JP2006306542A - Thermal printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To miniaturize a thermal printer device capable of performing the printing without any margin on an end of a recording paper by arranging a recording paper conveying means on both the upstream and downstream sides of a printing means. <P>SOLUTION: In the thermal printer device, conveying means 9, 12 of a recording paper 3 are arranged on both the upstream and downstream sides of a printing means 23. When printing a first half printing area on the printing start side of the recording paper 3, the paper sheet is conveyed by the upstream side conveying means 9, and when printing a second half printing area on the printing end side of the recording paper 3, the paper sheet is conveyed by the downstream side conveying means 12, enabling the printing without any marking on the entire surface of the recording paper 3. A drive transmission gear B42 capable of performing the rotational drive is arranged so as to be simultaneously engaged with an upstream side paper sheet conveying roller gear 43 and a downstream side paper sheet conveying roller gear 46 arranged on each one end of an upstream side paper sheet conveying roller 44 and a downstream side paper sheet conveying roller 47 via a drive transmission means from a rotatational drive source 40. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a thermal printer apparatus, and more particularly to a drive gear train of a thermal printer apparatus having a thermal head as a printing unit.

  A conventional thermal printer will be described by taking a thermal sublimation printer as an example.

  First, the printing means will be described. An ink ribbon and a thermal head are arranged on the printing surface of the recording paper, and a platen roller is configured on the back side of the recording paper. When printing a desired image on recording paper, the thermal head is pressed against the platen roller, and a plurality of heating elements arranged in a line on the thermal head are selectively heated based on the image information, and the ink ribbon The upper ink is sublimated and transferred to the recording paper.

  The recording paper conveyance means is nipped and conveyed between a paper conveyance roller that self-drives and conveys the recording paper, and a paper pressing roller that is provided in parallel with the paper conveyance roller and presses the paper conveyance roller with a certain tension. Is fed by.

  The conveying means is arranged on either the upstream side or the downstream side of the printing means, and when printing is performed on the recording paper, the printing is always performed with the recording paper held between the conveying means. When color printing is performed, printing is performed for each color in one transport of the recording paper, and different color inks are overprinted on the recording paper by forward and reverse rotation driving of the paper transport roller to form a color image. .

  However, as described above, in such a conventional printer method, it is necessary to always hold the recording paper between the conveying means when printing is performed. For this reason, the recording paper is near the print start end portion or the print end portion. There was a problem that the vicinity could not be printed and a margin portion was generated.

  In order to solve these problems, the recording paper conveying means is arranged on both the upstream side and the downstream side of the printing means, and when printing the first half printing area on the printing start end side of the recording paper, When transporting the recording paper using the transport means arranged on the upstream side in the transport direction and printing the latter half printing area on the printing end side of the recording paper, place it on the downstream side in the recording paper transport direction. By adopting a printer system that transports the recording paper using the existing transporting means, it is possible to print without a blank portion on the recording paper.

  Hereinafter, a printing method of the above-described printer device having no margin will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of the printer apparatus. In FIG. 1, when image information is transferred from a computer and a digital device such as a digital camera to the printer apparatus 1 via a connection cable or the like, a printing operation starts on the printer apparatus 1 side. First, the recording paper 3 stored in the photographic paper tray 2 is brought into pressure contact with the rotating paper supply / discharge roller 6 by the upper and lower plates 5 driven around the upper and lower plate shafts 4 and is conveyed into the printer apparatus 1. Is done.

  The transported recording paper 3 includes an upstream paper transport roller 7 that is rotationally driven, an upstream paper transporting roller 9 that is rotatably supported by an upstream paper transport roller 8, and a downstream paper transport that is rotationally driven. The conveyance is continued to the upstream side by the nipping conveyance by the downstream conveyance means 12 constituted by the roller 10 and the downstream paper pressing roller 11 that is rotatably supported.

  When the printing start end of the recording paper 3 is transported to the recording paper leading edge detection sensor 13, the transport driving of the upstream transport unit 9 and the downstream transport unit 12 is stopped by a command from the printer device 1.

  In the process from when the recording paper 3 is transported into the printer apparatus 1, a gap is secured between the thermal head 14 and the platen roller 15 so that the recording paper 3 can be transported.

  Next, according to a command from the printer apparatus 1, the upstream-side transport unit 9 and the downstream-side transport unit 12 start to transport the recording sheet 3 in the direction opposite to the direction in which the recording sheet 3 has been transported (arrow D direction). . When the printing start end of the recording paper 3 is conveyed to the heating element array 16 on the thermal head 14, the recording paper 3 stops. The thermal head 14 starts moving toward the platen roller 15 with the head arm shaft 17 as a fulcrum, and presses the ink ribbon 18 and the recording paper 3 against the platen roller 15. FIG. 2 shows this pressure contact state. The platen roller 15 is rotatably supported by the printer device 1.

  Next, the printing operation on the recording paper 3 starts. Energization based on the image information is started to the heating element array 16 on the thermal head 14 and ink on the ink ribbon 18 is started to be transferred to the recording paper 3. At the same time, conveyance of the recording paper 3 in the downstream direction by the upstream conveyance unit 9 is started, and the winding operation of the ink-transferred ribbon by the ink ribbon winding unit 19 is started (see FIG. 2).

  The printing start end of the recording paper 3 that continues to be conveyed downstream reaches the downstream conveying means 12, and the upstream conveying means 9 and the downstream conveying means 12 convey the recording paper 3.

  The recording paper 3 conveyed by the upstream and downstream conveying means 9 and 12 is conveyed until it passes through the heating element array 16 on the thermal head 14, and then the upstream and downstream conveying means 9 and 12 rotate. The driving and winding operation of the ink ribbon 18 are stopped, and the printing operation for the first color is completed.

  By repeating the above operations several times, different color inks are overprinted on the recording paper 3 to form a color image. After the color image is formed, the recording paper 3 follows the discharge path by the flap 21 and is discharged onto the photographic paper tray 2 by nipping and conveying between the rotating paper supply / discharge roller 6 and the paper discharge pressing roller 22. End the printing operation.

Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for forming a color image on the entire surface of a recording sheet.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-217516

  The printer system without margins as described above simply forms a gear train from one drive source to rotate two paper transport rollers arranged on the upstream side and downstream side, thereby conveying two paper transport rollers. When the rollers are driven, a gear arrangement as shown in FIG. 3 is obtained.

  The gear train of FIG. 3 will be briefly described.

  The driving force transmitted from the rotational drive source 30 via the drive transmission gears A31 and B32 is transmitted to the upstream paper transport roller gear 33 and rotates the upstream paper transport roller 34 coupled to the upstream paper transport roller gear 33. Let The driving force transmitted to the upstream paper transport roller gear 33 is further transmitted to the downstream paper transport roller gear 36 via the relay gear 39 and coupled to the downstream paper transport roller gear 36. Rotate.

  Since such a gear train is composed of a single gear train from the rotational drive source 30 to the downstream paper transport roller gear 36 as described above, the number of gears to be used increases, making it difficult to reduce the size of the printer device itself. It was.

  There are many mobile printers in the market today, and users are expected to make them more compact. Therefore, there is a gear configuration suitable for downsizing the printer instead of the gear train described above. desired.

  As a means for solving the above-described problem, a recording paper conveying means is arranged on both the upstream side and the downstream side of the printing means, and when printing the first half printing area on the printing start end side of the recording paper, When transporting the recording paper using the transport means located upstream in the paper transport direction and printing the latter half print area on the printing termination side of the recording paper, place it downstream in the recording paper transport direction. In the printer apparatus that conveys the recording paper using the conveying means, the configuration of each of the conveying means described above consists of nipping and conveying between a paper conveying roller having a gear disposed at one end and a paper pressing roller arranged in parallel. In this way, each gear provided at one end of the paper conveyance roller disposed upstream and downstream in the recording paper conveyance direction is simultaneously engaged with a drive gear that enables rotational drive from a rotational drive source via drive transmission means. Arrange to match It was configured to.

  As described above, the printer apparatus according to the present invention has the recording paper conveying means arranged on both the upstream side and the downstream side of the printing means, and when printing the first half printing area on the printing start end side of the recording paper. When transporting the recording paper using the transport means arranged on the upstream side in the recording paper transport direction and printing the latter half print area on the printing termination side of the recording paper, the downstream side in the recording paper transport direction In the printer apparatus that conveys recording paper using the arranged conveying means, the configuration of each conveying means described above is sandwiched and conveyed between a paper conveying roller having a gear disposed at one end and a paper pressing roller arranged in parallel. Each of the gears provided at one end of the paper conveyance roller disposed on the upstream side and the downstream side in the recording paper conveyance direction, and a drive gear that enables rotational drive from the rotational drive source via the drive transmission means, To engage at the same time 3 can reduce the number of gears to be arranged compared to the conventional gear train shown in FIG. 3 and can reduce the size of the gear train, which is effective for downsizing the printer device itself. A cost reduction effect can also be obtained by reducing the number of gears.

  The gear arrangement of the printer apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.

  The driving force transmitted from the rotational drive source 40 via the drive transmission gear A41 is transmitted to a drive transmission gear B42 that is arranged to freely rotate.

  The rotationally driven drive transmission gear B 42 transmits driving force to two gears, that is, the upstream paper transport roller gear 43 and the downstream paper transport roller gear 46, and is connected to the upstream paper transport roller gear 43. The roller 44 and the downstream paper transport roller 47 coupled to the downstream paper transport roller gear 46 are simultaneously rotated.

  By adopting such a gear arrangement, the relay gear 39 used in the conventional gear train shown in FIG. 3 is not required, and the gear train can be made compact, which is effective for downsizing the printer device itself. A cost reduction effect can also be obtained by reducing the number of gears.

FIG. 1 is a side view illustrating the configuration of a printer apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a side view illustrating the configuration of the printer apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating a drive gear train of a conventional printer device. FIG. 4 is a perspective view for explaining the drive gear train of the printer apparatus according to the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

1 Printer device
2 photographic paper tray
3 Recording paper 4 Vertical plate axis
5 Upper and lower plates
6 Feed / discharge roller 7 Upstream paper transport roller
8 Upstream paper presser roller
9 Upstream conveying means 10 Downstream paper conveying roller
11 Downstream paper presser roller
12 downstream transport means 13 recording paper leading edge detection sensor
14 Thermal head
15 Platen roller 16 Heating element array
17 Head arm shaft
18 Ink ribbon 19 Ink ribbon take-up part
20 Ink ribbon supply section
21 Flap 22 Paper discharge presser roller
23 Printing means 30 Rotation drive source
31 Drive transmission gear A
32 Drive transmission gear B
33 Upstream paper transport roller gear
34 Upstream paper transport roller
35 Upstream side paper presser roller 36 Downstream side paper feed roller gear
37 Downstream paper transport roller
38 Downstream side paper pressing roller 39 Relay gear 40 Rotation drive source
41 Drive transmission gear A
42 Drive transmission gear B
43 Upstream paper transport roller gear
44 Upstream side paper transport roller
45 Upstream side paper pressing roller 46 Downstream side paper conveying roller gear
47 Downstream paper transport roller
48 Downstream paper presser roller

Claims (1)

  In a thermal printer apparatus having a thermal head as a printing means, a conveying means for conveying recording paper to the printing means is arranged in two rows so that the recording paper can be conveyed, and is sandwiched between the conveying means arranged in parallel. The printing means is disposed in the recording area, and when printing the first half printing area on the printing start end side of the recording paper, the recording paper is used by using the conveying means arranged upstream in the recording paper conveyance direction. In the printer device that transports the recording paper using the transporting means disposed on the downstream side in the recording paper transport direction when printing the second half printing area on the printing termination side of the recording paper, The configuration of each of the conveying means is composed of a nipping conveyance between a paper conveying roller having a gear disposed at one end and a paper pressing roller arranged in parallel, and the upstream side and the downstream side in the recording paper conveying direction. A thermal gear characterized in that a driving gear capable of rotational driving is simultaneously engaged with each of the gears provided at one end portion of the paper conveying roller to be arranged via a driving transmission means from a rotational driving source. Printer device.