JPH02120053A - Thermal transfer serial printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To lessen idle feed of a ribbon and to reduce running cost by a method wherein a color ribbon is equally divided horizontally and a printing data of a color corresponding to each color width is printed. CONSTITUTION:A control part 4 receives color specifying information from a host apparatus to start analysis of a data. Since a dot pin 2 of a printing head 1 is composed of 24 dots, an image to be printed is divided by a 6 dot unit for each color (4 colors). That is, by editing the image to be printed so that ink of a yellow color ribbon 3a is melted with a dot pin 2a of 1 to 6 dot to print a yellow image, a read purple image is printed with a dot pin 2b of 7 to 12 dot, a light blue image is printed with a dot pin 2c of 13 to 18 dot, and a black image is printed with a dot pin 2d of 19 to 24 dot, output to printing data of the dot pins 2a to 2d is controlled. The control part 4 emits a command of printing operation to move a head motor 5, a ribbon motor 6, and a carrier motor 7, and printing is started. When one line printing is completed, line feed of 6 dot content is performed, and this operation is repeated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a thermal transfer serial printer, and particularly to a non-impact serial printer in which a print pattern is formed by a dot matrix.

[Conventional technology]

Various printers have been widely used as output devices for computer systems used in the information processing field. Among these, printers that use a printing method that expresses character patterns using dot matrices are not only flexible but also rapidly becoming unsuitable.

In particular, thermal transfer serial printers have a simple structure, low noise, and are inexpensive, so demand is expanding for personal use such as terminal systems and personal computers.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in such printers, color ribbons are arranged in parallel in the order of light to dark colors in the longitudinal direction, and printing is performed using a portion of the color ribbons. Therefore, when the ribbon is fed in the longitudinal direction, there naturally arises a portion that is fed unused. This results in the unused portion of the tape being wasted, resulting in a disadvantage of high running costs.

An object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer serial printer that does not solve the above problems.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the thermal transfer serial printer according to the present invention includes a thermal transfer print head and color ribbons of two or more colors each having a width of the number of dots equally divided by the width of the number of dots printed by the thermal transfer print head. The apparatus includes thermal transfer color ink ribbons arranged in parallel, and a control section that controls printing data to dot pins of the thermal transfer print head in units of dots in correspondence with the widths of the color ribbons of each color.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the relationship between a thermal transfer color ink ribbon and a thermal transfer print head in the present invention.

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a thermal transfer print head, and the thermal transfer print head 1 is provided with dot pins 2 having a configuration of 24 dots arranged in a line in the vertical direction.

3 is a thermal transfer color ink ribbon, and the thermal transfer color ink ribbon 3 is Y (yellow) and 1M (reddish-purple), and has individual dot widths that are equal parts of the dot width printed by the dot pins 2 of the print head 1.

Color ribbons 3a, 3 of each color C (light blue) and B (black)
It has a configuration in which b, 3c, and 3d are arranged in parallel. In this embodiment, the width of the color ribbons 3a to 3d of each color is set to the width of the number of printed dots formed by each set of dot pins 2a, 2b, 2c, and 2d, which are obtained by dividing the dot pin 2 of 24 dots into sets of six. be.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the control system of the present invention.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a control unit, and the control unit 4 issues commands to drive and control the helad motor 5, ribbon motor 6, carrier motor 7, line feed motor 8, ROM 9, and RAM 10, and also controls the color ribbons 3a to 3d of each color. The print data on the dot pins 2 of the thermal transfer print head 1 is controlled in units of dots (in the embodiment, a set of six dot pins 2a to 2d is set in units of dots) in accordance with the width of the dots. The color ink ribbon 3 is Y as shown in FIG.
It is a ribbon in which color ribbons 38 to 3d of each color (yellow), M (magenta), C (light blue), and B (black) are divided equally in the horizontal direction, and each color ribbon 3a to 3d is divided into 24 pieces.
Each corresponds to a set of dot pins 2a to 2d having a dot configuration.

Here, the control unit 4 receives color designation information from a host device (not shown) and starts data analysis. Since the dot pin 2 of the print head 1 is composed of 24 dots, the image to be printed is divided into 6 dots for each color (4 colors). That is, dot pins 2a with 1 to 6 dots melt the ink on the yellow color ribbon 3a to print a yellow image, and dot pins 2b with 7 to 12 dots melt the ink on the reddish-purple color ribbon 3b. The ink on the light blue color ribbon 3c is melted and printed on the light blue image using the dot pin 2C of 13 to 18 dots, and the black color ribbon 3d is printed using the dot pin 2d of 19 to 24 dots. The control unit 4 melts the ink and edits it so as to print a black image, and controls the output of the print data to the dot pins 2a to 2d forming a set based on the data. A print operation command is issued at this point. Based on this command, the head motor 5 is driven, the ribbon motor 6 is driven, and the carrier motor 7 is moved to start printing.

When printing of 1 line is completed, a line feed of 6 dots is performed and the above operation is repeated.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the thermal transfer serial printer of the present invention, wasteful feeding of the ribbon can be reduced by dividing the color ribbon equally in the horizontal direction and printing print data of colors corresponding to each color width. It also has the effect of lowering running costs.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the positional relationship between a thermal transfer color ink ribbon and a thermal transfer print head in an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a configuration diagram showing a control system in an embodiment of the present invention. 1...Thermal transfer print head 2.2a-2d...Dot pin 3...Thermal transfer color ink ribbon 3a-3d...Color ribbon 4...Control unit Patent applicant Niigata NEC Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A thermal transfer print head, a thermal transfer color ink ribbon in which color ribbons of two or more colors are arranged in parallel, each having a width of the number of dots equally divided by the width of the number of dots printed by the thermal transfer print head, and a color ribbon of each color. 1. A thermal transfer serial printer, comprising: a control section that controls printing data to the dot pins of the thermal transfer print head in units of dots in accordance with the width of the thermal transfer print head.