JPS59174366A - Maintenance circuit for dot printer head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To ensure maintenance against wear of pins by a circuit wherein output driving pulses from multiple or selected pins of a dot printer head are accumulated and stored, and an alarm is issued when the stored content reaches a certain value. CONSTITUTION:Among a number of pins arranged for a dot printer head, the number of output driving pulses from one or more pins which are subjected to the larger number of firings is counted and stored in a memory 21 while being accumulated. When the stored content reaches the certain number of times previously stored in a decision circuit 22, an alarm (a) is issued to attract an attention. Pins are surely held under good maintenance by early grasping the time when those pins are substantially worn, and by regrinding or replacing the worn pins in advance.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (1) Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a maintenance circuit that can detect the wear period of a dot printer head bottle at an early stage and polish or replace the bottle in advance.

(2) Prior Art and Problems Conventionally, the head of a dot printer has a plurality of bins, such as 16 bins or 24 bins, arranged in, for example, a staggered row or two rows, and each bin is magnetically driven by a drive circuit. These bottles wear out as the number of fires increases, and beyond a certain point the print quality deteriorates, so it is necessary to polish or replace them beforehand. In particular, the degree of abrasion varies depending on the type of printing; for example, in the case of 24 staggered bins, the f12 bin at the center, which is continuously used for ruled lines, suffers the most abrasion. Therefore, before the printing on these 12 bottles does not deteriorate, it is necessary to align the strokes and re-polish all the bottles. Experimentally, the number of strokes until failure occurs for one bottle is 80.
It is thought that the number of strokes is approximately 1,000,000 strokes, but in practice, it has been difficult to accurately determine the maintenance period for this bottle wear due to the irregular usage of printers.

(3) OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a maintenance circuit for dot printer head bin wear.

(4) Structure of the Invention In order to achieve the above object, the maintenance circuit of the present invention monitors the output drive pulses of the drive circuits of each of a plurality of bins or selected bins of the dot printer head, and counts each output pulse. The present invention is characterized in that it includes an integrating means for storing an integrated value in a non-volatile memory, and that an alarm is issued when the integrated value of the integrating means reaches a specified value.

(5) Embodiment of the Invention FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a dot printer to which the present invention is applied.

In the figure, characters and control data are sent from a processing unit (CPU) I to a dot printer 2 through a cable.

The dot printer 2 moves along the platen 4 and prints multiple bits/prints.
It has a mechanical mechanism section 6 consisting of a print head 5 provided with a print head 5, and space, paper feed, and head control are performed by the control circuit shown in FIG. A corresponding driver (driving circuit) is driven, the print head 5 is moved to a predetermined position on the paper on the platen 4, and a bottle corresponding to a predetermined character pattern 7 is fired to perform printing.

FIG. 2 shows a configuration circuit of an embodiment of the present invention, and shows a control circuit of the dot printer shown in FIG.

At h in the figure, control data from the CPUI is transferred to the interface control circuit 10. Space control circuit 1111 Paper feed control circuit 121. The control signal is input to each circuit of the head control circuit 161, and the control signal from the space control circuit 11 is sent to the space motor driver 11□ to drive the space motor 113. Just to be sure, the control signal from the paper feed control circuit 121 is applied to the paper feed shimotor dryer (i2g) to control the paper feed shimotor 1.
23. Further, the head control circuit 131 sends a signal from the head control circuit 131 to the head driver 132 to control the firing of each bottle of the print head.

In the present invention, in order to count the number of dots due to the wear of a plurality of bins of the print head, for example, among the 24 bins in the staggered pattern shown in FIG.
An alarm signal is generated when the count value which is divided into two bins is counted in a non-volatile count memory 21, and the accumulated count value exceeds a specified value, for example 80 million times, in a judgment circuit 22. As the count memory 21, a non-volatile memory such as a magnetic memory (in this embodiment, a floppy disk) is used so that the integrated value is not erased even in the event of a power outage.

Figure 'j44 is a flowchart showing the operation of the main part of the present invention.

In the figure, when a printing command is received from the CPU 1 after the start, dot pulses are counted in the count memory 21 via the head control circuit 15□. The determination circuit 22 determines that this count exceeds a prescribed number of fires and generates an alarm.

(6) As described in detail, according to the present invention, the output pulses of the drive circuit of a plurality of bins or a selected bin are counted for the number of bins of the dot printer head, and the integrated value is a specified value. It is designed to issue an alarm when the limit is reached. This makes it possible to preventively detect bottle wear and perform polishing or replacement, and it is possible to maintain good print quality at all times.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a dot printer to which the present invention is applied, Fig. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 6 is an arrangement diagram of dot bins, and Fig. 4 shows the operation of the main parts of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a CPU. 2 is the dot printer, 3 is the mechanical mechanism, 4 is the platen,
5 is a print head, 6 is a control printed board, 7 is a driver printed board, 10 is an interface control circuit, 111 is a space control circuit, 112 is a space motor driver, 1
1sf't space motor, 121 is paper feed control circuit,
122 is a paper feed shimoter driver, 123 is a paper feed shimoter, 13 is a head control circuit, 162 is a head driver,
163 is a print head, 21 is a count memory, and 22 is a determination circuit. Patent applicant: Seishitsu Co., Ltd. Sub-agent Patent attorney 1) Yoshishige Saka

Claims (1)

[Claims] The dot printer head is equipped with an integrating means for monitoring output drive pulses of each drive circuit of a plurality of bins or a selected bin, counting each output pulse, and storing an integrated value in a non-volatile memory, wherein the integrated value of the integrating means is A maintenance circuit for a dot printer, characterized in that it issues an alarm when a predetermined value is reached.