JPH0215394B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a recording device that records images, characters, etc. based on input data.

Conventionally, there are various types of recording devices such as copy recording devices using electrophotography and inkjet recording devices, but in these recording devices,
When attempting to obtain multiple records from the same original or the same information, it is necessary to repeat the same recording process multiple times. That is, in order to obtain a desired number of copies, a time corresponding to the product of the time required for one recording and the desired number of copies is required.

In addition, in a recording device equipped with multiple recording heads that record images, characters, etc. on a recording material using supplied ink, in order to execute a recording operation using all the recording heads, it is necessary to The head must always be able to be supplied with a sufficient supply of ink.

Therefore, if the ink storage amounts of the plurality of ink tanks that store ink to be supplied to each of the plurality of recording heads are all set to be large, the size of the apparatus will increase.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and includes a plurality of recording heads that record images, characters, etc. on recording paper using supplied ink, and a recording head that records images, characters, etc. on recording paper using supplied ink, and a recording head that records images, characters, etc. on recording paper using supplied ink. It has a plurality of stored ink tanks and a plurality of driving means for independently driving the plurality of recording heads based on input data, and among the plurality of recording heads, the recording head that is driven more frequently by the driving means is To provide a recording device in which an ink tank for supplying ink can store more ink than other ink tanks.

The present invention will be explained in detail below using the drawings.

(i) FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the recording devices are recording units 100, 200, and 300 having exactly the same configuration.
These recording units are vertically stacked in three stages by supports (not shown).

In the figure, 101, 201, 301 are the recording paper stored in the recording paper storage cassettes 115, 215, 315, 102, 202, 302 are paper feed rollers, 103, 203, 303 are guide plates, 10
4,204,304 is a registration roller, 10
5, 205, 305 are first conveyance rollers, 10
6,206,306 is a platen with many pores, 107,207,307 is a fan, 10
8, 208, 308 are second conveyance rollers, 10
9,209,309 is a suspension roller, 110,2
10,310 is a conveyor belt, 111,211,
311 is a paper output tray, 112, 212, 312
is a recording head, e.g. an inkjet head,
113, 213, and 313 are ink tanks.

(ii) Next, the recording operation in the above configuration will be explained. Since the recording units 100, 200, and 300 operate in exactly the same way, only the recording unit 100 will be explained.

Recording paper 1 stored in paper cassette 115
01 is fed along the guide plate 103 by the rotation of the paper feed roller 102 to the registration roller 104, which has stopped rotating, and forms an appropriate loop. Next, as the registration roller 104 rotates, the recording paper is held between the registration roller 104 and the first conveyance roller 105 and conveyed toward the inkjet head 112.

At this time, a platen 106 having small holes and a fan 107 are provided on the opposite side of the ink jet head 112, and the rotation of the fan 107 blows air in the T direction in the figure.

Therefore, the recording paper that has passed the first conveyance roller 105 is conveyed over the platen 106 toward the second conveyance roller 108 while being attracted by the fan 107 .

The inkjet head 112 is a full-line inkjet head in which a plurality of recording elements are linearly arranged in the vertical direction of the drawing, and recording is performed by a drive circuit in response to electrical signals from an information source (not shown).

After recording, the leading edge of the recording paper is moved to the second conveyance roller 1.
08, the second conveying roller 108
The recording paper is ejected to a paper ejection tray 111 by the conveyor belt 110.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a document reading device of an input section applied to the recording apparatus of the present invention.

(i)' In the figure, 401 is a document table glass, 402 is a bar-shaped light source such as a halogen lamp or a fluorescent lamp, 403 is a first mirror, 404 is a second mirror, 405 is a third mirror, 406 is a lens, and 407 is a A one-dimensional solid-state image sensor such as a CCD.

(ii)' To explain the operation of the document reading device, the document placed on the document platen glass 401 is exposed to the rod-shaped light source 4.
A lens 406 scans (sub-scans) the original by illuminating the light through a first mirror 403, a second mirror 404, and a third mirror 405.
An image is formed on the CCD 407. The main scanning direction of the CCD 407 is perpendicular to the drawing.

The rod-shaped light source 402 and the first mirror 403 are integrated by a support (not shown), and scan the document surface while moving in the direction F in the figure from a guide rail (not shown) (sub-scanning). The second mirror 404 and the third mirror 405 are supports (not shown)
It moves on a guide rail (not shown) in the same direction as the first mirror 403 at half the speed of movement of the first mirror 403. The rod-shaped light source 40, the first mirror 403, the second mirror 404, and the third mirror 405 are located at the positions indicated by dotted lines in the figure (402', 403', 404', 4
05'), but at this point the original platen 40
The optical path length from 1 to lens 406 through mirrors 403, 404, and 405 is always kept constant.

Therefore, if the signals from the light receiving elements of the CCD 407 are read out in order during sub-scanning, sequential signals obtained by raster scanning the document surface can be obtained.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the electrical circuitry in the apparatus of FIGS. 1 and 2.

(i)'' In the figure, 1 is a CCD circuit (corresponding to 407 in Figure 2), 2 is a digitization circuit, 3 is a buffer circuit,
4 is a readable/writable memory, 5 is a memory control circuit, 6 is a first buffer circuit, and 7 is a second buffer circuit.
buffer circuit, 8 is the third buffer circuit, 9
is the first drive circuit, 10 is the second drive circuit, 11 is the third drive circuit, and 12 is the first drive circuit.
13 is a second recording head (corresponding to 212 in FIG. 1); 1 is a second recording head (corresponding to 212 in FIG. 1);
4 is the third recording head (corresponding to 312 in FIG. 1);
15 is a paper transport system of the first recording unit (corresponding to 100 in FIG. 1), 16 is a paper transport system of the second recording unit (corresponding to 200 in FIG. 1), and 17 is a paper transport system of the third recording unit (corresponding to 100 in FIG. 1). (corresponding to FIG. 300); 18 is a control circuit that controls the entire circuit and mechanical system; 19 is an operation panel having a dial for setting the number of sheets to be printed, a start button for instructing to start recording, etc.

(ii)'' To explain the operation of FIG. 3, the image data read by the CCD circuit 1 is converted into a binary value or multivalued as necessary by the digitization circuit 2.
For the sake of simplicity, the case of binarization will be described below.

The binarized data is stored via a buffer circuit 3 in a memory 4 consisting of a RAM (random access memory) or the like. The capacity of this memory 4 can be arbitrarily selected from a small capacity such as a line memory to a large capacity such as a page memory. Therefore, depending on the capacity of the memory, in addition to recording the document while it is being read, it is also possible to start recording after reading one page or several pages of the document and storing it in the memory.

Address signals, timing signals, read/write signals, etc. for writing or reading from the memory 4 are performed by an address control circuit 5 controlled by a control circuit 18. Image data in memory 4 is output to buffer circuits 6, 7, and 8 under the control of memory control circuit 5. The data of the buffer circuit is the drive circuit 9, 10,
11 energizes the recording heads 12, 13, and 14, and recording is performed. Drive circuit 9,1
0 and 11 are controlled by the control circuit 18 to turn on and off the drives, so recording heads 12, 13, and 14 are selected as necessary.

The control circuit 18 also controls the paper feed rollers 102, 202, 302 and the registration roller 1 in FIG.
04, 204, 304, conveyance roller 105, 2
05, 305, 108, 208, 308, etc. are controlled.

It is assumed that power is transmitted to these rollers from the same driving source (not shown) via a belt or the like (not shown) and a clutch (not shown). Alternatively, a driving source such as a stepping motor may be directly connected to each roller. The control circuit 18 turns on and off the clutches of these rollers in time series to transport the paper as explained in FIG.
00), 16 (corresponding to recording unit 200), 1
7 (corresponding to the recording unit 300), it is possible to perform recording only on a specific recording unit.

FIG. 4 is a schematic flowchart showing the process of selecting and recording on a plurality of recording sections in a recording apparatus having a plurality of recording sections according to the present invention.

In the example shown in FIG. 4, priorities are assigned in advance among the recording units, and in this example, the first recording unit U1 has the highest priority, and the following 2U2, 3U3, etc.
They are arranged in the order of recording section.

When recording is started (501), first, the number of sheets to be recorded specified by the operation panel shown in FIG. 3 is set in the sheet number counter in the control circuit 18 (502).

Next, it is checked whether this sheet number counter is 3 or more (503), and if it is 3 or more, the paper conveyance systems of the first, second, and third recording units are turned on (504);
Subsequently, when the recording paper reaches the recording head, the first, second, and third recording sections all start recording (505).
When the specified recording is completed, turn off the head (506)
Then, the recording paper is placed in the output tray (111, 2 in Fig. 1).
11, 311), the paper conveyance system is also turned off (507). On the other hand, if the number of sheets counter is 2 or less, it is checked whether it is 2 or 1 (509), and if it is 2, it is checked whether it is 1 (514 to 517) of the first and second recording sections.
In this case, the recording of only the first recording section (524 to 5
27).

After the paper conveyance system is turned off, if printing is performed using the first, second, and third recording sections, the
In the case of 2, 1 is subtracted from the sheet number counter (508, 509, 510), and it is checked whether the contents of the counter have become zero (510).
If the counter is zero, end recording (511)
However, if it is not zero, the process returns to the loop (503) to check whether the contents of the counter are 3 or more, and repeats the same recording operation until the counter becomes zero.

Through the above control operations, it is possible to obtain the desired number of copies set by the operation panel 19.

In this embodiment, three recording units are provided, so
In the case of two-sheet copying, copies can be obtained at twice the speed of the conventional method, and in the case of three-sheet copying, copies can be obtained at three times the conventional speed.
Of course, even when the desired number of copies is four or more, the recording time is significantly reduced. In this embodiment, there are 3 recording units.
Although the number of units is provided, it is of course possible to have 2 units, 4 units or more.

FIG. 5 shows a second embodiment of the invention.

In FIG. 5, parts having the same functions as those in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numerals. The recording device in Figure 5 also
Control is performed according to the control circuit shown in FIG. 3 and the control flowchart shown in FIG. According to the control flowchart of FIG. 4, the first recording section, the second recording section, and the third recording section are used preferentially in this order. Therefore, in FIG. 1, the recording paper in the first paper feed cassette 115 runs out earlier than the recording paper in the second and third paper feed cassettes 215, 315. The same applies to the ink tanks 113, 213, and 313.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the recording paper storage capacity of the paper feed cassette is increased from the third paper feed cassette 315' to the second paper feed cassette 315'.
paper feed cassette 215', first paper feed cassette 1
The number was increased in order of 15'.

Further, the amount of ink stored in the ink tanks is set to increase in the order of third ink tank 313', second ink tank 213', and first ink tank 113'.

With this configuration, even if only the first recording section of both the cassette and the ink tank is consumed quickly, there is no need to replenish them frequently.

As described above, this embodiment includes a plurality of recording sections that simultaneously record on a recording member, a setting means that sets the number of recording sheets, and a recording section that simultaneously records among the plurality of recording sections according to the set number of recording sheets. Since the apparatus includes recording part selection means for selecting a part, it is possible to obtain a plurality of recorded members recorded in an extremely short time.

Furthermore, if the set number of recording sheets is N and the number of recording units is M (M≧2), then when M>N, priority is given to the recording unit to be used, so the user can select the recording unit to be used. It is very convenient as there is no need to go through the trouble of selecting the section.

Further, this embodiment includes M recording units (M≧2) that simultaneously record on a recording member, and a plurality of paper feed cassettes provided for each of the M recording units and storing the recording member. and a setting means for setting the number of recording sheets N, and when N is smaller than M, the recording section to be used is prioritized, and the storage capacity of the paper feed cassette is adjusted according to the priority of the recording section. This is convenient for the user, since it is not necessary to frequently replenish the recording material in the paper feed cassette corresponding to the recording section with a high priority.

Although an inkjet head has been described as a recording head in the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to inkjet recording, and is also applicable to thermal recording, electrostatic recording, etc.

Furthermore, in the embodiments, the information recorded in the recording apparatus is exemplified by document information read by a solid-state image sensor, but the recorded information may also be character or graphic information produced by a character generator or the like.

As explained above, according to the present invention, an ink tank is provided for supplying ink to a recording head that is driven more frequently among a plurality of recording heads that record images, characters, etc. on recording using supplied ink. The ink storage capacity of the ink tank is larger than that of other ink tanks for supplying ink to other recording heads.
In addition to preventing the device from becoming larger, it also eliminates the need to frequently replenish ink for recording heads that are driven frequently.
It is possible to maintain a sufficient supply of ink to all of the plurality of recording heads at all times, and to prevent ink from deteriorating if the ink for recording heads that are driven infrequently is stored in the ink tank for a long period of time. It is also possible to eliminate the inconvenience caused by

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a recording device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an input device applied to the present invention, FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an electric circuit in the device of FIGS. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the process of recording multiple sheets using the recording apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of the recording apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is CCD, 4 is memory, 12,
13 and 14 are recording heads, 18 is a control circuit, and 19
is the operation panel, 100, 200, 300 is the recording section, 101, 201, 301 is the recording paper, 115,
Reference numerals 215 and 315 indicate paper feed cassettes, respectively.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Image on recording paper using supplied ink,
A plurality of recording heads for recording characters, etc., a plurality of ink tanks storing ink to be supplied to each of the plurality of recording heads, and a plurality of drives for independently driving the plurality of recording heads based on input data. and an ink storage capacity of an ink tank for supplying ink to a recording head that is driven more frequently by the drive means among the plurality of recording heads than other ink tanks. Recording device.