JPH063642U - Thermal printer - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Purpose] In a thermal printer, when recording is temporarily stopped and restarted during recording at a constant recording cycle, the same recording quality as when recording at a constant recording cycle is provided. A thermal head drive circuit 6 is controlled by a drive timing generation circuit 5 to control recording energy of a main scanning line immediately before recording is stopped, and a motor drive circuit 7 is controlled to convey a recording sheet on a sub scanning line. On the other hand, carry one line or less. The same control as before the stop is also performed on the main scanning line at the time of restarting the recording, and the line at which the recording is stopped is divided into two, that is, immediately before the stop and when the recording is restarted.

Description

[Detailed description of the device]

[0001]

[Industrial applications]

 The present invention relates to a thermal printer as a character and image output device such as a personal computer.

[0002]

[Prior art]

 Conventionally, this type of printer temporarily prints because one line of print data is not available by the next print cycle due to problems such as the data transfer speed of the personal computer during printing at a fixed print cycle. Had to stop.

At this time, in the recording line immediately before the stop and the recording line after the recording is restarted, the recording dot shape is different from the other lines due to the influence of the stop time. It was degrading quality.

[0004]

[Problems to be solved by the device]

 For this reason, some printers remove the white streaks at the stop position by adding the applied energy corresponding to the stop time to the first recording cycle at the time of restarting the recording as shown in FIG. . However, even with this method, it was not possible to completely remove white streaks.

[0005]

[Means for Solving the Problems]

 In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a thermal head having a plurality of heating resistance elements arranged in the main scanning direction, an energy supply means for selectively supplying energy to the heating resistance elements of this thermal head, and this thermal head or thermal head Drive means for moving the recording paper to be printed in the sub-scanning direction by one step in N steps (N is an integer of 1 or more), and the line printing is performed by the drive means while moving in the sub-scanning direction. In a thermal printer to perform, when printing is stopped at the Mth step (M is an integer of N or less) in one line printing, the amount of energy supplied to the heating resistor element of the energy supply means is controlled to stop the printing. When the printing is started after releasing the mode, the amount of the supplied energy is controlled, and the sub-scanning direction is performed in NM steps. Providing a thermal printer, characterized in that with a control means for controlling the driving means so as to move the thermal head or the recording paper.

[0006]

[Action]

 For the recording of one line in the main scanning direction immediately before the stop, the energy applied to the thermal head is controlled, and for the movement of one line in the sub-scanning direction, the step drive of the movement amount less than that is controlled and the recording is performed again. When resuming the operation, the energy applied to the thermal head is controlled, and the step drive control is performed temporarily for the drive in the sub-scanning direction by subtracting the amount of movement immediately before stop from the amount of movement of one line. The line that stops recording is divided into two parts, one before recording and one when recording is restarted.

[0007]

【Example】

 FIG. 1 shows a configuration example of the present proposal. In this embodiment, 4 is used as N and 2 is used as M. The image data transferred from the personal computer 2 is stored in the line memory 3. The CPU 4 reads the data from the line memory 3 and instructs the drive timing generation circuit 5 to start recording. The drive timing generation circuit 5 generates a recording cycle, a paper feed clock signal and a thermal head drive signal. The thermal head 8 is driven by the thermal head drive signal and the image data input to the thermal head drive circuit 6. The paper feed clock signal input to the motor drive circuit 7 drives the paper feed motor 9 to move the recording paper in the sub-scanning direction.

FIG. 2 shows a paper feed clock signal waveform and a thermal head drive waveform according to the embodiment of the present invention. While recording is temporarily stopped during recording at a constant recording cycle, the energy to be applied to the thermal head is controlled for recording 1 line (L-th line) in the main scanning direction immediately before stop, and the sub scanning direction is also controlled. For 1 line (4 clocks) of the above, step control of 2 clocks is controlled, and when resuming recording, the energy applied to the thermal head is controlled, and 1 line for sub-scanning direction drive. By controlling the step drive of 2 clocks, which is obtained by subtracting the movement amount immediately before the stop from the movement amount of, the line for which recording is temporarily stopped is divided and recorded twice just before the stop and when the recording is restarted.

[0009]

[Effect of device]

 According to this recording method, when recording is stopped during a certain recording cycle, by placing the stop position between the lines in the main scanning direction, the recording line immediately before the stop and the recording line at the stop position are changed as before. White lines are not generated between recording lines after resuming and printing quality is not deteriorated.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a drive timing waveform diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a conventional drive timing waveform diagram.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Thermal Printer 5 Drive Timing Generation Circuit 6 Thermal Head Drive Circuit 7 Motor Drive Circuit

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A thermal head in which a plurality of heating resistance elements are arranged in the main scanning direction, an energy supply means for selectively supplying energy to the heating resistance elements of the thermal head, and an image is printed by the thermal head or the thermal head. In a thermal printer that includes a driving unit that moves the recording sheet in the sub-scanning direction by N steps (N is an integer of 1 or more) by one line, and that performs line printing while moving in the sub-scanning direction by the driving unit. When the printing is stopped at the M-th step (M is an integer equal to or less than N) in the one-line printing, the amount of energy supplied to the heating resistance element of the energy supply means is controlled and the stop is released. When the printing is started, the supplied energy amount is controlled and the thermal head is moved in the sub-scanning direction by NM steps. Thermal printer characterized by comprising a control means for controlling the driving means so as to move the recording paper.