JPS6134400B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a printing control device that reduces consumption of ink ribbon and power consumption of a printing device.

In recent years, carbon ribbons have been widely used as ink ribbons in order to simplify the correction of printed characters, but since the same part of the carbon ribbon can only be used once, the consumption efficiency of the ribbons has been reduced. In other words, there is a need to improve the number of prints per predetermined length of carbon ribbon.

However, as shown in Fig. 1, in order to print three characters in the width direction of the ribbon, a step motor is used to move the ink ribbon to the first stage. → Shift 3 steps in the order of 2nd step → 3rd step → 1st step, and
There is a printing device equipped with a ribbon drive device that advances the ink ribbon by the equivalent of 1/3 character each time the shift operation is performed, and changes the used portion of the ink ribbon in a staggered manner.・When printing a symbol, as shown in Figure 1, the surface of the ink ribbon that is used is small. _- When printing a symbol, the ink ribbon shifts and advances in the same way as for letters such as B, and _- the symbol location. Although it still has an ink surface capable of printing one character, it has the disadvantage that the ink ribbon is wound up and consumed.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned conventional drawbacks by:
When printing specific symbols such as underlines, umlauts, periods, commas, etc. that consume less ink ribbon than letters, etc. and are printed in areas that do not overlap with letters, etc., the specific symbols are It was invented with the focus on being able to print using the same part of the ink ribbon, and its purpose was to improve the consumption efficiency of the ink ribbon, that is, to print more characters on a given length of ink ribbon. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing control device that can perform printing and contribute to reducing power consumption of a printing device.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The structure of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings showing embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a part of an ink ribbon ribbon drive device 10a employed in a printing device according to the present invention, in which a vibrating arm 2 holds a wide carbon ribbon 1 with a width of three characters. is swung only in the vertical direction by the rotational movement of the rotating arm 5 fixed to the movable element 4 of the pulse motor 3 about the support shaft 6 . The pulse motor 3 includes, for example, a stator 7 having three excitation phases A, B, and C, and the movable element 4 pivotally supported on a support shaft 6.
Furthermore, the teeth of each of the excitation phases A, B, and C of the stator 7 are formed on the same circumference with the support shaft 6 as the center, and as the excitation state of the excitation phase of the stator 7 changes, the movable 4 is arranged to be brought to a predetermined rotational position.

FIG. 3 is an electrical block diagram showing an outline of the printing control device according to the present invention, and the keyboard 8 includes a large number of character keys 8a, as well as specific symbols corresponding to specific symbols such as underlines, umlauts, periods, and commas. Keys 8b are arranged, and an electronic control circuit 9 detects pressing operations on the keys 8a and 8b. The electronic control circuit 9 is composed of a microprocessor, a storage means mainly consisting of a storage device (ROM, RAM), a comparison means, and a control means.
In response to operations on the keyboard 8, various printing control operations of the printing device, which will be described later, are executed according to a predetermined program. Reference numeral 9a in the figure is a register constituting a storage means, and the last printed characters, symbols, etc. are always stored in the register 9a. Printing device 1
0 is a carriage consisting of a petal-shaped type wheel, a pulse motor that rotates it, a print head whose main components are a print hammer, and a linear pulse motor that drives the print head back and forth along the print line. A paper feed device consisting of a drive device, a pulse motor that drives the print paper in a direction perpendicular to the print line according to the printing operation, and a paper feed device that moves the printing portion of the carbon ribbon 1 to the printing position as shown in FIG. a ribbon driving device 10a comprising a pulse motor 3 that moves the carbon ribbon 1, and a pulse motor that advances the carbon ribbon 1 by 1/3 character as the motor 3 moves;
It is composed of etc.

Next, with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5, the operation of the printing control device when printing BROTHER with an underline will be described.

On keyboard 8, B, _- , R, _- , O, _- ,
The character key 8a, specific symbol key 8b, and backspace key are operated in the order of T, _- , H, _- , E, _- , R, _- .

First, when a code signal for the "B" key 8a is input to the electronic control circuit 9, the control circuit 9 outputs a feed signal to the ribbon driving device 10a, and changes the excitation phase of the pulse motor 3 from A to B to C. → Excite the carbon ribbon 1 in the order of A to move the carbon ribbon 1 from the original position r to the first stage a position (Fig. 2), and excite the feeding pulse motor to move the carbon ribbon 1 1/2 in the direction of the arrow.
Advance by 3 characters. As a result, the circle portion of the carbon ribbon 1 shown in FIG. 4 is positioned as the printed portion. Then, the electronic control circuit 9 outputs a print signal to the printing device 10 to drive the print head, prints the character "B", moves the carriage forward by one character, and also writes a value corresponding to "B" in the register 9a. Store the code signal.

Next, when the code signal corresponding to the specific symbol key 8b of " _- " is input to the electronic control circuit 9, the electronic control circuit 9 compares the contents stored in the register 9a with the new input signal. , under preprogrammed conditions, that is, when the stored content of the register 9a is other than a specific symbol and the new input signal is a specific symbol, the feed signal is not output to the ribbon driving device 10a, and printing is performed on the printing device 10. It only outputs a signal, and the code signal corresponding to the specific symbol key 8b is stored and corrected in the register 9a.

Therefore, since the shift operation and stepping operation of the carbon ribbon 1 are stopped, " _- " is printed using the lower part of the ○ mark in the first stage a of the carbon ribbon 1.

Next, when the code signal corresponding to the "R" key 8a is input, the electronic control circuit 9 uses its comparison function to compare the stored contents of the register 9a with the new input signal. The electronic control circuit 9 outputs a feed signal to the ribbon drive device 10a, and the B excitation phase of the pulse motor 3 is excited by the output, and the second stage b of the carbon ribbon 1 is positioned. At the same time, the carbon ribbon 1 is advanced by 1/3 character, and the ○ and circle parts are positioned as printing parts. Then, the electronic control circuit 9 outputs a printing signal to the printing device 10 to print "R" using the ○ and ○ circles of the carbon ribbon 1.

By repeating the above action, the excitation phases of the pulse motor 3 are excited in the order of A→B→C→A, respectively, and the carbon ribbon 1 is shifted in the order of a→b→c→a. /3 characters are stepped in the direction of the arrow, so as shown in Figure 4, ○I→○Ro→
The carbon ribbon 1 is used in the order of ○c → ○ni, and both characters and other specific symbols are printed at one printing location, as shown in Figure 5.
is consumed. Therefore, compared to the conventional example shown in FIG. 1, the printing control device of this embodiment can significantly reduce the amount of carbon ribbon consumed, and since the pulse motor etc. are not driven for every character, the amount of power consumed can be reduced. It can contribute to the reduction.

Note that although the carbon ribbon 1 was used in this embodiment, the above effect can of course be achieved using a cloth ribbon or the like.

Further, although only _- is shown as a specific symbol, it goes without saying that umlauts, periods, commas, etc. can also be used in the same way.

As explained above, the present invention has printed characters corresponding to a large number of characters and symbols including one or more specific symbols, and prints predetermined printed characters in response to a printing signal so that the orthogonal width of the printed line is a printing device that strikes the printing paper through an ink ribbon having the width of a character; a ribbon drive device that sequentially moves the ink ribbon in a direction perpendicular to the print line and in the direction of the print line in response to a feed signal; A printing signal and a feeding signal are output in response to the signal, and the ink ribbon is always moved for each printing operation of the printing device, so that the printing operation of the specific symbol is continuous with the printing operation of other characters and symbols. This is an excellent system that can reduce ink ribbon consumption and power consumption by having an electronic control device that controls the ink ribbon so that it is held in the same position without moving when it is executed. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of how an ink ribbon is used by a conventional print control device, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a part of a ribbon drive device according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the transition state of the printing portion of the ink ribbon according to the present invention, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram corresponding to FIG. 1 showing an example of the use of the ink ribbon by the print control device of the present invention. It is a diagram. 1...Carbon ribbon, 8...Keyboard, 8
a...Character, symbol key, 8b...Specific symbol key,
9...Electronic control circuit, 9a...Register, 10a
...Ribbon drive device, r...Original position, A, B, C
...Excitation phase, a, b, c...Shift position.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. It has printed characters corresponding to a large number of characters and symbols including one or more specific symbols, and a predetermined printed character is printed in response to a printing signal so that the orthogonal width of the printed line is a plurality of character widths. a printing device that strikes the printing paper through a one-time type ink ribbon, and a ribbon drive device that sequentially moves the ink ribbon in a direction perpendicular to the print line and in the direction of the print line in response to a feeding signal. , storage means for storing the last printed print signal; comparison means for comparing the newly inputted print signal with the print signal stored in the storage means; and the print signal stored in the storage means. When the signal is other than a specific symbol and the newly inputted print signal is a specific symbol, the output of the feed signal is prohibited and the print signal of the specific symbol is output, and when other than the above, it responds to the inputted print signal. A printing control device comprising: a control means for outputting a feeding signal and a printing signal using a signal. 2. The printing control device according to claim 1, wherein the specific symbol is one or more of an underline, an umlaut, a period, a comma, etc.