KR19990032798A - Apparatus and Method for Determining Cartridge Loading Status of Inkjet Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an apparatus and a discrimination method for discriminating whether or not an inkjet printer cartridge is mounted.

Two ink cartridges can be mounted, the carriage having a first sensing rib formed at a predetermined position, a carriage driving means for controlling the movement of the carriage, and a second sensing having a predetermined distance from the sensing rib formed at the carriage. A groove provided at a position corresponding to the first ink cartridge having a rib for forming, the second ink cartridge having a third sensing rib having a predetermined distance from the second sensing rib of the first ink cartridge, and the sensing ribs The sensor has an effect of determining whether the cartridge is mounted and the cartridge mounted by checking the sensing result of the home sensor and the on-time time of the home sensor.

Description

Apparatus and Method for Determining Cartridge Loading Status of Inkjet Printer

The present invention relates to an inkjet printer, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for determining whether a cartridge is mounted by forming ribs to protrude from the cartridge.

Among the peripheral devices of the computer, it is a representative output device displayed on a medium such as paper so that the user can recognize the contents according to the work of the computer.

Among these printers, inkjet printers are typical printers that can be purchased at a low price and have excellent print quality.

First, the configuration and operation principle of a general inkjet printer will be described with reference to FIG. 1.

Receives a signal transmitted from the computer 1 through the printer interface 2, and reads, interprets, and executes a system program in the ROM 4 that stores initial setting values and values necessary for the system. A CPU 3 for outputting a control signal according to the present invention, a ROM 5 incorporating programs and various fonts necessary for control, a RAM 4 used for temporarily storing data during system operation, and The head drive unit 30 for controlling the drive of the ink cartridge 31 according to the control signal of the CPU 3 and the line feed for controlling the drive of the line feed motor 41 for conveying paper using mainly the stepping motor. The motor drive part 40 and the carriage return motor drive part 50 which control the operation of the carriage return drive motor 51 are comprised.

The motors 41 and 51 and the ink cartridge 31 are driven in accordance with the control signal of the CPU 1 which receives the print signal from the computer through the printer interface. At this time, the ink cartridge 31 is a method of forming a dot by spraying a fine ink drop from a nozzle having a plurality of openings.

The operation of such a system can be represented as in FIG.

The document 100 stored in the paper cassette 70 is drawn in between the feed roller 72 and the friction roller 73 by the paper feed roller 71. The printing operation is performed in accordance with the left and right reciprocating motion of the ink cartridge 31. At this time, the driving roller 74 and the discharge roller 75 engaged with the feed roller 72 are interlocked. As the printing operation proceeds, the paper of the portion where the printing is completed is drawn between the discharge roller 75 and the star wheel 76 and discharged.

In this way, an inkjet printer that performs printing while moving the ink cartridge in a horizontal direction requires a reference position for accurate printing.

When the power of the printer is "on", the control unit of the printer is configured to perform an initialization operation after placing the carriage at a preset initial position. Typically, the initial position is referred to as a home position, and becomes a reference position when controlling carriage movement after initialization.

At one end of the carriage movement path, a home sensor 20 as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B is installed, and a sensing rib 18 protruding corresponding to the home sensor 20 is formed or installed at one edge of the carriage. It is.

The sensing rib 18 is formed to extend downward from one edge of the carriage in the form of a plate. 3A illustrates a state where the sensing rib 18 is out of the home sensor 20, and FIG. 3B illustrates that the sensing rib 18 has the light emitting part 22 and the light receiving part 24 of the home sensor 20. It illustrates the state penetrating between.

The home sensor 20 is an example of using an optical sensor composed of the light emitting unit 22 and the light receiving unit 24, this home sensor 20 is installed on the left or right on the path that the carriage is moved.

In this state, when the carriage moves in the left and right directions, when the detecting rib 18 is out of the home sensor as shown in FIG. 3A, light emitted from the light emitting unit 22 of the home sensor is received by the light receiving unit 24. Will be reached.

On the other hand, when the sensing rib 18 penetrates between the light emitting part 22 and the light receiving part 24 of the home sensor 20 as shown in FIG. 3B, an optical path between the light emitting part 22 and the light receiving part 24 is provided. Is blocked by the sensing rib 18.

In the following description, the home sensor 20 is “off” when light emitted from the light emitter 22 reaches the light receiver 24, and an optical path between the light emitter 22 and the light receiver 24 is used. Is assumed to be "On" when is blocked by the sensing rib.

Accordingly, the home sensor is turned on or off depending on the position of the carriage. Then, the controller of the printer may determine whether the current carriage is in the home position by checking the detection state of the home sensor. At this time, when the home sensor is in the ON state during the initialization operation, it is determined that the carriage is in the home position and the initialization operation is performed.

In contrast, the control unit determines that the carriage is not in the home position when the home sensor is in the off state. In this case, the carriage is naturally in the opposite direction to the home position, except in the case of failure, so that the controller continuously checks the detection state of the home sensor while moving the carriage in the home position direction.

Thus, when the carriage reaches the home position, the home sensor is turned on by the sensing rib as described above, and the controller detects it and performs the initialization operation. The home position direction refers to the direction in which the home sensor is installed and the home position opposite direction refers to the opposite direction in which the home sensor is installed.

On the other hand, when the ink cartridge is replaced, the printer may be operated without removing a new ink cartridge after removing the used ink cartridge due to user's carelessness. In addition, the case where the color cartridge is mounted in the position where the mono cartridge should be mounted and vice versa occurs.

In this case, the apparatus has a problem in that printing is performed even though there is no ink cartridge, or printing is performed while the color cartridge is mounted at a position where the mono cartridge is to be mounted.

In order to solve this problem, a separate detection pin was installed in order to detect the presence or absence of an ink cartridge, and it was detected whether the recording head was mounted using the detection pin.

That is, in order to determine the presence or absence of the head, a print signal was given to the nozzle corresponding to the detection pin of the head, and the voltage applied to the head was checked to confirm the presence of the head.

Therefore, the injection signal is sent to a predetermined nozzle to determine the presence or absence of the head accordingly, the consumption of ink, contamination of the set and power consumption are generated.

An object of the present invention to solve this problem is to form a rib on one side of the carriage and to form a rib in the mono and color cartridge to provide a discriminating device that can check the presence and location of the head according to the detection state of the home sensor. .

In order to achieve this object, the present invention provides an ink cartridge mounting determination apparatus using a home sensor; Two ink cartridges can be mounted, the carriage having a first sensing rib formed at a predetermined position, a carriage driving means for controlling the movement of the carriage, and a second sensing having a predetermined distance from the sensing rib formed at the carriage. A groove provided at a position corresponding to the first ink cartridge having a rib for forming, the second ink cartridge having a third sensing rib having a predetermined distance from the second sensing rib of the first ink cartridge, and the sensing ribs It is characterized by including a sensor.

1 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a general inkjet printer;

FIG. 2 is an operation example showing an outline of the operation of the printer having the configuration of FIG. 1; FIG.

3 is an operation example showing an operation of a home sensor;

4 is a perspective view of a carriage formed with a rib for sensing according to the present invention;

5 is a perspective view of an ink cartridge having a rib for detection according to the present invention;

6 is a perspective view showing an installation example of a home sensor according to the present invention;

7 is a flowchart illustrating an operation process according to the present invention;

8 is an exemplary view showing a positional relationship between a sensing rib and a home sensor according to a carriage position before the printer is powered on;

9 is an operation example showing the operation relationship of the carriage according to the progress of the present invention.

Hereinafter, the configuration and operation thereof according to the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

4 to 6 are perspective views showing the carriage, the cartridge and the home sensor according to the present invention.

4 shows that the carriage detecting rib 37 is attached to the lower end surface of the carriage 33 so as to extend downward.

5 shows that the cartridge detecting ribs 38, 39 are also formed in the ink cartridges 31, 31 '. Here, it can be seen that the color cartridge sensing rib 39 of FIG. 5B is larger than the mono cartridge sensing rib 38 of FIG. 5A.

In addition, the mono cartridge sensing rib 38 may be the same size or slightly larger than the sensing rib 37 installed in the carriage 33. Therefore, the first sensing rib 39 is formed in the color cartridge 31 '. Assume that the width of the carriage detection rib 37 is "w1", the width of the mono cartridge detection rib 38 is "w2", and the width of the color cartridge detection rib 39 is "w3". . The correlation of each rib size w 1 <w 2 <w 3 It can be expressed as

This is to check whether the cartridge is for mono or color by checking the time for sensing the wrong rib size.

Meanwhile, when the mono cartridge detecting rib 38 of FIG. 5A is mounted on the carriage 33, the cartridge 40 maintains a constant distance X from the carriage detecting rib 37, and the color cartridge detecting rib 39 is the mono cartridge. It is formed to maintain a predetermined distance (Y) with the sensing rib 38.

And, as shown in Figure 6 home sensor 20 uses only one as in the prior art. At one end of the carriage 33 on the moving path to correspond to the sensing ribs 37, 38 and 39, it is assumed that it is located in the home position in this example.

An operation example of the present invention having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 7.

The position of each of the sensing ribs 37, 38, 39 with respect to the home sensor 20 according to the initial state, for example, the position of the carriage 33 before the printer is powered on, is shown in FIG. 8A. ) To (F).

8A, 8B, and 8C illustrate a state in which any one of the sensing ribs 37, 38, and 39 is sensed by the home sensor.

(A) shows the case where the carriage detection rib 37 is detected by the home sensor 20, (B) shows the case where the mono cartridge detection rib 38 is detected by the home sensor 20. , (C) shows a case where the color cartridge detection rib 39 is detected by the home sensor 20.

8B illustrates an example in which none of the sensing ribs 37, 38, and 39 is sensed by the home sensor 20. (D) is the case where the home sensor 20 is located between the carriage detecting rib 37 and the mono cartridge detecting rib 38, and (E) is the mono cartridge detecting rib 38 and the color cartridge detecting. In the case where the home sensor 20 is positioned between the ribs 39, (F) shows a case where all of the sensing ribs are out of the home sensor 20.

Since the present invention relates to a method of determining whether the ink cartridge is mounted and the mounting position, when the printer is powered on, first, the carriage is sufficiently moved in the opposite direction of the home position, as shown in FIG. 9A. (S11 process)

The carriage return motor 51 is driven to groove the carriage 33 until the home sensor 20 is in the "on" state by the carriage sensing rib 37 as shown in FIG. 9B (step S13). Slowly move toward the sensor 20. (S12 process)

When the home sensor 20 is in the "on" state, as shown in FIG. 9C, the carriage 33 is moved in the home position so that the mono cartridge detecting rib 38 can be detected by the home sensor 20. Move by "X" by (S14 process)

Once again, check the detection state of the home sensor 20 (step S15). If the sensing result of the home sensor 20 is “off”, the cartridge is not installed at the place where the mono cartridge is to be mounted. Display an error so that the user can recognize it. At this time, the error display may use a warning sound or a voice message (step S16).

When the home sensor 20 shows the "on" state, it is checked whether the "on" time of the home sensor 20 corresponds to the width (w2) of the mono cartridge detecting rib (step S17). It can be seen. That is, the error that occurs when the color cartridge is mounted in the position where the mono cartridge is to be mounted can be checked.

When it is confirmed that the mono cartridge is normally mounted, the carriage 33 is again moved in the home position direction by " Y " (step S19).

Once again, check the detection state of the home sensor 20. (S20 process) If the sensing result of the home sensor 20 is "off", the cartridge is not installed in the place where the color cartridge is to be mounted. Display an error so that the user can recognize it. (S21 course)

When the home sensor 20 indicates the "on" state, it is checked whether the "on" time of the home sensor 20 corresponds to the width w3 of the rib for detecting the color cartridge (step S22). You can check it. That is, the error that occurs when the mono cartridge is mounted at the position where the color cartridge is to be mounted can be checked.

In the above description, the mono cartridge and the color cartridge are used separately. However, if the mono cartridge or the color cartridge is provided with a sensing rib having the same width, the width of the sensing rib on the mono / color multi-cartridge is determined. If it is formed large, it may be confirmed whether or not the multi cartridge is mounted in a similar manner as described above.

As described above, the present invention has the effect of determining whether the cartridge is mounted and whether the cartridge is mounted correctly.

Claims (4)

An ink cartridge mounting state determination device using a home sensor, comprising: A carriage capable of mounting two ink cartridges and having a first sensing rib formed at a predetermined position; Carriage driving means for controlling the movement operation of the carriage; A first ink cartridge having a second sensing rib having a predetermined distance from the sensing rib formed in the carriage; A second ink cartridge having a third sensing rib having a predetermined distance from the second sensing rib of the first ink cartridge; And a home sensor installed at a position corresponding to the sensing ribs. The method of claim 1; And the second ink cartridge is a mono cartridge and a multi color cartridge. The method of claim 1 or 2; And a width of each of the sensing ribs is different. A method for checking the mounting state of an inkjet printer cartridge; Moving the carriage in the opposite direction to the home position according to the power applied; Moving the carriage toward the home sensor until the home sensor is turned on; Moving the carriage by a certain distance while the carriage is detected; Checking whether the mono cartridge is installed according to the sensing result of the home sensor and the on time of the home sensor; Moving the carriage by a certain distance again in a state where the mono cartridge is installed; And determining whether or not the color cartridge is mounted according to the detection result of the home sensor.