JPH03218861A - plotter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To print smooth analog waveforms at a predetermined interval by providing a delay circuit for inputting a conduction pulse to be input through a head driver by delaying the pulse from a command to be input to a moving driver of a moving mechanism by predetermined time. CONSTITUTION:When an analog signal is input to an input circuit 22, a controller 23 samples data at predetermined timing, and applies an output value at the sampling time point to move a thermal print head 18 axially of a platen through a motor driver 28. In this case, when a moving drive command is input to the driver 28, a conduction pulse is simultaneously output to the controller 23, but the conduction pulse does not immediately drive the head 18, but, since it is input by delaying it by a shaft register 24, a coloring operation is delayed that much, and then dot printing is performed at a predetermined interval. Accordingly, a printing operation is not initially conducted, and plotting print of the head 18 is obtained uniformly at the equal interval.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application This invention relates to blocks, and more specifically to blocks that can draw analog waveforms with uniform lines.

(Example) Conventional technology Plotters are used to record analog waveforms such as chromatograms. For example, in the thermal type Pronota,
A platen that supports a recording paper, a platen driving means that rotates the platen to feed the recording paper, and a thermanoreflector that is provided opposite the platen and performs thermal printing on the recording paper on the platen. A device is known that includes a printer head and a throat moving mechanism for moving the print head along the platen.

In this type of plotter, one dot of a serial type thermal head is used, and as shown in Fig. 4, an energizing pulse is applied to that dot from the control section 2 to the printer. is applied via the drive circuit 3, and
A drive command is given to the motor drive circuit 4 in synchronization with the energization pulse, and the motor is moved along the platen according to the input analog amount. In this case, while moving from one Blount point to another, the helical plate energizes at regular intervals, prints in color, connects the plot points with lines, and draws an analog waveform. .

(c) Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the above-mentioned conventional plotter, it is inevitable that delays in power transmission occur in the head moving mechanism system due to various conditions such as delays in the motor and wire elongation.

Therefore, when moving from one plot point to the next plot point, the velocity V of the head rises from O and reaches a constant velocity after a certain period of time. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3, the head position X increases gradually at first and then increases at a constant rate.

At this time, as shown by the small black circles in FIG. 3, colored printing is performed at regular intervals due to the heat generated by the electricity, but the head position w. X
does not increase linearly at first, so the dot density of prosotho becomes high at the beginning of drawing the line connecting the plot points. Therefore, the line from a plot point to the next prosoto point will always be clogged only at the beginning, making the plotted analog waveform difficult to see.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a block in which dots for drawing analog lines can be printed as uniform lines at equal intervals.

(2) Means and operation for solving the problems The plotter of the present invention includes a platen that supports recording paper, a print head that is provided opposite to the platen and that prints a plot on the recording paper, and a print head that prints a plot on the recording paper. a head driving section that drives printing; a head moving mechanism that moves the print head along the platen; a moving mechanism driving section that drives the head moving mechanism; The head driving unit is characterized by a delay circuit that delays the print signal by a predetermined time and inputs the print signal to the head drive unit.

In this plotter, a signal for driving the print head for printing is inputted to the head driving section through a delay circuit. Therefore, a print signal is output to the head drive unit and a drive command to the head movement mechanism drive unit at the same time, and even if the movement mechanism starts up late, the color printing of the print head is also delayed by that amount, so they are printed at equal intervals. (e) Example in which continuous dot printing is performed The present invention will be explained in more detail with reference to Examples below.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a plotting mechanism of a plotter 11 showing an embodiment of the present invention. 12 is a platen, which is connected to a stepping motor (
The power of the platen drive mechanism) 14 is transmitted. A recording paper p is supported on this platen 12, and paper is fed in the Y direction.

A head moving mechanism 15 is installed in parallel to the platen 12.
This head moving mechanism 15 includes a guide rod l6, a head carriage l7, a thermal print head 18, a pulley 19aS 19b, a wire 201 and a stepping motor 2.
Consisting of l.

The guide rod 16 is provided parallel to the platen 12, and a head carriage 17 is mounted on the guide rod 16 so as to be slidable in the X direction, and a head l8 is fixed onto the head carriage 17. The pulley 19a is attached to the rotating shaft of the motor 2l.
Wire 2 is connected between a and another pool IJ 1 9 b.
0 is hanging. The head carriage l7 is driven in the X direction by this wire 20. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of the example block. The thermal head 18 is a serial head and includes n heating resistors R-. ,R-. ,...R-. and transistors Tr, Tr- for driving the respective resistances of the heat generating parts l8a.
, . . . , a head drive section 18b consisting of Tr-l1. The thermal head 18 thus has n serial dots, but when used as a block, any one dot is used. 2
Reference numeral 2 denotes an input circuit for processing input signals, which receives, for example, an analog input signal to be printed, and its output is taken into the control section 23. The control unit 23 controls the thermal head 1 by the motor drive circuit 2 according to the input analog quantity.
The motor 21 of '18 is driven to move it a predetermined amount. During that time, the control unit 23 outputs energizing pulses at predetermined intervals and inputs them to the n-bit parallel, 16-stage serial shift register 24, and outputs each of the shift registers 24 to the AND gates 27-, 27-2, ... 27-
Through n, a driving transistor T r -Is T
r-, . . . Tr-, respectively. The shift register 24 constitutes a delay circuit. The shift register 24 shifts sequentially input data bit by bit based on a clock signal from a clock oscillator 25 and outputs the shifted data. The frequency of the clock of the clock oscillator 25 is made variable by a volume 26 for adjusting the frequency.

Normally, the delay in the drive system of the head movement groove is about 10 msec, and if a 16-stage shift is used, the adjustable center frequency is 1.6 klrz. However, the number of stages may be increased if necessary.

In the block configured as described above, the input circuit 2
An analog signal is input to the controller 2, and the control unit 23 samples data at predetermined timings, and uses the output value at the sampling time to move the thermal print head 18 in the axial direction of the platen via the motor drive circuit 28. ．． During this time, in order to continuously move between the previous plot value and the current plot value, energization pulses are outputted at predetermined intervals, and the energization pulses are input to predetermined bits of the shift register 24. For example, when the third bit is used as a shift register for dots, pulses consisting of 1 and 0 (current pulse in the case of l) are sequentially shifted over 16 stages (bits). As a result, energizing pulses are sequentially output to the AND gate 27-3 in the order stored in the shift register 24, the transistor Tr-n is turned on, the heating resistor R-3 is colored, and printing is performed sequentially and continuously. It turns out.

In this case, at the same time that the movement drive command is input to the motor drive circuit on the second day, the first energization pulse is output from the control unit 23 and input to the shift register 24 . Upon receiving the movement drive command, the motor drive circuit 28 immediately drives the motor to move the thermal head 18 in the axial direction, but the energizing pulse output from the control unit 23 does not immediately drive the thermal head l8. Since the input is delayed by the shift register 24, the coloring operation is performed with a corresponding delay, and thereafter, dot printing is performed at regular intervals.

Therefore, for the first time t0 in FIG. 3, no printing operation is performed, and the plot printing by the thermal head 18 can be uniform and evenly spaced.

In the above embodiments, a thermal print head is used as an example of the print head, but the present invention is not limited to a thermal print head, but can also be applied to an inkjet print head or the like.

(f) Effects of the Invention According to the present invention, a delay circuit is provided which inputs the energizing pulse input through the head drive unit with a predetermined time delay from the command input to the movement drive unit of the movement mechanism. Therefore, even if there is a start-up delay in the head moving mechanism system at the beginning of the operation and the amount of movement is small, in this case, the delay circuit will still output the energizing pulse, and the energizing pulse will not be applied to the head. When color printing is started, the movement of the moving mechanism system is uniform, so that the printing operation can print smooth analog waveforms at regular intervals.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a schematic block diagram of a block showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing the mechanism of the block, and Fig. 3 explains the delay of the head moving mechanism in the blotter. FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram showing the control system of a conventional plotter. 12: Platen, P: Recording paper, 15: Head moving mechanism, l8: Thermal print head, 18a: Heat generating section, 18b: Thermal head drive section, 2l: Stepping mode,

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A platen that supports recording paper, a print head that is provided opposite to this platen and that prints a plot on the recording paper, a head drive section that drives this print head for printing, and a head drive section that drives the print head to the platen. A head moving mechanism that moves the head along the head moving mechanism, a moving mechanism driving section that drives the head moving mechanism, and a control section that inputs a print signal to the head driving section in synchronization with a drive command of the moving mechanism driving section. What is claimed is: 1. A plotter comprising: a delay circuit that delays the print signal by a predetermined time and inputs the print signal to the head drive section.