DE69505121T2 - PRINTER FOR PRINTING DESIRED CHARACTERS ON MANUAL INSERTED DOCUMENTS, LIKE TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT DOCUMENTS, INVOICES OR THE LIKE, WITH THE MOVEMENT OF THE DOCUMENTS - Google Patents

Abstract

A printer for typing desired characters (10) on manually entered documents (4), such as travel and transport documents, invoices, etc., while in movement. The printer comprises a printing head (2) which does not move with respect to a printer support (1) and is associated with a decoder (5) for reading the speed of advancement of the document (4) with respect to itself. The printing head (2) is mounted on support (1) against which pressing means (7) act and on which a sensor (3) is mounted to verify the presence, direction of advancement and correct position of the document (4). Electronic control means connected to the decoder (5) and the sensor (3) are provided in order to operate the printing head (2) in correlation to the speed at which the document (4) advances in a slot (6) parallel to at least one line of characters.

Description

Subject of the invention

The invention relates to printers, in particular to a printer for printing desired characters on manually inserted documents such as travel or transport documents, invoices, etc. during movement.

State of the art

There are various types of printers to perform the function of printing desired characters on manually fed documents. There are stamping and cancelling machines which are designed so that the document is inserted into a slot and once it has reached the correct position for printing, it is blocked by a punch to allow a print head to operate. After printing is complete, the punch releases the document so that it can be removed.

The main feature of this type of printer is that the document stops during printing because the print head moves.

The movable design of the print head requires the inclusion of suitable means for moving the head in accordance with the characters which are continuously printed on the document. These means are sufficiently reliable and precise and the various types will not be described in detail as they are well known. In any event, these means add to the complexity of the printers suitable for these tasks.

Another inconvenience of printers of this type is that, while a very short time is sufficient for printing, a much longer time is usually required for inserting and removing the document. In fact, the document is inserted in a direction orthogonal to the line of characters to be printed, so that it is inevitable for the user to push the document through the opening of the slot, insert it all the way, notice that printing has taken place and remove the document. In situations such as validating tickets on a bus or at a train station, queues of people wishing to validate their tickets at the same time often form. The seconds of waiting that elapse between the removal of one ticket and the insertion of the next determine whether a queue forms or not. Despite the fact that the majority of people perform this task every day, queues still form.

In order to avoid the formation of queues as much as possible, in the similar field of magnetic cards, scanners have been developed in which a slot for inserting the card is provided, which runs lengthways to the passage of the person holding the card while walking. The card is inserted through the slot while a magnetic scanner simultaneously reads the data encrypted on the card.

Means for detecting the speed at which the card passes are not necessary, since the scanner is able to read the data as long as the speed at which the card passes is within a certain, sufficiently wide interval.

A printer as described in EP 252 575 A1 is able to print the desired characters on a strip of tickets on both sides. It has fixed print heads and an optical sensor that indicates the speed and position of the individual ticket within the strip. The strip is cut or torn into tickets at a second time after printing. The documents cannot be separated from each other before printing, nor can they be manually inserted individually.

Another printer, described in EP 0 249 212 A2, can be hand-held and print the desired characters on a fixed paper surface. It has a print head integrated into the housing of the printer and an encoder connected to a roller that transmits its position or speed to a control system.

As for the above types of printers, none is known in which the printing of a line of characters takes place on several moving documents that are manually inserted one after the other.

Summary of the invention

The first object of the present invention is therefore to provide a printer for printing desired characters on manually inserted documents held by a user and to be printed on individually during movement.

The second object of the invention is to provide a printer for printing desired characters on manually fed documents which does not require means for moving the print head and which is therefore less complex and expensive than currently existing printers of the same type.

The third object of the present invention is to provide a printer for printing desired characters on manually fed moving documents, which is also capable of significantly reducing the waiting time for users.

These objects are achieved by the printer according to the invention, the novel feature of which is that the print head is connected to a decoder for detecting the speed of passage of the document with respect to the head, the document, when manually passed, being able to move in a direction parallel to at least one line of characters printed by the print head in accordance with the approach speed.

Preferably, the print head does not move relative to a printer frame. The decoder is advantageously a roller connected to an encoder and rolling along the document, and an element for pressing the Document against the decoder and the print head is provided to facilitate rolling along the roll and to accommodate printing.

A slot into which the document is to be inserted is advantageously defined by the pressing element and the frame on which the print head and the decoder are mounted.

According to a particularly preferred embodiment of the invention, the slot runs parallel to the direction of passage of the person carrying the document, so that the person is able to pass the document by partially inserting it into the slot and pushing it through to print while walking, without stopping.

In order to check the presence, correct positioning and direction of passage of the document, sensor means are provided which, together with the decoder, are connected to electronic devices which control the print head, which is designed, for example, as an inkjet, thermal or dot matrix printer head.

Short description of the characters

Further features and advantages of the printer according to the invention will become clear from the following description of a possible embodiment, which is given as an example and in no way restrictive with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings:

Fig. 1 - a schematic longitudinal section of a printer according to the invention;

Fig. 2 - a partially sectioned perspective view of the printer of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 - a plan view of the frame of the printer according to Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 - a view similar to Fig. 3 of a different embodiment of the printer frame shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 5 - a block diagram of the functional relationships of the print head, the sensor means and the decoder with electronic control devices;

Fig. 6 - a flow chart of the programs stored in a microprocessor contained in the electronic control devices and

Fig. 7 - a block diagram similar to that in Fig. 5 for a dot matrix printer head.

Description of the preferred embodiment

As shown in Fig. 1, a printer according to the invention for printing desired characters during movement on manually fed documents comprises a frame 1 for the print head 2, for example an ink jet, thermal or dot matrix print head. Also provided on the frame 1 are a sensor 3 for indicating the presence of a document 4 and a decoder 5 which is suitable for rolling along the document 4 while it passes through a slot 6 formed by the frame 1 and a pressure plate 7 opposite the frame 1. The plate 7 is elastically attached to a fixed support 9 via spring elements 8 which press the plate 7 against the frame 1 with a preset force so that the document 4, when passed through the slot, is in contact with both the decoder 5 and the head 2.

The pressing described above can be carried out by other pressing means instead of via the plate 7, such as dragging rollers, which are also elastically suspended.

A preferred embodiment of the printer according to the invention is shown in Fig. 2. When the document 4 is passed into the slot 6 by the user, who holds the document in his hand while passing it through the slot, the print head 2, although stationary, prints a line of characters 10 on the surface 4a of the document. Printing is carried out in accordance with the speed at which the document 4 is passed in the direction of the arrow F, since the decoder 5 connected to the print head 2 has already determined the speed. The document 4 is passed parallel to the line of characters 10 to be printed.

According to the embodiment shown in Figures 1 and 2, it is possible for the user to carry out the printing of the line 10 in passing in a direction parallel to the direction of printing without stopping, holding the document 4 in his hand and pushing it through the slot 6 in the direction of the arrow F. This solution is particularly advantageous because it also makes it possible to achieve the third object of the invention, namely to significantly reduce the waiting time for printing documents.

The second object of the invention is also achieved since the print head does not move with respect to the frame and the user himself generates the appropriate movement between the document and the print head to enable printing. The absence of means for moving the print head, which are present in all other known printers of this type, allows a considerable simplification of the construction.

A further advantage is the possibility of inserting the document 4 into the slot 6 in one of the two opposite directions by using a single encoder capable of distinguishing the direction of passage of the document.

Although reference has been made to a printer with a slot 6 for introducing the document 4 parallel to the direction of passage of the user, the invention can also be applied to conventional stamping and cancelling machines in which the insertion and removal of the document takes place via the same, single slot (slot). As shown in Fig. 4 with respect to the position described above and shown in Fig. 3, the frame 1 can be equipped with the print head 2 and decoder 5 arranged side by side, with a further sensor 12 being provided in addition to the sensor 3 already provided. In fact, the first sensor 12 activates the print head 2 upon detection of the document 4, while the second sensor 3 indicates the end of the passage of the document.

This solution does not have the advantage of eliminating the insertion and removal time compared to the previous solution; however, it still has the advantage of not having to move the print head 2. driven since the movement relative to the document is brought about by the document itself, enabling coordinated printing by the decoder 5 as illustrated above.

As already described above, sensor means are provided for checking the presence, correct positioning and direction of passage of the document, which, together with the decoder, are connected to electronic control devices of the print head, which is designed, for example, as an inkjet, thermal or dot matrix print head.

As shown in more detail in Fig. 5, the decoder 5 and the sensor 3 are connected to microprocessor control means 13. The control means control the print head 2, which is for example an inkjet or thermal print head, by means of a corresponding driver 14 both on the basis of a signal applied from the sensor 3 via an amplifier 15 and also on the basis of signals from the decoder 5 applied via a decoder 16 of the direction of movement of the document 4. The control means 13 are able to operate on the basis of programs loaded in a memory 17.

These programs work, for example, according to the logic of the flow chart shown in Fig. 6.

As already mentioned, the print head 2 can be an inkjet, thermal or dot matrix print head. In the last of these cases, the head must have sliding means for an ink ribbon, since it does not need to be moved. Therefore, in the case of a dot matrix print head, the block diagram of Fig. 5 can be modified as in Fig. 7 by adding a cassette 18 which is connected to control devices 13 via a well-known driver 19.

While reference has been made up to this point to a printer having a single print head capable of printing only one line of characters, the possibility cannot be excluded that it may be necessary to print more than one parallel line on the same document. This need may be met by the present invention by, for example, using more than one print head in parallel or by a single print head capable of printing more than one parallel line simultaneously.

Claims (10)

1. Printer for printing desired characters (10) on manually inserted documents (4) held by a user and which must be printed individually, with a print head (2) mounted on a frame (1) on which the documents (4) are manually passed, characterized in that the print head (2) is associated with a decoder (5) for the sliding speed of the document with respect to the print head during movement, and that the document (4), when passed manually, advances in a direction (F) parallel to at least one line of characters (10) to be printed on the document (4) correlating to the sliding speed. 2. Printer according to claim 1, characterized in that the print head (2) does not move with respect to the frame (1). 3. Printer according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the decoder is designed as a roller (5) which rolls along the document (4) and is connected to an encoder (16). 4. Printer according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that a pressing element (7) is provided for pressing the document (4) against the decoder (5) and the print head (2) which are integrated in the frame (1), so as to facilitate the functioning of the decoder (5) and enable printing. 5. Printer according to claim 4, characterized in that the pressing element (7) and the frame (1) form a slot (6) for inserting the document (4). 6. Printer according to claim 5, characterized in that the slot (6) is formed parallel to the direction (F) of advance of a person carrying the document (4), so that the person can, without stopping, partially insert it into the slot (6) with a sliding movement to initiate printing. 7. Printer according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that sensor devices (3) are provided for the presence of the document (4) which, together with the decoder, are connected to electronic control means (13) of the print head (2). 8. Printer according to at least one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the print head is a needle print head with an ink ribbon that moves in accordance with it. 9. Printer according to at least one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the print head is an inkjet print head. 10. Printer according to at least one of claims 1 to 7, characterized in that the print head is a thermal print head.