JPH07323610A - Division recording method and apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the lowering of a printing grade, in a recording apparatus providing a recording head capable of recording a plurality of lines at the same time and dividing the recording corresponding to one row into a plurality of blocks to perform recording while performing line feed at a specific pitch, by performing control so that the n-th dots of respective lines are printed by the same block. CONSTITUTION:When a recording head is a head with 120 nozzles, the number of the blocks of the recording head is set to the common measure of 60 and 45 and the n-th dots of respective lines are subjected to drive control by the same block when 1/6 inch line feed or 1/8 inch line feed is performed. For example, respective blocks are provided as 15 being the common measure of 60 and 45 and, 1, 16, 31, 46, 61, 76, 91, 106 dots are driven as the first block at the same time and the blocks are provided up to the 15-th block so that 2, 17,..., 107 dots are driven as the second block and 3, 18,..., 108 are driven as the third block. In the case of 1/6 inch line feed, a first line uses 1-60 dots and a second line uses 61-120 dots.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a serial recording apparatus, for example, a division recording by a serial recording operation of a carriage equipped with a head capable of dividing one row of printing into a plurality of blocks and sequentially recording. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a divided recording method and an apparatus therefor.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a carriage having a recording head for dividing one line of printing into a plurality of blocks and performing printing sequentially is moved by moving across a recording paper (medium) and divided by a serial recording operation. A recording method for performing a recording operation is known.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a conventional divisional drive. In the case of a head having 360 dpi and 64 nozzles, for example, this recording head is divided into one row into four or eight blocks and
It is shown that 6 dots or 8 dots are simultaneously driven.

On the other hand, in order to print two lines at the same time, it is possible to mount a head of 360 dpi, 128 nozzles on the carriage. In this case, one column is 4, 8, 16 blocks. Divided into 32 and 1 respectively
It is possible to drive 6 and 8 dots at the same time.

[0005]

However, as described above, when 8 blocks and 16 dots are simultaneously driven to print two lines and printing is performed with a 1/6 inch line feed, the first line is printed. n dots and n dots in the second row (ie 60
The + nth dot) block does not match. As a result, when the same image information (for example, characters) is recorded, the recording results are slightly different, which is one of the factors that deteriorate the recording (printing) quality.

Further, if it is attempted to forcefully match this (in the case of a head for printing by using heat), the temperature distribution of the head may be uneven and the regularity when printing a bit image may be disturbed. This will result in poor print quality.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and a recording paper (medium) is provided with a carriage equipped with a recording head for dividing one row of printing into a plurality of blocks and performing printing in order. It is an object of the present invention to prevent the deterioration of the quality of the recording result when the divided recording operation is performed while the line feed is performed at a predetermined pitch when the serial recording operation is performed by moving across the line.

[0008]

[Means for Solving the Problems] and

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems and to achieve the object, the present invention comprises a recording head capable of simultaneously recording a plurality of lines, and performs line feed at a predetermined pitch while recording a plurality of lines of a plurality of lines. In the divided recording method in which the dots are divided into blocks and sequentially recorded, each dot is driven and controlled so that the nth dot of each row determined by the predetermined pitch is printed in the same block.

Specifically, by setting the number of blocks of the recording head to be a promise of 60 and 45, a 1/6 inch line feed and 1/8 that are often used in serial printers are commonly used.
When an inch line feed is performed, the nth dot in each line always works in the same block.

(In a 360 dpi head, 1 /
A 6-inch line feed has 60 dots, and a 1 / 8-inch line feed has 45 dots. When this is applied to a head of 300 dpi, a 1/6 inch line feed corresponds to 50 dots. Therefore, if only 1/6 inch line feed is supported, the divisor of 50 should be the number of divided drive blocks. ).

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

<Schematic Description of Apparatus Main Body> FIG. 1 shows an ink jet printer IJRA which is a typical embodiment of the present invention.
3 is an external perspective view showing the outline of the configuration of FIG. In FIG.
The driving force transmission gear 1 is interlocked with the forward and reverse rotations of the drive motor 13.
Spiral groove 4 of lead screw 5 rotating through 1, 9
The carriage HC that engages with has a pin (not shown) and is reciprocated in the directions of arrows a and b. An inkjet cartridge IJC is mounted on the carriage HC. A paper pressing plate 2 presses the paper against the platen 1 in the moving direction of the carriage. Photocouplers 7 and 8 are home position detecting means for confirming the presence of the lever 6 of the carriage in this area and switching the rotation direction of the drive motor 13 or the like. Reference numeral 16 is a member that supports a cap member 22 that caps the front surface of the recording head, and 15 is a suction means that sucks the inside of the cap, and performs suction recovery of the recording head through the opening 23 in the cap. Reference numeral 17 is a cleaning blade, and 19 is a member that allows this blade to move in the front-rear direction, and these are supported by a main body support plate 18. Needless to say, a well-known cleaning blade can be applied to this example instead of this form. Reference numeral 12 is a lever for starting suction for suction recovery, which moves in accordance with the movement of the cam 20 that engages with the carriage, and the driving force from the driving motor is controlled by known transmission means such as clutch switching. To be done.

The capping, cleaning, and suction recovery are configured so that the desired processing can be performed at their corresponding positions by the action of the lead screw 5 when the carriage comes to the area on the home position side. As long as the desired operation is performed at the timing, any of the above can be applied to this example.

<Description of Control Configuration> Next, a control configuration for executing the recording control of the above-mentioned apparatus will be described.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the control circuit of the ink jet printer IJRA. In the figure showing a control circuit, 100 is an interface for inputting a recording signal, 101 is an MPU, 102 is a program ROM for storing a control program executed by the MPU 101, 10
Reference numeral 3 is a dynamic RAM for storing various data (the above-mentioned recording signals and recording data supplied to the head). Reference numeral 104 denotes a gate array that controls the supply of print data to the print head 108.
00, MPU 101, RAM 103 also performs data transfer control. Reference numeral 13 is a drive motor for conveying the recording head 108, and 109 is a conveyance motor for conveying the recording paper, which drives in 1/6 inch line feed and 1/8 inch line feed in the unit of inch. Is. Reference numeral 105 is a head driver for driving the head, and 106 and 107 are motor drivers for driving the carry motor 109 and the carrier motor 13, respectively.

The operation of the above control structure will be described. When a recording signal is input to the interface 100, the gate array 104 is operated.
And the MPU 101 convert the recording signal into recording data for printing. Then, the motor drivers 106, 1
While 07 is driven, the recording head is driven according to the recording data sent to the head driver 105, and printing is performed.

[Embodiment 1] FIG. 3 shows the recording head described above.
Taking the head of 120 nozzles as an example and describing the case of division driving, each block is provided as 15 which is a common divisor of 60 and 45. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, 1, 16, 31, 46, 61, 76, 91, 1
Simultaneously driving 06 dots as the first block, the following 2, 17, ..., 107 are the second block, 3, 18 ,.
108 is the third block, 4, 19, ..., 109 is the fourth block, 5, 20 ,. 110 to the fifth block, 6, 2
1, ..., 111 to the sixth block, 7, 22, ..., 112
, 113 to the 8th block, 9, 24, ..., 114 to the 9th block, 10, 2
5, ..., 115 to the tenth block 11, 26, ..., 1
16 is the 11th block, 12, 27, ..., 117 is the first block
, 118 is the 13th block, and 14, 29, ..., 119 is the 14th block, 15,
.., 120 are set as the 15th block.

In the above configuration, in the case of a 1/6 inch line feed, the first line uses 1 to 60 dots, and the second line uses 61 to 120 dots. As mentioned above,
The 61st dot is the same block as the 1st dot and is driven at the same timing. Further, the 62nd dot is the same block as the 2nd dot, and the following 120th dot has the same relationship.

In the case of a 1/8 inch line feed, 1 to 45 dots are used for the first line and 46 to 9 for the second line.
Use up to 0 dots. In the third line, 30 dots from 91 to 120 dots can be used, but it is possible to print only halfway, and it may or may not be used. In any case, the 46th and 91th dots are the same blocks as the 1st dot and are driven at the same timing. Similarly, the 47th and 92nd dots are the same as the 2nd dot, and the 90th dot is the same as the 45th dot. Driven at the timing.

As described above, by making the number of drive blocks equal to the divisor of the number of dots for one line, the print results of each line when seen in dot units become equal, so macroscopically Beautiful print results.

[Embodiment 2] The divided blocks are 60 and 45.
When the common divisor is 5 (maximum common divisor), there is a method as in the first embodiment or a method in which several consecutive dots are in the same block as in the present embodiment.

Number of divided blocks * number of continuous dots = common divisor (divisor) Taking a head with 120 nozzles as an example, three consecutive dots can be made into the same block. That is, as shown in FIG. 4, 1, 2, 3, 16, 17, 18, 31, 32, 33, 4
6,47,48,61,62,63,76,77,7
8, 91, 92, 93, 106, 107, 108 dots are simultaneously driven as the first block, and the following 4, 5, 6,
..., 109, 110, 111 to the second block, 7, 8,
9, ..., 112, 113, 114 in the third block, 1
0, 11, 12, ..., 115, 116, 117 to the fourth block, 13, 14, 15, ..., 118, 119, 12
0 is the fifth block.

In the case of a 1/6 inch line feed, the first line uses 1 to 60 dots, and the second line uses 61 to 120 dots. As described above, the 61st dot is the same block as the 1st dot and is driven at the same timing. Further, the 62nd dot is the same block as the 2nd dot, and the following 120th dot has the same relationship.

In the case of a 1/8 inch line feed, 1 to 45 dots are used for the first line and 46 to 9 for the second line.
Use up to 0 dots. In the third line, 30 dots from 91 to 120 dots can be used, but it is possible to print only halfway, and it may or may not be used. In any case, the 46th and 91th dots are the same blocks as the 1st dot and are driven at the same timing. Similarly, the 47th and 92nd dots are the same as the 2nd dot, and the 90th dot is the same as the 45th dot. Driven at the timing.

It should be noted that the invention is particularly provided with means for generating thermal energy as energy used for ejecting ink (for example, an electrothermal converter or a laser beam) in the ink jet recording system, and the thermal energy Although the printing apparatus of the type that causes a change in the state of ink has been described above, such a method can achieve high density and high definition of recording.

Regarding its typical structure and principle, see, for example, US Pat. Nos. 4,723,129 and 4740.
What is done using the basic principles disclosed in 796 is preferred. This method can be applied to both the so-called on-demand type and continuous type, but especially in the case of the on-demand type, liquid (ink)
By applying at least one drive signal to the electrothermal transducer arranged corresponding to the sheet or liquid path in which the liquid crystal is held, which corresponds to the recorded information and gives a rapid temperature rise exceeding the film boiling. Since heat energy is generated in the electrothermal converter to cause film boiling on the heat acting surface of the recording head, air bubbles in the liquid (ink) corresponding to this drive signal in a one-to-one correspondence can be formed. It is valid. The liquid (ink) is ejected through the ejection openings by the growth and contraction of the bubbles to form at least one droplet. It is more preferable to make this drive signal in a pulse shape, because bubbles can be grown and contracted immediately and appropriately, and thus a liquid (ink) with excellent responsiveness can be achieved.

As the pulse-shaped drive signal, those described in US Pat. Nos. 4,463,359 and 4,345,262 are suitable. If the conditions described in US Pat. No. 4,313,124 of the invention relating to the rate of temperature rise on the heat acting surface are adopted, more excellent recording can be performed.

As the constitution of the recording head, in addition to the combination constitution of the discharge port, the liquid passage, and the electrothermal converter (the linear liquid passage or the right-angled liquid passage) as disclosed in the above-mentioned respective specifications. The present invention also includes configurations using US Pat. No. 4,558,333 and US Pat. No. 4,459,600, which disclose configurations in which the heat-acting surface is arranged in a bending region. In addition, for multiple electrothermal converters,
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 59-123670, which discloses a structure in which a common slot is used as a discharge portion of an electrothermal converter, and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-63, which discloses a structure in which an opening for absorbing a pressure wave of thermal energy is associated with the discharge portion A configuration based on Japanese Patent No. 138461 may be used.

Further, as a full-line type recording head having a length corresponding to the width of the maximum recording medium that can be recorded by the recording apparatus, the length can be increased by combining a plurality of recording heads as disclosed in the above-mentioned specification. Either of the structure satisfying the requirement or the structure as one recording head integrally formed may be used.

In addition, by being attached to the apparatus main body, it can be electrically connected to the apparatus main body and can be supplied with ink from the apparatus main body by a replaceable chip type recording head or the recording head itself. Alternatively, a cartridge type recording head provided with an ink tank may be used.

Further, it is preferable to add recovery means for the recording head, preliminary auxiliary means, etc., which are provided as a configuration of the recording apparatus of the present invention, because the effect of the present invention can be further stabilized. . Specific examples thereof include capping means, cleaning means, pressurizing or suctioning means for the recording head, preheating means using an electrothermal converter or another heating element or a combination thereof, and recording. It is also effective to perform a stable recording by performing a preliminary discharge mode in which another discharge is performed.

Further, the recording mode of the recording apparatus is not limited to the recording mode only for the mainstream color such as black, but the recording head may be integrally formed or a plurality of combinations may be used. Alternatively, the device may be provided with at least one of full-color mixed colors.

In the embodiments of the present invention described above, the ink is described as a liquid, but an ink that solidifies at room temperature or lower, or one that softens or liquefies at room temperature may be used, or In the inkjet method, it is common to control the temperature of the ink itself within a range of 30 ° C to 70 ° C to control the temperature of the ink so that the viscosity of the ink is within a stable ejection range. It is sufficient that the ink is liquid.

In addition, in order to positively prevent the temperature rise due to thermal energy from being used as the energy for changing the state of the ink from the solid state to the liquid state,
Alternatively, in order to prevent the ink from evaporating, an ink that solidifies in a standing state and liquefies by heating may be used. In any case, by applying heat energy, such as ink that is liquefied by applying heat energy according to the recording signal and liquid ink is ejected, or that begins to solidify when it reaches the recording medium. The present invention can be applied to the case where an ink having a property of being liquefied for the first time is used. In such a case, the ink is retained as a liquid or solid in the recesses or through holes of the porous sheet as described in JP-A-54-56847 or JP-A-60-71260. It may be configured to face the electrothermal converter. In the present invention, the most effective one for each of the above-mentioned inks is to execute the above-mentioned film boiling method.

In addition, as the form of the recording apparatus according to the present invention, in addition to the one provided integrally or separately as an image output terminal of information processing equipment such as a computer, a copying apparatus combined with a reader or the like, and further transmission / reception It may take the form of a facsimile machine having a function.

As described above, by making the number of drive blocks equal to the divisor of the number of dots for one row,
Since the print results of each line are the same when viewed in dot units, the print results are beautiful even when viewed macroscopically.

The present invention may be applied to a system composed of a plurality of devices or an apparatus composed of a single device. Further, it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the case where it is achieved by supplying a program to a system or an apparatus.

[0038]

As described above, according to the present invention,
A carriage equipped with a recording head that divides one line of printing into multiple blocks and prints in sequence
It is possible to prevent the deterioration of the quality of the recording result when the divided recording operation is performed while the line feed is performed at a predetermined pitch when the recording medium is moved across the line and the serial recording operation is performed.

[0039]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration explanatory diagram of a recording apparatus to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a control drive block diagram connected to FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a block dividing method according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a block dividing method according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a conventional block division method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 platen, 13 drive motor, IJRA inkjet printer, HC carriage

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Kazuhiro Nakata 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Inc. (72) Inventor Takashi Kasahara 3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo Canon Within the corporation

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A divided recording method comprising a recording head capable of simultaneously recording a plurality of lines, dividing a recording for one column into a plurality of blocks and performing recording in sequence while line feed at a predetermined pitch. The divided recording method is characterized in that the respective dots are driven and controlled so that the nth dot of each line determined by the predetermined pitch is printed in the same block. 2. A divisional recording apparatus comprising a recording head capable of simultaneously recording a plurality of lines, dividing a recording for one column into a plurality of blocks and performing recording in sequence while line feed at a predetermined pitch. A divided recording apparatus comprising dot drive control means for driving and controlling each dot so that the nth dot of each row determined by the predetermined pitch is printed in the same block. 3. The divided recording apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the recording head is an ink jet recording head that ejects ink to perform recording. 4. The recording head is a recording head for ejecting ink by utilizing thermal energy, and is provided with a thermal energy converter for generating thermal energy applied to the ink. Item 2. The divided recording device according to item 2.