit 38, and a ribbon end detection circuit 39 are connected, respectively.

The interface 33 has a function of transmitting and receiving data with a host (host computer) not shown. The ROM 34 is a memory in which data such as programs for driving the control circuit 31 is stored.
M35 is a memory partially used as a line buffer. CG3G stores printing patterns of characters and symbols to be printed.

In addition, the print head drive circuit 37 and the motor drive circuit 3
8, the print head 13, carriage motor 40.8, based on control signals from the control circuit 31, respectively. Paper feed motor 41
This is a driver that drives the The ribbon end detection circuit 39 has a function of inputting the detection signal of the optical sensor 18 and detecting the ribbon end based on this detection signal.

In other words, in a printer device having such a configuration,
Print data including character codes transferred from the host is input via the interface 33. Then, 11
The II circuit 31 extracts the character pattern corresponding to the input character code from the CG 36 and stores the extracted character pattern in the line buffer of the RAM 35. When the character pattern for one line is stored in the line buffer in this way, the control circuit 31 controls the print head 13, carriage motor 40, and paper feed motor via the print head drive circuit 37 and motor drive circuit 38. 41
is driven to start printing.

The specific operation of this printer device will be described below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. In addition, Fig. 2 (a
) is a flowchart showing the main routine, and the second
Figure (b) is a flowchart showing the ribbon end interrupt routine.

That is, first, in FIG. 2(a), when one line of character patterns is stored in the line buffer of the RAM 35, "1" is set in the line counter L in step A11. When the line counter L is set in this manner, the carriage 12 is accelerated in step AI2. In this state, in step A13, the character counter C is set to "1", and in step A14, the Cth character is printed.

Next, in step A15, the ribbon end flag F, which will be described later, is
If the ribbon end flag F is not set in step A15, it is determined in step A16 whether printing for one line has been completed. be exposed. This step A1
If it is determined in G that one line of printing has not been completed, "1" is added to the character counter C in step A17, and
The process from step A14 is repeated again.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step A16 that one line of printing has been completed, the carriage 12 is stopped in step A18, and then in step A19 it is determined whether or not printing of all lines has been completed. . This step A
If printing of all lines has not been completed in Step 19, "1" is added to the line counter L in Step A20, and the process from Step A12 is repeated again. On the other hand, if printing of all lines has been completed in this step A19, the process here is ended.

Here, while the processing from step A11 to step A20 is being performed, the ribbon end interrupt routine shown in FIG. 2(b) is interrupted at regular intervals. That is, as shown in FIG. 2(b), first, in step 811, a conditional determination is made as to whether or not the ribbon end has been detected, and if it is determined in step 311 that the ribbon end has been detected, then , a ribbon end flag F is set in step B12. That is, when the ribbon end detection circuit 39 detects the ribbon end, a ribbon end flag F is set in the RAM 35.

When the ribbon end flag F is set in this way, the printing operation is stopped in step 813. That is, the control circuit 31 stops the print head 13, carriage motor 40, and paper feed motor 41 via the print head drive circuit 37 and motor drive circuit 38. In this way, when the printing operation stops, step 3
At step 14, the printing position on the text at the time when the ribbon end occurs is stored.

The ribbon end interrupt routine as described above is being performed while the processing from step A11 to step A20 is being performed, and therefore, the ribbon end interrupt routine is being performed while the control circuit 31 is performing the processing from step A11 to step A20. When the end occurs, the above ribbon end flag F
is set, and the process proceeds from step A21 in step A15. That is, when the ribbon end state is reached, the carriage 12 is decelerated to a stop in step A21, and is set to the deselect state in step A22. In this state, the film ribbon 11 is waited for replacement in step A23, and the film ribbon 1
When 1 is exchanged, the selected state is set in step A24.

In this way, when the film ribbon 11 is replaced and enters the selected state, printing is resumed from the above-mentioned stored printing position in step A25, the ribbon end flag F is reset in step A26, and the above-mentioned step A1 is resumed.
Perform processing from step 2. That is, the carriage 12 is returned to the printing position and printing is resumed. In this case, the carriage 12 returns to the printing position along the shortest course.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3, rAJ, rBJ...
For example, assume that ribbon end occurs when printing "C". Then, the Ill111 circuit 31 stores the printing position of "C" and stops the printing operation. At this time, since the carriage 12 cannot stop immediately, it moves to the rFJ position and stops. Therefore, when the ribbon is replaced and printing is resumed, it is necessary to return the carriage 12 to the "C" position.

In this return of the carriage 12, the carriage 12 moves in the shortest course, that is, in the direction of the arrow 51, and returns to the position "C".

As described above, in this printer device, when a ribbon end occurs, the printing operation immediately stops. Therefore, the print head 13 will not be driven over the printable area 21 or the non-printable area 22 of the film ribbon 11 for a certain period of time when the ribbon end occurs, and this will prevent missing printed characters and damage to the print head. . Furthermore, when restarting printing after the ribbon is replaced, the host prints the same text (print data) again to the printer in order to start printing again from the print position on the text at the time the ribbon end occurred. There is no longer a need to send the paper to the side, which greatly improves the operability of the printer.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, the ribbon end detection means for detecting the ribbon end by the non-printable area near the terminal end of the film ribbon is provided, and the ribbon end detection means can be used to detect the ribbon end. Based on this, the carriage is stopped and printing is stopped, the printing position at that point is memorized, and after replacing the film ribbon, the carriage is returned to the memorized printing position and printing is resumed. Furthermore, it is possible to realize a printer device that can perform printing again from the printing position on the text at the time when the ribbon end occurs, without causing scratches or damage to the print head.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of a printer device according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a flowchart 1 for explaining the operation of the above embodiment, and Fig. 3 is a printing in the Oura example. A diagram to explain the carriage movement when restarting,
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the structure of a printing structure of a printer device that performs printing using a film ribbon, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the structure of the film ribbon. 11...Film ribbon, 12...Ki, Yaritsuji,
13... Print head, 16... Supply reel, 17.
... Take-up reel, 18... Optical sensor, 21...
Printable area, 22... Non-printable area, 31.
...Control circuit, 33...Interface, 34...
ROM, 35...RAM, 3B...CG, 37...
・Print head drive circuit, 38...Motor drive circuit, 3
9... Ribo end detection circuit. Applicant's Representative Patent Attorney Takehiko Suzue Figure 2 Rehon End Interrupt Routine (b) Figure 2 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claim] A printer device that performs printing using a film ribbon, comprising: a film ribbon that is wound around a supply reel and mounted on a carriage equipped with a print head so as to be taken up by a take-up reel; Provided on the film ribbon running path from the supply reel to the print head,
Ribbon end detection means detects a non-printable area near the end of the film ribbon and detects the ribbon end of the film ribbon based on the detection result; a printing stop means for stopping the carriage and stopping printing; a print position storage means for storing the print position at the time when printing is stopped by the print stop means; 1. A printer apparatus comprising: printing start means for returning the carriage to the printing position where the carriage was placed and starting printing.