The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 06, 1991
Filed:
Jun. 16, 1989
Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Hitachi Koki Co., Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An apparatus for driving a thermal recording head having a plurality of heat-generating elements in alignment wherein energy applied to any one heat-generating element is determined on the basis of a recording energy E.sub.p determined on an assumption that both the heat-generating element and adjacent heat-generating elements are energized and also in accordance with a compensation energy E.sub.r for compensating for an energy shortage at the time of non-energization of adjacent elements in actual recording. The recording energy E.sub.p is determined from a target energy EO required for forming a recording dot, heat storage energy E.sub.s already possessed by the element before a current energization thereof and a correction quantity given by a function of the heat substrate temperature T.sub.h, and E.sub.s is stored and updated for each line recording operation in accordance with a function of E.sub.p. The compensation energy E.sub.r is given by a function of the value T.sub.h selected in accordance with the energization/non-energization of the current element and adjacent elements. The amount of energy applied to each heat-generating element is finely and precisely controlled by energization pattern data D1 to D8 of n (e.g., 8) bits for selecting different combinations of durations and positions of energization pulses. There are 4096 heat-generating elements are divided into 16 blocks, and such an energization pattern data serially transferred is rearranged and transferred in parallel to the blocks.