KR100222683B1 - Low power pritging method of thermal print type facsmile - Google Patents

Abstract

end. TECHNICAL FIELD [0002]

This is a technique related to a printing method in a thermal facsimile.

I. Technical Problems to be Solved by the Invention:

Printing can also be performed as a small-capacity power supply unit in a facsimile of a conventional thermal recording method.

All. The point of the solution of the invention:

According to the present invention, in a printing method in a thermal facsimile, the amount of data to be printed is checked and the line data to be printed is divided into two prints when the amount of the data is equal to or higher than a preset level.

la. An important use of the invention:

Print power savings for facsimiles

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a low power type printing method for a thermal printer,

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal facsimile, and more particularly, to a method of printing with low power.

When printing is performed on a general thermal facsimile, a thermal print head (hereinafter referred to as "TPH ") in a line form prints horizontally on a thermal paper line by line to form an entire image. In this case, when printing on letter-size recording paper, 1728 dots (216 x 8 dots = 1728 dots) are printed almost simultaneously because eight dots are printed per 1 mm. In order to drive 1728 dots, a large amount of power is required. Therefore, in the case of a real thermal facsimile, the total dot is divided into two halves (two strobe halves) or four halves (four strobe halves) to reduce power consumption.

However, even if printing is performed by dividing the dots into two halves (two strobe type) or four halves (four strobe type) in printing as described above, the power consumed is high because a large number of heating elements must be driven at the same time. The following is an example of the number of heat generating elements (dots) to be driven simultaneously when printing letter-size thermal paper.

2-strobe method: 864 dots (1728/2 = 864 dots)

4-strobe method: 432 dots (1728/4 = 432 dots)

As described above, even if printing is performed by dividing the dot into two halves or four halves at the time of printing, it is still necessary to drive a large number of heating elements all at once. Therefore, a relatively high capacity power supply device is used for a facsimile of a conventional thermal recording method have.

For this reason, there has been a demand for a method of printing on a facsimile of a conventional thermal recording method even as a small-capacity power supply device.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a low-power type printing method capable of printing even a small-capacity power supply device in a facsimile of a thermal recording type.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a low power type printing method capable of lowering the power required for printing in a facsimile of a thermal recording method to half the conventional level.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a low power type printing method capable of lowering a material cost required for a power supply apparatus.

According to the above-mentioned object, the present invention checks the amount of data to be printed, and when the amount of the data is more than a certain level, it goes to printing twice.

1 is a diagram showing a facsimile configuration diagram of a conventional thermal recording system

Fig. 2 is a drawing comparing the conventional printing method (a) and the printing method (b) according to the embodiment of the present invention

3 is a flowchart of a control flow according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, well-known functions or constructions that may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will not be described in detail.

1 is a diagram showing a facsimile structure of a conventional thermal recording system. Referring to FIG. 1, the fax controller 10 is a circuit unit that controls the operation of the facsimile as a whole, and particularly processes or manages data to be printed. The scanner 40 is a device for reading originals, and the line interface 50 is a circuit section for allowing the facsimile image data to be received or sent by a telephone line.

The storage device 20 stores a program for controlling the facsimile, and also has a printing buffer 25 for storing printing data for a while. The power supply 60 supplies various kinds of electric power required for the facsimile to operate, and in particular, supplies power necessary for heating the TPH 30.

In order to print the data received from the scanner 40 or the line interface 50, the received data is imaged by the fax controller 10, stored in the printing buffer 25 of the storage device 20, temporarily queued for printing, and printed on the recording paper by the TPH 30. In the received data printing process, the facsimile controller 10 analyzes and re-arranges the printed data in the embodiment of the present invention, thereby reducing power consumption during printing.

The basic idea of the present invention is to prevent printing of a large amount of data at the same time to reduce power consumption, so that data to be printed even in a two-strobe mode or a four-strobe mode can be divided and printed in software. At this time, only when the data to be printed is more than a certain level, printing is performed twice, and one line is printed twice to reduce the printing speed as much as possible.

FIG. 2 is a diagram comparing the conventional printing method (a) and the printing method (b) according to the embodiment of the present invention. In the printing method (b) according to the embodiment of the present invention, , But the printing time is doubled. However, since the printing time is determined by the amount of data, the actual total printing time does not increase to twice as much as the all black. In the present invention, when the recording paper is a letter size, for example, the printing is performed twice only when the black dot is 864 or more.

3 is a control flow diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The operation of the present invention will now be described in more detail with reference to Figs. 1 to 3. Fig. The facsimile controller 10 of FIG. 1 reads the data to be printed in step 100 of FIG. 3 from the printing buffer 25 of the storage device 20 in units of line data. Then, in step 102, the ratio of black data is retrieved from the line data read. That is, the number of dots consuming power, that is, the number of dots to be printed in black, among the read line data, is retrieved. In step 104, the number of dots (hereinafter referred to as "black dot number & It is judged that the number of printed dots is equal to or more than half of the total number of printing dots of line data. If the number of black dots is less than half of the total number of printed dots of line data, the process directly goes to step 112 and line printing is performed in the same manner as in the conventional printing method. Even if line printing is performed in the same manner as the conventional method, the power consumed is a small capacity (that is, less than half of the maximum consumed power).

However, if it is determined in step 104 that the number of black dots is equal to or larger than half the total number of printed dots of the line data, printing is performed in two steps as shown in steps 106 to 112. More specifically, the fax controller 10 masks the even-numbered data in step 106 in order to print only the odd-numbered data of the line data first, and proceeds to step 108 to print only the odd-numbered data. Then, in order to print only the even-numbered data of the line data, the odd-numbered data is masked in step 110 and only the even-numbered data is printed in step 112.

The method of masking the data to be printed is the logical product of the read line data and the even and odd mask data described below. The length of the mask data is equal to the length of the line data (for example, in the case of a letter size, the length of the mask data is 1728 bits).

Even mask data: 101010101010 .......... 1010101010

Odd mask data: 010101010101 .......... 0101010101

In the even-numbered mask data, even-numbered data is "0" and odd-numbered data is "0" and odd-numbered data is "1". Therefore, if the read line data and the even mask data are logically multiplied, only the odd-numbered lines of the line data are printed. When the read line data and the odd mask data are logically multiplied, only the even-numbered lines of the line data are printed.

According to the new printing method according to the embodiment of the present invention, the power consumed in printing is reduced to 1/2 level as compared with the conventional thermal recording method.

While the present invention has been described in connection with certain exemplary embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments. Therefore, the scope of the present invention should not be limited by the described embodiments but should be determined by the equivalents of the claims and the claims.

As described above, the present invention checks the amount of data to be printed, and when the amount of data is more than a certain level, it prints the data in a manner of dividing the data twice. Therefore, the power required for printing can be reduced to 1/2 level. It can also be used to design low-cost facsimiles by reducing the capacity of the power supply and lowering the material cost of the power supply.

Claims (5)

In a printing method in a direct thermal printer, Wherein the control unit checks the amount of data to be printed on the recording sheet and sequentially prints the line data to be printed when the amount of the data is equal to or higher than a preset level, by dividing the data into odd numbered line data and even numbered line data, How to print. A printing method in a thermal printer having a printing buffer for temporarily storing line data to be printed, A first step of reading line data to be printed on a recording sheet from the printing buffer and determining a ratio of the number of dots of black data in the line data to the line data; A second step of performing the entire line printing if the ratio of the number of dots of the black data is less than half the total number of printed dots of the line data, A third step of masking the even-numbered data of the line data and line-printing the odd-numbered data of the line data when the dot number ratio of the black data is equal to or more than half the total number of printed dots of the line data; And a fourth step of line-printing even-numbered data of the line data by masking odd-numbered data of the line data after the third step. The data mask according to claim 2, characterized in that the data mask is formed by ANDing even or odd mask data whose even or odd data is "0" and the remaining data is "1" Wherein the low-power-type printing method comprises: 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the even mask data is 101010101010 ... 101010 1010, and the odd mask data is composed of 010101010101 .......... Lt; RTI ID = 0.0 > 0101010101 < / RTI > The low power type printing method according to claim 4, wherein the length of the mask data is the same as the length of the line data.