JPH06138730A - Image forming device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an image forming device capable of storing the number of limiting times of write in an EEPROM, for example, data on the number of sheets exceeding 10000. CONSTITUTION:Plural areas where the data on the number of sheets can be stored are provided and the address is specified by a pointer. (A) means that 1234, the number of sheets, is stored in a storage area at the address 0000. (B) means that the number of sheets becomes 9999. When printing for one sheet is performed, the pointer is counted up and a storage area at the next address 0001 is specified. The following write is performed in the storage area at the address 0001 as shown by (D) and (E). Readout is performed by adding the value of the pointer.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic copying type copying machine or printer, and more particularly to EEPRO for storing the operating state thereof.
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having M.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The electronic copying system is used in copying machines, printers, etc., and its use is expanding because of its high speed and wide selection range of recording paper. In the electronic copying method, a photosensitive drum is used as an image bearing member, which is uniformly charged by a charging device, and then an electrostatic latent image is formed by an exposing means. The exposure is slit exposure using an optical system,
It is performed by a laser beam or the like modulated with an image signal. Next, an electrostatic latent image is developed with a toner, which is a colored powder, in a developing device, and is transferred to a recording paper by a transfer device to form an image.

Since many photosensitive drums are constructed as a drum unit and have a life of the photosensitive layer, they are replaced at an appropriate time. In the case where the drum unit is integrated with the developing unit so that the toner cannot be replenished, the drum unit is replaced when the toner runs out, and the photosensitive drum is also updated. In a drum unit with a separate developing unit, it is usual to cumulatively store the number of operations, for example, the number of printed sheets, in order to know the replacement time. Even in a developing unit of a type that can replenish toner, it is necessary to know the number of operations as a measure of the life of the developing unit. In addition, as a maintenance service, a system that collects a fee according to the number of used sheets and provides a service for breakdowns is also widespread, and when such a system is adopted, the number of used sheets is important data.

The accumulated data of the operating state such as the number of sheets data is
Because it is necessary to remember even when the power is off,
EEPROM is used. The EEPROM can be rewritten freely, and the stored contents are not lost even when the power is turned off. Storing in the EEPROM, that is, writing, counts up each time one sheet is printed,
It is performed so as to overwrite the same storage area.

The EEPROM is an MNOS (Metal).
Nitride Oxide Semiconductor
or) element and FLOTOX (Floating-gat)
eTunnel Oxide) element, both of which utilize the barrier energy of a very thin insulating film, and can be rewritten within the write limit number of times. The write limit number is, for example, about 10,000.

On the other hand, there is a large number of integrated data in the image forming apparatus. For example, the number-of-sheets data used for the above-described photosensitive drum life management and billing is, for example, 100,000 times or more. Since the number data is rewritten every time one sheet is printed,
If the EEPROM is used to store the number data, there is a problem that the number of prints exceeds the write limit number.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, and in an image forming apparatus that stores integrated data of operating states such as number of sheets of data, the number of times the EEPROM can be written is limited. An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus capable of storing data exceeding the limit.

[0008]

According to the present invention, in an image forming apparatus having an EEPROM for storing integrated data of operating states such as number of sheets of data, a plurality of storage areas for storing the integrated data are provided and the storage areas are provided. The present invention is characterized by including a pointer for designating and having a control means for controlling the pointer to be updated when the integrated data of one storage area reaches a predetermined value.

[0009]

According to the present invention, the EEPROM is provided with a plurality of storage areas for storing integrated data, and when the integrated data in one storage area reaches a predetermined value, the pointer is updated. It is possible to write integrated data in a new storage area. Since the storage area is updated in this way, it is possible to rewrite data that has exceeded the EEPROM write limit number.

Since the read data of the EEPROM can be calculated from the value of the pointer and the integrated data of the storage area indicated by the pointer, a value larger than the storage capacity of one storage area can be read.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the essential parts of an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a printer of a facsimile machine. In the figure, 1 is a video I / O, 2 is a drum old / old discrimination unit, 3 is a paper feed sensor, 4 is a paper discharge sensor, 5 is a tray sensor, 6 is an exposure unit, 7 is a motor driver, 8 is a motor, 9 Is a high voltage generation circuit, 10 is a charger, 11 is a developing device, 12 is a transfer device,
13 is a memory removal brush, 14 is a fixing device, 15 is a discharge lamp, 16 is a magnetic toner sensor, 17 is a driver, 18
Is an electromagnetic clutch for a pickup roller, 19 is an electromagnetic clutch for a registration roller, 20 is an EEPROM, and 21 is a C
PU and 22 are I / F parts.

The drum old / old discrimination section 2 detects the fuse attached to the photosensitive drum to determine whether the drum is old or new by the CPU.
Let 21 do it. Immediately after the replacement of the photosensitive drum, the fuse is not blown, so that the replacement of the photosensitive drum can be detected. When updating the integrated data each time the photosensitive drum is replaced, the integrated data is reset on condition that the fuse is accessed at the time of start-up and the fuse is not cut. The fuse is blown by the first printing operation after replacement. Although fuse metal is used as the fuse, a fuse ROM may be used. The paper feed sensor 3 and the paper discharge sensor 4 are for detecting the feeding state of the recording paper fed by the transport system, and can detect a jam. The tray sensor 5 detects the presence / absence and size of a recording sheet in a tray that stores the recording sheet. When the recording paper becomes empty, an alarm is issued and the information of no paper is sent to the CPU of the facsimile unit (not shown). The motor 8 is driven by the motor driver 7 and drives the photosensitive drum and other drive systems. The pickup roller electromagnetic clutch 18 and the registration roller electromagnetic clutch 19 are driven by the driver 17 to control the feeding of the recording paper.

The print data from the facsimile unit (not shown) is received by the video I / O 1 and the L of the exposure unit 6 is received.
The photosensitive drum is exposed by the ED head array. The photosensitive drum is charged by the charging device 10 and then subjected to the above-mentioned exposure, and the developing device 11 develops the toner by adhering the toner to the electrostatic latent image. Next, in the transfer device 12, the toner developed on the photosensitive drum is transferred to the fed recording paper and fixed by the fixing device 14. Charging device 10, developing device 1
1, a high voltage to the transfer unit 12, the memory removal brush 13, etc. is supplied from the high voltage generation circuit 9. Static elimination lamp 15
Is for exposing the outer peripheral surface of the photosensitive drum after transfer to remove the charge. A brush is used as the memory removing member 13.

The memory removing member 13 once electrostatically adsorbs the residual toner and then spontaneously ejects it to the photosensitive drum to change the adhesion position of the toner particles on the photosensitive drum, resulting in the residual toner pattern. The effect of diffusing. Due to the action of the memory removing member, the residual toner on the photosensitive drum does not interfere with the next exposure, and the residual toner on the non-exposed portion is collected by the developing device 11 at the same time as the development, and as a result, It means that cleaning has been performed. Magnetic toner sensor 1
Reference numeral 6 detects the remaining amount of toner in the developing device 11.

The EEPROM 20 has an area for storing data on the number of printed sheets, and each time one sheet is printed,
The number data updated by adding 1 to the read number data is stored and held. A plurality of storage areas for the number data are provided, and the writing area and the reading area are designated by the pointer stored in the EEPROM 20.
The display of the number-of-sheets data is performed by an instruction from an operation unit (not shown), and the value of the pointer and the EEP indicated by the pointer are displayed.
It is calculated by the CPU 21 from the number data of the storage area of the ROM 20, and displayed on the display unit of the facsimile unit (not shown). The CPU 21 controls each unit described above, and data is transmitted and received by the I / F unit 22.

A method of writing and reading the number data in the EEPROM 20 will be described with reference to FIG. An appropriate code code such as a binary code or BCD is used as the number data. In this embodiment, the write limit count is 1
As a matter of course, 16 bits are sufficient for the storage area regardless of whether the binary code or BCD is used. If the data length of the access unit of the storage area is 16 bits, the storage of one piece of data is one access unit. Therefore, if the total number data is 140,000, 28 bytes must be prepared as the total storage area of the total number data. A value from 0 to 13 needs to be used for the pointer.

In FIG. 3, the number data is stored using the BCD code. In FIG. 3A, data of 4 bits each from the higher order in the first storage area is 1,
The numbers 2, 3, and 4 represent the state in which the number data of 1234 sheets is stored. As the address of this storage area, "0000" is used. The pointer is "00", which specifies the address "0000". When the pointer value is "01" or later, 0,0,0,0 is set as the initial value in the second and subsequent storage areas of the specified address "0001" and later, that is,
0 sheets are stored.

FIG. 3B shows a state in which the number data reaches 9999. When one more sheet is printed from this state, the state shifts to the state of FIG. That is, the value of the pointer is incremented by 1. Thereby,
The address "0001" is designated. The first storage area is reset to 0,0,0,0. Furthermore, 1
By counting up the number of sheets, the newly designated second storage area is rewritten to 0, 0, 0, 1. Figure 3
(E) shows a state in which the count is further increased to 123.

The number data can be read out by the value of the pointer and the read data in the storage area designated by the pointer. That is, it is possible to read the number-of-sheets data that exceeds one storage area by the number of prints = (value of pointer) × 10,000 + (value of read data).

It is not always necessary to obtain the value of the pointer. You may use the address. Or 9999
It is also possible to leave the data in the storage area that has reached the number of sheets as it is and add the read data of all the storage areas of the number of sheets data and add a value with 10,000 being 1.

1 and 2 are flowcharts for explaining the operation of an embodiment of the image storage device of the present invention.
FIG. 1 shows a write operation, and FIG. 2 shows a read operation.

In FIG. 1, when the writing flow is started and one sheet is printed in S31, the pointer is read out in S32. Let P be the value of the pointer. S3
At 3, the data in the storage area at the address designated based on the pointer value P is read. The read data is N. In S34, 1 is added to the read data N to calculate write data. The process proceeds to S35, and N to which 1 is added is compared with 9999 because the value depends on the write limit number, which is 10,000 in this example. 9999
If it does not exceed, the new number data N is written in the storage area of the address designated by the pointer value P in S36, and the process returns to S31 to wait for the next printing.

If N exceeds 9999 in S35, the process proceeds to S36 and the pointer is updated. Updating the pointer increments the pointer value P by one. S
In 38, the new pointer value P is written, and in S39, the number data N is stored in the address designated by the new pointer value P.
Write. In this case, N is 10000, so "
0000 "is written. The new storage area is" 00 ".
If it is initialized with 00 ", S39 may be omitted. The next data writing is written in a new storage area. When the pointer is updated, if necessary,
“0000” may be written in the original storage area.

In FIG. 2, when the read flow starts, the pointer is read in S41. Let P be the value of the pointer. In S32, the data in the storage area at the address designated based on the pointer value P is read. The read data is N. In S43, integrated data is calculated. The value P of the pointer is multiplied by 10,000 and N is added to it. The calculated cumulative number of sheets of data is sent to the display unit for display in S44.

In the above embodiment, the case where the number data is updated for each sheet has been described.
One may be counted for every plural sheets, for example, for every four sheets. In this case, the number of sheets in the RAM may be counted, and for example, the storage area may be rewritten so that the EEPROM is incremented by 1 for every four sheets. In this case, if the power is cut off, the data of less than 4 sheets is discarded. However, as long as the power is kept on, the data is accumulated and stored in the RAM, so the cutoff amount is a small value.

In the case of counting one for each plurality of sheets, the EEPROM may be rewritten based on the data in the RAM every time one communication of the facsimile is completed. When counting up every four sheets as described above, the fraction less than four sheets is not limited to rounding down, and may be rounded up or rounded off at the time of rewriting.

[0027]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, when the integrated data is written in the EEPROM in the image forming apparatus, it is possible to write the integrated data exceeding the write limit number of times in the storage area. There is an effect that an EEPROM can be used as a storage element of integrated data in the image forming apparatus.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart for explaining a writing operation of an embodiment of an image storage device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart for explaining a read operation of an embodiment of the image storage device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of a write operation according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a main part of an embodiment in which the present invention is applied to a facsimile device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Video I / O 20 EEPROM 21 CPU 22 I / F section

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An image forming apparatus having an EEPROM for storing integrated data of operating states such as number of sheets data,
A plurality of storage areas for storing the integrated data are provided, a pointer for designating the storage area is provided, and a control unit for controlling the pointer to be updated when the integrated data of one storage area reaches a predetermined value is provided. An image forming apparatus characterized by the above.