Optical print head with LED diode array
AssigneesSanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Tottori Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
InventorsHiromi Takasu, Shigeru Sakaguchi
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Abstract
An optical printer includes an optical printing head and a photosensitive member. Although quiet and fine printing can be performed when a light emitting diode array is employed as the optical printing head, there have been problems, on the other hand, such as difficulty in driving and difficulty in adjustment of primary factors directly affecting the printing quality such as uneveness in dot pitches and intensity. Therefore, the present invention copes with driving conditions by effectively distributing data transferring during static driving, thereby to improve the printing quality by selective printing timings.
Claims8
An optical printing head for an optical printer comprising:
- (i) a plurality of light emitting diode arrays having a multiplicity of aligned light emitting areas arranged substantially in a line, with one feeding path for each of said light emitting areas being substantially commonly connected, and the other feeding path for said light emitting areas being divided into a plurality of m groups, where m.gtoreq.2, so that adjacent light emitting areas belong to groups different from each other,
- (ii) means for storing printing data provided for the respective ones of said groups with respect to said other feeding path for light emitting areas of said plurality of light emitting diode arrays, including shift registers for transferring the printing data and driving means for supplying current to said light emitting areas by means of the data from said shift registers,
- (iii) data distribution means coupled to said shift registers for distributing a series of printing data of one dot line via serial transfer at a predetermined speed in said shift registers for the respective ones of said groups, at a shifting speed of 1/m of said serial transfer speed, and
- (iv) driving timing means for outputting data simultaneously for the respective ones of said means for storing data from said shift registers to said driving means, and driving said driving means in a static manner for the light emitting areas of one dot line to simultaneously and selectively emit light from said light emitting areas.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.