KR100263337B1 - Control method of ecr printer head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for controlling a printer head of a cash register is provided to reduce the cost without adding composition of an extra hardware for controlling the driving time of a printer head and to improve the quality of printing by setting the driving time of the printer head differently according to numbers of printer head pins. CONSTITUTION: In the method for controlling the printer head of the cash register, a few stages are included. In the first stage, the driving time of the printer head according to numbers of printer head pins driven at the same time is set up and is stored in each number of a memory. In the second stage, it is judged if there are data to be printed or not. If there are data to be printed as the judged result in the third stage, the numbers of printer head pins to be driven at the same time according to the type of the data to be printed are calculated. In the fourth stage, the driving time of the printer head stored on the appropriate number of the memory is loaded to a counter. In the fifth stage, the data are printed by driving the printer head during the driving time loaded in the counter.

Description

How to Control Print Head of Cash Register

The present invention relates to a printhead control method of a cash register, and more particularly, to determine the number of pins of a simultaneously driven printhead to drive a printhead in proportion to the number of headpins, thereby reducing the difference in print quality due to external power fluctuations. It relates to a printhead control method of a cash register that can be compensated.

In general, a cash register refers to a device that processes various data accompanying product sales and informs users of the results in order to facilitate information management. The scope of the product ranges from point of sales system to comprehensively manage the distribution economy such as inventory research. Hereinafter, in the present specification, the term ECR (Electronic Cash Register), which means an electronic cash register controlled by a microprocessor, is used as a broad concept including a low-end cash register to a POS terminal.

On the other hand, the ECR is equipped with a printer for issuing a customer receipt and various processing results as a document, and in general, a dot-matrix printer is used as a printer. In this case, the dot matrix printer used is a method of forming a font using dots like fonts of a video card, and printing one or more pins in the print head according to an incoming code. In other words, when the code comes in, the pins in the print head hit the paper in the same shape as the corresponding font. It is also called an impact printer because it prints with such an impact action.

The cash register using the conventional dot matrix printer consumes power from the printer, the customer / clerk display, the bar code reader, and the general circuit components, among which the power consumption and the load fluctuation are the largest. . In addition, in the printer used in the cash register, a print head having seven or nine head pins is used, and at least one to nine head pins are driven at the same time depending on the type of characters to be printed.

At this time, the power consumption of the printer is changed according to the number of head pins driven at the same time, and the difference in printing quality occurs when one head of the printer is driven and all nine are driven by the difference in power consumption.

Therefore, in order to prevent such a difference in print quality, the driving time of the print head is controlled differently according to the number of print head pins driven simultaneously by adding a timer circuit. However, when the timer circuit is added in this hardware configuration, the circuit configuration becomes complicated, resulting in a problem of cost increase.

Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve this problem, the purpose is to control the drive time of the print head without the addition of a hardware configuration to prevent the degradation of print quality due to the difference in the number of the print head pin It is to provide a printhead control method of a cash register.

In order to achieve the above object, the printhead control method of the cash register according to the present invention includes a dot matrix printer for printing by driving a plurality of printhead pins provided in the printhead according to the type of data to be printed. A method of controlling a print head of a cash register in which various data are to be printed, the method comprising: (a) setting a driving time of a print head according to the number of pins of a print head driven simultaneously and storing the print head at each address in a memory; (C) calculating the number of print head pins driven at the same time according to the type of data to be printed, if there is data to be printed as a result of the determination of step (b); The print head stored at the corresponding address in the memory based on the number of the print head pins calculated in the step (c). Loading the same time the counter (E) is characterized in that it includes the step of driving the print head to print the data for the drive time loaded into the counter.

1 is a system block diagram showing the configuration of a cash register to which the present invention is applied;

2 is an exemplary diagram of a time table for implementing the present invention;

3 is a flowchart illustrating a printhead control method of a cash register according to the present invention.

*** Explanation of symbols for main parts of drawing ***

10: central processing unit, 20: key input unit,

30: Rom, 40: Ram,

50: real time clock part, 60: display

70: printer driver, 80: printer.

Hereinafter, with reference to the accompanying drawings, the configuration and operation and effect according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail.

First, Figure 1 is a system block diagram showing the configuration of a cash register to which the present invention is applied. As shown in FIG. 1, the ECR for implementing the present invention kisses the key input unit 20 and the key input unit 20 generating various key codes for mode designation and money registration according to the received key code. The central processing unit 10 which designates the mode of the ECR and performs various functions in the designated mode, the ROM which stores a program table for system operation and a time table in which the print head driving time is set according to the number of pins of the printer head driven simultaneously. ), A RAM 40 for storing various data generated during a program or a transaction set by a user, a real time clock unit (RTC) 50 for providing real-time information to the central processing unit 10, and a central processing unit 10 Display unit 60 for displaying various information related to a transaction under control of a printer, a printer 80 for issuing documents for customer receipts and various processing results under the control of the central processing unit 10, and a central processing unit 10 It includes a printer driving unit 70 for controlling the driving of the printer 80 under the control of.

2 is an exemplary view showing an example of a time table for implementing the present invention. As shown in Fig. 2, the number of head pins driven simultaneously according to the character form to be printed is from 1 to 9, and the driving time of the print head is different from that set in the time table according to the number of head pins driven simultaneously. It is set differently and stored in each address of memory.

On the other hand, Figure 3 is a flowchart showing a printer head control method of the cash register according to the present invention. As shown in Figure 3, the printer head control method of the cash register according to the present invention first creates a time table for setting the drive time of the print head for the number of head pins driven simultaneously in step S10 to the head pin number Each drive time of the print head is stored in a certain address in the memory.

As shown in FIG. 2, the driving time of the print heads respectively stored at a predetermined address of the memory is loaded on a counter in the central processing unit 10 when data is output to adjust the driving time of the print head. Done.

In step S12, it is determined whether data to be printed is present. As a result of the determination, if there is no data to be printed, the following process is ended, and if there is data to be printed, the process proceeds to step S14 to calculate the number of print head pins driven simultaneously according to the type of data to be printed.

In step S16, if the number of pins of the print head driven simultaneously is 1 as a result of the calculation of step S14, the printhead driving time corresponding to the case where the number of pins of the print head driven simultaneously is 1 The print head driving time (300 ms) stored in the stored memory address, that is, XXX1H is loaded into the counter.

On the other hand, if the result of the determination in step S16 is that the number of simultaneously driven head pins is not one, the process proceeds to step S18 to determine whether the number of simultaneously driven head pins is two, and as a result, the head pins simultaneously driven are two. In operation S19, the drive time data 305 ms stored in XXX2H, which is the memory address in which the print head drive time is stored, is loaded into the counter.

In addition, when the number of the head pins driven simultaneously is not two as a result of the determination in step S18, the number of head pins driven simultaneously is determined by the method as described above, and stored in the corresponding address of the time table according to the determined number of head pins. Each of the driving time data is loaded into a counter. Since this process is the same as described above, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

Therefore, after such a process, in step S20, it is determined whether the number of head pins determined by the data to be printed is eight, and if the number of head pins driven simultaneously is eight, the corresponding address XXX8H of the memory in step S21. 335 ms, which is the print head drive time data stored in the address, are loaded into the counter. On the other hand, if the number of simultaneous head pins is 9 as the result of the step S20, in step S22 the value of 340kV, which is data stored at the XXX9H address of the memory, is loaded into the counter.

In the next step S24, the print head is driven to output the data to be printed, and in step S26, as the print head is driven, the counter loaded in the steps S17, S19 and S21. While reducing the value, the print head is driven until the value of the counter becomes zero in step S28. In addition, in step S30, when the value of the counter reaches zero, the driving of the print head is stopped, and the steps S12 and below are repeated to print data.

As described above, the printhead control method of the cash register according to the present invention sets the driving time of the printhead differently according to the number of pins of the printhead determined according to the type of data to be printed, and sets the set driving time to the center. It loads into the counter of a processing apparatus, and controls the drive of a printhead based on the counter value at the time of printing data.

Therefore, since a separate hardware configuration is not added to control the driving time of the printhead by the printhead control method of the cash register according to the present invention, the cost can be reduced, and the printhead is driven according to the number of pins of the printhead. By setting the time differently, the print quality can be improved.

Claims (1)

In the printer head control method of the cash register having a dot matrix printer for driving and printing a plurality of print head pins provided in the print head according to the type of data to be printed, to print various data in accordance with merchandise sales, (A) setting the driving time of the print head according to the number of pins of the print head which are driven at the same time and storing it in each address of the memory, (B) determining the presence of data to be printed, (C) calculating the number of print head pins driven at the same time according to the type of data to be printed when the determination result of step (b) includes data to be printed; (D) loading the print head driving time stored at the corresponding address in the memory to the counter based on the number of the print head pins calculated in step (c); (E) driving a print head for a driving time loaded on the counter to print data.

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