Research And Development Of The High-speed Embedded Industrial Pneumatic Printer

Industrial pneumatic printer is mainly used in the fields of automobiles, machinery,light industry etc. It can print on the nameplates, industrial parts or other industrialproducts, which are make of steel, wood and other raw materials. Moreover, it is anauxiliary tool for the industrial enterprises on the marking, efficient management andclassification. According to the differences of structure and controlling, pneumaticprinter can be divided into three types: computer control system, microprocessor controlsystem and the hybrid control system. Currently, the imported pneumatic printer with abetter function is expensive; and the domestic pneumatic printer has many defects, suchas low print-speed, bulky and low precision etc. Aiming at those problems, herepresents an embedded high-speed industrial pneumatic printer (EHIP) with small size,low-cost, high-precision and good operability.After analyzing the demands of the EHIP and comparing the different solutions, ituses hybrid structure with closed-loop control mode to ensure the high-speed andprecision. The upper-computer adopts the widely used32bit high-performance andlow-power embedded RISC processor S3C2440as the main controller, which replacesthe computer or microcontroller in the traditional pneumatic printer. Thelower-computer adopts the16bit ultra-low power microcontroller MSP430as the printdriver controller. In order to ensure its versatility and scalability, this system supports avariety of expansion interfaces; Furthermore, it innovatively adds a network interface.The upper-computer operating system is embedded Linux. Based on the Qt/E, itbuilds a lightweight GUI library, which provides high-quality software and better userexperience. Its main job is human-computer interaction, data management, contourextraction, communications etc. EHIP has64MB memory to guarantee its efficiency;Supporting for the TTF fonts and PLT files, it increases the print content and meets theneeds of more customers; Using the YAFFS2file system, it is provides a minimum128MB local data storage; It also supports network sharing and remote control, inaddition, it is the first time to realize the industrial pneumatic printer networking; TheLCD with touch screen makes the operation more convenient and intuitive. Due to the16-bit microcontroller MSP430, the lower-computer’s function has been enhanced. Inorder to improve the print speed and precision, the system ports some printing algorithm to the lower-computer. The lower-computer’s main job is communication, linearinterpolating operation, the printer driver control, feedback etc.According to the design solution, this system has been developed and tested withall the functions. Through a long time debugging and testing, it shows that the system iseasy to operate, has high-speed and high-precision printing. With clear, standard andbeautiful marking, it meets the marketing requirements. Moreover, the system hasreached the leader level on the industrial pneumatic printer, and has strong marketcompetitiveness.