JP2000344353A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide at a low cost a printer of simple configuration having a tray structured so as not to damage a tray transporting member while the rigidity of the tray is well maintained. SOLUTION: A tray 23 for supplying CD, etc., to a printing part has a plate 23b made of a metal such as stainless steel, which is insert molded in a soft plastic part 23c consisting of ABS resin, etc. Accordingly the transport can be performed precisely while the rigidity of the tray is well maintained by the metal plate 23b, and the soft plastic part 23c contacts with the two sides of tray resiliently and involves no risk of damaging rollers as a transporting member for the tray 23.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer,
In particular, a compact disk (hereinafter, referred to as "CD")
The present invention relates to a printer for holding a thick plate-shaped recording medium such as a card or a card in a tray, guiding the recording medium to a printing unit, recording desired characters and graphics thereon, and then discharging the same to a discharge unit.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, when printing on the surface of a recording medium such as a round CD having a diameter of 120 mm, for example, a tray a for a printer as shown in FIG. 8 has been used. This tray a is made of metal or hard resin, and has a diameter of 120 mm to which CDb can be fitted exactly.
Is formed. When printing, CD
After fitting b into the concave portion c, the tray a is inserted from the tray guide provided in the supply path of the printer, and is sent to the printing unit through a pair of rollers (not shown) for printing. It has become.

[0003]

As described above, since the conventional tray a is made of metal or hard resin, a feed roller for feeding the tray a to the printing section, and the tray a is discharged after printing. Rollers are made of rubber or the like and are made of a softer material than metal or hard resin, so that they are easily damaged and cause damage to the tray transport mechanism. For this reason, there is a problem that the life of the tray transport mechanism is shortened, and the cost is increased by providing a special mechanism for maintaining the life of the tray transport mechanism.

[0004]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in a printer according to the present invention, a tray for holding a recording medium to be supplied from a supply path to a printing unit is provided.
In addition to using a material that maintains the rigidity required for conveyance so that a conveyance failure does not occur, a soft material that does not damage the conveyance mechanism is used. With this structure,
When the recording medium is set on the tray and transported, a device that is easy to manufacture can be provided at low cost without damaging the transport mechanism of the tray and without causing transport failure of the tray.

[0005]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In a printer according to the present invention, a supply path for supplying a recording medium, a printing unit for printing on the recording medium supplied from the supply path, and a recording medium printed by the printing unit are discharged. The recording medium is held by a tray and supplied to the printing unit from a supply path. The tray includes a hard part for maintaining the rigidity of the tray, and a hard part for maintaining the rigidity of the tray. And a soft synthetic resin portion that covers at least the lower surface and the upper and lower surfaces of the tip of the tray.

Further, a metal plate is used for the hard portion, and the tray is characterized in that the metal plate is insert-molded in the soft synthetic resin portion.

Further, a hard synthetic resin is used for the hard portion,
The tray is characterized by being molded in two colors with a hard synthetic resin and a soft synthetic resin part.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 show the overall schematic structure of the printer of the present invention. That is, as a supply path for supplying a recording medium, a first supply path 1 for supplying a recording medium 10 having a small thickness such as paper, and a recording medium 2 having a large thickness such as a CD.
And a second supply path 2 for supplying 0. Each of the recording media 10 and 20 is supplied to a common printing unit 3 via a respective supply path, and after being printed by the printing unit 3, is discharged to a common discharging unit 4.

The width W1 of the first supply path 1 is set wide. The recording medium 10 supplied from the first supply path 1
A recording paper is used and is placed on a cut sheet feeder (CSF) 11, and a pair of CSF guides 12 and a feed roller 1 are provided at both ends in the width direction of the CSF 11.
3 are located. The feed roller 13 is connected to the frame 6
Are fitted to a feed roller shaft 13a rotatably supported by frames 61 and 62 which are raised from above, and are slidably and non-rotatably connected in the axial direction. CSF Guide 1
2 and the feed roller 13 are provided with a feed roller shaft 13a.
The recording papers having different widths can be appropriately accommodated by relatively approaching or moving away from each other in the axial direction.

The cut sheet feeder 11 is provided at an inclination of approximately 45 degrees. The recording medium 10 pulled out one by one by a feed roller 13 is guided by the upper surfaces of a pair of guide plates 14 while being curved. It is drawn between the feed roller 15 located on the upstream side of the printing unit 3 and the auxiliary roller 16 elastically contacting the feed roller 15 and is supplied to the printing unit 3. Since the recording medium 10 is thin, the recording medium 10 tends to sag at an intermediate portion in the width direction, and tends to cause a feeding failure such as wrinkles or skew. However, in this example, slack or the like is prevented from being generated by the guide plate 14 or a guide spring member described later.
The upper surface of the guide plate 14 has a predetermined height, and
It is formed on an inclined surface suitable for guiding smoothly. The feed roller 15 is fixed to a feed roller shaft 15a rotatably supported by frames 61 and 62,
6 is rotatably supported by a pin of an auxiliary roller receiver 17,
The auxiliary roller receiver 17 is fixed to the frame 63.

The second supply path 2 is set to have a narrow width at the center of the first supply path 1 like a width W2 shown in FIG. 1, and is thicker than the recording medium 10, such as a CD, a metal plate, or the like. This is a path for supplying a rigid recording medium 20 such as a resin plate to the printing unit 3. As shown in FIG. 2, the frame 6 includes a tray guide 21 provided on the upper surface of the frame 6 so as to linearly communicate with the printing unit 3.

As shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, the tray guide 21 has a narrow recording medium 20 on both sides of its front end.
Are provided with long notches 21a, 21a in the direction of travel.
The guide spring members 22, 22 penetrate through the cutout hole 21a, and a part thereof is projected on the upper surface. Guide spring member 22
Is formed by using a thin and long leaf spring material, bending a portion facing the notch hole 21a into a mountain shape, and fixing one end of the leaf spring material to the back surface of the tray guide 21. The angled bent portion is formed such that the inclined surface 22 a on the printing portion 3 side has a height and an inclination substantially equal to the inclined surface of the guide plate 14. The guide plate 14 and the guide spring member 22 are connected to the first supply path 1.
And the second supply path 2 are provided substantially aligned in the width direction.

As described above, the guide plate 14 and the guide spring member 22 are provided at predetermined heights. However, since the thicknesses of the recording media 10 and 20 are different, the first
This is because the floor position required to smoothly feed the recording medium to the feed roller 15 and the auxiliary roller 16 at the junction of the supply path 1 and the second supply path 2 is slightly different. That is, since the recording medium 20 is thick, the floor surface of the tray guide 21 must be lowered accordingly. However, when the thin recording medium 10 is fed on this low floor surface, the rollers 15 and 16 Between them, there is a risk that feeding failure will occur. Therefore, the thin recording medium 10
Is preferably fed between the rollers 15 and 16 at a predetermined height from the floor of the tray guide 21. The predetermined height between the guide plate 14 and the guide spring member 22 is set to an optimum height.

As shown in FIG. 4, a substantially rectangular tray 23 is used for supplying a round CD as an example of the recording medium 20 from the tray guide 21.
On the upper surface of the second half of the above, there is provided a concave portion 23a conforming to the shape of the recording medium 20 which is a CD. Instead of using metal or hard resin as in the related art, a pair of feed rollers 15 and 16 and a pair of discharge rollers 41 and For example, an ABS resin or the like, which is softer than the material of the material 42, is used.
Are formed by insert molding in the soft synthetic resin portion 23c made of ABS resin. As a result, the rigidity required for transport is obtained by the rigid metal thin plate 23b, and at the same time, the above-mentioned roller comes into contact with the soft synthetic resin portions 23c, 23c covering both surfaces of the metal thin plate 23b. Therefore, the transport mechanism is not damaged. One side of the first half of the tray 23 is cut out, and a corner thereof serves as a detection unit 23d.

Tray 2 set in tray guide 21
Reference numeral 3 denotes a feed roller 15 and an auxiliary roller elastically contacting the feed roller 15 in the same manner as in the case of the first supply path 1 by advancing the guide spring member 22 while bending the guide spring member 22 downward in a flat state as shown in FIG. 16 and is supplied to the printing unit 3. Since the width of the tray guide 21 is smaller than the interval between the pair of guide plates 14, the tray 23 does not contact the upper surface of the guide plate 14 and moves forward by bending the guide spring member 22 downward as described above.

The feed roller 13 and the feed roller 15 are driven to rotate by a motor M1 shown in FIG. 1 via a feed roller shaft 13a and a feed roller shaft 15a.

The printing unit 3 includes a platen 31 long in the width direction fixedly provided by the frames 61 and 62, and a print head 3 movably provided opposite the platen.
Consists of two. The print head 32 is mounted on a carriage 33. The carriage is guided by a guide shaft 34 supported at both ends by frames 61 and 64, and is reciprocated by driving a motor M2 shown in FIG. The recording medium 10 or 20 supplied from the first supply path 1 or the second supply path 2 is a platen 31 of the printing unit 3.
While passing through the gap between the print head 32 and the print head 32, ink is ejected from the print head 32 at a predetermined timing according to an external command and printed on the upper surface of the recording medium 10 or 20.

The discharge unit 4 includes a discharge roller 41 located downstream of the printing unit 3 and an auxiliary roller 42 that resiliently contacts the discharge roller 41, and discharges the recording medium printed by the printing unit 3. The discharge roller 41 is supported by a discharge roller shaft 41a, and the auxiliary roller 42 is rotatably connected to the frame 65. The discharge roller 41 is rotated via a discharge roller shaft 41a by driving the motor M1 shown in FIG.

Next, the position detecting device 5 for the recording media 10 and 20 will be described. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, for example, a light transmission type sensor 51 is fixed to the frame 63. Since the supply and discharge of the recording medium 10 or 20 is detected by blocking / releasing the optical path of the sensor 51, a lever 52 is interposed between the sensor 51 and the upper surface of the recording medium 10 or 20 that passes. Let me. The lever 52 is swingably supported at a substantially central portion. One end (upper end) of the lever 52 is opposed to the sensor 51 so that the optical path of the sensor 51 can be cut off and released, and the other end (lower end).
Is pushed up by the supply of the recording medium 10 or 20 to swing the lever 52. The lower end of the lever 52 is set so as to almost come into contact with the upper surface of the tray guide 21 when the recording medium 10 or 20 is not present. And
When the recording medium 10 or 20 passes, the lower end of the lever 52 is pushed up to swing the lever, and the sensor 51 is set to the detection state.
By setting the difference in height of the lower end of the lever between the presence and absence of 0 or 20 to be sufficient and the swing angle of the lever 52 to be large, the detection by the sensor 51 is stabilized. Done. Further, the position of the lever 52 in the width direction needs to be a position through which both the recording media 10 and 20 pass, and the lower the lower end of the lever 52 is, the more stable the detection of the recording medium is. Therefore, it is desirable that the lower end of the lever 52 be located near the guide spring member 22 supporting the recording medium 10 or 20 from the lower surface side or between the guide plate 14 and the guide spring member 22.

When the leading end of the recording medium 10 or 20 supplied by the sensor 51 is detected via the lever 52, a recording start position on the recording medium 10 or 20 is set. When the trailing edge of the recording medium 10 or 20 is detected, the recording end position on the recording medium 10 or 20 is set, and the timing of discharging the recording medium 10 or 20 is also set.

With such a configuration, when a recording sheet having a width W1 is supplied as the recording medium 10 from the first supply path 1, the wide recording sheet placed on the cut sheet feeder 11 is fed by a feed roller. 13, the recording paper is fed one by one, and the leading end of the recording paper is guided by the inclined surface of the guide plate 14 and the inclined surface 22a of the guide spring member 22, so that the recording paper is smoothly curved without slack and slanting in the width direction. It is drawn between the feed roller 15 and the auxiliary roller 16. At this time, since the leading end of the recording paper pushes up the lower end of the lever 52 to swing the lever, the sensor 51 detects that the recording paper has been supplied. As described above, since the recording paper is supported at a predetermined height by the guide plate 14 and the guide spring member 22, the recording paper can withstand a force for pushing up the lower end of the lever, and the recording paper is not sagged. Thus, accurate detection is performed.

The printing is performed on the recording paper supplied to the printing unit 3 by the feed roller 15 and the auxiliary roller 16 as described above, and is discharged by the discharge unit 4. When the trailing edge of the recording paper passes through the lever 52, the lever 52 returns from the swing state to the original state, and the sensor 51 returns to the non-detection state.

When recording paper having a width W2 is supplied from the first supply path 1 as the recording medium 10, the feed rollers 13 on both sides are brought close to the width of the recording paper, and the recording paper is fed one by one. . Since the width of the recording paper is small, it is not guided by the inclined surface of the guide plate 14, but even in this case, as shown in FIG. 3B, it is guided by the inclined surface 22a of the guide spring member 22 of the tray guide 21. Therefore, the sensor 51 can withstand the force of pushing up the lower end of the lever 52 without sagging, and the sensor 51 performs accurate detection. Subsequent operations are the same as described above.

Next, when printing on the upper surface of the rigid recording medium 20 such as a CD, the second supply path 2 is used. C
In the case of D, the CD 20 is mounted on the tray 23 shown in FIG. 4, placed on the upper surface of the tray guide 21 and pushed toward the printing unit 3. Since the upper surface of the CD incorporated in the tray 23 has a sufficient height to swing the lever 52, the tray 23 causes the guide spring member 22 to bend downward as shown in FIG. Since the lever advances in a plane and the lower end of the lever 52 is pushed up by the detection unit 23d of the tray to swing the lever, accurate detection is performed by the sensor 51. The tray 23 includes the feed roller 15 and the auxiliary roller 1
6, the feed roller 15 and the auxiliary roller 16 resiliently contact the soft synthetic resin portions 23c, 23c of the tray and are transported to the printing portion 3, so that the roller side is not damaged. Then, printing is performed on the CD supplied to the printing unit 3 as described above, and thereafter, the discharge roller 41 and the auxiliary roller 42 of the discharge unit 4 elastically contact the soft synthetic resin portions 23c, 23c of the tray 23. Since the sheet is discharged, the roller side is not damaged. When the rear end of the tray 23 passes through the lever 52, the lever 52 returns from the swing state to the original state, and the sensor 51 returns to the non-detection state.

FIGS. 5 and 6 show another embodiment of the tray.
The provision of the concave portion 24a conforming to the shape of the recording medium 20 which is a CD is the same as in the case of FIG. The tray 24 is formed by two-color molding. That is, the upper surface side where the concave portion 24a is provided is a hard synthetic resin portion 2 as a hard portion.
4b, for example, a PBT resin or a liquid crystal resin is used, and the lower surface side in contact with the feed roller 15 and the discharge roller 41 on the drive side and the tip of the tray 24 are made of a synthetic resin portion 24c softer than the material of the rollers 15 and 41; For example, an ABS resin or the like is used. When the tray 24 is formed by two-color molding using such a hard synthetic resin portion 24b and a soft synthetic resin portion 24c, the rigidity required for conveyance is obtained by the hard synthetic resin portion 24b located on the upper surface. At the same time, when the tip portion of the tray 24, which is the soft synthetic resin portion 24c, is inserted between the rollers 15 and 16 and between the rollers 41 and 42, the rollers are not damaged. Further, while the tray 24 is being conveyed, the soft synthetic resin portion 24c comes into contact with the feed roller 15 and the discharge roller 41, so that the drive-side roller which is particularly easily damaged is not damaged. Incidentally, the auxiliary rollers 16 and 42 are
However, the auxiliary roller side slightly changes the elastic contact force, so that the auxiliary roller side is slightly damaged. In case of damage, the parts are inexpensive and can be easily replaced.

[0027]

As described above, the printer according to the present invention uses a tray composed of a hard portion for maintaining the rigidity of the tray and a soft synthetic resin portion which does not damage members for transporting the tray. The tray can be transported to the tray, and the transport member of the tray is not damaged.
Since this tray can be easily formed by insert molding or two-color molding, it can be manufactured easily and at low cost.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an overall schematic configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, with a cut sheet feeder removed.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged sectional view taken along the line AA of FIG. 1;

3A is an enlarged perspective view of a tray guide, FIG. 3B is an enlarged sectional view of a guide spring part of the above, and FIG. 3C is an enlarged sectional view of the guide spring part of the same showing a state where a tray is supplied; It is.

FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing an embodiment of a tray into which a CD is incorporated.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing another embodiment of the tray.

FIG. 6 is an enlarged cross-sectional view taken along the line BB of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 shows a conventional example, in which (a) is a perspective view of a CD,
(B) is a perspective view of a tray into which the CD is incorporated.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 2 supply path 3 printing section 4 discharge section 20 recording medium 23, 24 tray 23b hard section (metal plate) 23c soft synthetic resin section 24b hard section (hard synthetic resin section) 24c soft synthetic resin section

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Naoki Tanabe 1-1-1, Akanehama, Narashino City, Chiba Prefecture Inside Seiko Precision Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Mikio Amakasu 1-1-1, Akanehama, Narashino City, Chiba Prefecture Say F-term (reference) in Co., Ltd. 3F343 FA19 FB04 GA01 GB01 GC01 GD01 HA12 HA27 HB01 HD02 KB03 KB16 KB18 KB19

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus, comprising: a supply path for supplying a recording medium; a printing unit for printing on the recording medium supplied from the supply path; and a discharge unit for discharging the recording medium printed by the printing unit. The recording medium is supplied to the printing unit from the supply path while being held by a tray, wherein the tray has a hard part for maintaining the rigidity of the tray, and at least a lower surface of the hard part and the hard part. A printer, comprising: a soft synthetic resin portion covering both upper and lower surfaces of a tip portion of the tray. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein a metal plate is used for the hard portion, and the tray is formed by insert-molding the metal plate into the soft synthetic resin portion. 3. The printer according to claim 1, wherein a hard synthetic resin is used for the hard portion, and the tray is formed by two colors of the hard synthetic resin portion and the soft synthetic resin portion. .