JPH04263964A - printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a compact printer with a minimum number of printer pins and a short distance over which a shuttle moves by enabling the movement of a printing head a plural number of times to print a single line of characters. CONSTITUTION:A sheet feed control part 2, receiving sheet feed start information, controls a drive circuit 7 by giving a timing command. The sheet feed drive circuit 7, receiving a command from the sheet feed control part 2, drives a sheet feed motor 8 to feed the sheet in such a state that a shuttle 9 stops. In addition, six printing pins are arranged to cover an area divided in four sections of a single line, on a printer. Thus each number equal to one fourth of the pins takes care of each divided printing section so that the shuttle moves over a short distance and the printer can be made compact.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer device that prints by reciprocating a print head in which a plurality of dot elements are arranged diagonally and transporting paper in synchronization with this movement.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 8 shows an arrangement of printing pins of a conventional printer, and FIG. 9 shows a flowchart of a conventional printing method.

As shown in FIG. 8, the printing pin of the printer device is
A plurality of printing pins (for example, 24 pins) corresponding to one line are arranged in a diagonal line to form a unit, and the shuttle operation, that is, the reciprocating movement of the print head unit, and the amount of one transfer, that is, the first line and the line spacing. Characters are printed by feeding only the paper. The operation will be explained using the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, based on the data received by the print control section 1 in the printer device, the printing pins 1 to 24 of the print head of the print head unit are used to move from left to right, printing the first line at a time. conduct. Next, the printer device
In order to print the second line, move the paper by the amount of movement between the first line area and line, and move the second line from right to left using print pins 1 to 24 of the print head of the print head unit. ,
Also, the second line is printed at one time. This operation is repeated until there are no more lines to print.

[0005] As described above, conventional printer devices repeat the flow of the above-described printing method. In such conventional printer devices, the number of pins provided in the print head is enough to print one line, but the distance the print head has to move is long to print one line, which increases the size of the device itself. This resulted in the disadvantage that.

[0006]

In order to print one line at a time, conventional printer apparatuses print by arranging the number of pins corresponding to one line. Therefore, the distance the print head moves becomes longer. Therefore, the device becomes larger.

[0007]

[Means for Solving the Problems] In the present invention, upon receiving print data from a host device, a print head in which a plurality of dot elements are arranged diagonally repeatedly moves back and forth, and transports paper in synchronization with this movement. In a printer device, one line is printed by moving the print head multiple times.

[0008]

According to the present invention, when one line is divided into a plurality of parts and printed, the number of printing pins corresponding to the divided areas is arranged. Due to this arrangement, the distance traveled by the shuttle is shorter when the number of pins is set to correspond to the divided areas than when the number of pins is set to correspond to the number of pins corresponding to one line of printing in the conventional art. Furthermore, by printing in areas where one line is divided into a plurality of areas, printing is performed by feeding the paper to the next area to be printed, so there is no need to move the shuttle to the area where printing is not to be performed.

[0009]

Embodiment FIG. 2 shows a configuration diagram of a printer device showing an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 shows a detailed internal configuration diagram of a printer device showing an embodiment of the present invention. In Figure 4,
FIG. 5 is a flowchart of the printing method of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a drawing showing the printing result of "a", and FIG. 6 is a drawing showing the printing result of "-".

FIG. 5 shows a configuration diagram of a printer device showing an arrangement of printing pins according to an embodiment of the present invention. To explain using FIGS. 2 and 3, the print control section 1 receives print data from the main device. Receiving section 1 in the printing control section 1
A receives the print data and sends the print data to the dot presence/absence determining section 1b and the memory section 1d. The dot presence/absence determination unit 1b determines whether or not there are dots to be printed in each of the plurality of divided sections based on the received print data, and if there is no dot to be printed in the divided area, bit information of "0" is output. If there is a dot to be printed, it is represented by bit information of "1". The dot presence/absence determination section 1b sends bit information indicating whether there is a divided area to be printed to the paper feed control section 2, the shuttle drive circuit control section 3, and the print head drive circuit control section 4. The memory section 1c in the print control section 1 is
It receives print data from the receiving section 1a and stores the data. Then, in order to print, the data set section 1d reads the print data from the memory section 1d, sets the print data in the print head 10 for each divided area, and sends the set information to the print head drive circuit control section 4. send.

The print control section 1 sends information set in the print head 10 and dot presence/absence information for each divided area to the print head drive circuit control section 4. The print head drive circuit control unit 4 prints the information set for each divided area if the dot presence/absence information for each divided area is "0000", that is, there is no dot in any divided area. It is not sent to the head drive circuit 5. Further, the print control unit 1 sets the information set in the print head 10 for each divided area if the dot presence/absence information of each divided area is "0010", that is, the information that there is a dot in the third divided area. It has a gate circuit that sends information on the third divided area to the print head drive circuit 5. The print head drive circuit 5 receives the print information and controls the print pins of the print head 10 to print.

The shuttle drive circuit control section 3 receives dot presence/absence information "0010" for each divided area from the print control section 1, and sends it to the paper feed control section 2 as paper feed start information, and sends the drive information to the shuttle drive circuit 6. to control the shuttle drive. The shuttle drive circuit 6 receives the drive information and drives the shuttle 9 by the shuttle motor 11. The paper feed control unit 2 receives the paper feed start information, and
Upon receiving a command for the timing to send the paper, a command is given to the paper feed drive circuit 7 to control how many divided areas the paper should be sent based on the dot presence/absence information. The paper feed drive circuit 7 receives a command from the paper feed control section 2 and drives the paper feed motor 8.
is driven to feed the paper while the shuttle 9 is stopped. Furthermore, the arrangement of printing pins in the printer device of the present invention is as follows:
As shown in Figure 5, 6 covers the area divided into four parts of one line.
Arranging the pins of the book.

[0013] For this reason, as shown in Fig. 8, conventional printer devices print at once using 24 printing pins corresponding to one line, so in this case, the The distance the shuttle travels becomes longer.

Therefore, as in the present invention, since printing is performed by dividing the number of pins into 1/4, the distance traveled by the shuttle is shortened, and the size of the printer device can be reduced. Furthermore, Figure 4
Explaining the printing method according to the flowchart shown in
For example, when printing the character "a" on one line as shown in FIG. 5, one line is divided into four parts and printed. In this case, the print control unit 1 receives the print data and determines the presence or absence of dots in each divided area. Then, it is determined whether there is a division without dots in each divided area or not. In this case, since there is no divided area part without dots, normal printing is performed. In this normal printing, the shuttle 9 makes a plurality of reciprocating movements in each divided area of one line in order, and in synchronization with the movement, prints by a repeated operation of feeding the paper by each divided area in order.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 6, there is a part where printing is performed in only one of the four divided areas of one line. Especially when used for printing graphics, etc., there is a division without dots in each division. The steps up to determining whether a portion exists or not are the same as those described above, and will therefore be omitted. In this case, there is a divided area part without dots,
There are no dots in the first, second and fourth divided areas. As a result, while the shuttle 9 is stopped at the left position, the paper is first sent to the second divided area, and then further to the third divided area. When the print head is positioned in the third divided area, the print head is moved from left to right by the shuttle 9 to print using the print pins 31 to 36. When printing is completed, the paper is fed to the fourth divided area while keeping the shuttle stopped to the right, and then further fed to the first divided area of the next line. The shuttle 9 prints the first divided area of the next line while moving from right to left. In this manner, the printer device of the present invention performs printing by repeating the printing operation as described above.

[0016]

Effects of the Invention According to the printer device of the present invention, instead of printing by dividing one line into a plurality of parts, by reducing the number of printing pins, the distance traveled by the shuttle is shortened, so the printer device can be made smaller. greatly contributes to

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the principle configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a split line printer device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a detailed internal configuration diagram of a split line printer device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the printing method of the present invention.

FIG. 5 shows the printing result of “a”.

FIG. 6 shows the printing result of "-".

FIG. 7 is an arrangement diagram of printing pins of a printer device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is an arrangement diagram of printing pins of a conventional printer device.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of a conventional printing method.

[Explanation of symbols]

1, Print control section (discrimination section) 1a, receiving section 1b, Dot presence/absence determination section 1c, memory section 1d, Data set part 2. Shuttle drive circuit control section 3, Paper feed control section 4, Print head drive circuit control section 5, Print head drive circuit 6, Shuttle drive circuit 7, Paper feed drive circuit 8, Paper feed motor 9, Shuttle 10, Print head 11, Shuttle motor

Claims (2)

[Claims] [Claim 1] Receiving print data from a host device,
In a printer device in which a print head in which a plurality of dot elements are arranged diagonally moves back and forth and prints by transporting paper in synchronization with this movement, the print head prints one line by moving multiple times. A printer device characterized by performing the following. [Claim 2] Receiving print data from a host device,
A printer device in which a print head in which a plurality of dot elements are arranged diagonally moves back and forth, and prints an area of one line by transporting paper in synchronization with this movement, and the presence or absence of dots in each divided area is detected. It is equipped with a discriminating section (1) for discriminating, a paper feed control section (2) for transporting paper, and a driving means (3) for reciprocating the print head.If there are no dots to be printed in the divided area, the print head is moved What is claimed is: 1. A printer device that transports paper to an area where dots are printed by stopping the printing process.