JPH1165394A - Resource constitution for electronic image processor and adaptability deciding method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To constitute document supply and/or finishing accessories in order satisfying a requirement with respect to perfect automated work and to fit a finishing device and/or a paper supply device to an application in optional order decided by a proper worker. SOLUTION: An electronic image processor is provided with a central processor having a memory and control logic and the plural mutually connected accessory devices. The respective accessory devices are mutually connected in order of a processing linkage and provided with a control element having memories 22A and 22B storing related actuation data. The actions of the image processor and the accessory devices are integrated by establishing communication between the control elements of the accessory devices and deciding a turn related on the order of the processing linkage of the accessory devices. In addition to it, they are integrated by calling the control elements of the accessory devices with respect to the actuation data and responding to the actuation data of the control element and the turn related on the order of the processing linkage. Thus, the accessory devices are functionally constituted so as to be actuated adaptatively with the image processor.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system architecture, and more particularly, to a system architecture for mounting and controlling a plurality of sheet feeding and finishing apparatuses in a copying apparatus.

[0002]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In early copy machines, copies were supplied to trays, where workers took those copies and performed the finishing work manually. These manual tasks ranged from simple page-checking and stapling to more elaborate tasks such as folding and inserting into postal envelopes. In later products, finishing functions were added to the printing machine (print eng) to reduce these manual finishing operations by the operator.
ine) It was built into the engine. Finishing functions included missing pages and stapling, and more recent products also included bookbinding. A paper feeder was also created around the same time. The operator first places the document to be copied on the plate, closes the cover and presses the print start button. Nowadays, automatic document feeders and recirculating document handlers are commonplace.

[0003]

There has been an evolution to incorporate additional paper feeding and finishing functions into the printing machine.
However, the features provided were often unnecessary for many customers. For example, in a central copying environment, there is a great deal of effort in finishing printed documents. To date, many of these have been in the form of off-line finishing equipment. Typically, customers make copies on a printing machine, stack them on a skid, and then transport them to an off-line finishing unit or a series of off-line finishing units to complete the final product. There have also been environments with other specific finishing devices, such as centralized printers attached to networks used by many people. In one scenario, everyone sends their output to a printer. After a person walks up to the printer and sorts the prints placed in the output tray, they need to place them in bins sorted alphabetically. This is a manual operation, and is a common source of mistakes made by people who put prints in the wrong bin.

One solution to the above problem has been to incorporate feeding and finishing functions into the printing machine. This was well accepted in the early days when missing pages and stapling were a major part of the feeding and finishing operations. However, customers needed more sophisticated feeding and finishing functions. Following the development of the feeding and finishing functions for a single product becomes more and more inefficient.
This is a very time-consuming task, requires enormous resources, and is a duplicate task. For example, there have been many products that have been proposed to provide a stapling option. Many of these products have different stapling features. It is desirable to avoid a large overlap of the required labor.

[0005] Another issue is that there are many third-party merchants with significant experience in paper feeding and finishing techniques. Current off-line feeding and finishing functions provided by third-party sellers waste resources due to duplication. Therefore, it is desirable to develop standards for attaching paper feeding and finishing equipment to a printing machine. This criterion is used for both internal use to develop new products and external use by third party vendors to provide a wide range of feeding and finishing capabilities to customers. A system architecture that installs and controls multiple feeding and finishing devices,
No. 08 / 280,978, filed Jul. 17, 1994, which is incorporated by reference. This application is assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. But,
It would be desirable to be able to functionally determine the relative position of the interconnected feeding and finishing devices.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to enable the document feeding and / or finishing accessories to be arranged in an order that meets the demands for a fully automated operation, and to provide any operator-defined, appropriate to the application. In order to be able to attach finishing and / or paper feeding devices in sequence. Yet another object of the present invention is to enable a functional processing unit or node identification address to be connected to a feeding and finishing device to determine the relative position of each of the devices with respect to the printing machine. It is in.

[0007]

Other advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description, and features of the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed hereto.

More particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic image processing device having a central processing unit with memory and control logic, and a plurality of interconnected accessories. Each of the attachments has a control element interconnected in the order of the processing chain and having a memory for storing associated operating data. The operation of the image processing device and the accessory device are integrated by establishing communication with the control elements of the accessory device and determining an order with respect to the order of the processing chain of the accessory device. In addition, the operation is integrated by interrogating the control element of the accessory device with respect to the operation data and responding to the operation data of the control element and the order of the processing chain, so that the operation is performed in conformity with the image processing apparatus. The attachment is functionally configured.

[0009]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS For a better understanding of the present invention, reference may be had to the accompanying drawings, in which like parts are numbered the same.

Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, there is shown a standard interface provided by a printer for connecting a feeding and / or finishing device.
In particular, a marking device or printing machine 10 having a user interface with a screen 11 is interconnected with document feeders 12 and 14 and document finishing devices 16, 18 and 20. As is well known, paper feeders are used to supply image data, such as automatic document handlers and recirculating document handlers, to a printing machine 10 having stock to complete the operation of the printing process and the machine. Can be a printable media source. The paper feeding device includes a device for electrically supplying image data, such as a network interface for a printer. The finishing device can be any suitable device, such as a sorter, compiler, document binding machine, folder, or trimmer. FIG. 1 is merely one embodiment and is intended to provide a functional overview of the device rather than an actual physical arrangement. Feeders, such as paper trays, increase the level of selection of printable stock for a printer. This makes it possible to provide front and rear cover stock and separator stock with tabs of various colors and transparent cover sheets. Alternatively, the present invention can be applied to check prints in which various scenes are printed in advance, each of which is supplied in the order of collation and constitutes a check book provided with a cover sheet and a rare cover sheet.

The feed / finishing device is physically attached to the printing machine such that paper can be fed into the printing machine and a sheet or set of papers can be transported from the printing machine to multiple devices. obtain. These devices can be attached to each other so that paper or a set of papers can be transported from one device to another. It should be understood that the mechanical specifications, such as how these devices are connected to a printing machine or other device, are not part of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows the electrical interconnection between the printing machine and a series of devices. It should be noted that there can be multiple feeders and multiple finishing devices.
In particular, the printed wiring board assembly (PWB
A) 26 is connected to the PWBA 24 of the sheet feeding device 14 which is connected to the PWBA 22 of the printing machine 10 in order. The PWBA 22 is also known as a system bus controller (SBC) and is connected to the screen 11. In a similar manner, the PWBA 22 is connected to a PWBA 28 of the finishing device 16 which is connected to a PWBA 30 of the finishing device 18, wherein the PWBA 30 is
It is connected to the PWBA 32 of the finishing device 20 in order.

The interconnection of the electrical equipment shown in FIG.
, Includes a serial communication interface link, referred to as a system net 34, and a command control bus, referred to as a command control bus 36. System net 34
Has the ability to communicate between a system bus controller SBC located on the printing machine and a printed wiring board (PWBA) located on the feed and finisher. The system net is a high speed communication network operating at 10 MHz and, in one embodiment, has the ability to handle from 1 to 32 independent feed and / or finishing devices. In the command control bus 36, SBC and PW
It supplies a discrete signal used to exchange signals with the BA. One of these signals is used to enable autoconfiguration as described below.

Each finishing device or sheet feeding device has information for controlling its own operation. The information also includes timing and functional specifications specific to a particular device. By decoupling device control from the printing machine, it becomes possible to integrate almost all other devices into the printing machine without rewriting the control software of the printing machine. The device's PWBA provides two functions. One function is to provide an interface to the integrated system via the system net, and the other is local control of the device. The device PWBA has all the necessary software to integrate the document feeding or finishing device into a series of feeding and finishing devices controlled by the printing machine. The communication part of the PWBA software of the device is common to all PWBAs of each device. In addition, the distribution board has software that is specified to control a particular sheet feeder or finishing device.

In particular, in FIG.
Is a memory 22A for storing data relating to the operation and timing of the associated sheet feeding device or finishing device, and a logic circuit 22B for interrogating the PWBA of each device in order to obtain the operation and timing data of the PWBA of the device. Software may be included). In addition, the logic circuit 22B responds to the operation and timing data of the PWBA of each device, and
Are functionally configured and operated according to the PWBA operation and timing data of each device. In addition, (PWBA2
As shown in FIG. 3, the PWBA of each device (such as the PWBA 4 and the PWBA 28) is a memory 2 for storing data relating to the operation and timing of the associated paper feeder 24 and the associated finishing device 28
4A and 28A and logic 24B and 28B that responds to the SCB's interrogation from the PWBA 22 to obtain the operation and timing data of the associated devices, such as the feeder 24 and the finishing device 28.

After interrogating the PWBA of each device in the manner described above, logic 22B determines the suitability of the interconnected devices and establishes a timing relationship that is compatible with the overall operation of printing machine 10. This includes timing adjustments to change the pitch or cycle of the connected device. For example, logic circuits 24B and 28B may use new timing information from SCB PWBA 22 to skip pitch and change timing to maintain timing compatible with printing machine 10 and timing compatible with each other. Fit. The screen 11 interconnected with the SCB PWBA 22 may have any suitable format,
Activate the printer operation by code or message,
In addition, the timing and timing relationship of each device for diagnosis are displayed.

A change in printer pitch or print cycle is necessary to give the printer the ability to limit print speed so as not to over-activate the finishing equipment and to operate the paper feeder out of range. It is. The maximum speed of the system is determined by the slowest device.
Since the speed of the printing machine is not really variable, the pitch is skipped as necessary to match the speed of all feed / finishing equipment to match the print speed. Skipping the printing machine pitch needs to be predetermined to ensure that copies are produced in the correct order. From paper feed / finishing device to SB
C's functional feedback to PWBA 22 is needed to correctly set up the printing machine.

In one embodiment, command control bus 36 comprises six wires, three signal wires, and three corresponding return wires in a twisted pair configuration. One of the three signal line pairs is an automatic configuration signal. Automatic configuration means that the printing machine determines the capabilities of the device and its placement within a processing chain in which the device can be inserted into a document feeding or finishing process and without operator intervention as described below. Means you can. The device treats the input of the automatic configuration signal as an input to the device. This signal is used to transmit control information to the device. Each device is required to reserve a signal of a predetermined level for use by the next device in the processing chain for the output of the automatic configuration signal from the device.

The second signal line pair in the command control bus 36 is a synchronization signal. This signal is used to synchronize all devices with the printer. Preferably, the signal is based on a page sync or pitch reset signal. The device monitors this signal for control as specified in the high-level software control specification, but must pass this signal through to the next device in its entirety within the processing chain.

The third signal line pair is reserved for a hard stop. This signal is used to stop all devices immediately for safety purposes.

The finishing or feeding device needs to provide a connection one by one to the input of the command control bus signal, which is input to the device and output from the device as a synchronization and hard stop signal. The automatic configuration signal is switched as described below.

Referring to FIG. 4, the PWB of a typical device
For A, the command control bus 36 is optically isolated between the device and the printing machine by an input optical isolator 40 and an output optical isolator 42, shown here for the automatic configuration signal. ing.
Also included on bus 38 is a switchable transceiver interface 44 having system net 34 via interface controller 46.

In one embodiment, the separate paper feeders are:
Connected to provide system functions according to worker's preference. The device is electrically connected to a system net 34 via a command control bus 36. Each device has a PWBA inside, and FIG.
The interconnection by SBC 22 connected to BA is shown. It should be noted that the individual components of the network (system net and command control bus) are shown separately for clarity, but may be a single harness.

In another embodiment, shown in FIG. 6, the document finishing and / or paper feeding function is provided by the module base frame 58.
Individual modules 52, 54, and 56 inserted therein
It is constituted by. These modules include stacking, mailbox sorting, booklet production, bookbinding, insertion, folding, and the like. Each module is PWBA62,
64 and 66, which connect to the system net 34, the command control bus 36 and the SBC 22. The PWBA also reliably controls the function of the module. Workers can insert and remove modules as needed for their current job.

This architecture supports a wide range of complex functionalities of the document feeder / finisher, from simple to complex. Simple is defined as having no controls coupled to the printing machine, and
Complexity is defined as the functionality of the device being fully integrated into the printing machine. Support from simple to complex allows devices of varying capabilities to be used on only a portion of the interface required to control the device.

Devices where work recovery does not require operator intervention to guarantee work integrity are also supported by this architecture. Working completeness with this document relates to the printing machine's ability to know when the final output (document) has been delivered. This architecture can support delivery confirmation of documents. Document delivery confirmation involves up to an independent audit of the image in the final output (document).

This architecture allows third party vendors to develop document feeding and finishing equipment and interface equipment. This allows third party vendors to develop interface hardware / software and fixtures for connecting to various printing machines. This interface allows various feeding and / or finishing devices to be installed on different printing machines.

Automatic configuration according to the present invention is determined by the ability of the printing machine to determine the capabilities and placement of all connected devices. Automatic configuration reduces the operator's task of describing the configuration and placement of each of the document feeding or finishing devices on the printing machine, and this performance provides a reliable means of determining the placement of the device. Is necessary for

A basic feature required to achieve automatic configuration is the ability of the printing machine to communicate with one device by the time the first device in the processing chain starts up and ends at device N. In one embodiment, one input and one output are utilized in PWBA as shown in this embodiment in FIG.

When the system is powered on, the PWBA of each device in the feed or finishing chain disables communication to the nodes behind them. This is accomplished by interrupting the connection of the automatic configuration signal to the next device in the processing chain. SCB 22 has an autoconfiguration signal as output and sets it high. PWB of the first device in the processing chain
A recognizes this signal as a high signal and determines that communication with the SCB 22 is possible. All other nodes in the processing chain ignore all communications performed on the system net, so the auto-configuration signal is low, and the PWBAs of their previous devices in the processing chain do not pass this signal. .
This example is shown in FIG.

In one embodiment, SCB 22 is power connected with node ID, 50h. The PWBA board of each device in the finishing sequence is initially powered on with node ID, F0h. The PWBA of each device completes its power connection self-test and waits for a system net connection. SC
B22 sends a message to node F0h via the system net. Initially, all of the nodes on the system net have the node ID, F0h, but only nodes with the auto-configuration signal set high are allowed to respond to the message. This is the first PWB in the processing chain
A. SCB 22 communicates with this node using node F0h and performs all setup communications. During this time, all other nodes in the processing chain ignore neither the node F0h nor the input of the auto-configuration signal set high, so that all messages are ignored. The final command sent to the configured node changes that node to 70h and sends an auto-configuration signal to those subsequent nodes. This is shown in FIG.

Thereafter, the SCB 22 starts all processing again by sending a message to the node F0h.
The first node in the processing chain is now node 70h and does not respond to the message. The second node is F0h
And has an autoconfiguration signal set high because the signal is passed from the previous node in the processing chain. The second node is now set up by SCB 22 in response to all messages sent to F0h. The final message sent to the second node is the node ID, 7
1h, and the auto-configuration signal is passed to the next node. This is shown in FIG.

In the automatic configuration process, the SCB 22 is operated by the node F0.
h and continues until no response is received within the message timeout period. If no message is received within the timeout period, S
The BC 22 considers that there are no nodes to be configured in the finishing chain. A timeout period has not yet been determined, but this timeout period should be a time during which nodes can complete their power connection sequence and initialization in addition to responding to the message and processing it. is there. In one embodiment, the finishing node is assigned AFh with a node ID of 70h.
Extra node IDs are reserved for future expansion.
The final configuration for the started system is shown in FIG.

A document feed chain is also attached to the SCB. The configuration of the node IDs in the document feeding chain is almost the same as the configuration of the finishing chain except that nodes are assigned from B0h to EFh in one embodiment. Again, extra nodes are reserved for future expansion. FIG. 11 shows a typical configuration of the sheet feeding processing chain after the automatic configuration.

With the above-described automatic configuration system, the sheet feeding and finishing processing chains are simultaneously configured. During the automatic configuration, the SCB sets the node F0h or the node F2.
If two or unexpected messages are received from h, the SCB determines that one of the relays in the processing chain has failed. In one embodiment, the device is not intended to be both a feeder and a finishing device. However, if the device can be both a feeding and finishing device, this situation can be handled by providing the device with a switch to select the power connection ID specified by the device.

It should also be noted that the system net 34 is required to be terminated at both ends.
In particular, the system net 34 requires a 50 ohm termination resistor in both the automatic configuration mode and the normal operation mode. Since there is also a document feeding device in addition to the document finishing device,
There are two 100 ohm resistors across the system net 34 in parallel. This is accomplished by placing termination resistors at the ends of the feed and finishing chains when the system is set up. These ends are the furthest ends from the printing machine. FIG. 12 shows an example in which a resistance value is arranged on a BNC cap that can be attached to the last serial interface connector of each processing chain.

While the preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described and illustrated in light of the above, it will be appreciated that there are many variations and modifications that may be made by those skilled in the art and that the concept and scope of the invention will be described. All such variations and modifications that fall within are covered by the appended claims.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the physical layout of a system incorporating the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing electrical connections of a plurality of devices in the system of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a document feeding mechanism and a finishing device network connection according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows the optical separation function of the device of FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing one embodiment of a control architecture according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing another embodiment of the control architecture according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 illustrates a method for automatically determining the characteristics of various interconnected finishing devices according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 illustrates a method for automatically determining the characteristics of various interconnected finishing devices according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 illustrates a method for automatically determining the characteristics of various interconnected finishing devices according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 illustrates a method for automatically determining the characteristics of various interconnected finishing devices according to the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a method for automatically determining characteristics of various sheet feeding devices according to the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a control termination technique for an interconnect device according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 printing machines, 11 screens, 12, 14
Document feeding device, 16, 18, 20 Document finishing device, 2
2 PWBA (SBC), 22A, 24A, 28A memory, 22B, 24B, 28B logic circuit, 24 paper feeder, 26 printed wiring board assembly, 28 finishing device, 30, 32 PWBA, 34 serial communication interface link, 36 Command control bus.

Claims (3)

[Claims] An apparatus includes a marking device, a copy paper source, a controller, and a plurality of resources, each resource having an associated processing unit, wherein each processing unit stores data regarding operation timing of the associated resource and An electronic image processing apparatus having a system bus for connecting an arithmetic processing unit to a controller for instructing an operation of the image processing apparatus for printing an image on a copy sheet. The controller determines the appropriate timing of the image processing device in response to the operation timing data, sets an automatic configuration signal on a command bus, and sends a message to the arithmetic processing device on a system bus. Call the processing unit The processor resends to the controller in response to the auto-configuration signal and message, the controller determines the order of the resources in the processing chain, thereby determining the suitability and order of the resources, and A method for determining a resource configuration and suitability in an electronic image processing apparatus, comprising: 2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising a step of responding to a job request for determining optimal use of the resource. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the resources include both a finishing device and a paper feeding device.