Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-kaisha

Tatsuya Satou

Tetsuya Kato

Kazuhiro Kuwabara

Masaaki Terazawa

In an image reading device including an LED array, an image sensor, and an A/D converter, an initial digitizing condition is first set while determining whether or not the initial digitizing condition to be set meets a first criteria. Then, the initial digitizing condition is adjusted so as to meet the second a second criteria. An example of the digitizing condition is a high reference voltage applied to the A/D converter which converts an analog voltage ranging from a low reference voltage to the high reference voltage to a digital value. The second criteria is provided for, for example, reducing an S/N ratio when the image reading device reads half-tone images.

Image reading device with digitizing condition adjusting capability

In a facsimile/voice phone combined device of the type having a line interface circuit that includes a transformer for separating an electrical coupling between a telephone line and the combined device, the operator can push dial buttons while hearing the DMF oscillation sound from the speaker. When a dial button provided on a keyboard of a facsimile section is pushed, the first change-over switch connects the output terminal of a modem in the facsimile section to the line interface circuit, and the second change-over switch connects the speaker of a handset to the line interface circuit so that the DTMF signal from the modem is applied not only to the telephone line through the line interface circuit but also to the speaker.

Facsimile/voice phone combined device producing DTMF oscillation sound

In an image reading device, an image scanner reads data by scanning a document at a fixed speed in a main scanning direction, and a stepping motor feeds the document in an auxiliary scanning direction. In a through-up drive of the stepping motor, the rotational speed of the motor is increased in stepwise manner up to a rated high speed. Before the rotational speed of the motor reaches the rated high speed, the number of lines that the document is fed does not agree to the number of lines scanned by the image scanner. To effectively use the scanned data and to obtain good image, a number of blocks of line data equal to a number of lines fed by the stepping motor when the motor feeds the document at a speed slower than the rated speed is produced by using all of blocks of line data produced from the image scanner during feeding of the document at the slow speed.

Image reading device used in a facsimile machine

A scanner device can be used in a facsimile machine or the like for reading a document on line basis. Each line of the document is read on pixel basis while irradiating a light onto the document. The scanner device includes an image sensor which receives a light reflected from the document and converts the light to an analog electrical signal. A controller controls the reading operation of the image sensor. A comparator translates the analog electric signal into a binary signal. The binary signal is stored in a shift register wherein the contents therein represents an image of a preceding line with respect to the present line being read by the image sensor. A threshold value applied to the comparator to read the present line image is varied depending upon the preceding line data stored in the shift register. As such, images on the document can be read with excellent fidelity, particularly when a fine line extending in a main scanning direction is present on the document.

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Tatsuya Satou