Media supplies for printers can include rolls of labels, receipt paper, or the like. A given printer may accommodate multiple distinct media supplies at different times, e.g., different label widths, and the like. Configuring the printer for each media supply may require time-consuming manual setup by an operator of the printer.
The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer to identical or functionally similar elements throughout the separate views, together with the detailed description below, are incorporated in and form part of the specification, and serve to further illustrate embodiments of concepts that include the claimed invention, and explain various principles and advantages of those embodiments.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.
Examples disclosed herein are directed to a tag mount for a media supply roll having a hollow cylindrical core, the tag mount including: a tag mount body including: (i) an inner wall configured to face the core, the inner wall having a retaining element to engage with the core and affix the tag mount body to the core, (ii) an outer wall opposite the inner wall, and (iii) a carrier surface, distinct from the retaining surface, the carrier surface defined on one of the inner wall and the outer wall; an antenna affixed to the carrier surface; and an integrated circuit coupled with the antenna and configured to store an attribute corresponding to the media supply roll.
Additional examples disclosed herein are directed to a system, comprising: a media supply including a core supporting a web of print media; and a tag mount body including: (i) an inner wall configured to face the core, the inner wall having a retaining element to engage with the core and affix the tag mount body to the core, (ii) an outer wall opposite the inner wall, and (iii) a carrier surface, distinct from the retaining surface, the carrier surface defined on one of the inner wall and the outer wall; an antenna affixed to the carrier surface; and an integrated circuit coupled with the antenna and configured to store an attribute corresponding to the media supply roll.
The core 104 can be a tube of cardboard, paperboard, or the like. Various other materials can also be used to manufacture the core 104. In general, the core 104 includes an inner surface 116 defining a cylindrical channel through the core 104. The inner surface 116, and therefore the channel, are substantially parallel to the axis 112. The core 104 also includes a pair of opposing end surfaces, of which one end surface 120 is visible in
The properties of the web 108 can vary across different media supplies, and some printers are compatible with media supplies having webs 108 with differing properties. For example, some printers can accommodate a media supply with a printable width “W” of two inches, four inches, or six inches (a wide variety of other printable widths are also contemplated). Further, some printers can accommodate a media supply 100 carrying thermally-sensitive media that is compatible with direct thermal printing, as well as a media supply 100 carrying media compatible with thermal transfer printing, in which a ribbon cartridge in the printer supplies ribbon to the above-mentioned nip along with the media from the media supply 100, to transfer pigment from the ribbon to the media.
A further property that varies between media supplies 100 is a length or total quantity (e.g., expressed as a number of labels on the web 108). In some cases, media supplies 100 can also be continuous (e.g., a web 108 consisting of continuous media such as receipt paper), or non-continuous (e.g., a web 108 consisting of discrete labels separated by gaps or marks). In further cases, media supplies 100 can impose distinct sensing requirements on the printer. For example, the printer can include one or more optical sensors in the media path between the media supply 100 and the above-mentioned nip. The optical sensors can be operated in one configuration when the web 108 includes discrete labels or other sections divided by gaps (e.g., translucent portions of a polymer web where paper or other material has been removed), and in a different configuration when the web 108 includes discrete labels or other sections divided by colored marks (e.g., black bars separating labels).
To make use of the media supply 100, therefore, a configuration of the printer may require adjustment. Such adjustments may involve manual adjustment, e.g., by an operator of the printer. To alleviate the need to make manual adjustments, while also avoiding or reducing the need to modify manufacturing processes for media supplies 100, described below are tag mount devices that can be affixed to the media supply 100, and that carry an integrated circuit and a wireless antenna, e.g., in the form of a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. Once affixed to the media supply 100, the tag supported on the tag mount can be read, e.g., by an RFID reader in the printer, to extract properties of the media supply 100. Such extraction then enables the printer to automatically update relevant configuration settings to make use of the media supply 100.
Turning to
The tabs 208 form the retaining surface mentioned above. That is, the surfaces of each tab 208 are configured to engage with the core 104 of the media supply 100 to affix the body 202 to the core 104. In particular, as shown in
The retaining surfaces defined by the tabs 208 therefore affixes the tag body 202 to the core 104, and the media supply 100 can then be installed into a printer for use. As will be apparent, the core 104 can be manufactured with the slots 300 therein, e.g., prior to application of the web 108, but such a modification to the manufacturing process is not necessary. In other examples, the slots 300 can be pressed into the core 104 after the web 108 is applied, e.g., by an entity other than the manufacturer(s) of the media supply 100. For example, depending on the hardness of the material used in the core 104, the tabs 208 themselves may be used to form the slots 300 during assembly of the tag mount 200 to the core 104. In other examples, the media supply 100 can be pressed onto a die configured to press the slots 300 into the core, prior to installation of the tag mount 200.
The carrier surface is distinct from the retaining surface (provided by the tabs 208 in this example), but can be on either the inner wall 204 or the outer wall 304 in other examples. The carrier surface 308 is configured to carry a wireless antenna 312, such as the antenna of an RFID tag (illustrated in dashed lines to distinguish visually from the edges of the tag mount body 202). The carrier surface 308 also carries, in this example, an integrated circuit 316 coupled to the antenna 312 and configured to store one or more attributes of the media supply 100. Example attributes 320 are shown in
As will be apparent, the antenna 312 and the circuit 316 are configured, in response to an interrogation signal from an RFID reader (e.g., deployed inside a printer), to return some or all of the data stored at the circuit 316 (e.g., the attributes 320). The printer can therefore automatically obtain media attributes, and select configuration settings (e.g., previously stored at the printer) corresponding to those media attributes. In some examples, the printer can also write data back to the circuit 316. For example, upon completing a print job, the printer can write an updated “count” value (e.g., 199 in the illustrated example) to the circuit 316, such that future retrievals of the attributes 320 by the printer or another printer provide an accurate count of available media on the supply 100.
Turning to
As also shown in
In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments have been described. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of present teachings.
The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential features or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is defined solely by the appended claims including any amendments made during the pendency of this application and all equivalents of those claims as issued.
Moreover in this document, relational terms such as first and second, top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish one entity or action from another entity or action without necessarily requiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between such entities or actions. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “has”, “having,” “includes”, “including,” “contains”, “containing” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains a list of elements does not include only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by “comprises . . . a”, “has . . . a”, “includes . . . a”, “contains . . . a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence of additional identical elements in the process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms “a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly stated otherwise herein. The terms “substantially”, “essentially”, “approximately”, “about” or any other version thereof, are defined as being close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and in one non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, in another embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1% and in another embodiment within 0.5%. The term “coupled” as used herein is defined as connected, although not necessarily directly and not necessarily mechanically. A device or structure that is “configured” in a certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also be configured in ways that are not listed.
Certain expressions may be employed herein to list combinations of elements. Examples of such expressions include: “at least one of A, B, and C”; “one or more of A, B, and C”; “at least one of A, B, or C”; “one or more of A, B, or C”. Unless expressly indicated otherwise, the above expressions encompass any combination of A and/or B and/or C.
It will be appreciated that some embodiments may be comprised of one or more specialized processors (or “processing devices”) such as microprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored program instructions (including both software and firmware) that control the one or more processors to implement, in conjunction with certain non-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of the method and/or apparatus described herein. Alternatively, some or all functions could be implemented by a state machine that has no stored program instructions, or in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certain of the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, a combination of the two approaches could be used.
Moreover, an embodiment can be implemented as a computer-readable storage medium having computer readable code stored thereon for programming a computer (e.g., comprising a processor) to perform a method as described and claimed herein. Examples of such computer-readable storage mediums include, but are not limited to, a hard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, a ROM (Read Only Memory), a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory), an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and a Flash memory. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.
The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features are grouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claim standing on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.