JPH02233276A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve a printing speed by providing at least two printing heads, and printing with the heads concurrently with the printing of other printing head. CONSTITUTION:A print controller 41 stores print data in a memory 43, and sends data indicating an initial character 51 and data indicating a second character 52 to a character generator 42. The generator 42 sends pattern data indicating the character 51 to a printing head 11 to print the character 51 by the head 11, sends pattern data indicating the character 52 to a printing head 12 to print the character 52 by the head 12. The positions of the heads 11, 12 are moved to next character positions by corresponding drivers 44, 45, and a character 53 is printed by the head 11 and a character 54 is printed by the head 12 similarly to the above operation.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION <Industry> Second Field of Application The present invention relates to a printing device in which a print head moves along with printing.

<Prior art> A printing device used to print sentences created by a word processor uses one print head and prints on paper while moving the print head. .

<Problem to be solved by the invention> The above printing device prints one character while moving the print head.
Since it is configured to print one character at a time, if you want to increase the printing speed, it is necessary to shorten the time required to print one character. 1. With a one-way print head,
The noise during printing becomes louder and the durability of the print head deteriorates, making it difficult to use thermal transfer or thermal printing methods.
Since instantaneous heat generation is required in the above-mentioned printing method, the durability SE1 is similarly deteriorated, resulting in the problem that the printing speed cannot be increased.

The present invention was devised to solve the above problems, and its purpose is to provide a printing device that can increase printing speed.

<Means for Solving the Problem> In order to solve the problem described in L, the printing device according to the present invention is applied to a configuration in which the printing head moves with printing, and is provided with at least two printing heads, each printing The heads are configured to perform printing in parallel with the printing operations of other print heads.

<Effect> Distributes multiple characters to be printed to each print head.

Each of the print heads prints the assigned characters in parallel with the printing operations of the other print heads.

<Embodiment> FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the wooden invention, and FIG. 2 is a sectional view along line AA in FIG. 1.

In the figure, a pair of guide plates 18 and 22 whose lower portions are curved along the platen roller 17 are arranged around the platen roller 17, which is rotatably supported on the side plate 19 by a rotating shaft 171, in order to guide the printing paper. A pressing roller 24 for pressing the printing paper against the platen roller 17 is provided directly in front of the platen roller 17. The pressing roller 24 is configured to press against and release from the platen roller 17 by operating a lever (not shown). Further, the platen roller 17 is configured to be rotated by a drive device connected to an end portion 172 of a rotating shaft 171.

The print head 12 for performing thermal transfer, the platen roller 17 of the body 127 of the approximately rectangular parallelepiped-shaped hend support base 121
It is mounted near the side edge and is movable in the direction of arrow C by a drive mechanism provided inside the henode support stand 121.

・The shape of the head 127 of the print support base 121 is shifted in the axial direction of the platen roller 17 (indicated by arrow B) so that the distance between the stamp paper hands 11 and 12 in the direction of arrow B can be shortened. The length along the axis is shorter than the length in the direction perpendicular to the axis. A printer cassette (not shown) storing an ink ribbon whose surface is coated with printing ink is attached to the second surface 127 of the head support 121 (its shape is similar to that of the head support). (It is sized so that it does not protrude beyond the edge of 121).

? Legs 122 are fixed to the lower part of this head support stand 121. This leg portion 122 has an insertion hole 12 through which the guide shaft 13 fixed to the side plate 19 is inserted.
5 and a guide leg 124 formed with a contact groove 126 that contacts the guide rail 14 fixed to the bottom plate 25.

Further, the printing head F'lI, the head support 111, and the legs provided at the bottom thereof have the same structure as described above. A rectangular print paper receiving plate 23 that is long in the axial direction of the platen roller 17 is attached to the front surface of the print heads 11 and 12.

Between guide shafts 1 and 13 and guide rail 14,
A driving heel 121a that is moved by a pair of pulleys 15a and 16a, and a pulley 15b rotatably supported at the bottom of each of the pulleys 15a and 16a.
The pulley 15a and the pulley 15b are each rotated by a corresponding drive device.

And one of the affected parts of driving health l-2 lb is
It is fixed to the guide leg portion 124 by a fixture 125. Similarly, the drive hems 1 to 21a are also fixed to the guide legs of the hesode support base 111 at those locations. In other words, each of the two print heads 11 and 12 is configured to be movable individually by a corresponding drive device.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the electrical configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

The print control section 41, which receives the output 411 representing the data of the printed character, sends the output to the character generator section 42, which is composed of a data memory, an output circuit, etc., and generates a character pattern from the data representing the character. Along with doing
The connection with memory/13 is bidirectional. In addition, the output of the character jetting part/l2 is
It was sent out on 11th and 12th. and head support stand 11
Each of the drive device 44 for moving the printer 1 and the drive device 45 for moving the printer support 112 includes a print control unit 4.
The output from 1 is derived.

The operation of one embodiment of the present invention having the above configuration will be described below.

In the state where printing is not performed, the print heads 11 and 12
is in a state separated from the printing paper receiver 23, and the pressing roller 24 is in a state separated from the platen roller 17. In addition, the ribbon force 71 is attached to the top surface 127 of the head support stands 111 and 121.
- is attached (not shown). Furthermore, the printing paper is placed in the gap 181 between the platen roller 17 and the guide plate 18.
inserted into.

The leading end of the printing paper guided by the guide plate 18 reaches the gap 241 between the pressure roller 24 and the platen roller 17 at the lower part of the platen roller 17, and is further guided upward by the guide plate 22 to reach the print head. River 1, I2
and reaches the gap 231 between the printing paper receiving plate 23 and the printing paper receiving plate 23. Therefore, the gap 2 between the printing paper receiving plate 23 and the printing sleeves 11 and 12 is
31, the printing paper is located on the printing paper receiving plate 23 side, and the ink ribbon is located on the printing head I1, 12 side.

In the state B, the drive mechanism built into the head supports 111 and 121 prints -
2 is pressed against the print paper receiving plate 23 side.

Further, the pressing roller 24 is pressed against the platen roller 17 side by the recording operation.

Figure 4 shows the characters printed on the printing paper and the printing head 11,
12 is an explanatory diagram showing the relationship with 12. FIG. In the following, reference will be made to Lay 1 as necessary.

The print heads 11 and 12 are now moved by drive devices 44 and 45 that operate according to the output from the print control section 41, and the print head 11 is at the position of the first character of the line to be printed, and the print head 12 is at the position of the 21st character. Suppose it is at the eye position.

It is also assumed that the print data led to the print control unit 41 is data in which the number of characters in one line is 40 (40 character data shown in FIG. 4, 55).

The print control unit 4l stores the above print data in the memory 43 (the memory 43 in the actual machine stores character data to the fullest extent allowed by its storage capacity, but for the sake of easy-to-understand explanation, ), gearactor generator section 4
2, data indicating the first character 5] and data indicating the 21st character 52 are sent. The character generator section 42 outputs the character 51 to the print head 1 by sending the pattern data to the print head 1 without indicating the character 51.
], the pattern data indicating the character 52 is sent to the printing head 12, and the character 52 is printed by the printing head 12.

In this printing, since the operation of the character generator section/12 is extremely fast compared to the printing speed of the printing plates 11 and 12, the two printing plates 11 and 12 simultaneously print characters. Also, in this printing operation,
Ghent support stand 111, 121, letters are 24 tons x 2
In the case of a 4-totsu-1-nyori configuration, the distance is moved by 24 tonotos, which corresponds to the horizontal size of one character.
15b).

By rotating the booleans 15a, 15b by the corresponding drive devices 44, 45, the positions of the print heads 11, 12 are moved to the position of the next character, and the same operation as in ``2'' is performed, that is, the print head 11 to print a character 53, and print head l2 to print a character 54.

Thereafter, the same operation is repeated (each of the print heads 11 and 12 prints 20 characters), thereby completing the printing of the characters 55 in the first line. Then, by rotating the platen roller 17, the printing paper is moved, and the printing hand 11 is moved to the first character position.
The printing head 12 is moved to the position of the 21st character.

The print control unit 41 reads data indicating the 40 characters 56 on the second line, and stores the data in the memory 43. Then, repeat the same actions as described in -E. Thereafter, similar operations are performed to print the characters that continue from the third line onwards.

In addition, when the number of characters in one line is 30, as the initial state of q giant printing, by moving the print head 11 to the position of the 1st character and the print head 12 to the position of the 16th character, The first 15 characters are printed by the print head I, and the latter 15 characters are printed by the print head 12.

The shape of the hent support bases 111 and 121 is such that the length in the direction of arrow B is shorter than the length in the direction perpendicular to it, so that when the two printing pins 1, 11 and l2 are brought closest The spacing between each other is 10 characters (when set to standard character spacing), so if the number of characters in one line is 20 or more, the characters in the first half of one line are printed 11, and the latter half of the characters are printed using the printing hand 12.

If the number of characters is 19 or less, the first 10
The configuration is such that characters are printed by a print head 11 and remaining characters are printed by a print head 12.

If the number of characters changes from line to line, print the same number of characters on each print head 11 and 12 for the first line (if the number of characters is odd, print one more character on print head 11). , when printing the following line, the time for the printing heel 1 to return to the first character position is T1 in accordance with the movement speed of the printing heel 11, 12, (N-1
) The time required to print a character is ゛F2, and the time required for the print head ■2 to move to the Nth character position is T3, and the time from the Nth character to the last character in the line is If the time required for printing is T d, then N is determined so that T I + T 2 = T 3 -1- T 4 (when N is a value of 10 or less, N is set to 1). ).

5 is a plan view schematically showing the second embodiment of the present invention.

In this example, there are two printing holes l.]1a, 1
2a is attached to one head support stand 31 (moved in the axial direction of the platen roller by a drive heel I, etc.), and one print head 12a is attached to a print head ll.
To make it possible to change the distance L between a and the gutter support base 1.
It is movable in the direction of arrow D by a drive mechanism built into 11a. Also print head 1 1 a,! 2a
A printing paper receiving plate 23 is attached to the front of the (
This printing paper receiving plate 23 is the same as the embodiment shown in FIG. 1).

Further, the electrical configuration in this embodiment is approximately the same as the configuration shown in FIG.
By moving , the interval I is changed.

Assume that the distance L between the two print heads ' 1 1 a and 12a is set to an interval of 10 characters in terms of the standard character interval by the drive device 45 that moves the print head 12a.

When printing with standard character spacing in this state,
The printing head 11a prints the first character, and the printing head 12a prints the 11th character first (in this printing, the printing head 111a, 1
(distance or movement of the horizontal length of a character). Then, the belly button support stand 111a is moved using the drive device 44,
The printing position is 11, l is the second character position, 12a is 12
position at the th character position. Print Ghent la, 12
A prints a character (second character, 12th character) at that position. The same operation is repeated thereafter.

When the number of characters in one line is 30, the print head Ila is at the first character position and the print head 12a is at the 16th character position.
The interval L is set so that the second character position is reached.

Also, when printing a text with 20 characters per line, if the character spacing setting is changed and the character spacing becomes smaller, move the position of the printing head t'' 1 2 a and print. When ``y t'' 1 1 a is the 1st character position, shift so that the printing hent 12a is the 11th character position. In this state, the print handle lla starts printing from the 1st character, and the print handle 11a starts printing from the 11th character.

The same applies when the character spacing increases; by changing the spacing EL by moving the print head 12a, the print head 12a can is in the 11th character position.

The printing head F' 1 1 a starts printing from the 1st character, and the printing head 12a starts printing from the 1]th character.

If the number of characters varies from line to line, for example, 20 lines of character data are read and the average number of characters per line is calculated. If the calculation result is M, then the distance L between the print heads lla and 12a is M/
2 (if the result is not an integer, the number after the decimal point is rounded down to make it into an integer), the drive device moves the gutter 12a toward printing. Moreover, this interval L is changed every time printing of 20 lines is completed.

FIG. 6 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the present invention applied to a to-I-impact type printing device, and FIG.
FIG. 8 is a front view of the embodiment shown in the figure as seen from the direction of arrow F, and FIG. 8 is a side view of the embodiment shown in FIG.

The printing sleeves 11b and 12b have solenoid coil housing portions 619 and 62 that approximate the shape of a flat cylinder roughly divided into two parts.
9 (inside, a solenoid coil for ejecting dot I, impact I, and pin is stored), tapered portions 618 and 628 of the solenoid coil storage portions 619 and 629 that do not protrude toward the printing paper side, and tapered portion 618 , 628, the dot 1/impact 1/pin injection part 617 is located at the tip of 628.
, 627.

Further, each print head Ilb, 12b is provided corresponding to each other, and each is individually attached to a head support stand (not shown) that moves in the direction of arrow E by means of screw shafts 1-, etc. There is.

The print head Ilb, 12b is located at the print position 61.
In order to make it possible to shorten the distance G in the direction of the arrow E between the solenoid coil storage sections 619 and 629, the planar sections 615 and 625 of the solenoid coil storage sections 619 and 629 are attached so as to face each other. Therefore, the distance G between the print positions 616 and 626 when the print heads llb and 12b are brought closest to each other is the distance of several characters.

Further, the electrical configuration of this embodiment is substantially the same as the configuration shown in FIG.

The operation of the printing device in the above configuration is approximately the same as the operation in the embodiment shown in FIGS.
When printing a text consisting of 60 characters per line, the drive unit 4/l moves the printing head l"1 l b
is moved to the first character, and the printing hand 12b is also moved to the position of the 31st character by the drive device 45, and printing is started from the 1st character and the 31st character.

Then, in printing the next line, the print head 11b
From the 0th character to the 1st character, 12b is 6
Printing is performed from the 0th character to the 31st character. That is, the print head t''1 lb, 12b performs printing during both of its reciprocating movements.

Furthermore, when the number of characters differs from line to line, the characters are distributed to the print heads llb and 12b so that the printing time is minimized.

This concludes the description of the embodiment having a plurality of printing hents in the row direction.

FIG. 9 is a partial side view showing the vicinity of the print head of an embodiment of a thermal transfer printing device equipped with two print heads in the digit direction, and FIG. 10 shows the print head shown in FIG. 9 on the printing paper side. FIG.

Drive helt (not shown) and guide shaft 1.
As a result, a thin, flat, substantially rectangular parallelepiped-shaped compound printing head llc is located near one side of the head support base 85 that moves in the axial direction of the platen roller (perpendicular to the plane of the paper in FIG. 9). installed.

This composite print ``I 1 c printing 11tj 8
At the front part of the 9 side, there are two rectangular printing paper receiving plates (81 and 82) that are long in the direction of movement of the head support stand 85.
7 ≦}
is supported by the main body of the printer (not shown) via support springs 811 and 821. Further, the length of the printing paper receiver 82 in the printing paper traveling direction (indicated by the arrow ■) is longer than that of the printing paper holder 81. Further, the composite print head llc is housed in a head support stand 85, and is moved in the direction of arrow H by a drive device (not shown).

On the print surface 89 of the composite print head LLC, heating elements 86, the number of which is approximately three times the number of dots in the vertical direction of one character, are provided in one vertical row to constitute two print heads. The width of the ink ribbon 84 used is wider than the length K from the uppermost heating element 86a to the lowermost heating element 86c.

The operation of the embodiment having the above configuration will be explained below.

When the printing head 83 is attached and printing is started, the composite print head llc is moved in the direction of the arrow I1 using the drive device. Therefore, the printing paper receiving plate 81
, 82 are pressed against the printing surface 89 of the composite printing head t'' 1 1 c by the support springs 8l1 and 821.

When line spacing is between standard settings, dashed lines 91 and 9
The heat generating element 86d in the range between 2 and 2 constitutes one print head (note to the first printing), and the heat generating element 86e in the range between broken lines 93 and 94 constitutes another print head. A printing head 1 is constructed (this is used as a second printing head).

Therefore, when the first print head (heat generating element 86d) is located at the first character of a certain line, the second print head (heat generating element 86e) is positioned at the first character of the next line. I will do it.

Then, 1 in each row is applied to the heating elements 86d and 8[;c.
By sending the dot data corresponding to the character of the first character, the first character "I" of two lines is simultaneously printed (this printing +) In the J work, the F support stand 85 is
Move the sum and offset distance to the length of the character in the lateral force direction).

Then, by moving the head support stand 85, the first
and the second print head for the two letters I'' on each line.
position at the character position. Then perform the same operation. 2
When the printing of the th character is completed, it is moved to the 3rd character position and the same process is repeated.

In repeating the above two operations, if the two lines printed in parallel at the same time have different line lengths,
Although the printing of one line ends quickly, the two operations are repeated until the printing of the other line ends (the heating element corresponding to the line that finished quickly does not generate heat).

When the printing of both lines is completed, the printing paper 83 is moved upward by a distance equivalent to the two lines, and the compound printing head llc is moved to the position of the first character of the line, and the next printing is started. Be prepared.

The same process is repeated thereafter.

If the line spacing setting changes and the spacing becomes wider, the heating element 86d becomes the first print head and the dashed lines 95 and 9[5]
The heating element 86f located in the area sandwiched between the two is defined as a second print head. That is, at this time, when printing a certain line of the heating element 86d, the heating element 861
6 Print the next line instead of e.

FIG. 11 is a side [f1 diagram] showing an embodiment in which two markings are provided in the digit direction for dot 1 to impact I printing.

The print heads t" 1 1 d, 12d have substantially the same shape as the print heads llb, 12b explained in FIGS. 6 to 8, and in FIGS. Although the configuration is such that the I" 1 l b and 12b are arranged in the row direction, in this embodiment, they are arranged in the digit direction.

Then, if the printing direction is 12d, the axial direction of the platen roller (
Head support stand 7 that moves in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the paper in Fig. 11)
1, and the printing heel 11d changes the interval by changing the interval in the digit direction (indicated by arrow J) of each tot impact pin injection part 711, 72] in order to correspond to the change in line interval. It is attached to the printer 7}12d via a mechanism 73.

In addition, the printing paper 74 is placed in front of the dot impact pin injection unit "tI1, 721, and the printing hemisphere 11d, 12d
A printing paper receiving plate 72 is provided which supports the printing paper receiving plate 72 from the opposite side of the print head lid, . 12
On the d side, rubber of the same quality as the slider rubber that constitutes the platen roller is stretched to absorb the impact when the tot impact 1 pin is ejected.

The electrical configuration of this embodiment is approximately the same as the configuration shown in FIG.
1 and the interval changing mechanism 73 corresponds to the drive device 45.

In the above embodiment, the printing operation is performed in accordance with the set line spacing υ.
The interval changing mechanism 73 moves the print head lid in the digit direction (arrow J
direction).

Then, to the printing head 12d, data indicating the first character of the line to be printed is sent, and data indicating the first character of the next line is sent to the printing head 12d. By sending , two lines of printing are performed in parallel.

When two lines of printing are completed, the printing paper 74 is moved upward, and the next two lines of printing are started from the last character in the line. In other words, printing is performed during the reciprocating movement of the print sleeves 11d and 12d.

FIG. 12 shows two columns in each direction, column direction and row direction.
FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an embodiment including four print heads.

Print head 11d=a, 12d-a, interval change mechanism 73
-a, the head support stand 71-a has the same structure as the embodiment shown in FIG.
The corner changing mechanism 73-a allows movement in the digit direction. Further, the head support stand 71-a is configured to move in the direction of arrow M by a drive device.

The print heads 11d-b and 12d-b, the interval changing mechanism 73-b, and the hend support base 71-b also have the same configuration.

Each of the two head supports 71-a and 71-b is provided with a corresponding drive mechanism, and is configured to be movable individually in the direction of arrow M. In addition, the head support stands 71-a, 71-b are
When brought closest in the direction of , the distance between the printing position of the print head 11d-a and the printing position of 1"Ildb is approximately 10 characters in terms of standard character spacing.

Therefore, for example, when starting printing from the first line of a sentence consisting of 40 characters, the print heads 11d-b,
The head support base 7lb is moved so that the printing position of 12d-b becomes the 21st character position. Further, the hent support base 71-a is moved so that the printing position of the printing head l''lid-a, 12d-a becomes the first character position.

Then, the printing edges 11 d-a, l 1 cl-b are moved by the corner changing mechanisms 71-a and 71-b, and when the printing edges 1d-a and 11d-b are at the printing position of the first line. , the print position of the letters 12d-a and 12d-b is set to be the character position of the second line corresponding to the set line spacing.

After that, the print head 11 (I-a shows the first character of the first line, but not data, 11d-b shows the 21st character of the first line, don't data, 12d-a Tonoto data indicating the first character of the second line is sent to 12d-b, and dot data indicating the 21st character of the second line are sent to 12d-b, so that four characters are printed at the same time.

When printing is completed, each print head Ilb
-a, Ild-b, 12d-a, 12db to print the characters that continue on the right side. When the printing of two lines is completed, the characters of the next two lines are printed in the direction from the last character to the first character of the line.

As explained above, in the embodiment shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, the printing paper receiving plate is divided into parts corresponding to the lines to be printed, and during printing, the support spring 8
11 and 821, the printing paper receiving plates 81 and 82 are pressed against the printing surface 89, so that the ink ribbon 84 and the printing paper 83 are brought into close contact with the printing surface 89, thereby preventing character misalignment. This makes it possible to eliminate printing defects such as

Furthermore, in the embodiments shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, it is possible to print two lines simply by widening the width of the ink ribbon and increasing the number of heating elements in the print head. Therefore, it is possible to make the printing device simple.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and the embodiments shown in FIGS. It is possible to apply it to printing devices such as the following.

Furthermore, the embodiment shown in FIG. 5 can be applied to a printing device such as a thermal printer, and it is also possible to adopt a configuration in which a dot I/impact 1 type print head is adopted as the print head. It is.

Although the embodiments shown in FIGS. 9 and 10 are applied to a thermal transfer printing device, they may also be applied to other types of printing devices, such as a thermal printing device. Furthermore, it is possible to apply the present invention to dot 1 impact 1 printing devices by making the heating element and the toso 1 impact 1 correspond one to one.

In addition, regarding the embodiment shown in FIG.
Although a configuration has been described in which two printing holes are provided in the digit direction, it is also possible to have a configuration in which two thermal transfer type printing holes and two thermal printing type printing holes are provided in the digit direction.

Furthermore, the embodiment shown in FIG. 12 has been described in the case where it is applied to the printing device of the tonneau 1 and the impact side 2.
By providing two 1 1 C's in the row direction, it is possible to apply it to a thermal transfer printing device or a thermal printing device.

In addition, all the printing devices in the embodiments are configured with two print heads in the row direction or the column direction, but in other cases, three print heads are provided in each direction. It is possible to do so.

<Effects of the Invention> The printing device according to the present invention is provided with at least two print heads and simultaneously prints the number of characters corresponding to the number of print heads in parallel, making it possible to quickly shift the printing speed. It has the effect of becoming.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along the line AA in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the electrical configuration of an embodiment of the wooden invention, and FIG. The figure is an explanatory diagram showing the relationship between characters printed on printing paper and the print head, Figure 5 is a plan view schematically showing the second embodiment of the present invention, and Figure [Impact] Figure 7 is a plan view showing an example of the application to the printing device of the second example.
6 is a front view of the embodiment shown in the direction of arrow F, FIG. 8 is a side view of the embodiment shown in FIG. FIG. 10 is a front view showing the print head shown in FIG. 9 when viewed from the print paper side; FIG. 11 is a partial side view showing the vicinity of the print head in one embodiment; FIG. 1. Impact 1 The side showing an embodiment in which two one-sided printing heads are provided in the digit direction [Fig. It is an explanatory view showing an example provided. 11, lla, llb, lld--Print head 12, 12a, 12b, 12d--Print head 86d, 86e, 86 [--Heating element constituting the print head. 21] Figure 6 '71 Sword ￥81 Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A printing device in which a print head moves along with printing, which includes at least two print heads, each print head printing in parallel with the printing operation of the other print head. Printing device.