JPH047158A - Ink jet recording device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To permit the amount of the ink remaining in an ink tank to be detected accurately by providing a means for effecting an arithmetic operation of the number of recording dots on the basis of the amount of compressed and coded recording data, a means for computing the amount of the ink discharged on the basis of the number of the recording dots and a means for detecting the amount of the remaining ink based on the amount of the ink discharged. CONSTITUTION:At the time of an enlarging printing output of the compressed data on one page read out by a facsimile communication or image scanner 10, the total number of black dots of the one page are first obtained based on the data amount and the amount of ink discharged is then obtained therefrom, thereby obtaining the amount of the ink remaining in an ink tank 24. At this time, to obtain the number of the black dots from the amount of the compressed data, a reference is made to ROM table 5 is executed. This ROM table 5 receives the amount of compressed data as an addressing input and sends out the estimated value of the number of the corre sponding black dots as a data-directed output. The CPU 3 of a control part 2 computes the amount of the compressed data of the one page stored in a compressed data memory 6, refers to the ROM table 5 for address and obtains the estimated value of the number of the black dots within the one page to be printed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an ink sheet recording device, and more particularly to an ink sheet recording device that detects the amount of remaining ink.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, a so-called bubble jet type ink sheet recording apparatus has been developed which records characters, images, etc. by ejecting ink from an ejection port onto a recording material using bubbles generated by thermal energy. In this recording device, the size of the heating resistor (heater) installed inside each ejection port is much smaller than the piezoelectric element used in conventional inkjet printing devices, making it possible to have multiple ejection ports at a high density. Therefore, it is possible to obtain high-quality recorded images, and has features such as high speed and low noise.

On the other hand, facsimile machines are required not only to simply transmit images at high speed, but also to receive higher quality images at high speed. The above-mentioned bubble jet type inkjet recording apparatus is considered to be one of the recording apparatuses that can meet such demands in view of the above-mentioned characteristics.

Incidentally, in this type of ink sheet recording apparatus, the occurrence of an abnormal state is notified by detecting ink shortage.

Conventionally, ink exhaustion has been detected by visually checking the amount of ink remaining in an ink tank, by checking the printing status of printed ink, or by counting the number of ejections from a recording head.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, since conventional ink level detection is performed visually, it is not suitable for facsimile machines that are intended for unattended operation. Furthermore, in a multi-nozzle head, the number of ink droplets ejected each time is different, so it is not possible to accurately detect the remaining amount of ink.

For example, if the above-mentioned inkjet recording device that detects the amount of remaining ink is applied to the printing section of a facsimile machine, if the ink runs out while outputting a received image, the output image will become blurred and the received data will be lost. . Also,
Despite running out of ink, incoming calls were accepted or ended normally.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an ink sheet recording apparatus that can accurately detect the amount of ink remaining in an ink tank.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to solve the above problems, the inkjet recording apparatus of the present invention includes a recording dot number calculation means that calculates the number of recording dots based on the amount of compressed and encoded recording data, and a recording dot number calculation means that calculates the number of recording dots based on the number of recording dots. The present invention is characterized by comprising an ejected ink amount calculation means for calculating the ejected ink amount, and an ink remaining amount detection means for detecting the ink remaining amount in the ink tank based on the ejected ink amount.

[Effect]

According to the above configuration, the number of recorded dots is calculated based on the amount of compression-encoded data for recording, the amount of ejected ink is calculated based on this number of recorded dots, and the remaining amount of ink is calculated based on this amount of ejected ink. , it is possible to accurately detect the amount of ink remaining in the ink tank.

〔Example〕

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, embodiments in which the inkjet recording apparatus of the present invention is applied to a facsimile machine will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a communication control unit that controls the exchange of data transmitted via a communication line, and 2 is a control unit that controls each part of the device. The control unit 2 includes a CPU 3 that executes various control procedures, a program ROM 4 that stores the control procedures and data, etc., a ROM table 5 whose details will be described later, an expansion circuit 7 that controls communication, and an image expanded by the expansion circuit 7. It is composed of an image data memory 8 that stores data.

Reference numeral 9 denotes an inkjet type recording section that prints out image data serially supplied from the control section 2.

10 is an image scanner that reads a document and outputs it as image data, and 11 is a compression circuit that compresses the image data from the image scanner 10 into compressed data. The compressed data output from the compression circuit 11 is once stored in the compressed data memory, and then sent to the communication line via the communication control section 1. Further, after being expanded into image data by the expansion circuit 11, the recording section 9 can print out the image data.

FIG. 2 is a partial configuration diagram showing details of the recording section 9. As shown in FIG.

In the figure, 21 is a bubble jet type ink jet head (recording head) having a nozzle 22, and 23 is an ink jet cartridge that is integrated with the ink jet head 21 and has a tank 24 for supplying ink and can be installed freely. . This inkjet cartridge 23
The nozzles 22 of the recording head 21 are shaped to protrude slightly from the front side of the ink tank 24, and are fixedly supported by the carriage 25.

Reference numeral 26 denotes a column for sweeping the inkjet cartridge 23 supported by the carriage 25 in the main scanning direction, allowing the recording head 21 to reciprocate over the entire width of the recording paper.

Reference numeral 27 denotes a Herad recovery device, which is disposed at one end of the moving path of the recording head 21, for example, at a position opposite to the home position.

The head recovery device 27 has an ink absorber and a suction pump (not shown), and the head recovery device 27 has an ink absorber and a suction pump (not shown).
It is used for protection of the recording head 21 and ejection recovery processing of the recording head 21. Ejection recovery processing is a process in which ink is ejected from all nozzles by driving a thermal energy generating element, thereby removing causes of ejection failure such as air bubbles, dust, and ink that has thickened and is no longer suitable for recording. Separately, this process removes the causes of ejection failure by forcibly discharging ink from the ejection ports. This ejection recovery process is performed by moving the recording head 21 to a home position outside the recording area.

In this embodiment, when compressed data for one page received by facsimile communication or compressed data for one page read by image scanner 10 is decompressed and printed out, it is based on the data amount of the compressed data. The remaining amount of ink in the ink tank 24 is determined by determining the total number of black dots for one page and determining the amount of ejected ink from this total number of black dots. At this time, the ROM table 5 is referred to in order to obtain the number of black dots from the amount of compressed data.

This ROM table 5 supports MH system, MR system, MMR system.
The data amount of the compressed data compressed by various compression encoding methods such as the following data is input as an address, and the corresponding approximate value of the number of black dots is output as data.

Although the relationship between the amount of compressed data and the number of black dots is not 1:1,
Since there is a positive correlation, it can be determined statistically.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a part of the results obtained experimentally using a test chart to determine the relationship between the amount of compressed data and the number of black dots. Test charts 1.2.3 show that the black dot ratio, which is commonly used in facsimile communication, is 3.6% and 4.6%, respectively.
, 7.8%, and test chart 4 is a photographic original with a black dot ratio of 25%. The compression ratio differs greatly between photo originals and text originals. However, since the amount of compressed data for photo originals is 10 to 30 times larger than that for text originals, it is possible to statistically calculate the number of black dots even for photo originals by determining the type of original from the amount of compressed data. can.

In addition, here, the original is A4 size, and the recording density is 200dp.
i, and the parameter for the MR method was set to 2.

Further, the relationship between the number of black dots and the amount of ejected ink is 1:1, and in this example, 0.2 mg of ejected ink was required for 1000 (K) black dots.

Next, regarding the remaining ink amount detection operation in this embodiment,
This will be explained with reference to the flowchart in FIG.

First, the CPU 3 of the control unit 2 calculates the amount of compressed data for one page stored in the compressed data memory 6 in step S1, and refers to the ROM table 5 using the compressed data amount as an address in step S2. In step S3, an approximate value of the number of black dots in one page 7 to be printed is determined. Step S
4. By calculating the product of the number of black dots and the amount of ink ejected per unit number of black dots, the weight of the ink droplets ejected in printing one page is calculated.

The remaining amount of ink can be detected by comparing the cumulative weight of the ink droplets determined for each vane in step S5 with the weight of the ink filled in the ink tank 24. Here, if it is determined that there is no ink remaining, in step S6, an ink-out alarm is output as a print failure using a buzzer or a display (not shown). Further, in step S7, protocol processing is performed to interrupt reception or reject incoming calls as an alarm process for the facsimile machine on the sending side.

As explained above, according to this embodiment, the remaining amount of ink is detected by determining the number of black dots based on the amount of compressed data and determining the amount of ejected ink from this number of black dots, so various sensors, etc. It becomes possible to accurately detect the remaining amount of ink without using it. Further, since an alarm process is performed on the transmitting side when ink is detected to be out of ink, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of missing data in the received data.

Note that if the program ROM 4 and the ROM table 5 are stored in the same ROM, or if the compressed data memory 6 and the image data memory 8 are stored in the same memory, the board area can be reduced.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the amount of ejected ink is accumulated and the remaining amount of ink is determined by comparing the accumulated amount of ejected ink and the initial amount of ink in the ink tank. The remaining amount of ink may be determined by subtracting the amount of ejected ink.

The amount of ink may also be expressed by volume instead of weight.

Furthermore, compression encoding methods include MH method, MR method, and MMR.
It is not limited to the method.

In addition, in the ink sheet recording device, the ejection recovery process is necessary as described above, and the amount of ink ejected during this ejection recovery process is added to the amount of ink ejected during printing to calculate the remaining amount of ink. Furthermore, the remaining amount of ink can be detected with high accuracy.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an ink sheet recording apparatus that can accurately detect the amount of remaining ink without using a sensor.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the ink sheet recording device of the present invention applied to a facsimile machine, FIG. 2 is a partial configuration diagram showing details of the recording section in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a ROM table. FIG. 4 is a flowchart explaining the operation of the embodiment. 2...Control unit 5...ROM table 6...Compressed data memory 9...Recording unit 21...Recording head 24...Ink tank penalty U layer

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A recording head that performs recording by ejecting ink supplied from an ink tank onto a recording medium, and recording dots recorded by the recording head based on an amount of compression-encoded recording data. a recording dot number calculation means for calculating the number of recording dots; an ejection ink amount calculation means for calculating the amount of ejection ink ejected from the recording head based on the number of recording dots calculated by the recording dot number calculation means; An ink jet recording apparatus comprising: an ink remaining amount detecting means for detecting the remaining amount of ink in the ink tank based on the amount of ejected ink calculated by the ink amount calculating means. (2) The recording head is provided with a plurality of ejection ports for ejecting ink, and is provided for each corresponding ejection port, causing a state change in the ink due to heat, and ejecting the ink from the ejection port based on the state change. Claim (1) characterized in that it comprises a thermal energy generating means for forming flying droplets.
The inkjet recording device described in .