JPS6346450B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an XY plotter that draws figures or characters by moving the relative position of a pen cartridge and a sheet of paper to push a pen in and out and press the sheet.

Conventional structure and its problems Conventionally, in this type of device, characters and symbols, etc., were stored in a ROM in a predetermined pattern.
(read-only memory), the data is read out by a controller such as a microprocessor, and the movement of the pen cartridge and pen is controlled to print on paper, but the arrangement of characters and symbols on paper In some cases, unnecessary movements were forced to move the pen. In particular, when printing computer program lists, etc., dot printers can easily change the printing order by reading the character and symbol pattern data in the ROM in reverse order, improving printing speed through bidirectional printing. is easy. However, with an X-Y plotter, the pattern data of characters and symbols includes information about the direction of movement of the pen relative to the paper, the distance of movement, and the insertion and removal of the pen, so even if the characters and symbols have the same pattern, the order of pen writing can be changed. This had the disadvantage that separate data was required, which increased the required capacity of the ROM.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an XY plotter that can improve printing speed by changing the order of pen writing without increasing the ROM capacity.

Structure of the Invention The X-Y plotter of the present invention includes a drive device that drives a pen in the X direction and Y direction with respect to a printing paper, and a storage device that stores vector information of the movement direction of the pen of a predetermined character and symbol pattern. and a control drive circuit that controls the drive device based on data read from the storage device according to the print content, and converts the movement direction vector information into vector information in a direction that reverses the movement direction. A conversion means for converting is provided, and when performing reverse direction printing, the pattern data in the storage device is executed from the reverse direction, and a drive control circuit is operated using the movement direction vector information via the conversion means to perform bidirectional printing. It is characterized by

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

Reference numeral 1 denotes a platen roll, which integrally has a platen shaft 2 at its center, and is rotatably supported by bearings 4 fixed to both sides of a chassis 3 by press-fitting or the like. A platen gear 5 is attached to one of the platen shafts 2 by press fit or the like, and this platen gear 5 meshes with a small gear 8 attached to the rotor shaft 7 of the platen drive motor 6 by press fit or the like. Reference numeral 9 denotes a pen, which is in contact with a pen push rod 13 that is integrally attached to an actuator 12 of an electromagnet 11 fixed to a pen cartridge 10. A pen return spring 14 is fixed to the pen cartridge 10 with a screw or the like. The paper 15 is located between the platen roll 1 and the pen 9, and is held between the platen roll 1 and the rotatable roller 16. Further, a pulley gear 18 with which a pulley 17 is integrated is rotatably attached to a pulley shaft 19 fixed to the chassis 3, and a small gear 22 is attached to a rotor shaft 21 of a paint carriage drive motor 20 by press fitting or the like. It meshes with the A belt 25 is hung between the pulley 17 and an idler pulley 24 rotatably attached to the pulley shaft 23 fixed to the chassis 3, and the paint cartridge 10 is attached to this belt 25. There is.

Figure 3 is a configuration diagram of a circuit that controls and drives the mechanism of the XY plotter, in which 26 is a microprocessor;
7 is ROM (read-only memory), 28 is RAM
(auxiliary memory), 29 is an input/output port integrated circuit for printing control, and the pen cartridge drive motor 20
and a drive circuit 30 that provides output signals to the platen drive motor 6 and electromagnet 11, and a sensor 3 for positioning, etc.
Controls input/output signals to 1.

FIG. 4 is a vector diagram of a plot pattern showing the movement of the pen tip relative to the paper 15, showing basic movements in a total of eight directions: ±X, ±Y, and 45° directions. Here, if a step motor or the like is used for the paint cartridge drive motor 20 and the platen drive motor 6, the paint cartridge drive motor 2
For example, if a drive pulse is supplied only to the drive pulse ε in the positive and negative directions of X, and if a drive pulse is supplied only to the platen drive motor 6, the pen 9 will move in the positive and negative directions of Y. When a driving pulse is supplied, the pen 9 moves in four directions of 45 degrees each.

Figure 5 shows character and symbol pattern data using 8-bit data as an example, _where bit D0 is data indicating pen insertion/removal, and bit _D1 is data indicating pen insertion/removal.
~ _D3 is data indicating the moving direction of the pen 9 with respect to the paper 15, and the eight directions shown in FIG. 4 are given.
Bits _D4 to _D7 are data indicating the distance traveled.
You can specify 15 different distances from 0001 to 1111.

Figure 6 shows the movement of the pen 9 when drawing the English capital letter "A" with arrows, and the solid arrow indicates the movement of the pen 9.
The broken arrow indicates the movement when the pen 9 is pressed against the paper 15, and the broken arrow indicates the movement when the pen 9 is separated from the paper 15. In addition, Figure 7 shows the movement of the pen 9 in Figure 6.
When expressed based on the pattern data in Figure 5,
Indicates the data storage status in ROM27, from mn
Up to the MN address, however, all bits at the END address are set to "0" to indicate the end of the pattern data of the capital letter "A".

FIG. 8 shows a pattern conversion method representing the main content of the present invention, and FIGS. 9 and 10 are flowcharts of a program for printing characters and patterns.

In the XY plotter configured in this way, the microprocessor 26 of the control drive circuit shown in FIG. 3 responds to information from the computer, and when a drive signal is sent to the platen drive motor 6, the small gear 8 and the platen gear 5, the platen roll 1 rotates and the paper 15 moves in the positive and negative directions of the Y axis. Further, when a drive signal is sent to the paint cartridge motor 20, the pinion gear 22 and the pulley gear 18 engage with each other, causing the pulley 17 to rotate, and the movement of the belt 25 causes the paint cartridge 10 to move in the positive and negative directions of the X direction. Moving. Here, when a drive signal is sent to the electromagnet 11, the actuator 12 presses the pen 9 against the paper 15 via the pen push rod 13 against the pen return spring 14. Further, when the drive signal to the electromagnet 11 is turned off, the pen return spring 14 pushes the pen 9 back to the position where it is separated from the paper 15. By controlling each drive signal in this way, it is possible to draw figures or characters on the paper 15 with the pen 9. Normally, for fixed patterns such as characters and symbols, a method is used in which the pattern is drawn using data in the ROM 27 by simply providing a signal specifying the character or pattern. The data includes information on the moving direction of the pen 9 with respect to the paper 15, the moving distance, and the insertion and removal of the pen, and it is impossible to change the pen writing order by simply changing the execution order while leaving the data as it is. Some data corrections are required. Therefore, in the present invention, paper 1 of 9
It is configured to change the order of pen writing by changing only the movement direction with respect to 5 and changing the order in which data is executed. For example, if you want to change the pen stroke order of the English capital letter "A" in Figure 6, bit D ₁
~ D ₃ If you change a from Fig. 8 to b and reverse the order of data execution, the pen writing order in Fig. 6 will be in the opposite direction of the arrow e→h→g→f→e→d→ c→
b → a.

By the way, when printing characters and patterns at required positions on the paper 15, move the pen 9 over a certain character or symbol in the shortest possible time, and the closer the end point of the pen 9 is to the starting position of the next character to be printed, the faster the printing speed will be. In order to improve the writing, there are two ways to write characters and symbols: one starts from the left and ends on the right, and the other is to start writing from the right and end on the left, or in the case of Japanese vertical writing, write in the vertical direction. It is sufficient to have a process of writing from both directions.

Here, the above-mentioned contents will be explained according to the flowcharts of FIGS. 9 and 10. Figure 9 shows ROM27
In the flowchart that executes the pattern data in the forward direction, first, for the information to print a certain character, the first address of the data in the ROM 27 of that character is
Decoding mn [101]. Then, the initial value of the variable R1 for advancing the address is set to "0" [102], and the address data obtained by adding the variable R1 for advancing the address to the first address mn is placed in another variable R2 [103]. Next, it is checked [104] whether the content of variable R2 is zero, and if it is zero, the printing routine is terminated,
If it is not zero, print routines [105] to [116] are executed. In the printing routine, first check whether bit _D0 of the data is “1” or “0” [105]
If D ₀ = “1”, the pen ejection operation is performed, and D ₀
If = "0", the return operation [106] of the pen 9 is executed. Next, 4 bits D ₄ to _{D 7} indicating the moving distance are taken out from the ROM 27 and set to D ₄ of variable R3.
~ Put it in D ₇ [107]. The contents of variable R3 are shifted to the right four times to shift D ₄ to D ₇ to D ₀ to _{D 3} [108]. Variable R2 or data pen 9 paper 1
Only D ₁ to _{D 3} indicating the movement direction for 5 are stored in ROM2.
Take it out from 7 and put it in variable R4 [110]. and,
Check the values of variable R4, that is, D ₁ to D ₃ [111],
Proceed to routine [112] for setting the print direction. FIG. 10 shows details of this routine [112]. In other words, the variable R4 checked in [111]
However, when expressed in hexadecimal, if it is “00(H)”, it is in the positive direction of X, if it is “02(H)”, it is in the positive direction of X and in the positive direction of Y, etc. ”, the printing direction is set so that the printing direction is in the positive direction of X and the negative direction of Y, matching the plot pattern of FIG. With this, [112] is completed, and then one step operation [113] is performed according to the printing direction set in [112].
The step operation [113] is repeated until the variable R3 indicating the moving distance becomes zero at [114] and [115]. [115]
When R3=0 is detected, the contents of variable R1 are changed to R1+
Update to 1 [116], return to [103], repeat the print routine, and set R2 = 0 in [104].
When detected, it is assumed that the pattern data in the ROM 27 has been completed and the process returns to the main routine [117].

When such processing is executed when printing the English capital letter "A", the process from address mn to END address in Figure 7 is performed, and the pen 9 follows the pattern in Figure 6 with the arrow from a → b → c → d → Moves from e→f→g→h→e.

Here, e → h → g → f → e → d → c in Figure 6
To move →b→a and the pen 9 in the opposite direction, at [101] in FIG. 9, instead of decoding the first address mn of the data in the ROM 27, the last address MN is decoded, and at [103], Instead of adding the variable R1 that advances the address to the first address mn, add the last address MN.
To return the address further, perform the operation R2←(MN−R1) by subtracting the variable R1, and then reverse the movement direction between [108] and [110] as shown in Figure 8. Just add R2←2 [109].
In [109], the moving direction vector information is converted from FIG. 8a to FIG. 8b, and as shown in FIG. is converted into vector information with a direction that reverses the .
When the alphabetic character "A" is printed in the reverse direction in this way, printing is performed from the MN address to the end line in FIG. 7, and the pen 9 moves in the opposite direction to the arrow in the pattern shown in FIG.

Effects of the Invention As explained above, according to the X-Y plotter of the present invention, among the constituent elements of pattern data in the storage device that stores patterns of characters and symbols, only the information portion indicating the direction of movement of the pen relative to the paper is used. The order of pen writing can be easily reversed and the storage capacity can be increased by simply converting the information into vector information that reverses the movement direction using a conversion means, and then executing the pattern data in the storage device in reverse. It is possible to improve the printing speed by performing an optimal pen writing operation corresponding to the arrangement of characters and symbols on the paper.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
A partially cutaway front view of the Y plotter, Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the main part of Fig. 1, Fig. 3 is a configuration diagram of the control drive circuit, Fig. 4 is a plot pattern diagram, and Fig. 5 is pattern data. Fig. 6 is an explanatory diagram of pen operation, Fig. 7 is an explanatory diagram of the contents of pattern data, Fig. 8 is an explanatory diagram of pattern data conversion, and Fig. 9 is an explanatory diagram of the pen operation.
Figures 1 and 10 are flowcharts of the printing program. 1... Platen roll, 6... Platen drive motor, 9... Pen, 15... Paper, 20... Pen cartridge drive motor, 26... Microprocessor, 27... ROM.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A drive device that drives a pen in the X direction and Y direction with respect to a printing paper, a storage device that stores movement direction vector information of the pen of a predetermined character and symbol pattern, and A control drive circuit is provided to control the drive device based on the read data, and a conversion means is provided to convert the movement direction vector information into vector information in a direction that reverses the movement direction. An XY plotter that executes pattern data in the storage device from the opposite direction and operates a drive control circuit using movement direction vector information transmitted through the conversion means.