Code spraying control method and corresponding code spraying machine

Abstract

The invention provides a code spraying control method which comprises the following steps: an image transmission step: a controller A transmits image information to a controller B and sends out a jet printing enable signal; in the image caching step, the controller B receives and caches the image information; and an image jet printing step: the controller B outputs a jet printing driving signal of the cached image information line by line and detects whether jet printing of the cached image information is completed, if yes, jet printing is ended, and if not, the controller B continues to output a jet printing driving signal of the next line of the cached image information. After the technical scheme is adopted, the functions of smooth man-machine interaction experience, printing interruption at any time, millisecond-level loading and the like can be achieved, code spraying on the skin of the livestock carcass is facilitated, and meat safety is guaranteed.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention relates to a coding control method and a corresponding coding machine, in particular to a coding machine used for coding the skin of livestock carcasses. Background Art

[0002] Figure 1 The figure is the appearance structure diagram of the existing roller inkjet printing device. The main body of the inkjet printer includes a nozzle 1, a roller 2 and a magnetic encoder 3. When the roller 2 rolls along the printing surface, it drives the magnetic encoder 3 to generate a synchronous signal to drive the nozzle 1 to print the image. The inkjet printer is mainly used for printing the skin of livestock carcasses, and the printing surface is the skin of livestock carcasses, such as the skin of pig carcasses.

[0003] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the scheme of the existing roller inkjet printing device. The existing roller inkjet printing device adopts a single controller design. During the printing process, the ARM main control needs to be responsible for image generation, image processing, real-time detection of roller encoder drive signals, generation of specific pulse signals for nozzle drive, and user interaction. The scheme of the existing roller inkjet printing device has many shortcomings.

[0004] First, the existing handheld roller inkjet printing equipment adopts a single processor solution. During the printing process, the printing control software is prone to conflicts between image processing printing tasks with high real-time requirements and application layer running tasks. In severe cases, the device printing control software will be blocked and unable to respond to normal user operations.

[0005] Secondly, existing printing equipment will experience a printing response delay when loading and printing large images. It takes more than 1 second from the time the user presses the print switch to the time the equipment starts printing, which can easily affect production efficiency under high-speed operations.

[0006] In addition, the existing printing equipment is not equipped with an ink cartridge protection mechanism, which can easily cause permanent electrical damage to the ink cartridge and the printing equipment when the ink cartridge is plugged in and out while powered, affecting the printing operation and causing economic losses.

[0007] The Chinese patent application "High-resolution inkjet printer system based on embedded Linux" with application number CN201910836078.X and application date 2019-09-05 discloses a high-resolution inkjet printer system based on embedded Linux. It includes a host computer unit and a slave computer unit; the host computer unit is based on an ARM processor and is equipped with an embedded Linux operating system. The host computer unit includes a host computer printing control module, a data editing module, a parameter setting module, a system tool module and a status display module; the slave computer unit is based on FPGA and includes an SPI control module, a data processing module, an SDRAM control module, a slave computer printing control module and an exception handling module. However, the invention is to improve the printing speed of variable data by adopting a method of updating variable data with a fixed address, which is not universal, because many occasions are for printing pictures instead of variable data.

[0008] The Chinese patent application "An FPGA control system of an inkjet printer and its control method" with application number CN201510789581.6 and application date 2015-11-17 discloses an FPGA control system of an inkjet printer and its control method, which includes a FIFO unit, a state machine unit, a printing control register, a printing state register, a data buffer, a data conversion module, a substrate detection and a production line speed detection module. The FPGA system interacts with the CPU main control system through a parallel bus interface, and is also connected to the back-end driver of the inkjet printer through a serial communication interface. However, this application mainly focuses on the FPGA part, and focuses on the response of the FPGA to the printing speed.

[0009] Most of the inkjet printers in the prior art are only involved in barcode and variable data inkjet printing, with small image size but high speed requirements, or large image size but low real-time requirements for inkjet printing, such as inkjet printers, etc. In the field of livestock carcass inkjet printing, the image size is large, the image length is about 1 meter, there are variable QR codes, and various seals are integrated for printing, and at the same time, it must match the production speed of the production line, and there are high requirements for image processing speed and real-time inkjet printing. Summary of the invention

[0010] The purpose of the present invention is to provide a high-performance inkjet control method and a corresponding inkjet printer that are efficient, stable, and smooth to use, so as to improve the user experience, response speed, and reliability of the inkjet printer as a whole.

[0011] In order to realize the present invention, the present invention provides a coding control method, wherein the coding machine comprises at least two separate controllers A and B, wherein the controller A is responsible for user interaction, image generation and image transmission, and the controller B is responsible for image reception and printing drive, and the controller A is connected to the controller B through electrical communication, and the method comprises: An image transmission step, wherein the controller A transmits image information to the controller B and sends a printing enable signal; An image caching step, wherein the controller B receives and caches the image information; In the image printing step, the controller B outputs the printing drive signal of the cached image information line by line, detects whether the printing of the cached image information has been completed, and ends the printing if it has been completed, otherwise continues to output the printing drive signal of the next line of the cached image information.

[0012] Furthermore, the method also includes, before the image transmission step, an image slicing step, wherein the controller A divides the image into a plurality of slices, and the image transmission step transmits part of the slices to the controller B each time.

[0013] Furthermore, the method also includes that the image caching step also includes that the controller B detects and outputs the empty and full status of the image information cache space, and when the controller A detects that the empty and full status is empty, the controller A transmits the slice to the controller B, and when the controller A detects that the empty and full status is full, the controller A stops transmitting the slice to the controller B.

[0014] Furthermore, the controller A is an ARM control unit, the controller B is an FPGA control unit, and the cache space is a FIFO cache.

[0015] Furthermore, the method also includes an encoder detection step, wherein the controller B detects the pulse signal of the roller encoder and generates the printing drive signal according to the pulse signal.

[0016] The invention also provides an inkjet printer using the inkjet control method.

[0017] Furthermore, the interface between the controller A and the controller B includes a cache full and empty status interface, an SPI interface and a printing enable interface.

[0018] Furthermore, the slice size is 4K and the cache size is 32K.

[0019] Furthermore, the inkjet printer further comprises an ink cartridge driving unit, the controller B generates an inkjet driving signal, and the ink cartridge driving unit amplifies the power of the inkjet driving signal and outputs it to the ink cartridge.

[0020] The invention also provides a coding machine for coding the skin of livestock carcasses.

[0021] After adopting the technical solution of the present invention, the problems of main control blocking and jamming during the printing process of the inkjet printing equipment, slow response to user operations, long loading time for large patterns during printing, circuit failure caused by live plugging and unplugging in the powered-on state, etc. are solved. It can realize smooth human-computer interaction experience, printing interruption at any time, millisecond-level loading, timely power-off protection of ink cartridges and other functions, which is convenient for coding the skin of livestock carcasses and ensures the safety of meat products. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0022] Figure 1 This is an appearance structure diagram of an existing roller-type inkjet printing device; Figure 2 It is a schematic diagram of the scheme of the existing roller-type inkjet printing equipment; Figure 3 It is the overall scheme principle diagram of the coding equipment of the present invention; Figure 4 It is the encoder detection and printing control process of the FPGA control unit; Figure 5 Schematic diagram of image slicing and preloading cache technology; Figure 6 Flowchart of image slicing and preloading cache technology; Figure 7 Generate a flow chart for the empty and full states of the FIFO buffer; Figure 8 It is the IUT309 ink cartridge temperature detection circuit; Fig. 9 This is the flow chart of ink cartridge in-warehouse detection; Fig.10 This is a diagram showing the connection between the ink cartridge with encryption chip and the ARM main control. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0023] The following will be combined with the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention to clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only part of the embodiments of the present invention, not all of the embodiments. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by ordinary technicians in this field without creative work are within the scope of protection of the present invention.

[0024] Figure 3 The overall scheme of the inkjet device of the present invention adopts ARM+FPGA as the device processor, and mainly includes three parts: ARM control unit, FPGA control unit, ink cartridge drive and ink cartridge detection unit.

[0025] The ARM control unit is mainly responsible for: 1) User interaction: printing image selection, printing parameter setting, printing start and stop, etc.; 2) Image generation: Generate an image file of the corresponding format and size from the image selected by the user; 3) Image transmission: The generated image is transmitted to the FPGA controller via the SPI high-speed interface.

[0026] The FPGA control unit is mainly responsible for: 1) Image reception: After decoding the SPI received data, the image data is cached into the FIFO buffer, and the buffer empty and full status signals are output to the ARM; 2) FIFO buffer: dynamically stores printing image data; 3) Image processing: converting standard image data into corresponding nozzle control signal data; 4) Encoder detection: detect the roller encoder pulse signal; 5) Printhead drive: Generate a printhead drive signal based on the detected roller encoder pulse signal, and transmit the printhead drive signal to the ink cartridge drive module.

[0027] The ink cartridge drive and ink cartridge detection unit is mainly responsible for: 1) Ink cartridge drive: amplify the power output of the nozzle drive signal transmitted by FPGA and adjust the voltage to adapt to the printing environment; 2) Ink cartridge detection: The temperature of the ink cartridge nozzle is detected through the IUT309 ink cartridge's unique thermal sensor, and the ink cartridge in-warehouse detection is achieved through a specific algorithm; or the ink cartridge in-warehouse detection is achieved through the communication status of the encryption chip set on the ink cartridge.

[0028] The implementation of the present invention is specifically described below in conjunction with the overall solution of the present invention.

[0029] like Figure 3 As shown, the present invention adopts a technical solution of separating upper-layer interaction from underlying printing drive control. The ARM side is responsible for producing images in response to user operations, and the FPGA side is responsible for detecting the real-time signal of the encoder and performing specific drive control on the ink cartridge based on the image data in the cache.

[0030] Figure 4 It is the encoder detection and printing control process of the FPGA control unit.

[0031] Step 1: Start printing. The ARM control unit is responsible for transmitting image information to the FPGA control unit and sending a printing enable signal.

[0032] Step 2: The FPGA control unit caches the received image information and re-encodes the image information.

[0033] Step 3: The FPGA control unit detects the encoder pulse signal and outputs a printing drive signal for one line of image if a valid signal is received, otherwise it continues to wait for the encoder signal.

[0034] Step 4: After receiving the printing drive signal, the ink cartridge driver module controls the ink cartridge to print a line of data.

[0035] Step 5: The FPGA control unit detects whether all images in the FIFO buffer have been printed. If so, the printing is terminated. Otherwise, step 3 is repeated.

[0036] During the entire printing process, the ARM control unit does not participate in the specific encoder detection and printing drive control. The APP upper-level system run by the ARM control unit will not enter a blocked state during the printing process. The APP upper-level system has zero lag during the printing process of the device and responds normally to user interactive operations, as well as printing control operations such as printing interruption and printing termination.

[0037] In the above process, although the ARM control unit and the FPGA control unit have achieved functional separation, when the ARM control unit transmits image information to the FPGA control unit, the size of the transmitted image information will affect the printing response. The best way is to transmit and print at the same time to avoid affecting the printing operation due to long transmission time. To this end, the present invention adopts image slicing and pre-loading cache technology to achieve efficient and fast image transmission without affecting printing, and achieve millisecond-level printing response without delay.

[0038] Figure 5 This is the principle diagram of image slicing and preloading cache technology. Take the printing of a 400KB image as an example to illustrate the principle. The ARM control unit divides the 400KB large image into 400 / 4=100 small images. If the last image is less than 4K, it will be filled with blanks; the FPGA control unit is designed with a 32KB data FIFO cache for image storage. The FPGA control unit detects the usage of the FIFO cache in real time and updates the FIFO empty and full status. The interfaces between the ARM control unit and the FPGA control unit are mainly: FIFO empty and full status signal: The FPGA control unit provides the ARM control unit with the empty and full status information of its own FIFO buffer capacity; SPI interface: the interface for the ARM control unit to transmit image information to the FPGA control unit; Printing enable signal: The interface through which the ARM control unit controls the FPGA control unit to perform image printing.

[0039] Figure 6 This is a flowchart of the image slicing and preloading cache technology. The following is a detailed description of the process.

[0040] Step 1: The ARM control unit generates a printing image with a size of 400KB. The 400KB large image is divided into 400 / 4=100 small images, and the image is sliced. Each slice is 4KB in size. If the last slice, that is, the 100th slice, is less than 4KB, it is filled with blanks.

[0041] Step 2: The ARM control unit cyclically detects the empty and full status of the FIFO buffer of the FPGA control unit. If it is empty, 4K slices are transmitted in sequence through the SPI interface, and the sequence number of the image slice is increased by 1 each time until the FIFO buffer status is full, that is, 8 slices are loaded to realize the preloading of the image.

[0042] Step 3: After the ARM control unit detects that the user starts printing, it sends a printing enable signal to the FPGA control unit.

[0043] Step 4: After the FPGA control unit detects the printing enable signal, it prints according to the encoder signal, consumes the cached data in the FIFO, and updates the empty and full status of the FIFO cache.

[0044] Step 5: The ARM control unit loops step 2 according to the empty and full status signals of the FIFO until all 100 image slices are transmitted.

[0045] Step 6: After all 100 image slices are transmitted, if the ARM control unit detects the FIFO empty signal, the printing is completed.

[0046] Figure 7 Generate a flow chart for the empty and full status of the FIFO buffer. The empty and full status of the FIFO buffer is determined by the FPGA control unit. The FPGA control unit receives the image data transmitted by the ARM control unit, the size of the image data is a slice, and then caches the received image data into the FIFO buffer, detects the empty and full status of the FIFO buffer, and finally outputs the empty and full status of the FIFO buffer. If the FIFO buffer can accommodate one or more slices, the empty and full status can be set to empty, and when 8 slices are loaded, it is set to full.

[0047] In the above process, the ARM control unit slices the image to be printed in advance, and then transmits 4K slices each time. The FPGA control unit does not need to load the entire image before printing, and the ARM controller does not need to stop and wait for the transmission of all printed images to be completed. For a 50Mhz SPI interface, each transmission of 4K slices takes less than 1 millisecond. It only takes 3 to 5 milliseconds for the ARM control unit to preload the FIFO of the FPGA control unit, which can achieve millisecond-level loading and printing response, greatly improving high-speed operation efficiency and user experience.

[0048] In the above embodiment, an ARM+FPGA dual controller solution is adopted, but it should be understood that any two separate controllers can achieve the separation of upper-layer interaction and underlying printing control, and can solve the problem of interaction jamming and delayed response.

[0049] The slice size and FIFO buffer size will vary depending on the component selection. The slice size can be 1K, 2K, 4K, 8K, etc., and the FIFO buffer size can be 8K, 16K, 32K, etc. It can be optimized and adjusted according to the upper-level software system's requirements for response time and inkjet speed.

[0050] The main application field of the present invention is the spray coding of the skin of livestock carcasses, such as the spray coding of the skin of pig carcasses. The content of the spray coding includes the animal quarantine inspection stamp, the meat quality inspection stamp, the traceability code and the traceability QR code and other information. The width of the printed image is certain, but the overall width is relatively long, generally between 70cm and 120cm, and the printing is carried out along the length direction of the carcass. If the spray printing image is loaded as a whole, a large storage space is required, and the loading speed is slow, which affects the efficiency of the spray coding. After adopting the technical solution of the present invention, the spray printing image is loaded very quickly, and it does not need to occupy too much memory space. The spray coding response speed is also very fast, and it can be sprayed immediately after clicking.

[0051] In existing thermal foaming ink cartridge inkjet printers, hot plugging and unplugging of thermal foaming ink cartridges is generally prohibited to avoid burning the host or ink cartridges, but the inkjet printer of the present invention also includes an ink cartridge detection circuit.

[0052] The existing thermal foaming ink cartridges will be designed with a nozzle temperature measurement at the front end of the nozzle, and the temperature of the nozzle is obtained through the gold finger contacts of the ink cartridge, such as IUT308, IUT309 ink cartridges, and 0.5-inch ink cartridges of IUT and HP. The present invention adopts the ink cartridge in-warehouse detection technology, which relies on the temperature measurement function of the ink cartridge nozzle. Here, the IUT309 ink cartridge is taken as an example.

[0053] The IUT309 ink cartridge integrates a thermistor temperature sensor at the front end of the printhead. The voltage information is collected by the external ADC and converted into resistance data. The printhead temperature can be preliminarily calculated based on the resistance-temperature conversion formula provided by the original manufacturer of the ink cartridge. The following is the resistance-temperature conversion formula of the IUT309 ink cartridge.

[0054] ,in: T TSR : Thermistor temperature measured at the print head; R TSR : Thermistor resistance value to be measured; R 0TSR : Thermistor reference resistance value, generally 144Ω; T0: thermistor reference temperature, the experimental measurement value is 31.6℃; α: Thermal coefficient of thermistor, generally 3665ppm / K.

[0055] Figure 8 This is the IUT309 ink cartridge temperature detection circuit. The ink cartridge driver board contacts the ink cartridge gold finger 11 through the ink tank contact, and a 470Ω 1% measurement matching resistor 12 is added to the temperature measurement signal contact. One end of the measurement matching resistor 12 is connected to the power supply, and the other end is connected to the ADC pin of the ARM controller for voltage measurement.

[0056] Fig. 9 This is the ink cartridge in-bin detection flow chart. When the ink cartridge is placed in the ink bin, the driver board contacts touch the temperature sensor contacts. Figure 8 Circuit, ARM controller can calculate a normal nozzle temperature range according to the resistance-temperature conversion formula. When the ink cartridge is not in the ink tank, the circuit is in an open circuit state and the default input resistance is infinite. At this time, the ARM controller detects that the resistance is not within a reasonable range, and it can be determined that the ink cartridge is not in the tank. The inkjet control power supply needs to be turned off to prevent electrical damage caused by accidental touch when the ink cartridge is installed.

[0057] The ink cartridge in-tank detection process is as follows: first, the ARM controller reads the voltage value of the ADC port of its ADC pin, converts the ADC port voltage value into a resistance value, and then determines whether the resistance is out of range. If so, it is determined that the ink cartridge is not in the ink tank and the ink cartridge drive power is turned off. If not, it is determined that the ink cartridge is in the ink tank, the ink cartridge drive power is turned on, and the nozzle temperature is calculated.

[0058] During normal use, turn on the ink cartridge driver power before each printing, and turn off the ink cartridge driver power immediately after completion to prevent the ink cartridge from being pulled out while it is powered on.

[0059] The above-mentioned design solution can solve the problem of live loading and unloading of ink cartridges when the device is turned on, and protect the ink cartridges and the device from electrical damage caused by incorrect loading and unloading.

[0060] For ink cartridges with encryption chips, the printer can determine whether the ink cartridge is in the ink tank by reading the encryption chip on the ink cartridge. If the encryption chip information is read, it is considered that the ink cartridge is in the ink tank. If the encryption chip information is not read, it is determined that the ink cartridge is not in the ink tank. If the ink cartridge is not in the ink tank, turn off the ink cartridge drive power supply. If the ink cartridge is in the ink tank, turn on the ink cartridge drive power supply.

[0061] Fig.10The figure is a connection diagram between the ink cartridge with encryption chip and the ARM main control. The ARM main control and the encryption chip communicate through the IIC bus. Through the IIC bus, if the ARM main control and the encryption chip communicate successfully, it is determined that the ink cartridge is in the ink tank, otherwise it is determined that the ink cartridge is not in the ink tank.

[0062] Finally, it should be noted that the above embodiments are intended to illustrate rather than limit the technical solutions of the present invention, and a person skilled in the art may modify or make equivalent substitutions to the present invention, and any modification or partial substitution that does not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention shall be included in the scope of protection of the claims of the present invention.

Claims

1. A method for controlling inkjet printing, wherein the inkjet printer comprises at least two separate controllers A and B, wherein the controller A is responsible for user interaction, image generation and image transmission, and the controller B is responsible for image reception and inkjet printing drive, and the controller A is connected to the controller B through electrical communication, characterized in that: The method comprises, An image transmission step, wherein the controller A transmits image information to the controller B and sends a printing enable signal; An image caching step, wherein the controller B receives and caches the image information; In the image printing step, the controller B outputs the printing drive signal of the cached image information line by line, detects whether the printing of the cached image information has been completed, and ends the printing if it has been completed, otherwise continues to output the printing drive signal of the next line of the cached image information.

2. The coding control method according to claim 1, characterized in that: The method further includes, before the image transmission step, an image slicing step, wherein the controller A divides the image into a plurality of slices, and the image transmission step transmits part of the slices to the controller B each time.

3. The coding control method according to claim 2, characterized in that: The method also includes that the image caching step also includes that the controller B detects and outputs the empty and full status of the image information cache space, when the controller A detects that the empty and full status is empty, the controller A transmits the slice to the controller B, when the controller A detects that the empty and full status is full, the controller A stops transmitting the slice to the controller B.

4. The coding control method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that: The controller A is an ARM control unit, the controller B is an FPGA control unit, and the cache space is a FIFO cache.

5. The coding control method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that: The method further includes an encoder detection step, wherein the controller B detects a pulse signal of the roller encoder and generates the printing drive signal according to the pulse signal.

6. An inkjet printer using the inkjet control method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5.

7. The inkjet printer according to claim 6, characterized in that: The interface between the controller A and the controller B includes a buffer full and empty status interface, an SPI interface and a printing enable interface.

8. The inkjet printer according to claim 7, characterized in that: The slice size is 4K, and the cache size is 32K.

9. The inkjet printer according to claim 8, characterized in that: The inkjet printer further comprises an ink cartridge driving unit. The controller B generates an inkjet driving signal. The ink cartridge driving unit amplifies the power of the inkjet driving signal and then outputs it to the ink cartridge.

10. A printer for printing on the skin of livestock carcasses, characterized in that: The inkjet printer is the inkjet printer described in claims 6 to 9.

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