Patent EP0040313A2 successfully refreshed from Google Patents.
EP0040313A2
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EP
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Matrix printer
Assignee: Avery Dennison Retail Information Services LLC
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Filing: 1981-04-08
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2001-04-08
Abstract
Abstract A high quality, variable font, matrix printer employs a precise carriage position control system that precisely determines the position of the carriage at discrete positions in combination with a variable time delay in the matrix element firing circuit to permit each printed matrix element to be positioned at one of the various carriage positions, or between discrete carriage positions, thereby permitting essentially continuous horizontal lines and high quality characters of various fonts and sizes to be printed. In such a system, the positions of the elements forming the particular characters to be printed are defined by stored information representative of carriage position and time delay. Essentially continuous vertical lines are generated by precisely controlling the paper feed to permit matrix element overlap, and characters larger than the printing matrix may be generated utilizing multiple printing passes with an appropriate paper advance.
Inventors
- 👤 Frederick Michael Pou
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-27 21:42
CPC Classifications
B; B41; B41J; B41J19/00; B41J19/18; B41J19/20; B41J19/202; G; G06; G06K; G06K15/00; G06K15/02; G06K15/10; G06K2215/00; G06K2215/111
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 15
Claim 1
Independent Claim
132 words
A matrix printer suitable for printing characters on a sheet stock medium, comprising: a printing head having a plurality of printing units arranged in an array; means coupled to said printing head for transporting said printing head with respect to said sheet stock medium in a first direction with respect to the direction of said linear array; means coupled to said transporting means for determining the position of said printing head along said first direction with respect to said sheet stock medium; means coupled to said printing head and responsive to said position determining means for activating predetermined ones of said printing units to generate imprints on said sheet stock medium at predetermined delay times after said printing head reaches predetermined positions along said first direction with respect to said sheet stock.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
132 words
A matrix printer suitable for printing characters on a sheet stock medium, comprising: a printing head having a plurality of printing units arranged in an array; means coupled to said printing head for transporting said printing head with respect to said sheet stock medium in a first direction with respect to the direction of said linear array; means coupled to said transporting means for determining the position of said printing head along said first direction with respect to said sheet stock medium; means coupled to said printing head and responsive to said position determining means for activating predetermined ones of said printing units to generate imprints on said sheet stock medium at predetermined delay times after said printing head reaches predetermined positions along said first direction with respect to said sheet stock.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
49 words
A printer as recited in claim 1 further including font storage means coupled to said activating means for storing data representative of the predetermined positions and data representative of the predetermined delay time at which said printing units are to be activated in order to form a predetermined character.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
27 words
A printer as recited in claim 1 wherein said array is a linear array having a longitudinal dimension extending in a direction transverse to said first direction.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
52 words
A printer as recited in claim 3 wherein said array includes first and second parallel columns of elements with the elements of one of said columns being offset in the longitudinal direction with respect to the elements in the other column so that the elements of the two columns are partially interleaved.
Claim 6
Independent Claim
197 words
A method of imprinting on a sheet stock medium characters formed from individual elemental sections disposed in various predetermined arrays to form various predetermined characters, comprising the steps of: storing a spatial coordinate associated with each of the elemental sections forming each of the predetermined characters; storing a delay time associated with each of said spatial coordinates; moving an imprinting head having a plurality of individually actuatable imprinting elements with respect to the sheet stock medium; determining the position of the imprinting head with respect to the sheet stock medium as the printing head is moved with respect thereto; determining the relationship between the position of the imprinting head and the various stored spatial coordinates; selectively actuating various predetermined ones of said printing units when the printing head is positioned such that the activation of a particular printing unit will produce an elemental section substantially at a location corresponding to one of the stored spatial coordinates; and delaying the actuation of each printing unit to be actuated by a time interval corresponding to the delay time being associated with the spatial coordinate of the elemental section to be produced by the actuation of that particular printing element.
Claim 7
Independent Claim
197 words
A method of imprinting on a sheet stock medium characters formed from individual elemental sections disposed in various predetermined arrays to form various predetermined characters, comprising the steps of: storing a spatial coordinate associated with each of the elemental sections forming each of the predetermined characters; storing a delay time associated with each of said spatial coordinates; moving an imprinting head having a plurality of individually actuatable imprinting elements with respect to the sheet stock medium; determining the position of the imprinting head with respect to the sheet stock medium as the printing head is moved with respect thereto; determining the relationship between the position of the imprinting head and the various stored spatial coordinates; selectively actuating various predetermined ones of said printing units when the printing head is positioned such that the activation of a particular printing unit will produce an elemental section substantially at a location corresponding to one of the stored spatial coordinates; and delaying the actuation of each printing unit to be actuated by a time interval corresponding to the delay time being associated with the spatial coordinate of the elemental section to be produced by the actuation of that particular printing element.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
61 words
The method recited in claim 5 wherein some of the elemental sections are imprinted during the step of moving the printing head in a first direction with respect to the sheet stock medium, and the remainder of the elemental sections are printed during the step of moving the imprinting head in a second direction with respect to the sheet stock medium.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
47 words
The method recited in claim 6 further including the step of advancing the sheet stock medium a predetermined increment in a third direction between the steps of moving the imprinting head in the first direction and the step of moving the imprinting head in the second direction.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
18 words
The method recited in claim 7 wherein said increment is smaller than the distance between said imprinting elements.
Claim 11
Independent Claim
17 words
The method recited in claim 71wherein said increment is greater than the distance between said imprinting elements.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
243 words
Apparatus for imprinting on a sheet stock medium characters formed from individual elemental sections disposed on various predetermined arrays to form various predetermined characters comprising: means for storing a spatial coordinate associated with each of the elemental sections forming each of the predetermined characters; means for storing a delay time associated with each of said spatial coordinates; an imprinting head having a plurality of individually actuable printing units; means coupled to said imprinting head for moving said imprinting head with respect to the sheet stock medium; means for indicating the position of the imprinting head with respect to the sheet stock medium as the imprinting head is moved with respect thereto; means coupled to said indicating means and said spatial coordinate storing means for determining the relationship between the position of the imprinting head and the various stored spatial coordinates; means responsive to said determining means for selectively actuating various predetermined ones of said printing units when the imprinting head is positioned such that the activation of a particular printing unit will produce an elemental section substantially at a location corresponding to one of the stored spatial coordinates; and delaying means within said actuating means coupled to said delay time storing means for delaying the actuation of each printing unit to be actuated by a time interval corresponding to the delay time being associated with the spatial coordinate of the elemental section to be produced by the actuation of that particular printing unit.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
243 words
Apparatus for imprinting on a sheet stock medium characters formed from individual elemental sections disposed on various predetermined arrays to form various predetermined characters comprising: means for storing a spatial coordinate associated with each of the elemental sections forming each of the predetermined characters; means for storing a delay time associated with each of said spatial coordinates; an imprinting head having a plurality of individually actuable printing units; means coupled to said imprinting head for moving said imprinting head with respect to the sheet stock medium; means for indicating the position of the imprinting head with respect to the sheet stock medium as the imprinting head is moved with respect thereto; means coupled to said indicating means and said spatial coordinate storing means for determining the relationship between the position of the imprinting head and the various stored spatial coordinates; means responsive to said determining means for selectively actuating various predetermined ones of said printing units when the imprinting head is positioned such that the activation of a particular printing unit will produce an elemental section substantially at a location corresponding to one of the stored spatial coordinates; and delaying means within said actuating means coupled to said delay time storing means for delaying the actuation of each printing unit to be actuated by a time interval corresponding to the delay time being associated with the spatial coordinate of the elemental section to be produced by the actuation of that particular printing unit.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
50 words
Apparatus as recited in claim 10 wherein said imprinting head moving means includes means for moving said imprinting head in a first direction with respect to said sheet stock medium, and said apparatus further includes means for advancing said sheet stock in a second direction transverse to said first direction.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
28 words
Apparatus as recited in claim 11 wherein said sheet stock advancing means includes means for advancing said sheet stock an increment less than the distance between imprinting units.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
No citation records indexed.
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