JPS61261078A - Printing-testing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a printing-testing system which makes it possible to check at a glance whether a disabled printing element is present and which of the printing elements is disabled, by alternately printing straight lines which can be obtained by sequentially selectively driving one of printing elements and straight lines which can be obtained by simultaneously driving a plurality of printing elements. CONSTITUTION:Horizontal lines are printed while sequentially shifting the printing element used, for each picture dot or each predetermined number of dots, and vertical lines are printed for each predetermined number of dots, with a double line printed for each 5 vertical lines. After printing a test pattern in this manner, it is found that the 3rd horizontal line 1 from the left is not printed, which shows that the 3rd printing element from the top in the printing head is disenabled. In addition, since the double lines are printed for each 5 vertical lines, they help the operator in counting the number of the printing elements, and when there is a disabled printing element, it is readily determined what-numbered printing element the disabled element is, and printing quality can be inspected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a printing test method for a printing device equipped with a print head configured by arranging a plurality of printing elements that form one dot on recording paper.

[Prior Art] In dot matrix printers such as dot impact printers, thermal printers, ink chefs, and printers that have multiple dot-type printing elements on the print head, it is difficult to print when some printing elements become unable to print. Causes deterioration of dignity.

For example, with inkjet printers, ink may not be ejected due to ink clogging.
In that case, printing will be performed again after the printing function is restored. Therefore, if it is possible to know in advance whether or not all printing elements print normally before printing again, the printer can be used efficiently without wasting printing. Furthermore, if there is a print element that cannot print, it would be convenient for maintenance of the print head if it could be easily known what number the element is.

However, since characters were printed during test printing using conventional printers, there was a drawback in that it was difficult to determine at a glance whether there were any unprinted dots. In recent years, in particular, the number of dots per character has increased with the aim of improving print quality, making it difficult to determine whether there are missing dots using conventional print test methods.

[Objective J] The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks and provides a printing test method that allows you to see at a glance whether or not there is a printing element that cannot print, and if there is a printing element that cannot print, what number of printing element it is. The purpose is to

[Example] Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a normal printing test pattern based on the method of the present invention. The print head (not shown) used in this print test is composed of 16 print elements arranged in the vertical direction (sub-scanning direction), and the print head facing the recording paper is oriented in the horizontal direction (main-scanning direction). Characters, symbols, etc. are printed on the recording paper by moving the recording paper in the vertical direction) and moving the recording paper up and down.

In FIG. 1, a horizontal line 1 is obtained by driving only the uppermost printing element as the print head moves laterally. Also, vertical lines 2 are obtained by driving all 16 printing elements simultaneously. Thereafter, the printing elements used to print horizontal lines are sequentially shifted by one pixel or by a predetermined dot (for example, 18 dots), and the vertical lines are printed by each predetermined dot. Then print every 5 vertical lines as a double line.

Figure 2 shows an example of printing when there is an abnormality on the recording paper as a result of printing the test pattern in Figure 1. Figure 3 shows the area surrounded by the broken line 3 in Figure 2. This is an enlarged view. As shown in FIG. 3, the portion 2 that appears to be a straight line in FIG. 2 is actually composed of dots arranged in a row. In Figure 2, the third horizontal line 1 from the left in the figure is not printed. This indicates that the third printing element from the top of the print head was not printed even though it should be printed. , from which it can be seen that the third printing element is unprintable. Further, since the vertical lines are printed twice every five trees, they serve as a guide when counting defective printing elements, and the corresponding printing elements can be easily and accurately confirmed.

In this way, according to this example, if there is a print element that cannot be printed, it is easy to know what print element it is.

In the embodiments shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, test patterns with 18 printing elements are shown, but the number of elements is not limited to this, and other numbers of dots, such as 2, are shown.
Of course, even in the case of 4 dots, the printing test can be carried out in exactly the same manner. Furthermore, the present invention also provides inkjet x
-/Applicable to wire dot printers, thermal printers, etc. in addition to printers.

[Effect] As explained above, according to the present invention, printing a straight line by driving only one printing element in the print head is sequentially performed for all printing elements, so that printing becomes impossible. This has the effect that it can be easily determined whether or not there is a printing element. In addition, since all the elements in the print head mentioned above are driven intermittently at the same time to print straight lines that divide the above-mentioned straight lines, it is easy to see which printing element is unable to print. Effects can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a normal printing test pattern based on the method of the present invention, and Fig. 2 shows an abnormal pattern obtained on recording paper when printing using the printing test pattern of Fig. 1. FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of the portion indicated by numeral 3 in FIG. 2. 1...Horizontal line. 2... Vertical line, 3... Enlarged range. Figure 1 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a printing test method for a printing device equipped with a print head configured by arranging a plurality of printing elements that form one dot on recording paper, only one printing element among the printing elements is sequentially selected. printing by alternately and sequentially printing a straight line obtained by moving the print head or the recording paper a certain length while driving the printing element, and a straight line obtained by simultaneously driving a plurality of the printing elements. A printing test method characterized by inspecting quality.