JP2002225300A - Print control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a print control device capable of printing in high grade with 100% duty without using clogged nozzle parts. SOLUTION: The control device for a printing apparatus (PRT) 12 having an ink discharge head comprises a means for retrieving clogged parts of nozzles of an ink cartridge, and a printing means capable of printing with 100% duty without using the clogged nozzle parts.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a control device for a printing apparatus having a head for discharging ink.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional printing control apparatus, a printing operation is actually performed, and a cleaning operation is executed when a printing output result is dirty. In addition, if the nozzles are not clogged by the cleaning, beautiful printing cannot be realized unless the ink cartridge including the nozzles is replaced.

[0003]

However, in the conventional print control processing apparatus, clogging is not always avoided even if cleaning is performed, and the nozzle clogged every time a cleaning operation is performed. In addition, it takes a long time to perform cleaning for all the nozzles, and the amount of ink required for cleaning also increases, and wasteful ink is consumed even though printing is not performed. There was a problem.

Further, in order to realize beautiful printing (100%
duty), although there is still ink,
Since the ink cartridge has to be replaced, there is a problem that the ink cannot be effectively used.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a printing control apparatus which enables high-quality printing at 100% duty without using a clogged nozzle portion. It is in.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a control apparatus for a printing apparatus having a head for discharging ink, comprising: a means for searching for a clogged portion of a nozzle of an ink cartridge; The printer is characterized by including a printing unit that enables printing at 100% duty without using a clogged nozzle portion.

[0007]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a print control apparatus according to the present invention. In FIG.
The ROM 2 stores a program of the procedure shown in FIG.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a RAM (read / write memory), 4 denotes an external ROM (read only memory) additionally provided, 5 denotes a keyboard controller (KBC), 6 denotes a keyboard (KB), and 7 denotes display control. Equipment (CRTC), 8
Is a display device (CRT), 9 is a peripheral device control device (DK)
C), 10 is an FD (external storage device), and 11 is an HD (external storage device). The program of the procedure shown in FIG. 2 may be stored in the FD 10 or the HD 11.

Reference numeral 12 denotes a printing device (PRT), 13 denotes a pointing device (PD), and 14 denotes a system bus for transmitting and receiving data between these devices.

The program of the present apparatus exists in the ROM 2, the printing device 12, the HD 11, or the RAM 3.
The target processing is performed while reading from the printing device 12, the HD 11, or the RAM 3.

Next, the operation of the print control apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, when a print check is requested by the user (step 20), since the data for the color cartridge and the data for the monochrome cartridge are slightly different, it is determined whether the color cartridge is mounted or the monochrome cartridge is mounted. The cartridge discriminating process is performed in advance (step 21).

Next, data necessary for a print check is created based on the cartridge information in step 21, and the data is stored in an output buffer (steps 22 to 24).
After the data storage processing, the data print processing of step 24 is performed for each nozzle (step 25). Based on the print output result (see FIGS. 3 to 5), it is determined which nozzle is clogged. At the nozzles where clogging has occurred, the horizontal lines are not printed neatly (faintly printed) or not printed at all, so that clogging of the nozzles can be easily determined with the naked eye.

FIG. 3 shows a print result when there is no clogged nozzle. FIG. 4 shows the third and seventh yellow nozzles.
It is a figure which shows that the 6th nozzle of a magenta nozzle, the 10th nozzle of a cyan nozzle, and the 13th nozzle of a black nozzle are clogged. Based on this print result (FIGS. 3 and 4), a process of selecting a clogged nozzle is performed in steps 26 and 27 of FIG. 2 (FIGS. 6 and 7).

FIG. 7 shows the contents displayed when the monochrome head is mounted. For example, when performing a printing process of 100% duty with a monochrome cartridge having a nozzle width of 20 dots, it is assumed that the printing result shown in FIG. If the printing is normally performed on all the nozzles, since there is no clogging in step 27 of FIG. 2, the normal printing of the normal printing is selected and the printing is performed.

In the case where clogging is present, FIG.
The cleaning process is performed in step 2f, and the process is repeated from step 22 in FIG. 2 to determine whether the clogging has been eliminated by the cleaning. Of course, if cleaning is not necessary, the process moves to step 2g in FIG.

If the clogging has not been eliminated by the printing result obtained by repeating the processing from step 22 in FIG. 2, the user is caused to select the cartridge replacement in step 2g in FIG. If there is, the process is repeated from step 21 in FIG. If printing is to be performed using a cartridge that has already been installed, the process of selecting a clogged nozzle in step 28 of FIG. 2 is performed by selecting the number of each clogged nozzle on the screen shown in FIG. In this example, 2,6,1
Since the 1st and 19th nozzles are clogged, the clogged nozzle number is selected in the window of FIG. 7 (FIG. 2).
Step 28). When the nozzle number is selected and the print execution button on the window is selected, the maximum width of the nozzle that is not clogged is calculated (Step 29 in FIG. 2), and the printing process is performed with the calculated maximum width.

As shown in FIG.
The longest width between nozzles with clogged points is calculated. 100% dut using only the calculated maximum nozzle width
Execute y printing. In this example, the printing process is originally performed at 20 dots (normal printing), but since clogging of the nozzles has been confirmed, high-quality printing is performed using the calculated nozzle width of 7 dots. As a matter of course, the output buffer also needs to switch the processing from 20 dots vertically to 7 dots for the data generation processing (FIG. 9) from the development buffer to the output buffer.

The same applies to the case where a color cartridge is mounted, and the maximum width of each color of YMCK is obtained.
Printing processing is performed using the minimum value of each color.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention,
In order to avoid a 100% reduction in printing due to clogging and to perform clean printing, a test printing process for searching for clogging of each nozzle is performed before printing to determine the degree of clogging of the nozzles of the head cartridge. In addition, since it is possible to check which nozzle is clogged from the printing result, the user can select the nozzle number of each clogged color without using any clogged nozzle. By performing the printing process, it is possible to perform clear printing without causing print missing (100% duty).
Also, being able to achieve clean printing without using clogged nozzles leads to a reduction in ink consumption even when clogging due to cleaning is not eliminated, and thus has the effect of providing a print control device. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a print control apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of the print control apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a print output result.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a print output result.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a print output result.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating display contents of a printing apparatus.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating display contents of a printing apparatus.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a method of obtaining a maximum width.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a process of generating data from a development buffer to an output buffer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 CPU 2 ROM 3 RAM 4 External ROM 5 Keyboard control device (KBC) 6 Keyboard (KB) 7 Display control device (CRTC) 8 Display device (CRT) 9 Peripheral device control device (DKC) 10 FD (external storage device) 11 HD (external storage device) 12 printing device (PRT) 13 pointing device (PD) 14 system bus

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A control device for a printing apparatus having a head for discharging ink, comprising: means for searching for a clogged portion of a nozzle of an ink cartridge;
A print control device comprising a printing unit that enables printing at 00% duty.