Printer for automatic packing machine and method of controlling the same

An automatic packing machine for consecutively packing various medicines into doses according to a prescription, comprising:

• a plurality of cassettes arranged at an upper portion of a body of the packing machine and receiving various sizes and shapes of medicines;
• a hopper disposed at a lower portion of the body and collecting medicines discharged downwards from the cassettes;
• a printer printing various medicine data on a surface of a wrapping paper for packing medicines, the printer comprising a ribbon cartridge that receives a ribbon tape and is detachably installed inside the body;
• and
• a packing unit that packs the medicines collected by the hopper using the wrapping paper.

A method of controlling a printer for printing data of medicines on a surface of a wrapping paper in which medicines are packed by a thermal print head and a ribbon tape, the method comprising:

• compressing a wrapping paper and a ribbon tape between the thermal print head and the contact roller;
• rotating a drive reel through rotation of a drive motor to allow the ribbon tape to be wound around the drive reel, so that the ribbon tape is unwound from a driven reel and rotates the driven reel;
• calculating, by a controller, a pulse value per unit time based on rotation of an encoder slit detected through a sensor by rotating an encoder provided to a rotational shaft of the driven reel;
• determining a remaining amount of the ribbon tape based on a pulse-remaining amount table stored in the controller;
• determining a torque value corresponding to the remaining amount of ribbon tape from a torque-remaining amount table stored in the controller;
• and
• increasing a rotational speed of a tension motor by reducing the number of times of short circuit per unit time of the tension motor connected to the driven reel according to the torque value.