JPH0443337Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) This invention relates to a swing control device for printing ribbons, correction ribbons, etc. used in printers.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, the position of the printing element on the carbon ribbon is the position corresponding to the form of the printing symbol in the printing area, regardless of the type of printing symbol.
For example, as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, in a carbon ribbon 1 for printing a single character and a wide carbon ribbon 2 capable of printing multiple symbols in the width direction, characters 3 such as "H" and "A" are placed at the center. Position, underline symbol 4
The symbol 5 is used on the lower side, and the symbol 5 on the upper side is used.

In addition, the width D1 of the carbon ribbon 1 is slightly larger than the width D2 considering the width D2 of the symbol printed at the uppermost position and the symbol printed at the lowermost position and manufacturing variations. It was decided that it would be wider.

(Problem to be solved by the invention) Therefore, in the carbon ribbon 1 in which the underlined symbol 4 and the "" symbol 5 are stamped, only the lower and upper parts are used, and the central part is not used. It had become a waste.

In addition, although variations in the width D1 of the ribbon 1 are taken into account, for some reason the printing position of the printing symbol may deviate from the carbon ribbon and the printing operation is performed, causing printing to be cut off. It took a lot of time.

(Purpose of the invention) This invention was created in view of the above problems.
Conventionally, the printing position of the printing symbol, which was printed on the upper and lower sides of the printing area of the carbon ribbon, is controlled on the carbon ribbon to prevent printouts, and the width of the ribbon is narrowed, making the ribbon accordingly cheaper. To provide a ribbon swing control device that can

(Means for solving the problem) This invention consists of a ribbon having one or more rows of printing area in the width direction, a ribbon swinging means for displacing the ribbon in the width direction, and a predetermined standard printing symbol. a storage means that stores, for each printing symbol, relative displacement data in the vertical direction in the printing form of the vertical center position of each printing symbol with respect to the vertical center position; and a displacement amount corresponding to the printing symbol for each printing operation. The data is read from the storage means, and based on the displacement data, the ribbon The gist of the present invention is a ribbon swing control device including a swing control means for driving and controlling a swing means.

(Function) The swing control means reads displacement data corresponding to the printing symbol from the storage means for each printing operation.
The swing control means drives and controls the ribbon swing means based on the displacement data. Then,
The ribbon is displaced in the width direction, and the printing area of the ribbon is also displaced in the width direction. Therefore, the vertical center position of each printing symbol coincides with the position where the printing symbol is printed, and the vertical center position of the printing area of the ribbon in question.

(Example) An example embodying this invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows a ribbon swinging mechanism, in which a ribbon cassette 21 containing a carbon ribbon 11 is attached to a ribbon lifter 24 rotatably supported by a shaft 23 with respect to a carriage 22. The lift gear 25 is attached to one side of the ribbon lifter 24 with a screw 26, and meshes with a gear 28 fixed to the output shaft of a stepping motor 27 as a ribbon swinging means fixed to the carriage 22.

By controlling the amount of rotation of the stepping motor 27 in the forward and reverse directions, the gears 28, 2
4 and the ribbon lifter 24, the ribbon cassette 21 is rotated about the shaft 23. Therefore, the loading position of the ribbon 11 in the width direction in the ribbon cassette 21 of the petal type type wheel 30 having a plurality of type characters 30a provided in the carriage 22 and performing printing operations toward the platen 29 is determined by the amount of rotation of the stepping motor 27. becomes controllable.

Next, the stepping motor 27 is controlled to move the printing wheel 3 of the ribbon 11 regardless of the printing symbol.
A control device for keeping the zero driving position constant will be explained.

Figure 3 shows the electrical configuration of the control device, and the main central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as main CPU)
31 is a program memory 32 consisting of a read-only memory (ROM) that stores a control program;
and a readable and rewritable memory (RAM) that temporarily stores document data (character data group consisting of alphanumeric characters, numbers, special symbols, etc.) for printing on printing paper P and other calculation results.
It operates according to a control program and sequentially transfers character data groups to be printed on printing paper P to a slave central processing unit (hereinafter referred to as slave CPU) 34 in printing order. ing. In this embodiment, the text memory 33 constitutes the storage means 14, and the slave CPU 34 constitutes the swing control means 15.
is configured.

Each character data 35 constituting the document data stored in the text memory 33 is composed of 8 bits as shown in FIG. Known character selection and impact data are stored in 6 bits.

The vertical position data indicates that when a printing symbol based on the printing data 35 is printed on the printing paper P, the center position of the printing symbol is the center position of a second group of printing symbols such as "A" which will be described later as a reference printing symbol. On the other hand, it is data that indicates the position in the vertical direction in the printing form, that is, how much the center position of the printing symbol is displaced in the vertical direction when printed, and in this example, all printing symbols are divided into four groups.

In the first group, printing symbols such as "", "", and "'" whose printing positions are at high positions in the vertical direction are classified, and the vertical position data is set to "0, 0". The second group is "A",
Printed symbols such as "B", "a", and "8" whose printing position is located at the center position are classified, and the vertical position data is set to "0, 1". Further, in the third group, printing symbols such as ",", ".", ",", etc. whose printing positions are at low positions in the vertical direction are classified, and the vertical position data is set as "1, 0". In the fourth group, printed symbols such as "_" whose printing position is the lowest in the vertical direction are classified, and the vertical position data is set as "1, 1".

The slave CPU 34 inputs the sequentially transferred print data 35 and determines which rotational position of the stepping motor 27 the vertical position data of the print data 35 corresponds to. That is, “0,
1", the ribbon cassette 21 is at the reference rotation position, that is, its print data 3.
The rotation position of the stepping motor 27 is determined to be "0, 0" when the type 30a of the type wheel 30 corresponding to 5 is struck at the center position of the ribbon 11.
In the case of vertical position data, the stepping motor 27 is rotated upward from the reference rotation position and the type 30a of the type wheel 30 corresponding to the print data is struck at the center position of the ribbon 11.
This is determined to be the rotational position. Further, in the case of the vertical position data of "1, 0", the type 30a of the type wheel 30 corresponding to the print data 35 is struck at the center position of the ribbon 11 by rotating downward from the reference rotation position. This is determined to be the rotational position of the stepping motor 27 when the stepping motor 27 is rotated. Further, in the case of the vertical position data of "1, 1", the ribbon 11 is rotated a considerable amount downward from the reference rotation position, and the type on the type wheel 30 corresponding to the print data 35 is struck at the center position of the ribbon 11. This is determined to be the rotational position of the stepping motor 27 when the stepping motor 27 is rotated.

Based on this judgment, the slave CPU 34 drives the stepping motor 2 via the drive circuit.
7 is driven and controlled to move the ribbon lifter 24 (ribbon cassette 21) up and down, so that the type 30a of the type wheel 30 that performs the next printing operation is always struck at the center position of the ribbon 11 in the width direction.

Now, when the character "A" 3 is printed and the center position of the ribbon 11 is used as shown in FIG. 5, when the symbol 5 of "" is printed next, the slave CPU 34 The vertical position data of “0,
0", so in order to rotate the stepping motor 27 to the rotational position of the stepping motor 27 according to the vertical position data, it is calculated how far the stepping motor 27 should be rotated from the rotational position at "A". Then, based on the calculation result, the slave CPU 34 rotates the ribbon 11 to a predetermined rotation position, that is, moves the ribbon 11 upward, so that the printed character 30a of "" is driven into the center position of the ribbon 11. .

When this printing operation is completed and the symbol 5 of "," is printed next, the slave CPU 34 rotates the stepping motor 27 at the vertical position data because the vertical position data of "," is "1,0". In order to rotate the motor 27 to this position, it is calculated how far the motor 27 should be rotated from the rotation position at the time of "''. Then, based on the calculation result, the slave CPU 34 rotates to a predetermined rotation position,
That is, by moving the ribbon 11 upward, the printed characters 3 of ","
0a is driven into the center of the ribbon 11.

From then on, every time a print operation is performed, the slave CPU 34
controls the rotation of the ribbon cassette 21 based on the vertical position data corresponding to the printed symbol, so that the center portion of the ribbon 11 in the width direction is always used.

In this way, the center position in the vertical direction (axial direction) of the used part of the ribbon 11 (printing area) is made to match the vertical center position of each printing symbol, so that the ribbon 11 can be printed regardless of the printing symbol. The center portion is always used based on the center position in the width direction. Therefore, even if a printed symbol such as "" in the first group or a printed symbol such as "," in the third group is inserted with a deviation in the width direction of the ribbon 11, it will be removed from the used part of the ribbon 11. There is almost no possibility that printouts will occur. Therefore, the displacement operation of the ribbon 11 performed for each printing operation does not need to be performed with high precision, and an inexpensive and simple stepping motor 27 can be used as the stepping motor 27 constituting the ribbon swinging means. Moreover, if a high-precision stepping motor 27 is used, "_"
The underline symbol 4 and the printing symbol 5 of “” are the ribbon 11
Since the center position of the ribbon 11 is used, the width of the ribbon 11 is determined by the width D2, which is determined by what is printed at the uppermost position and what is printed at the lowermost position, like the conventional ribbon 1, and manufacturing variations are considered. There is no need to
This can be determined based on the printed symbol that is the widest in the vertical direction. As a result, the width of the ribbon 11 can be made much shorter than conventional ribbons, and the cost of the ribbon 11 can be reduced accordingly.

Further, during the printing operation, the type characters 30a of the type wheel 30 do not come off the ribbon 11 and print breaks do not occur.

Note that this invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, and in the above-mentioned embodiment, a printer using a petal-shaped type wheel 30 as a printing element is used. The invention may also be implemented in a printer with a print head made up of elements. Further, in the above embodiment, the ribbon 11 is used for printing one character, but it may be used as a wide ribbon 11 on which a plurality of printing symbols can be printed in the width direction, as shown in FIG. .

Further, in the above embodiment, a one-time type ribbon, that is, a carbon ribbon, was used as the ribbon 11, but a multi-type ribbon, such as an endless ink ribbon, a thermal transfer type ribbon, or a correction ribbon, may be used.

(Effects of the invention) As described in detail above, according to this invention, in printing forms such as underlined symbols and "'', the printing symbol whose center position is biased in the vertical direction is in the printing usage area of the ribbon. Even if the ribbon is driven with a deviation in the vertical direction, there is almost no possibility that the printed characters will be cut off, and since there is little risk of the printed characters being cut off, an inexpensive and simple means can be used as the ribbon swinging means. In addition, when a high-precision ribbon swinging means is adopted, the width of the printing area of the ribbon can be adjusted to the width between the uppermost printed area and the lowermost printed area, as with conventional ribbons. There is no need to make the ribbon wider than that, and the ribbon width can be made narrower, which has the excellent effect of making the ribbon cheaper.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a diagram to explain the gist of this invention.
Fig. 2 is a mechanical diagram showing the ribbon swinging mechanism of a printer embodying the present invention, Fig. 3 is an electric block circuit diagram, Fig. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining vertical position data, and Fig. 5 is a mechanical diagram showing the ribbon swinging mechanism of a printer embodying the present invention. An explanatory diagram illustrating how the ribbon is used; FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram illustrating how the ribbon is used according to another embodiment of the invention; FIGS. 7 and 8 are diagrams explaining how the ribbon is used in the past. FIG. In the figure, 11 is a ribbon, 12 is a ribbon swinging means,
13 is a ribbon stepping means, 14 is a storage means, 15 is a swing control means, 21 is a ribbon cassette, 22 is a carriage, 24 is a ribbon lifter, 25 is a lift gear, 27 is a stepping motor, 28 is a gear, 3
0 is a type wheel, 31 is a main CPU, 33 is a text memory, 34 is a slave CPU, and 35 is character data.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] A ribbon 11 having one or more rows of printing areas in the width direction, a ribbon swinging means 12 for displacing the ribbon 11 in the width direction, and a predetermined standard printing symbol in the vertical direction. storage means 14 that stores relative displacement data in the printing form of the vertical center position of each print symbol with respect to the center position of the print symbol; and storage means 14 that stores displacement data corresponding to the print symbol for each printing operation. 14, and based on the displacement data, the ribbon is swung in order to match the vertical center position of the printing use area of the relevant row of the ribbon 11 with the vertical center position of each printing symbol at the time of printing. A ribbon swing control device comprising swing control means 15 for driving and controlling means 12.