(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for detecting an amount of ink consumption or a recorded amount in an ink jet recording device, such as an ink jet printer.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A system for detecting a recorded amount or amount of ink consumption in an ink jet recording device is described in Patent Publication JP-A-3 (1991)-246058, for example. Briefly, the system includes a page counter for storing an amount of ink consumption which is converted from an amount of recorded data, an increment section for sequentially updating the page counter if there is an ink consumption resulting from data recording, and an alarm signal generator for generating an alarm when the residual amount of ink is considered below a threshold based on the initial amount of the ink and the accumulated ink consumption.
Specifically, when a new ink reservoir is placed in the ink jet printer, a signal indicating the replacement of the ink reservoir is supplied to a controller in the ink jet printer to clear the page counter. If a print command signal is received in the ink jet printer, the printer effects a recording operation by ejecting ink supplied from the ink reservoir. When an amount of data corresponding to one page is recorded by the printer, the increment section increments the count of the page counter by one page.
In this manner, the page counter is updated at each time the recording operation for one page is completed. If the amount of ink corresponding to the volume in the ink reservoir is counted in the page counter, the controller determines that recording operation for a specified number of pages has been completed, displays an alarm signal that the ink reservoir is empty or close to empty and stops further recording operation. A non-volatile memory is used for the page counter, thereby allowing the count representing the ink consumption or residual amount of the ink to be maintained without a power supply to the printer.
In the conventional ink jet printer, a user for a computer system including the ink jet printer knows the emptying of the ink reservoir only when the printing is stopped or interrupted by the alarm from the printer, which causes the computer work done by the user to be inconvenienced.