JPH0237306B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a bookkeeping machine that prints on a medium, and more particularly to a method for determining print density.

A book-type automatic teller machine has a built-in bookkeeping machine for printing transaction details on a passbook. When a customer inserts a passbook when withdrawing cash, the bookkeeping machine optically detects the printed information on the inserted passbook and determines the next print line to be printed on the passbook. Transfer and set the passbook so that it is facing the bank. The printing section prints transaction details on the passbook. When the predetermined printing is completed, the bankbook is ejected into the insertion slot of the bookkeeping machine to be returned to the customer.

In such a bookkeeping machine, the printing density in the printing section must be higher than a certain level to print the information. In other words, if the printing density is extremely low, the next line to be printed will not be accurately obtained for the next transaction. ,2
Double printing may occur.

For this reason, conventionally, the ink ribbon has been replaced after a certain period of time, but in particular for products that are not used regularly, such as in automatic teller machines, regular replacement may not solve the problem. I can't.

The present invention has been made in view of these points,
The purpose of this is to determine the print density of the last line of printing when the passbook is ejected.By reading the print information on the inserted medium, the next line to be printed is determined, and this line is the one that will be printed on the printing section. A recording machine that detects the density of the printed information on the last printed line of the medium when printing is performed by setting the medium so as to face the printing position of the medium, and when the medium is ejected after printing is finished, detects the density of the printed information on the last printed line of the medium when ejecting the medium. 2 different signals representing the density of the print obtained by optically scanning the area in a direction crossing the direction in which the medium is ejected.
It is characterized by slicing at two levels and determining the density based on the ratio of the number of pixels exceeding the first level to the number of pixels exceeding the second level.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A print density determination method according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a principle diagram of the bankbook 1 and the printed information reading section. In the figure, the passbook 1 is inserted in the direction of the solid line arrow and is ejected in the direction of the broken line arrow. SEN optically detects the printed information in a predetermined range of the passbook 1. As shown in Figure 2, the SEN scans the passbook 1 N times in a direction intersecting the feeding and discharging direction, and detects the information according to the amount of reflected light. Outputs an electrical signal. This electric signal passes through the amplifier circuit AMP and is sent to the judgment unit as a detection signal _S1 .
Enter in JA. Based on this detection signal _S1 , the determination unit JA outputs information on the print line to be printed next and density information on the print density of the last line to be printed. Print line information is output from OUT1, and density information is output from OUT2.

FIG. 3 shows the details of the circuit configuration of the determination section JA.
In Fig. 3, SL1 to SL3 are slice circuits,
CNT1 to CNT3 are counters, MEM1 and 2 are memories, REG1 and REG3 are write registers, REG
2, REG4 is a read register, ADC1 and ADC3 are address counters that generate write addresses for the memories MEM1 and MEM2, ADC2 and ADC4 are address counters that generate read addresses, G1 is a gate, and COMP is a comparison circuit.

The output signal _S1 of the amplifier AMP in FIG. 1 is an analog signal, which is sampled at a sampling period synchronized with the scanning speed of the sensor SEN, and converted into, for example, 16 digital values. Since this technique is well known, illustration thereof is omitted. The digital value _S2 is input to the slice circuit SL1 and then to the slice circuit SL2 via the AND circuit AND1. POSA is input to slice circuit SL1,
PCSB is input to the slice circuit SL3.
These PCSA and PCSB are certain values, A is 0.25,
B is 0.4. PCS is a print density signal (Print
This is an abbreviation for Contrast Signal, which indicates the density of printed information relative to the background of printing paper. Therefore, when the PCS value is large, the density with respect to the ground is high; PCS=1 absorbs all of the irradiated light and reflection is zero, and conversely, PCS=0 reflects all of the irradiated light. Now, in this example, PCSA=0.25, PCSB
= 0.4.

The output of the slice circuit SL1 becomes logic 1 (hereinafter referred to as "1") only when the value of the input signal _S2 is 0.25 or more, and similarly, the output of the slice circuit SL3 becomes "1" only when the value is 0.4 or more. .

Counters CNT1 and CNT3 are slice circuits SL
1. Count the number of "1"s in the output of SL3. A signal SN is input to the counters CNT1 and CNT3. If the sensor SEN scans one line of the bankbook in N scans, this signal SN is input every N scans. When the signal SN arrives, its count values M ₁ and M ₂ are sent to the registers REG1 and REG3.
Therefore, the values M ₁ and M ₂ indicate the number of pixels with a PCS of 0.25 or more and 0.4 or more in one row.

The contents of register REG1 are address counters.
It is stored at the address specified by ADC1. The address is sent from the 24th line (the last line on one page of the passbook) to specify the 23rd line, the 22nd line, and so on to the first line. Similarly, address counter ADC2 also inputs addresses from the 24th line to the 23rd line,
Line 22: Sends to specify the first line. Therefore, the increments of the address counters ADC1 and ADC3 are synchronized with the movement of the bankbook in the direction of the solid line arrow.

The read address counters ADC2 and ADC4 send out read addresses, which are read out in the order of the 24th line, 23rd line, 22nd line, . . . 1st line in synchronization. The read content
M ₁ and M ₂ are read registers REG2 and REG, respectively
4 is temporarily stored. The contents of register REG2 are sent to slice circuit SL2 and comparison circuit COMP,
The contents of register REG4 are sent to comparison circuit COMP.

REF1 is input to one side of the slice circuit SL2. This is a certain number, and it is a number that can be judged as having print information in one line, and the output of this slice circuit SL2 is the content of register REG2.
It becomes “1” when the contents of M ₁ and REF1 are M ₁ REF1. When this output becomes "1", the Q output of flip-flop FF1 becomes "1", and the contents of counter CNT2 change to gate circuit G.
1 and is output from the output terminal OUT1. The output of slice circuit SL2 is “0”, that is, M ₁ <
Since the Q output of flip-flop FF1 continues to maintain "0" at REF1, the contents of counter CNT2 are not output from gate G1 at that time. As understood from the above explanation, what the output from gate G represents represents the first line number that became M ₁ REF1, and in other words, this represents the last line printed on the passbook. Become. Counter CNT2 is a read address counter
By counting the clocks of ADC2, the number of lines is counted.

The Q output of flip-flop FF1 is also input to the comparison circuit COMP. Comparison circuit COMP
When the Q output changes from “0” to “1”, the two input values, namely register REG2,
Compare the contents of REG4. The comparison circuit COMP is the value
Compare M ₁ and M ₂ , and compare M ₁ ≒ M ₂ and M ₁ ≫
Distinguish between the case of _M2 . Then, the output OUT2 outputs "0" when M ₁ ≒M ₂ , and outputs "1" when M ₁ ≫M ₂ .

The function of the comparator circuit COMP will be explained in more detail using FIG. 4. FIG. 4 shows input signal S ₂ in FIG. 3, POSA=0.25, PCSB=0.4
(In order to simplify the explanation, only one scan of the sensor SEN was focused on in FIG. 4). The number of pixels m1 with PCSA = 0.25 or more is "10" as shown in the figure, and the number of pixels with PCSB = 0.4 or more.
If m2 is "2", m1≫m2, so the output of the comparator COMP becomes "1". This “1”
shows that there are few PCSs exceeding 0.4, and most of them exist between 0.25 and 0.4, and therefore,
"1" is a ribbon replacement alarm signal indicating that the ink ribbon density in the printing section has become thinner.

On the other hand, when m1≈m2, it means that the number of pixels exceeding 0.4 and the number of pixels exceeding 0.25 are approximately equal, so "0" at the output terminal OUT2 indicates that the ink ribbon density is above a certain level.

At this time, as a matter of course, through gate G1
The number of lines judged as PCSA=0.25 or more is also output from OUT1. This number of lines is used as the next line to be printed when the medium is sucked in, but when the medium is ejected, the print unit knows the line that was printed immediately before.
A comparison is made with that. This makes it possible to simultaneously detect that the ink ribbon is not set in the printing section during printing.

Since the content of PCSB=0.4 is not required when sucking the medium, that is, setting the medium at the print position, an ejection signal ("1" when ejecting) is input to one input of the AND circuit AND1. Further, address counters ADC3 and ADC4 do not operate when the medium is sucked.

Note that the circuits shown in FIGS. 1 and 3 are just one example, and the circuit configuration is not limited to the illustrated circuit configuration. Furthermore, although PCSA and PCSB are not limited to the example, it is of course necessary to set A<B.

Conventional techniques that have been considered, that is, one in which the number of pixels is set at one level and density is determined based on whether the number of pixels in the entire row exceeds that level, are difficult to judge by visual inspection due to the character structure of the printed information. However, according to the present invention, slices are sliced at two different levels, and the density is determined to be good even when the density is sufficient. Since the density is determined not only by the number of pixels exceeding the second level, but also by the ratio of this number to the number of pixels exceeding the second level, it is possible to determine the density closer to visual observation.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a principle diagram showing the relationship between a bankbook and an optical sensor, Fig. 2 is a principle diagram showing sensor scanning, Fig. 3 is a circuit showing details of the judgment circuit in Fig. 1, and Fig. 4 is a one-scanning diagram. shows the relationship between its output and two levels in . In the diagram, 1...Passbook, SEN...Optical sensor, JA
... Judgment circuit, SL1 to SL3 ... Slice circuit,
CNT1~CNT3...Counter, MEM1,
MEM2...Memory, COMP...Comparison circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Determine the next print line to be printed by reading the print information on the inserted medium, set the medium so that the print line faces the print position of the print section, print, and after printing is completed. In a bookkeeping machine that detects the density of printed information in the last printed line of a medium when a medium is ejected, a predetermined area of the last printed line is optically scanned in a direction crossing the direction in which the medium is ejected. The signal representing the printed density is sliced at two different levels,
A method for determining density in a bookkeeping machine, characterized in that density is determined based on the ratio of the number of pixels exceeding a first level to the number of pixels exceeding a second level.