Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-10
2004-06-01
Pham, Hai (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
C347S009000, C347S015000, C347S019000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06742868
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a recording apparatus and a data control method therein, and more particularly to a data control technique for driving dot formation means in the recording apparatus.
In a recording apparatus such as a serial printer of impact dot type, thermal transfer type, etc., or a page printer of laser type, thermal transfer type, etc., for example, in an ink jet printer, a recording head is provided with dot formation means comprising a plurality of nozzle orifices, pressure generating chambers communicating with the nozzle orifices in a one-to-one correspondence, and pressure generating elements such as piezoelectric vibrators for pressurizing ink in the pressure generating chambers, thereby jetting ink drops from the corresponding nozzle orifices and a head driver circuit (drive means) comprising a plurality of switching elements for determining whether or not a drive signal is to be applied to the pressure generating elements based on record data, and ink drops are selectively jetted from predetermined nozzle orifices depending on which of the switching elements are driven, whereby predetermined recording is executed on a medium such as recording paper. Such record data is provided by expanding record information input from a printer driver in memory, as described with reference to FIG.
6
.
In
FIG. 6
, record information created with a printer driver
96
installed in a personal computer is input to a printer via various interfaces for each page (step ST
10
). At this time, the one-page record information is stored as data in an input buffer
44
A formed in DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) by automatically switching the interfaces (step ST
20
). Next, a control section (CPU) executes command analysis on the data stored in the input buffer
44
A one byte at a time and determines whether the data is record data or a record processing command (step ST
30
).
Next, the control section transfers the record data undergoing the command analysis to an image buffer
44
B (first storage means) in the DRAM as image data (step ST
40
).
The image buffer
44
B is configured corresponding to the head structure; for example, in a four-color printer comprising 96 nozzles per row, a recording head
10
is formed with nozzle orifices belonging to five groups (five rows) and thus the image buffer
44
B is formed for as much as the five groups. The term “nozzle orifices belonging to five groups” mentioned here refers to nozzle orifices belonging to three color groups for jetting three color inks of cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y), nozzle orifices belonging to a first black group (BK
1
) for jetting black ink on the monochrome recording and stopping jetting ink drops on the color recording, and nozzle orifices belonging to a second black group (BK
2
) for jetting black ink on the color recording and on the monochrome recording.
For example, one-pass data of nozzle #1 corresponding to the yellow (Y) group is transferred to the image buffer
44
B in a raster direction (in the order of a, b, c) and after the data transfer concerning the nozzle #1 terminates, similar processing is repeated for executing data transfer concerning nozzles #2, #3, . . . #96.
Similar data expansion and transfer are executed for the nozzle orifices corresponding to the magenta (M) group, the cyan (C) group, the first black group (BK
1
), and the second black group (BK
2
).
When the image buffer
44
B becomes full of the data, data of one word. (a and b rows in the image buffer) is transferred from the image buffer
44
B to an output buffer
44
C (second storage means) formed of SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) of a head control unit (step ST
50
). To do this, first the zeroth bit of one word is converted from raster into row from #1 to #96 and is serially transferred to a head driver circuit (step ST
51
). This operation is repeated 16 times, whereby one-word transfer is complete (step ST
52
). Similar transfer is also executed for other four groups. Then, an interrupt is generated and processing for the next one word is performed (step ST
53
). After this, such processing is repeated.
However, in the recording apparatus in the related art, serial conversion of the record data in the output buffer
44
C and serial transfer to the head driver circuit are also executed for the nozzle orifices corresponding to a group jetting no ink drops and thus there is a problem of occurrence of fruitless processing time in the control section. That is, to execute color recording in the ink jet recording apparatus in the related art, serial conversion of the record data in the output buffer
44
C and serial transfer to the head driver circuit are executed for all the five groups although recording is executed only with the nozzle orifices corresponding to the three color groups of cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) and the nozzle orifices corresponding to the second black group (BK
2
) and no ink drops are jetted from the nozzle orifices corresponding to the first black group (BK
1
). Thus, with data indicating that no ink is jetted (“0” data) as record data, serial conversion in the output buffer
44
C and serial transfer to the head driver circuit are executed for the first black group (BK
1
) not used for recording.
To execute monochrome recording in the ink jet recording apparatus in the related art, serial conversion of the record data in the output buffer
44
C and serial transfer to the head driver circuit are executed for all the five groups although recording is executed only with the nozzle orifices corresponding to the first black group (BK
1
) and the nozzle orifices corresponding to the second black group (BK
2
) and no ink drops are jetted from the nozzle orifices corresponding to cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y). Thus, serial conversion of the data indicating that no ink is jetted (“0” data) in the output buffer
44
C as record data and serial transfer of the data indicating that no ink is jetted (“0” data) to the head driver circuit as record data are executed for cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) not used for recording.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a recording apparatus and a data control method therein for making it possible to eliminate fruitless processing time and enhance throughput of recording by stopping serial transfer of record data for a group wherein the presence or absence of dot formation is fixed in all dot formation means.
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a recording apparatus comprising:
dot formation means being divided into a plurality of groups, each of the groups for forming a dot in accordance with a predetermined dot formation condition assigned thereto;
drive means for driving the respective groups in the dot formation means in accordance with record data;
for expanding record information into an image in storage means and for record data from the storage means to the drive means;
fixing signal output means for outputting a mode fixing signal determining whether the dot is formed or not, and for transmitting the mode fixing signal to the drive means associated with a group in the dot formation means in which whether the dot is formed or not is predetermined as the dot formation condition, instead of the record data;
mode fixing means for fixing the dot formation condition of the group in the dot formation means, to which the mode fixing signal is transmitted, as determined by the mode fixing signal.
In this configuration, drive control is performed based on the mode fixing signal for the group in which whether the dot is formed or not is predetermined in all dot formation means belonging to the same group. The mode fixing signal may be a signal via a hardware signal line or a software command. Thus, serial conversion to the record data and serial transfer of the record data to the drive means become unnecessary for the group subjected to drive control by the mode fixing signal, so that fruitless proc
Otsuki Koichi
Usuda Hidenori
Nguyen Lam S
Pham Hai
Seiko Epson Corporation
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