JPH0848058A - Printer device and printing method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [PROBLEMS] To provide a printer device having a plurality of printing means, in which when one printing means is in a non-printable state, printing is performed by another printing means. A CPU in a printer controller unit that controls each unit of a printer device including a laser printer and an inkjet printer as a printing unit first instructs the start of paper feeding when printing (step S32). Next, it is determined whether or not the user has designated the laser beam printer as the printing means (step S33), and in the case of a positive determination, it is further determined whether or not the temperature of the fixing roller is a printable temperature. (Step S34). If the laser beam printer is in a printable state, the laser beam printer prints (step S35), and if it is not in a printable state, the inkjet printer prints.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer apparatus having a plurality of printing process execution units (printing means) and a printing method in the apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, as an output device of a computer,
Laser beam printers and inkjet printers are widely used. The laser beam printer prints on a sheet by a well-known electrophotographic process, and is generally superior to other types of printers in printing resolution and printing speed. On the other hand, the ink jet printer is a method of ejecting ink from nozzles to print on paper by a well-known method, and because of its simple structure,
It can be said that downsizing, colorization, and compatibility with large-format paper are easier than other methods.

[0003]

However, the following drawbacks exist in a printer that performs printing only by a single printing process. That is, in the laser beam printer, printing cannot be performed when the toner runs out or the temperature of the fixing device is rising. Further, in the ink jet printer, there is a drawback that printing cannot be performed when the ink runs out or at the head cleaning timing.
Further, in the case of an inkjet printer, when the inkjet printer is a color printer, when one of the plurality of inks is used in a large amount and the remaining amount of the ink becomes zero, the remaining amount of the other ink is sufficient. However, there was a problem that color printing could not be performed.

A first object of the present invention is to provide a printer device and a printing method in which, in a printer device having a plurality of printing means, when one printing means is in an unprintable state, another printing means performs printing. To provide.

A second object of the present invention is to provide a printer device having a plurality of printing means, which determines the printing means for printing according to the remaining amount of consumables consumed by the printing means. Especially.

[0006]

To achieve the first object, a first printer device according to the present invention is a printer device having a plurality of printing means, and a switching means for switching the plurality of printing means, And a control means for switching to another printing means and printing when the designated printing means is in a non-printable state.

In order to achieve the first object, the printing method according to the present invention performs printing using a designated printing means of a plurality of printing means, and the designated printing means cannot print. It is characterized in that when it is in the state, printing is performed by switching to another printing means.

In order to achieve the second object, a second printer device according to the present invention is a printer device having a plurality of printing means, wherein a switching means for switching the plurality of printing means and a plurality of the printing means are provided. It is characterized in that it is provided with detection means for detecting the amount of consumables, and control means for switching the printing means according to the detection result of the detection means to perform printing.

[0009]

According to the first means of the present invention, the control means can be operated even if the user does not perform a complicated operation even when the predesignated printing means among the plurality of printing means is in the unprintable state. Causes other printing means to perform printing.

According to the second means of the present invention, the detection means detects the remaining amount of the consumables of the plurality of printing means, and the control means can select the printing means for printing according to the remaining amounts. Therefore, it is possible to perform single-color printing by using a printing unit that uses a consumable item with the largest remaining amount.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a system including a printer according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 101 is an external device such as a host computer, and 102 is a printer to which this embodiment is applied.

The printer 102 includes an inkjet printer engine unit 103 for realizing full-color printing by simultaneously ejecting dot data of Y, M, C, and Bk colors line by line from ink nozzles, and a photosensitive drum for each dot data. And a laser beam printer engine unit 104 for performing printing by forming a latent image on the sheet and thermally fixing the toner on the sheet.

The printer controller unit 105 is connected to the laser beam printer engine unit 104 and the ink jet printer engine unit 103, and code data and image data (RG) sent from the external device 101.
B, YMCK), and based on this data, Y, M,
Page information composed of dot data of each color of C and Bk is generated and dot data is transmitted in a dot-sequential manner to the inkjet printer engine unit 103, or a laser beam printer engine unit 104 uses single-color bitmap data as a video signal. Send to. An operator (user) can specify a desired operation for the printer 102 by operating the panel unit 106.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the mechanism of the printer of this embodiment. In the figure, 201 is a printer casing, 202 is a laser beam printer engine section, and 203 is an inkjet printer engine section.

In the laser beam printer engine unit 202, 204 is a recording medium, and 205 is a sheet 2.
A paper cassette that holds 04. Reference numeral 206 denotes a cassette paper feeding clutch, which separates only the uppermost one of the paper sheets 204 placed on the paper cassette 205, and the leading end of the separated paper sheet is fed by a drive means (not shown) to the feed roller 207. The cam conveys to a position, and intermittently rotates each time the paper is fed, and feeds one sheet corresponding to one rotation. When the paper is conveyed by the paper feed clutch 206, the paper feed roller 207 rotates while lightly pressing the paper 204, and conveys the paper 204.

Reference numeral 208 denotes a manual feeding tray, and 209 denotes a manual paper feeding clutch, which enables not only paper feeding from the paper cassette 205 but also manual paper feeding from the manual feeding tray one by one.

A toner cassette portion 213 has a photosensitive drum 211 and a developing device 212. 210 is a conveyance roller, 214 is a laser driver, 215 is a semiconductor laser, and 216 is a mirror.

When the sheet is conveyed to the position of the photosensitive drum 211 by the conveying roller 210, the laser beam 224 from the semiconductor laser 215 driven by the laser driver 214 is scanned in the main scanning direction by a rotating polygon mirror (not shown). And the photosensitive drum 21 via the mirror 216.
1 to form a latent image on the main scanning line.

Thereafter, the sheet 204 is conveyed by the conveying roller 210.
The torque is obtained by and is sent to the photosensitive drum. The photosensitive drum 211 is rotationally driven by a motor (not shown),
The latent image previously formed is visualized as a toner image by the developing device 212 and then transferred onto the sheet. The sheet on which the toner image is transferred is then fixed with the toner images by the fixing rollers 217 and 218, and the inkjet printer unit 2
It is transported to 03.

Inkjet printer engine section 203
219 is a conveyance roller, 220 is a paper retainer, and 22
Reference numeral 1 is a platen and 222 is an inkjet head unit. When the transport roller 219 transports the sheet to the platen 221, the sheet retainer 220 winds the sheet around the platen 221. The platen 221 is rotationally driven by a motor (not shown), and when the paper reaches the position of the inkjet head unit 222, the inkjet head unit 222 is conveyed by a lead screw (not shown) in a direction perpendicular to the paper surface of FIG. C, Y, and Bk inks are jetted line-by-line on a sheet. The paper on which the ink has been ejected is ejected to the paper ejection tray 223.

Here, the scanning width of the semiconductor laser 215 is
The maximum width is A4 size paper, and the conveyance width of the inkjet head unit 222 is A3 size horizontal size. By thus narrowing the laser scanning width, the cost of the laser beam printer engine is kept low.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the printer controller unit 105 of this embodiment. In the figure,
311 is an image memory for storing image data, 304 is a CPU that controls the entire printer controller unit 105,
An engine interface unit 306 is an input / output unit of a signal with the laser beam printer engine 104, which sends a data signal from an output buffer register (not shown) and controls communication with the laser beam printer engine 104. Reference numeral 307 denotes an inkjet engine interface unit that is a signal input / output unit with the inkjet printer engine unit 103, which sends a data signal from an output buffer register (not shown) and controls communication with the inkjet printer engine 103.

Reference numeral 301 denotes a host interface which is an input / output unit for signals with the external device 101 such as a personal computer, and 302 generates bit map data for actual printing based on control code data sent from the external device 101. This is an image data generator. An operation panel interface 305 receives various settings from the user from the panel unit 106.

Reference numeral 303 is a ROM that stores the control code of the CPU 304. A temporary storage RAM 308 is used by the CPU 304.

Reference numeral 309 is a DMA controller. CPU30
The bitmap data in the image memory is read by the inkjet engine interface unit 307
Alternatively, it is transferred to the laser beam printer engine unit 104.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a data flow according to this embodiment. FIG. 5 is a schematic map of the RAM 308. 6, FIG. 7, FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 are operation control flowcharts of the CPU 304 according to this embodiment.

The control code for controlling the CPU 304 is composed of an OS, which is called a task by a time division control in load module units by a system clock (not shown), and a plurality of load modules (tasks) operating in functional units. And FIG. 6 shows the control of the engine state management task that characterizes this embodiment.
Shows the control of the analysis deployment task, and FIG.
It shows the control of the transfer task. 9 and 10 show the operation of the functional modules used in the transfer task.

Next, with reference to FIGS. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, an explanation will be given of the operation of the printer controller section 104, which centers on the movement of the CPU 304, which characterizes the present embodiment. do.

The engine state management task shown in FIG.
It is activated by a 100 ms periodic timer task (not shown) or by a communication request interrupt from the inkjet printer engine unit 103 and the laser beam printer engine unit 104 (step S11). Then, the predetermined communication protocol is realized, the state is acquired from the inkjet printer engine unit 103, and when there is a change, the state is overwritten in the inkjet printer engine state storage area of the RAM 308 shown in FIG. 5 (step S12). As shown in FIG. 5, this state includes the amount of each ink of M, C, Y and Bk and the state such as whether or not cleaning is in progress. Further, a predetermined communication protocol is realized, the state is acquired from the laser beam printer engine unit 104, and when there is a change, the state is overwritten in the laser beam printer engine state storage area of the RAM 308 shown in FIG. 5 (step S1).
3). As shown in FIG. 5, this state includes states such as the toner amount and whether or not the temperature of the fixing device is being raised. Then, the control is transferred to another task, and the process ends (step S14).

The analysis development task shown in FIG. 7 is executed by the host interface 301 and the panel interface 305.
Is constantly monitored (step S2, step S
9). Then, when the print engine is designated from the panel 106, it is overwritten in the designated area of the RAM 308 shown in FIG.

When data from an external device is detected in the host interface 301, if the image memory 311 has a free space (step S2), a predetermined one block is read from the host interface 301 (step S3). When the engine selection command is recognized (step S4), the designated area of the RAM 308 is overwritten (step S6). When print data is received, R
The block is transferred to the expansion buffer of the AM 308, bit map data corresponding to the code data is generated, and expanded in the image memory 311 (step S5).

This operation is performed until the page break code is detected (step S7). When the page ends, the transfer task is activated and the process returns to the beginning (step S8).

The laser beam printer engine print control (step S51) shown in FIG. 9 instructs the DMA controller 309 to start data transfer from the image memory 311 to the laser beam printer engine I / F unit 306 (step S52). ), And instructs the laser beam printer engine I / F unit 306 to start the printing sequence (step S
53). After the paper reaches the conveyance roller 219 (step S54), the inkjet printer engine unit 103 is instructed to carry out the paper without performing the printing process (step S55), and the process is ended (step S56).

The ink jet printer engine print control (step S61) shown in FIG. 10 instructs the laser beam printer engine section 104 to carry the paper to the carry roller 219 without performing the printing process (step S62). After reaching the conveyance roller 219 (step S63), the DMA controller 309 is instructed to start data transfer from the image memory 311 to the inkjet printer engine I / F unit 307 (step S64). The F section 306 is instructed to start the printing sequence (step S65) and the processing is ended (step S66).

When the transfer task shown in FIG. 8 is activated (step S21), the laser beam printer engine unit 104 is instructed to feed the paper (step S22). RAM3
08, the laser beam printer engine unit 104 is designated by referring to the selection engine item (step S2).
3) If the toner has not run out (step S24),
Using the laser beam printer engine print control function,
Printing is performed by the laser beam printer engine (step S25). Also, the laser beam printer engine unit 10
If 4 is designated (step S23) and the toner is out (step S24), printing is performed by the inkjet printer engine using the inkjet printer engine print control function (step S26).

On the other hand, when the ink jet printer engine unit 103 is designated (step S23), the ink jet printer engine prints using the ink jet printer engine print control function (step S26).

With the configuration and control as described above, when the toner of the laser beam printer runs out, the user can obtain an output by printing by the ink jet method without performing a complicated operation. Further, when the data is only the Bk component, or conversely, when the ink of the inkjet printer engine runs out, it is possible to automatically perform printing by using the laser beam printer engine.

(Second Embodiment) The configuration of this embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment except for the transfer task, and the description thereof will be omitted. FIG. 11 is a flowchart of a transfer task showing the features of this embodiment.

In FIG. 11, when the transfer task is activated (step S31), the laser beam printer engine unit 104 is instructed to feed the paper (step S32). R
When the laser beam printer engine unit 104 is designated (step S33) and the temperature of the fixing rollers 217 and 218 has been raised (step S34), the laser beam printer engine prints with reference to the selection engine item of AM308. Printing is performed by the laser beam printer engine using the control function (step S35). When the laser beam printer engine unit 104 is designated (step S33) and the fixing rollers 217 and 218 are being heated (step S34), the inkjet printer engine print control function is used to activate the inkjet printer engine. Printing is performed (step S36).

On the other hand, when the ink jet printer engine unit 103 is designated (step S33), printing is performed by the ink jet printer engine using the ink jet printer engine print control function (step S36).

By configuring and controlling as described above, when the temperature of the fixing device of the laser beam printer is raised, the user can obtain an output by printing by the ink jet system without performing complicated operations. Also,
On the contrary, when the data includes only the Bk component, it is possible to automatically print by using the laser beam printer engine when the head of the inkjet printer engine is cleaned.

(Third Embodiment) The configuration of this embodiment is the same as that of the second embodiment except for the transfer task, and the description thereof will be omitted.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of the transfer task showing the features of this embodiment. In the following description, the user selects the energy saving mode by operating the panel unit 106, and the selection result is the RAM 308.
Be written in.

In FIG. 12, when the transfer task is activated (step S41), the laser beam printer engine unit 104 is instructed to feed the paper (step S42). R
If the energy saving mode is not shown in the AM 308, the energy saving mode item is referred to (step S4).
3), in accordance with the selected engine item of the RAM 308 (step S44), the laser beam printer engine unit 10
4 (step S45) or the inkjet printer engine unit 103 (step S46) is used for printing. When the energy saving mode is specified (step S4
3), of the toner or each ink of M, C, Y, Bk,
Single-color printing is performed with the highest remaining amount (step S4
8, S50), and the process ends (step S49).

By configuring and controlling as described above, the user can perform energy-saving printing without performing complicated operations.

[0047]

As described above, according to the first means of the present invention, in the printer device having a plurality of printing means, when one printing means is in the unprintable state, another printing means prints. It can be performed. Further, according to the second means of the present invention, in the printer device having a plurality of printing means, it is possible to determine the printing means for performing printing according to the remaining amount of the consumable item consumed by the printing means.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of a system including a printer to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a mechanism of a paper transport system of a printer to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a printer controller to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a data flow in the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram schematically showing a map of a RAM 308 according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the CPU 304 according to the first exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of CPU 304 according to the first exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of CPU 304 according to the first exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the CPU 304 according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of CPU 304 according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of CPU 304 according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of CPU 304 according to the third embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 101 External Equipment 102 Printer 103 Inkjet Printer Engine Unit 104 Laser Beam Printer Engine Unit 105 Printer Controller Unit 106 Panel Unit 301 Host I / F 302 Image Data Generation Unit 303 ROM 304 CPU 305 Operation Panel I / F 306 Laser Beam Engine I / F 307 Inkjet engine I / F 308 RAM 309 DMA control unit 310 Bus 311 Image memory

Claims (15)

[Claims] 1. A printer device having a plurality of printing means, and a switching means for switching the plurality of printing means,
A printer device comprising: a control unit that switches to another printing unit to perform printing when the designated printing unit is in a non-printable state. 2. The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of printing units of the printer device are arranged in series on a paper transport path. 3. The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of printing units are an electrophotographic printing unit and an inkjet printing unit. 4. The non-printable state according to claim 3, wherein the toner is out of the electrophotographic printing means or the temperature of the fixing device is being raised, and the toner is out of the state or the temperature of the fixing device is being raised. The printer device, wherein the control means performs printing using the ink jet type printing means regardless of the designated printing means. 5. The non-printable state according to claim 3, wherein the ink is out of ink or is in a head cleaning state in the inkjet printing unit, and the control unit is instructed in the ink out state or the head cleaning state. A printer device for performing printing using the electrophotographic printing means regardless of the printing means used. 6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5,
The printer device is a color printer device. 7. A printing method is performed by using a designated printing means from among a plurality of printing means, and when the designated printing means is in an unprintable state, the printing is switched to another printing means. Characteristic printing method. 8. The printing method according to claim 7, wherein the plurality of printing units are arranged in series on a paper transport path. 9. The printing method according to claim 7, wherein the plurality of printing units are an electrophotographic printing unit and an inkjet printing unit. 10. The non-printable state according to claim 9, wherein the toner is out of the electrophotographic printing means or the temperature of the fixing device is being raised, and the state of being out of toner or the temperature of the fixing device is being raised. Is a printing method characterized in that the printing is performed by using the inkjet printing means regardless of the designated printing means. 11. The non-printable state according to claim 9, wherein the ink is out of ink or is in a head cleaning state in the inkjet printing unit,
In the ink out state or the head cleaning state, printing is performed using the electrophotographic printing unit regardless of the designated printing unit. 12. A printer device having a plurality of printing means, a switching means for switching the plurality of printing means, a detection means for detecting the amount of consumables of the plurality of printing means, and a detection result of the detection means. A printer device comprising: a control unit that switches the printing unit according to the printing operation. 13. The printer device according to claim 12, wherein the plurality of printing units of the printer device are arranged in series on a paper transport path. 14. The printing means according to claim 12 or 13, wherein the printing means is an electrophotographic printing means and an inkjet printing means, the consumables are toner and a plurality of inks, and the control means is A printer apparatus, wherein printing is performed using a printing unit that uses the toner and the plurality of inks having the largest remaining amount. 15. The printer device according to claim 12, wherein the printer device is a color printer device.