CN203004525U

CN203004525U - Print cartridge control unit, circuit board, print cartridge and imaging device

Info

Publication number: CN203004525U
Application number: CN 201220736126
Authority: CN
Inventors: 钦雷
Original assignee: Zhuhai Ninestar Management Co Ltd
Current assignee: Zhuhai Ninestar Management Co Ltd
Priority date: 2012-12-27
Filing date: 2012-12-27
Publication date: 2013-06-19
Anticipated expiration: 2022-12-27

Abstract

The utility model provides a print cartridge control unit, a circuit board, a print cartridge and an imaging device. The print cartridge control unit comprises an instruction storage module, an instruction identification module, a light control module, and a statistic module. The instruction storage module can be used to store light control instructions, which are sent to at least two print cartridges by an image device main body, and can be used to store instruction identification information sequentially generated by the light control instructions. The instruction identification module can be used to determine whether the light control information of a received first illuminating control instruction is identical to the light control information of a first illuminating control instruction according to the storage sequence stored in the instruction storage module. The light control module can be used to control the illuminating or the blacking out of the illuminating unit according to the light control information included by the illuminating control instruction, and at the same time, can be used to determine that the instruction identification information achieved by the statistic module is identical to the instruction identification information of the light control instruction. The statistic module can be used for the statistic analysis of the instruction identification information. The utility model is advantageous in that the false alarm rate of the print cartridge position detection can be reduced.

Description

Ink cartridge control unit, circuit board, ink cartridge, and image forming apparatus

Technical Field

The utility model relates to an inkjet technique especially relates to an ink horn the control unit, circuit board, ink horn and imaging device.

Background

The imaging device is a common tool in work and life of people at present, such as a printer, a copy, a fax machine and the like. An image forming apparatus generally includes two parts, i.e., an image forming apparatus main body and an ink cartridge; the ink cartridge is a consumable item, and is therefore usually detachably mounted in the image forming apparatus main body to be easily replaced. Also, in order to make the image forming apparatus usable for a long time or to meet the needs of different ink cartridge colors, a plurality of ink cartridges may be provided in one image forming apparatus. Correspondingly, in order to ensure that the mounting position of each ink box in the main body of the imaging device is correct, an ink box position detection technology is provided; for example, the position detection of the ink cartridge in the prior art is usually implemented by controlling the light emission of the light source on the ink cartridge in a light emission control manner, specifically: the ink box is provided with a light source, and the imaging device body is internally provided with a light receiver; when the position of a certain ink box is detected, the position of the ink box to be detected is opposite to the light receiver, then the light source of the ink box is controlled to emit light, and the light receiver receives the light and records the light emission quantity; the ink cartridge adjacent to the ink cartridge to be inspected is then controlled to emit light, and the light receiver receives the light and records the amount of emitted light. If the light emission quantity of the ink box to be detected at the opposite position is larger than the preset threshold value and the light emission quantity of the ink box to be detected is larger than the light emission quantity of the adjacent ink box, the imaging device main body can determine that the installation position of the ink box to be detected is correct according to the light emission quantity.

In the above-mentioned light-emitting control executed by detecting the positions of the ink cartridges, a control manner of "bus control and ID matching" is often adopted, that is, a plurality of ink cartridges in the main body of the image forming apparatus are connected in a collinear manner, the plurality of ink cartridges are connected to the same bus, a control instruction sent by the printer for controlling the light emission of the light source of the ink cartridge is transmitted on the bus and can be received by all the ink cartridges connected to the bus, and the control instruction carries the identification information of the ink cartridge to be controlled; however, only the ink cartridge to be detected, which has the same stored ink cartridge identification information as the ink cartridge identification information carried in the control instruction, controls the light source to emit light or extinguish according to the control instruction, and other ink cartridges cannot control the light source to emit light according to the control instruction because the stored ink cartridge identification information is different from the ink cartridge identification information carried in the control instruction.

However, when the printer drives the light emitting unit on the ink cartridge to emit light, a large voltage is consumed, and interfering circuit noise is generated on a bus for signal transmission, for example, when the light emitting unit on the black ink cartridge is driven to emit light, interference exists on a transmission line from the printer to the black ink cartridge; such interference affects reception of other signals, because the ink cartridges are connected in a common line as described above and the interference exists on the bus, other signals such as a signal for controlling the yellow ink cartridge to emit or extinguish light are also transmitted from the bus, and the interference affects the other signals, and there is a possibility that the yellow ink cartridge cannot receive the signals, and thus the yellow ink cartridge cannot correctly receive and execute a control command, cannot correctly emit or extinguish light, and causes a false alarm of ink cartridge position detection.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The utility model provides an ink horn control unit, circuit board, ink horn and imaging device to reduce the misstatement rate in the ink horn position testing process.

A first aspect of the present invention is to provide an ink cartridge control unit, the ink cartridge control unit is disposed on an ink cartridge detachably mounted on an image forming apparatus main body, and the image forming apparatus main body is provided with a light receiver, the ink cartridge further includes an interface unit for receiving a signal sent from the image forming apparatus main body, and a storage unit for storing identification information of the ink cartridge, the ink cartridge control unit is connected to a light emitting unit which emits light toward the light receiver, for controlling the light emission or extinction of the light emitting unit, and the image forming apparatus main body is provided with at least two ink cartridges; the ink cartridge control unit includes:

the instruction storage module is used for storing light-emitting control instructions sent by the imaging equipment main body to at least two ink boxes, the light-emitting control instructions are arranged according to a sequence sent by the imaging equipment main body, the light-emitting control instructions comprise light control information and ink box identification information, and the instruction storage module is also used for storing instruction identification information corresponding to the light-emitting control instructions according to the sequence;

an instruction identification module, connected to the instruction storage module and the interface unit on the ink cartridge, respectively, for receiving the light emission control instruction from the image forming apparatus main body from the interface unit, and determining whether the received first light emission control instruction is the same as the first light emission control instruction stored in the instruction storage module and arranged in the order;

the counting module is used for counting the instruction identification information and sending the instruction identification information to the light line control module;

the light control module is respectively connected with the instruction identification module, the instruction storage module and the counting module and is used for indicating the counting module to start counting when the judgment results of the instruction identification module are the same; and when it is determined that the instruction identification information obtained by statistics of the statistics module is the same as the instruction identification information corresponding to the light-emitting control instruction stored in the instruction storage module and it is determined that the light-emitting control instruction needs to be executed, controlling the light-emitting unit to emit light or extinguish according to the light control information included in the light-emitting control instruction.

Optionally, the instruction identification information of the light-emitting control instruction stored in the instruction storage module is a time interval value between the light-emitting control instructions sent by the imaging device main body to the at least two ink cartridges;

the statistical module is specifically configured to perform timing to obtain the time interval value.

Optionally, the time interval value is a time interval value between every two of the light-emitting control instructions;

or, the time interval between any one of the other light-emitting control instructions arranged in the sequence and the first light-emitting control instruction is the time interval starting from the first light-emitting control instruction stored in the instruction storage module.

Optionally, the instruction identification information of the light-emitting control instructions stored in the instruction storage module is an accumulated number corresponding to the occurrence of each of the light-emitting control instructions sent by the imaging device main body to the at least two ink cartridges;

the counting module is specifically configured to count to obtain the accumulated number.

Optionally, the accumulated number is an accumulated number corresponding to each light-emitting control instruction arranged according to the sequence, starting from the first light-emitting control instruction stored in the instruction storage module; or, each light-emitting control instruction is a corresponding accumulated number when arranged according to the appearance sequence in a certain type of control instruction.

Optionally, the light control module determines that the lighting control command needs to be executed, specifically, the light control module is configured to determine that the lighting control command needs to be executed when the ink cartridge identification information included in the lighting control command stored in the command storage module is the same as the ink cartridge identification information stored in the storage unit.

Optionally, the instruction storage module further stores an execution identifier, where the execution identifier is used to indicate whether the lighting control instruction needs to be executed;

the light control module determines that the light-emitting control instruction needs to be executed, and is specifically configured to determine that the light-emitting control instruction needs to be executed according to the execution identifier.

Another aspect of the present invention is to provide an ink cartridge light-emitting control circuit board, including: receive imaging device main part signals's interface unit, storage unit of storage ink horn identification information and ink horn control unit.

Optionally, the method further includes: and the light-emitting unit is connected with the ink box control unit and is used for emitting light towards the light receiver on the imaging device main body according to the control of the ink box control unit.

Still another aspect of the present invention is to provide an ink cartridge, including the ink cartridge lighting control circuit board of the present invention.

Another aspect of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus, including an image forming apparatus main body and at least two ink cartridges, the ink cartridges being adapted to the present invention.

The utility model provides an ink horn control unit, circuit board, ink horn and imaging device's technological effect is: the light-emitting control instructions and the corresponding instruction identification information sent by the imaging equipment main body to at least two ink boxes are stored in the ink box control unit, so that the ink box control unit can obtain the corresponding light-emitting control instructions by counting the instruction identification information after receiving the first matched light-emitting control instruction sent by the imaging equipment main body, the light-emitting control of a light source is automatically carried out according to the light-emitting control instructions, the problem that the instructions cannot be correctly received due to the influence of circuit noise is avoided, and the false alarm rate in the ink box position detection process is reduced.

Drawings

FIG. 1a is a schematic structural diagram of an ink cartridge suitable for use in an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 1b is a schematic view of the cartridge shown in FIG. 1a mounted in the main body of the image forming apparatus;

FIG. 1c is an enlarged view of a portion of FIG. 1 b;

FIG. 2a is a first schematic diagram of a chip on the ink cartridge of FIG. 1 a;

FIG. 2b is a second schematic diagram of the chip on the ink cartridge of FIG. 1 a;

FIG. 3a is a schematic diagram illustrating a first principle of detecting the position of an ink cartridge according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3b is a schematic diagram of a second principle of detecting the position of the ink cartridge according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of an embodiment of the ink cartridge control unit of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of an embodiment of the ink cartridge control unit of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a flow chart illustrating the operation principle of another embodiment of the ink cartridge control unit according to the present invention.

Detailed Description

In order to make the technical solution of the embodiments of the present invention clearer and easier to understand, a typical ink cartridge and a connection structure thereof with an image forming apparatus main body are first described; it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the embodiments of the present invention are applicable to this ink cartridge, but are not limited to the ink cartridge structure described below. In addition, a method of detecting the position of a commonly used ink cartridge will be briefly described.

Fig. 1a is a schematic structural diagram of an ink cartridge to which an embodiment of the present invention is applied, and fig. 1b is a schematic structural diagram of the ink cartridge shown in fig. 1a installed in an image forming apparatus main body, and an image forming apparatus composed of the ink cartridge and the image forming apparatus main body is described by taking an ink jet printer as an example. Fig. 1c is an enlarged view of a portion of the structure of fig. 1 b.

As shown in fig. 1a, the ink cartridge 10 includes a case body and a case cover made of plastic, which are integrally connected by thermal welding or friction welding, and a chamber is formed inside. The chamber of the ink cartridge 10 is divided into a negative pressure chamber 103 and an ink chamber 105 by a partition 106, and the chambers are communicated with each other through a communication hole 107 below the partition 106. The ink chamber 105 contains ink to be supplied to the printer, and the negative pressure chamber 103 contains a negative pressure generating member such as a porous body, preferably a sponge body 104, for controlling the negative pressure inside the ink cartridge 10. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the negative pressure generating component may be other valve bodies for controlling ink flow or air flow, and may be selected according to the specific use characteristics of the ink cartridge; the internal chamber of the ink cartridge may be provided according to specific needs, and is not limited to the above-described partition structure.

As shown in fig. 1b, the ink cartridge 10 is detachably mounted to the ink jet printer 20, which is provided with a support member 108 rotatable about a fulcrum of the rear side wall, the support member 108 being made of a resin material integrally molded with the casing of the ink cartridge 10. Also, a first engaging portion 109 and a second engaging portion 108a, which are engageable with locking structures 202a, 202b on the ink jet printer 20 to securely mount the ink cartridge 10 on the ink jet printer 20, are formed on the front side wall and the rear side wall of the ink cartridge 10, respectively, and the second engaging portion 108a is integrally formed with the support member 108.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 1a, the bottom surface of the ink cartridge 10 is provided with an ink outlet 101 for supplying ink to the printer, as shown in FIG. 1b, which is connected to the print head 205 of the ink jet printer 20 when the ink cartridge 10 is mounted on the ink jet printer 20; and an air intake hole 102 for communicating the inside of the ink cartridge 10 with the outside atmosphere is further provided above the negative pressure chamber 103 of the ink cartridge 10. In addition, as shown in the figure, the bottom of the ink chamber 105 is further provided with a prism 110 for detecting the ink remaining amount of the ink cartridge 10, which is a common technique in the art and will not be described herein.

The ink-jet printer comprises the following components besides the plurality of ink cartridges: the ink jet printer 20 accommodating the ink cartridge 10 is provided with a carriage which moves back and forth in a paper recording direction, a cartridge mounting portion 202 which is fixed to the carriage and accommodates a plurality of the ink cartridges 10, a plurality of device electrical contacts 203 which correspond to the plurality of the ink cartridges 20, a light receiver 204 which can receive light, a circuit (not shown) which is connected to the plurality of device electrical contacts 203 via one line, and a control circuit (not shown) which determines whether or not the ink cartridge 10 is mounted at a correct position based on a reception result of the light receiver 204. Obviously, the plurality of device electrical contacts 203 are connected in a common line by a line, and when a plurality of ink cartridges 10 are mounted on the ink jet printer 20, the plurality of ink cartridges 10 are in a bus connection state.

In addition, as shown in fig. 1a and 2b, a chip 30 is disposed at a corner where the bottom wall and the rear side wall of the ink cartridge 10 meet. Fig. 2a and 2b are schematic views of the structure of the chip on the ink cartridge of fig. 1a, the chip 30 including thereon: a circuit board 301 for carrying various components described below: a cartridge-side electrical contact 302, a light-emitting unit 303, a storage unit, and a cartridge control unit 304, wherein the cartridge control unit 304 may be a controller, and the storage unit may be integrated in the controller or provided separately.

A plurality of cartridge side electrical contacts 302 are formed on the circuit board 301, and are capable of being connected to the corresponding device electrical contacts 203 to establish electrical connection between the ink jet printer 20 and the ink cartridge 10 for information exchange, that is, the cartridge side electrical contacts 302 correspond to interface units for receiving signals from the printer, and specifically, the plurality of cartridge side electrical contacts 302 include a power supply contact for applying a voltage applied from the printer side to the chip 30, a data contact for data input/output with the ink jet printer 20, and the like. A light emitting unit 303, as shown in fig. 1c, which emits light toward the light receiver 204, preferably, in the following embodiments, it is an LED lamp; further, the light emitting unit 303 may not be provided on the circuit board 301 as long as it can represent the position of the ink cartridge and receive the light emission control of the cartridge control unit 304. The memory unit is provided on the above-mentioned circuit board 301, and stores various information related to the ink cartridge 10, such as the amount of ink, the type of ink cartridge, the color of ink, the date of manufacture of the ink cartridge, and the like, including cartridge identification information, which may be selected as various memories such as an EEPROM, a RAM, and the like, as needed. The cartridge control unit 304 is a controller in the present embodiment, and is mainly used to control the light emitting unit 303 according to the light emitting control command of the printer inputted through the plurality of cartridge-side electrical contacts 302, as shown in fig. 2 b.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the light emitting unit may be configured as an incandescent lamp or other light emitting device; the LED lamp can emit light with different wavelengths according to different design requirements, such as visible light or invisible light, and in this embodiment, in order to provide a certain prompt function for a user, the LED lamp preferably emits visible light.

In addition, the ink cartridge 10 is further pasted with a label (not shown in the figure) which is provided with an identification of the type and color of the ink cartridge, and the accommodating cavity of each ink cartridge on the ink cartridge mounting part 202 of the ink jet printer 20 is pasted with a corresponding color label, so that a user only needs to compare the color identification of the ink cartridge label with the color label of the ink cartridge mounting part 202 of the ink jet printer 20 when mounting, and then the proper ink cartridge can be mounted in the right position.

Taking the inkjet printer of the embodiment of the present invention as an example, the following typical ink cartridge position detection scheme is described:

in order to ensure normal printing in an ink jet printer and prevent printing deviation from occurring due to the ink cartridge being mounted in the wrong position, it is generally necessary to detect whether the ink cartridge is correctly mounted in the proper position in the ink jet printer after the ink cartridge is loaded into the printer. Fig. 3a and 3b are schematic diagrams illustrating the principle of detecting the position of the ink cartridge, where the ink cartridge is provided with four ink cartridges, as shown in fig. 3a, and the ink cartridges are marked with color marks for clarity, such as black ink cartridge BK, yellow ink cartridge Y, indigo ink cartridge C, and magenta ink cartridge M. Each ink cartridge is mounted at a corresponding cartridge mounting position, and its respective correct position is shown in fig. 3a as position a, position B, position C and position D. The ink-jet printer is provided with a light receiver, the position of the light receiver is fixed, and the position of the ink box is moved by moving the carriage, so that the relative position between the light-emitting unit on the ink box and the light receiver on the printer is changed.

The position detection mainly comprises two parts, namely the opposite position detection of the current ink box to be detected and the adjacent light detection of the adjacent ink box, and each ink box in the imaging equipment needs to be used as the ink box to be detected one by one for detection. The opposite position detection refers to a process that the printer drives a light emitting unit of the ink box to be detected opposite to the position of the light receiver to emit light and detects whether the light quantity received by the light receiver is larger than a preset value, and the adjacent light detection refers to a process that the ink box to be detected is maintained at a position opposite to the light receiver, the printer drives the light emitting unit of any ink box adjacent to the ink box to be detected to emit light and detects whether the light quantity received by the light receiver at the moment is smaller than the light quantity received by the light receiver during the opposite position detection. As shown in fig. 3a, for the ink cartridge Y to be detected, the ink cartridge Y is moved to be located at the opposite position to the light receiver, the light emitting unit of the ink cartridge Y to be detected is controlled to emit light, the light receiver receives light to obtain a first light quantity S1, whether the first light quantity is greater than a preset threshold value is determined, if yes, the opposite position of the ink cartridge to be detected is detected correctly, and otherwise, the opposite position of the ink cartridge to be detected is detected incorrectly. As shown in fig. 3b, the position of the ink cartridge Y to be inspected is kept unchanged, the light emitting units of the adjacent ink cartridges BK of the ink cartridge Y to be inspected are controlled to emit light, the light receiver receives the light, the second light quantity S2 is obtained, whether the first light quantity is larger than the second light quantity is judged, and if yes, the adjacent light of the ink cartridge Y to be inspected is correctly detected. Only by the above two detections can the cartridge be considered correctly positioned. In the above description, the ink cartridge to be tested should be understood as an ink cartridge that is to be subjected to the dead-end position detection, and the adjacent ink cartridge should be understood as any ink cartridge adjacent to the ink cartridge to be tested.

Example one

This embodiment provides an ink cartridge control unit, fig. 4 is the structural schematic diagram of the embodiment of the ink cartridge control unit of the present invention, as shown in fig. 4, this ink cartridge control unit may include: an instruction storage module 41, an instruction identification module 42, a light control module 43 and a statistic module 44; wherein,

an instruction storage module 41, configured to store light-emitting control instructions that are sent by the imaging device main body to at least two ink cartridges, and the light-emitting control instructions are arranged according to a sequence sent by the imaging device main body, where the light-emitting control instructions include light control information and ink cartridge identification information, and the instruction storage module 41 further stores instruction identification information corresponding to the light-emitting control instructions according to the sequence;

the light emission control commands sent by the image forming apparatus main body to at least two of the cartridges means that, for example, at least two cartridges provided in the image forming apparatus main body include a BK cartridge, a Y cartridge, a C cartridge, and an M cartridge, and the light emission control commands sent to these cartridges may be as shown in table 1:

TABLE 1 light emission control commands and detection types arranged according to the emission sequence number

The above table 1 is a schematic diagram showing the sequence of the respective light emission control instructions issued by the image forming apparatus main body when the respective ink cartridges perform the dead-end position detection and the adjacent light detection, and the type of detection performed by the detection signal. The detection type N indicates adjacent light detection, P indicates facing position detection, and N + P indicates that adjacent light detection and facing position combination are included, such as at the C cartridge (since the adjacent light detection of the C cartridge as the BK cartridge is two consecutive stages with its own facing position detection, the two stages are combined here and sent to only one light-on command and one light-off command). The light emission control instructions are arranged in the order of emission from the image forming apparatus main body, that is, in the emission order number as shown in table 1 above.

Moreover, the instruction storage module 41 of this embodiment further stores instruction identification information corresponding to the light-emitting control instruction according to the sequence; see table 2 below:

table 2 instruction identification information of light emission control instructions arranged according to issue sequence numbers

As shown in table 2, the command identification information will be described by taking only a part of the light emission control commands as an example. The instruction identification information may be understood as identifying the instruction, and the corresponding light emission control instruction is obtained as long as the instruction identification information is obtained.

For example, the command identification information may be a time interval value between two commands, BK ON and BK OFF corresponding to sequence numbers 1 and 2, respectively corresponding to the time interval values of 0ms and 800ms, which means that if BK ON is taken as a timing start point, a time corresponding to BK ON is 0ms, which corresponds to the timing start point, and BK OFF is performed after 800ms, and as long as a time point corresponding to BK ON interval of 800ms is obtained, BK OFF is performed at the time point, which corresponds to the time point corresponding to BK ON, and thus command identification information corresponding to 800ms is BK OFF, and 800ms is BK OFF. Similarly, if BK OFF is used as the time counting start point, the time point corresponding to the BK OFF interval of 90.2ms is C ON, and the time position corresponding to 90.2ms using BK OFF as the time counting start point is C ON, and 90.2ms is command identification information of C ON. Optionally, the time interval value may also be a time interval between any one of the first light-emitting control commands and the first light-emitting control command, which are arranged according to the sequence number, as a starting point; for example, the time interval value between C ON and BK ON is: 800+90.2=890.2ms, that is, if BK ON is used as the timing starting point, 890.2ms corresponds to the time point C ON, and 890.2ms is the command identification information of C ON. As can be seen from the above, in this manner, the time interval value is used as the instruction identification information, and the specific value of the instruction identification information is related to the timing start point.

For another example, the command identification information may also be an accumulated number corresponding to the occurrence of each light-emitting control command according to the sequence number, for example, according to the emission sequence number, C ON is arranged at the 3 rd bit, so that the corresponding accumulated number is 3; m ON ranks at bit 7, so its corresponding cumulative number is 7. Optionally, the accumulated number may also be an accumulated number corresponding to each light-emitting control instruction arranged according to an appearance order in a certain type of control instruction. The certain type of control instruction refers to an ON control instruction or an OFF control instruction; for example, if C ON ranks at the 2 nd bit in the ON control command, the corresponding cumulative number is 2; m OFF ranks in the 4 th bit in the OFF control command, and the corresponding cumulative number is 4.

The light emission control instruction stored in the instruction storage module 41 of the present embodiment includes light control information and ink cartridge identification information; the ink cartridge control unit may determine whether the lighting control command needs to be executed according to the ink cartridge identification information, for example, according to the ink cartridge identification information, when the ink cartridge identification information in the lighting control command stored in the command storage module 41 is the same as the ink cartridge identification information of the ink cartridge itself, it is determined that the lighting control command needs to be executed. In addition, the instruction storage module 41 may further store an execution identifier, which is preset indication information used for indicating whether the lighting control instruction needs to be executed, for example, bits 0 and 1 are used for indicating that execution is not needed, and 1 indicates that execution is needed. Table 3 below shows a composition structure of the light emission control command, which is also a composition of a general light emission control command:

TABLE 3 composition of lighting control commands

Referring to table 3, the light emission control command issued by the inkjet printer is mainly composed of two parts: ink cartridge identification information and light control information. The ink cartridge identification information is a code used by the printer to distinguish different ink cartridges, and in this embodiment, "ink cartridge color information" is used as the ink cartridge identification information, however, other information may be selected as the ink cartridge identification information as long as the function of distinguishing the ink cartridges is achieved; the light control information is a code for controlling the ON/OFF of the light emitting unit, i.e., a lighting/OFF (ON/OFF) operation. As shown in table 3, 100 indicates ON operation, i.e., driving the light emitting unit to emit light, and 000 indicates OFF operation, i.e., extinguishing the light emitting unit, and they may be indicated by other codes as long as they can distinguish the two operations. Alternatively, the light control information is also used as a basis for distinguishing whether the light emission control command is a light turning-on command or a light turning-off command. The codes of each ink box identification information and each light control information are combined pairwise to form a light-emitting control instruction for emitting light/extinguishing light of the light-emitting units of the ink boxes with different colors. Light emission of the light emitting unit driving the BK cartridge is denoted by 000100; 100000 indicates a light emitting unit for turning off the ink cartridge C.

An instruction recognition module 42, connected to the instruction storage module and the interface unit on the ink cartridge, respectively, for receiving the light emission control instruction from the image forming apparatus main body from the interface unit, and determining whether the received first light emission control instruction is the same as the first light emission control instruction stored in the instruction storage module and arranged in the order;

after receiving a first light-emitting control command from the main body of the image forming apparatus, an interface unit on the ink cartridge, such as the cartridge-side electrical contact 302 shown in fig. 2a, transmits the command to the command recognition module 42 of the ink cartridge control unit in this embodiment. The command recognition module 42 determines whether the light control information and the ink cartridge identification information in the first light-emitting control command are the same as the light control information and the ink cartridge identification information in the first light-emitting control command stored in the command storage module in the order. For example, assume that the received first light emission control instruction is BK ON; referring to table 1, the first light emission control command stored in the command storage block 41 is also BK ON, and the determination result is the same. That is, the command recognition module 42 actually determines whether both the light emission control commands are the same. If so, the light control module 43 is instructed to perform the processing, otherwise neither the instruction nor any processing is performed.

A light control module 43, respectively connected to the instruction identification module, the instruction storage module and the statistics module, for instructing the statistics module to start statistics when the judgment results of the instruction identification module are the same; when the instruction identification information obtained by statistics of the statistical module is determined and the light-emitting control instruction needs to be executed, controlling the light-emitting unit to emit light or extinguish according to the light control information included in the light-emitting control instruction;

and the counting module 44 is used for counting the instruction identification information and sending the instruction identification information to the light line control module.

The statistics of the instruction identification information by the statistics module 44 is to count the time interval value for timing statistics or count the accumulated number for statistics. For example, the statistical module 44 obtains a time point spaced by 800ms from the first executed lighting control command (for example, BK ON) through timing, and the obtained command identification information is 800ms, see table 1, where 800ms is a time interval value between BK ON and BK OFF, so that the lighting control command corresponding to the command identification information 800ms is actually BKOFF. When the counting module 44 sends the counted command identification information 800ms to the light control module 43, the light control module 43 can obtain that the light emission control command corresponding to the command identification information is BK OFF.

The light control module 43 further determines whether the command needs to be executed according to the ink cartridge identification information in the light-emitting control command or the execution identifier stored in the command storage module, that is, whether the light-emitting unit needs to be controlled to emit light or be turned off according to the light control information in the command; the execution identifier may be represented by a preset indication information.

For example, if it is determined whether the command is executed or not based on the cartridge identification information, the composition of the light emission control command is as shown in table 3, which includes light control information and cartridge identification information. After obtaining the corresponding light-emitting control command according to the command identification information, the light control module 43 may further compare whether the cartridge identification information in the light-emitting control command is the cartridge identification information of the cartridge in which the cartridge control unit is located, specifically, the light control module may compare the cartridge identification information with the cartridge identification information stored in the storage unit of the cartridge in which the cartridge control unit is located, and if the comparison result is that the two are the same, it indicates that the command needs to be executed, and then the light control module controls the light-emitting unit according to the light-emitting control information in the command.

For example, if it is determined whether the command is executed according to the execution identifier, the light control module 43 further determines whether to execute the lighting control command according to preset indication information, such as 0 or 1, after obtaining the corresponding lighting control command according to the command identification information.

It can be known from the above description that as long as the ink cartridge control unit receives the first instruction which is the same as the stored instruction, it can start to count the instruction identification information by itself, and automatically identify the corresponding light-emitting control instruction according to the instruction identification information obtained by the counting, and can also judge whether the instruction needs to be executed, thereby implementing the automatic identification and execution judgment process of the light-emitting control instruction, no longer depending on the instruction sent by the imaging device main body, even if the ink cartridge cannot correctly receive the instruction due to the influence of circuit noise, the ink cartridge control unit on the ink cartridge can also automatically implement the correct execution of the instruction according to the above method, thereby ensuring the normal light emission of the ink cartridge light-emitting unit, and further reducing the false alarm rate of the ink cartridge position detection.

It should be noted that, in the implementation, the structure of the ink cartridge control unit can be flexibly changed, for example, the information stored by the instruction storage module and the processing of other modules may be different; several alternative approaches are described as follows:

in an alternative mode, a plurality of ink cartridges are arranged in the image forming apparatus main body, the ink cartridge control unit is arranged on each ink cartridge, and the light emitting control commands sent by the image forming apparatus main body to at least two ink cartridges, which are stored in each ink cartridge, may be different. For example, the instructions stored on the BK cartridge can be all of the instructions shown in Table 1; the commands stored in the C ink cartridge may be all commands starting from command C ON corresponding to the issue sequence number 3 in table 1, i.e., commands from sequence number 3 to sequence number 14, except that the sequence number 3 is modified to sequence number 1 because the command C ON is already arranged first ON the C ink cartridge.

Accordingly, in this manner, when it is determined whether the received first light emission control command is the same as the first light emission control command arranged in the order, it is actually to find a command corresponding to the above-mentioned sequence number 1, and start counting from the command. For example, if the instruction corresponding to the sequence number 1 of the BK cartridge is BK ON, it is necessary to determine whether the received light control information included in the instruction is BK ON or not, and whether the cartridge identification information included in the instruction is BK or not, when the instruction from the image forming apparatus main body is received, and the both are identical, it is determined that BK ON is received, and this received instruction may be referred to as a first light emission control instruction. Similarly, if the command corresponding to the sequence number 1 of the C ink cartridge is C ON, it is determined that the stored first light emission control command is received when the light control information included in the command sent by the image forming apparatus main body is ON and the cartridge identification information is C. And the first lighting control command must be executed.

Also, in the above manner, it can be seen that the first instruction stored in the instruction storage module needs to include the light control information and the cartridge identification information, so as to determine whether the instruction is received. Other instructions corresponding to the sequence number may be executed in the manner described above, and may be identified by the ink cartridge identification information, or by the preset indication information, and so on.

Alternatively, the stored light emission control instructions may be the same for the cartridge control units in the plurality of cartridges provided in the image forming apparatus main body. For example, all the instructions shown in table 1 are stored, in this case, in this way, it is necessary to compare the light control information and the cartridge identification information when it is judged whether the received first light emission control instruction is the same as the first light emission control instruction arranged in the stated order, and the cartridge control unit on each cartridge starts to start statistics, such as counting the time interval value or counting the cumulative number, when it is determined that the received first instruction is the same as the stored first instruction.

When each ink box control unit obtains a corresponding instruction according to the time interval value or the accumulated quantity recorded and counted by each ink box control unit, judging whether the instruction needs to be executed according to the ink box identification information or the execution identification; for example, the ink cartridge control unit compares the ink cartridge identification information corresponding to the instruction, and indicates that the instruction needs to be executed if the ink cartridge identification information is the same as the ink cartridge identification information stored in the storage unit of the ink cartridge. Or the execution identifier is determined by presetting the instruction information, i.e. the execution identifier, for example, the execution identifier may be an accumulated number corresponding to the instruction, and whether the instruction is executed or not is determined by the accumulated number obtained by statistics, for example, for the C cartridge, if the first instruction received by the C cartridge is BK ON, the instruction whose accumulated number obtained by statistics is 3 needs to be executed (i.e. C ON), and the instruction whose accumulated number is 13 does not need to be executed (i.e. M ON).

Still alternatively, the cartridge control unit of the plurality of cartridges provided in the image forming apparatus main body may store the light emission control instruction to be the same. For example, all of the instructions shown in Table 1 are stored; however, the same command has different sequence numbers in different cartridge control units, for example, in the cartridge control unit of the BK cartridge, the sequence number corresponding to the BK ON command is 1, the sequence number corresponding to the C ON command is 3, and the BK cartridge needs to start the start-up statistics when receiving the BK ON command; in the cartridge control unit of the C cartridge, the BK ON command, which is stored but does not set the sequence number, indicates that no processing is performed or performed even if received, and the command is ignored, the sequence number corresponding to C ON is 1, and the C cartridge starts to start counting when it receives C ON, similarly to the first manner described above.

The processing principle of the ink cartridge control unit according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below by way of several specific examples.

Example two

In the present embodiment, the statistical instruction identification information is exemplified as a time interval value between light emission control instructions to be issued by the image forming apparatus main body to at least two ink cartridges; also, the operation principle of the cartridge control unit is described from the system perspective of at least two cartridges in the entire image forming apparatus main body.

In the ink cartridge control unit of the present embodiment, the light emission control commands stored in the ink cartridge control units in the respective ink cartridges are the same and are all the commands shown in table 1; and the present embodiment is a configuration in which it is determined whether or not the instruction is executed based on the cartridge identification information, that is, the light emission control instruction stored in the instruction storage block of the cartridge control unit is as shown in table 3. Fig. 5 is a flowchart illustrating the operation principle of an embodiment of the ink cartridge control unit of the present invention, as shown in fig. 5, including:

501. the cartridge control unit receives a light emission control instruction from the image forming apparatus main body;

since each ink box is in a bus connection mode, the main body of the imaging device sends a light-emitting control instruction to one ink box, and each ink box can actually receive the light-emitting control instruction. The light emission control instruction issued by the image forming apparatus main body is in the form shown in table 3.

The ink cartridge control unit is connected with an interface unit on the ink cartridge, and can receive a light-emitting control instruction from the image forming apparatus main body from the interface unit and transmit the instruction to an instruction recognition module.

502. The ink box control unit judges whether the received first light-emitting control instruction is the same as the first light-emitting control instruction which is stored in the instruction storage module and arranged in sequence;

after receiving the light-emitting control instruction, the instruction identification module in the ink cartridge control unit judges whether the light-emitting control instruction is the same as the stored first light-emitting control instruction, namely BK ON, and judges whether the light-emitting control instruction is an ON instruction. The instruction identification module of each ink cartridge can identify that the instruction is a light-ON instruction, namely an ON instruction, and is the same as the stored first light-emitting control instruction, namely the two instructions are judged to be the same, then the execution continues to 503; otherwise, it is not processed.

503. The ink box control unit starts to count and time to obtain a time interval value;

when the judgment results of the instruction identification modules in the ink box control units are the same, the light ray control module of the ink box control unit receives an instruction that the judgment results of the instruction identification modules are the same, and then instructs a statistic module in the ink box control unit to start timing; and each ink box starts a counting module to time.

The statistical module is used for counting the time interval value between every two light-emitting control instructions in the light-emitting control instructions, for example, after BK ON is identified, the time interval value is taken as a starting point, and when the time is counted to 800ms, the time interval value is correspondingly BK OFF. In a specific implementation, the instruction identification information counted by the counting module, i.e. the instruction identification information of 800ms, is sent to the light control module in the ink cartridge control unit.

504. And when the ink box control unit determines that the instruction identification information counted by the counting module is the same as the instruction identification information stored by the instruction storage module and determines that the instruction needs to be executed, the ink box control unit controls the light-emitting unit to emit light or extinguish according to the light control information included by the light-emitting control instruction.

After the instruction identification information obtained by statistics of the statistics module, namely 800ms is sent to the light control module, the light control module compares the instruction identification information corresponding to the instruction stored in the instruction storage module with the instruction identification information obtained by statistics of the statistics module, and the instruction identification information is the same with the instruction corresponding to the instruction stored in the instruction storage module. For example, if the time interval between BK ON and BK OFF is 800ms, the command identification information corresponding to BK OFF is 800ms, and the command identification information corresponding to BK ON is 0ms (i.e., the start of time counting). The light control module turns OFF the command with the same command identification information.

The light control module also judges whether the instruction is executed according to the execution identification of the instruction, and the embodiment judges whether the instruction is executed according to the ink box identification information; for example, when the BK cartridge is judged, if the cartridge identification information in the command BK OFF is BK, that is, the cartridge identification information stored in the memory unit of the BK cartridge itself, it is determined that the execution is required. The light control module of the BK cartridge directly controls the light-emitting unit to be turned OFF according to BK OFF, whether the BK OFF instruction is sent out by the imaging device main body side at the moment or not, or whether the BK OFF instruction sent out by the imaging device main body is received by the cartridge control module is completely determined according to the information counted by the counting module and the execution identification, and therefore dependence on the received instruction is eliminated.

When the BK cartridge receives BK ON, if the cartridge identification information in the received command is the same as the cartridge identification information in the memory unit of the cartridge, the BK cartridge directly controls the light-emitting unit of the BK cartridge to emit light.

It should be noted that, when the statistics module counts to obtain 800ms, the statistics module of each ink cartridge is cleared or reset, and then re-times, because the time interval value counted by the statistics module between every two light-emitting control instructions in the light-emitting control instructions is taken as an example in this embodiment.

Further, the time interval value may be a time interval between any one of the other light emission control commands arranged in the order and the first light emission control command, starting from the first light emission control command stored in the command storage module. For example, if BK ON is used as the starting point for continuous timing, the time interval between the command C ON and BK ON corresponding to sequence number 3 is 890.2ms, and at this time, the statistical module does not need to be cleared or reset, and when the timing reaches 800ms, the timing continues until 890.2ms, so that the corresponding C ON is obtained.

EXAMPLE III

In this embodiment, the counted instruction identification information is an example of the cumulative number corresponding to each of the light emission control instructions sent by the image forming apparatus main body to at least two ink cartridges when the light emission control instruction occurs; also, the operation principle of the cartridge control unit is described from the system perspective of at least two cartridges in the entire image forming apparatus main body.

In the ink cartridge control unit of the present embodiment, the light emission control commands stored in the ink cartridge control units in the respective ink cartridges are the same and are all the commands shown in table 1; and the present embodiment is such that the ink cartridge identification information is used as a criterion for judging whether the instruction is executed, that is, the light emission control instruction stored in the instruction storage module of the ink cartridge control unit is configured as shown in table 3. Fig. 6 is a flow chart of the operation principle of another embodiment of the ink cartridge control unit of the present invention, and the same steps as those in fig. 5 are not detailed again, including:

601. the cartridge control unit receives a light emission control instruction from the image forming apparatus main body;

602. The ink box control unit judges whether the received first light-emitting control instruction is the same as the first light-emitting control instruction which is stored in the instruction storage module and arranged in sequence;

603. the ink box control unit starts counting to obtain the accumulated number;

when the judgment results of the instruction identification modules in the ink box control units are the same, the light ray control module of the ink box control unit receives an instruction that the judgment results of the instruction identification modules are the same, and then instructs a counting module in the ink box control unit to start counting; and each ink box starts the counting module to count.

The counting module counts the corresponding accumulated number of each light-emitting control instruction arranged according to the sequence by taking the first light-emitting control instruction stored by the instruction storage module as a starting point. For example, BK ON corresponds to a 1 accumulation quantity, BK OFF corresponds to a 2 accumulation quantity, C ON corresponds to a 3 accumulation quantity, and so ON. In a specific implementation, the instruction identification information counted by the counting module, i.e., the accumulated number, is sent to the light control module in the ink cartridge control unit.

604. And when the ink box control unit determines that the instruction identification information counted by the counting module is the same as the instruction identification information stored by the instruction storage module and determines that the instruction needs to be executed, the ink box control unit controls the light-emitting unit to emit light or extinguish according to the light control information included by the light-emitting control instruction.

After the instruction identification information obtained by statistics of the statistics module, namely the accumulated quantity is sent to the light control module, the light control module compares the accumulated quantity with the instruction identification information corresponding to the instruction stored in the instruction storage module, and the instruction identification information is the same. For example, the accumulated number corresponding to BK OFF is 2, and the light control module obtains the corresponding command OFF according to the statistical number transmitted by the statistical module.

The light ray control module also judges whether the instruction is executed according to the ink box identification information of the instruction; for example, when the BK cartridge is judged, if the cartridge identification information in the command BK OFF is BK, that is, the cartridge identification information stored in the memory unit of the BK cartridge itself, it is determined that the execution is required. The light control module of the BK cartridge directly controls the light-emitting unit to be turned OFF according to BK OFF, whether the BK OFF instruction is sent out by the imaging device main body side at the moment or not, or whether the BK OFF instruction sent out by the imaging device main body is received by the cartridge control module is completely determined according to the information counted by the counting module and the execution identification, and therefore dependence on the received instruction is eliminated.

Further, the accumulated number may be an accumulated number corresponding to each light-emitting control command arranged in the appearance order in the control command of the certain type. For example, if C ON is 2 in the ON type and BK ON precedes C ON, the cartridge control unit can determine that it has received the first ON command.

Optionally, in the above embodiments, the ink cartridge identification information in the light-emitting control instruction is taken as an example, and each ink cartridge judges whether to execute the instruction according to the ink cartridge identification information of the instruction; in a specific implementation, the execution identifier may also be preset indication information for indicating whether the lighting control instruction needs to be executed, in which case, the stored lighting control instruction also includes ink cartridge identification information and light control information, and only whether the instruction is executed is determined according to the execution identifier, rather than according to the ink cartridge identification information. For example, in order to ensure that the amount of light emitted by the light-emitting unit of the ink cartridge is sufficient when performing position detection, the ink cartridge may perform light emission control only according to the light control information in the light emission control command. In addition, when the mode is adopted to control the opening or closing of the light reflecting unit, the storage module stores the preset indication information and is used for indicating whether each light emitting control instruction is executed or not. For example, the BK ON and BK OFF commands appearing second in Table 1 need not be executed because in this case, the adjacent light sensing stages cannot pass the sensing of the adjacent light stages if the light emitting units of the plurality of cartridges emit light simultaneously. For this reason, the pre-stored light emission control commands are divided according to the opposite position detection and adjacent light detection stages, and different preset indication information is set to be selectively executed.

It should be noted that, in the ink cartridge control unit according to the embodiment of the present invention, the division of each module is not limited to the instruction storage module, the statistic module, etc. described in the above embodiment, and other module division modes may be adopted; the processing performed by each module is not limited to the processing described in the above embodiment, and for example, the processing of determining whether or not the instruction identification information obtained by the statistics is the same as the instruction identification information corresponding to the light emission control instruction stored in the instruction storage module may be executed by a statistics module. No matter how the module is divided, the processing of doing is executed by which module, as long as the processing of the ink box control unit of the embodiment of the utility model is executed, all belong to the protection scope of the utility model.

Example four

The embodiment provides an ink box luminescence control circuit board, comprising: receive imaging device main part signals's interface unit, storage cartridge identification information's memory cell and the utility model discloses arbitrary embodiment ink horn control unit. The structure of the ink cartridge control unit is referred to the above embodiments and will not be described in detail.

Optionally, the cartridge lighting control circuit board may include: and the light-emitting unit is connected with the ink box control unit and is used for emitting light towards the light receiver on the imaging device main body according to the control of the ink box control unit.

EXAMPLE five

This embodiment provides an ink horn, include the utility model discloses arbitrary embodiment the luminous control circuit board of ink horn.

The embodiment of the utility model provides an imaging device is still provided, including imaging device main part and two at least ink horn, wherein the ink horn adopts the utility model discloses arbitrary embodiment the ink horn.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that: all or a portion of the steps of implementing the above-described method embodiments may be performed by hardware associated with program instructions. The program may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. When executed, the program performs steps comprising the method embodiments described above; and the aforementioned storage medium includes: various media that can store program codes, such as ROM, RAM, magnetic or optical disks.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that "a plurality of ink cartridges are simultaneously lighted or extinguished" may be implemented by storing the cartridge identification information of a plurality of ink cartridges in the storage unit of each ink cartridge, as described above, because the plurality of ink boxes are connected by buses (in a collinear way), after the ink-jet printer sends out a lighting control command, after receiving the light-emitting control instruction, the control unit of each ink box acquires the ink box identification information and the light control information of the light-emitting control instruction, and comparing the ink cartridge identification information of the light emission control command with a plurality of ink cartridge identification information stored in the storage unit in advance, if the plurality of ink cartridge identification information stored in advance includes the ink cartridge identification information in the light emission control command, the control unit of each ink cartridge controls each light emitting unit to emit light or to be turned off according to the light control information.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that when the "execution flag" is used to determine whether the light-emitting control command is executed, the control of the light-emitting unit of each ink cartridge may also be turned on/off according to the ink cartridge identification information, specifically, if the ink cartridge identification information in the light-emitting control command sent by the image forming apparatus main body is consistent with the ink cartridge identification information pre-stored in the ink cartridge, the light-emitting unit may be controlled to emit light or be turned off according to the light control information in the light-emitting control command at this time; if the two are not consistent, the light-emitting control instruction is not required to be executed.

Finally, it should be noted that: the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention, and not to limit the same; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some or all of the technical features may be equivalently replaced; such modifications and substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. An ink box control unit used for controlling the light emission of an ink box is arranged on the ink box which is detachably arranged on an imaging device main body, the imaging device main body is provided with a light receiver, the ink box also comprises an interface unit used for receiving a signal sent by the imaging device main body and a storage unit used for storing the identification information of the ink box, the ink box control unit is connected with a light-emitting unit which emits light towards the light receiver and is used for controlling the light emission or the light extinction of the light-emitting unit, and the imaging device main body is provided with at least two ink boxes; characterized in that the ink cartridge control unit comprises:

2. The cartridge control unit according to claim 1, wherein the instruction storage module stores instruction identification information of the light emission control instructions as a time interval value between the light emission control instructions to be issued to at least two cartridges by the image forming apparatus main body;

3. The cartridge control unit according to claim 2, wherein the time interval value is a time interval value between two of the light emission control commands;

4. The cartridge control unit according to claim 1, wherein the instruction identification information of the light emission control instructions stored in the instruction storage module is a cumulative number of light emission control instructions each of which is issued by the image forming apparatus main body to at least two cartridges, at the time of occurrence;

5. The cartridge control unit according to claim 4, wherein the cumulative number is a cumulative number corresponding to each of the light emission control commands arranged in the order from the first light emission control command stored in the command storage block when the first light emission control command appears;

or, each light-emitting control instruction is a corresponding accumulated number when arranged according to the appearance sequence in a certain type of control instruction.

6. The cartridge control unit according to any one of claims 1 to 5,

the light control module determines that the light-emitting control command needs to be executed, and specifically, the light control module is configured to determine that the light-emitting control command needs to be executed when the ink cartridge identification information included in the light-emitting control command stored in the command storage module is the same as the ink cartridge identification information stored in the storage unit.

7. The ink cartridge control unit according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the instruction storage module further stores an execution flag indicating whether or not the light emission control instruction needs to be executed;

8. An ink cartridge luminescence control circuit board, comprising: an interface unit for receiving a signal from an image forming apparatus main body, a storage unit for storing cartridge identification information, and a cartridge control unit according to any one of claims 1 to 7.

9. The cartridge lighting control circuit board of claim 8, further comprising: and the light-emitting unit is connected with the ink box control unit and is used for emitting light towards the light receiver on the imaging device main body according to the control of the ink box control unit.

10. An ink cartridge characterized by comprising the ink cartridge lighting control circuit board according to claim 8 or 9.

11. An image forming apparatus comprising an image forming apparatus main body and at least two cartridges, characterized in that the cartridge according to claim 10 is adopted as the cartridge.