JP2009073084A - Method for forming primary transfer image in intermediate-transfer type image formation, and intermediate-transfer type printer - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To carry out a first process to transfer ink to each transfer area on an intermediate transfer body, thereafter, to rewind the intermediate transfer body on a roller so as to carry out a second or subsequent process to transfer ink to each transfer area on the intermediate transfer body, and to accurately carry out positioning of the ink transfer position in each transfer area on the intermediate transfer body in the second or subsequent process to transfer the ink to each transfer area on the intermediate transfer body, in forming an intermediate-transfer type image. <P>SOLUTION: In the first process to transfer the ink to the intermediate transfer body 7, the ink is transferred in the vicinity of each transfer area 21 on the intermediate transfer body 7, then, a marker 22 is formed. In the second or subsequent process to transfer the ink to the intermediate transfer body, the position of the marker is detected, and the positioning of the ink transfer position in the backward and forward direction C and the width direction D of the intermediate transfer body is performed on the basis of the marker-position detection result. In this case, the positioning of the ink transfer position in the width direction of the intermediate transfer body is performed by selecting heat-generating elements of a thermal head. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an image of an intermediate transfer system in which an ink is transferred to a transfer region of an intermediate transfer member to form a primary transfer image, and then the primary transfer image is retransferred from the intermediate transfer member to a recording medium to form an image. The present invention relates to a method for forming a primary transfer image in forming and an intermediate transfer printer.

  Conventionally, after the ink is transferred to each transfer area of the intermediate transfer member fed from the roller to form a primary transfer image, the primary transfer image is re-transferred from the intermediate transfer member to a recording medium such as plain paper, CD, or cards. An intermediate transfer type printer that transfers and forms an image is known (for example, see Patent Documents 1 and 2).

JP-A-7-186416 JP 2003-136893 A

  In the above-described intermediate transfer printer, due to high demands on images, for example, demands for images having more complex colors, the first transfer of ink to each transfer area of the intermediate transfer member is performed, and then the intermediate transfer member is removed. In some cases, the ink is rewound onto the roller, and then the second and subsequent ink transfers are performed on each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member.

  However, when the second and subsequent ink transfers are performed on each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member as described above, the ink transfer location on each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member is accurately positioned during the second and subsequent ink transfers. It was difficult to do.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described circumstances, and after performing the first ink transfer to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member, the intermediate transfer member is rewound onto the roller, and then each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member. In the second and subsequent ink transfers, the primary transfer in intermediate transfer type image formation that can accurately position the ink transfer location to each transfer area of the intermediate transfer body during the second and subsequent ink transfers. An object is to provide an image forming method and an intermediate transfer type printer.

  In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a method for forming a primary transfer image by transferring ink to each transfer area of an intermediate transfer member fed from a roller by an ink transfer unit using a thermal head. This is a primary transfer image forming method in which after the first ink transfer to each transfer region, the intermediate transfer member is rewound onto a roller, and then the second and subsequent ink transfers are performed to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member. In addition, at the time of the first ink transfer to the intermediate transfer member, the ink is transferred to the vicinity of each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member to form a marker, and at the second and subsequent ink transfer to the intermediate transfer member. The position of the marker is detected, and based on the detection result, the intermediate transfer body of the ink transfer location is positioned in the front-rear direction and the width direction. Positioning in the width direction of the transfer member, to provide a method of forming a primary transfer image in the image formation of an intermediate transfer type, which comprises carrying out the selection of the heat generating elements of the thermal head.

  In the present invention, when a primary transfer image is formed by transferring ink to each transfer area of the intermediate transfer body fed out from the roller by an ink transfer means using a thermal head, 1 is applied to each transfer area of the intermediate transfer body. An intermediate transfer type printer that performs the second ink transfer and then rewinds the intermediate transfer member around a roller, and then performs the second and subsequent ink transfers to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member. Marker forming means for forming a marker by transferring ink to the vicinity of each transfer region of the intermediate transfer body during the first ink transfer, and the position of the marker during the second and subsequent ink transfer to the intermediate transfer body Based on the detection means for detecting, and the detection result by the detection means, the intermediate transfer body at the ink transfer location is positioned in the front-rear direction and the width direction, and the ink transfer is performed. Positioning in the width direction of the intermediate transfer body location, to provide an intermediate transfer type printer, characterized by comprising a control means for the selection of the heat generating elements of the thermal head.

  According to the present invention, a marker is formed by transferring ink to the vicinity of each transfer region during the first ink transfer to the intermediate transfer member, and the position of the marker during the second and subsequent ink transfer to the intermediate transfer member. Is detected, positioning of the ink transfer location in the front-rear direction (traveling direction) and width direction (direction perpendicular to the traveling direction) is performed, and positioning of the ink transfer location in the width direction is performed. Since this is done by selecting the heating element of the thermal head, the ink transfer location can be accurately positioned at the second and subsequent ink transfers.

  In the present invention, it is preferable to detect the position of the marker while detecting the feed amount of the intermediate transfer member at the second and subsequent ink transfers to the intermediate transfer member. Thereby, it is possible to prevent the image formed in the transfer area of the intermediate transfer body from being mistaken as a marker.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of an intermediate transfer printer according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the intermediate transfer type printer 1 has a cylindrical platen roller 2. The central portion of the platen roller 2 is a rotating shaft 3 to which a driving source (not shown) such as a stepping motor is connected. By rotating the rotating shaft 3 by the driving source, the platen roller 2 is It rotates in both directions (the directions of arrows A and B in FIG. 1).

  In the vicinity of the platen roller 2, a feeding roller 4 and a take-up roller 5 are disposed. The feeding roller 4 has a long thin transparent resin sheet or transparent resin formed of a material such as polyethylene terephthalate. An intermediate transfer sheet (intermediate transfer member) 7 made of a film is wound. The intermediate transfer sheet 7 is guided from the feeding roller 4 along the outer peripheral surface of the platen roller 2, and is taken up by the take-up roller 5.

  A first guide roller 10 that guides the intermediate transfer sheet 7 in the direction of the outer peripheral surface of the platen roller 2 is rotatably disposed upstream of the platen roller 2 in the conveyance direction of the intermediate transfer sheet 7. A second guide roller 12 for rotatably guiding the intermediate transfer sheet 7 from the outer peripheral side of the platen roller 2 to the take-up roller 5 is disposed downstream of the platen roller 2 in the conveyance direction of the intermediate transfer sheet 7. Has been.

  Further, on the outside of the platen roller 2, a plurality of (four in the present embodiment) transfer units 14 that transfer the primary transfer image onto the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 have a predetermined interval in the conveyance direction of the intermediate transfer sheet 7. It is arranged with. Each of the transfer units 14 has a thermal head 15 that can be pressed against the platen roller 2. The thermal head 15 has a length corresponding to the width of the intermediate transfer sheet 7, and a plurality of heating elements 16 are arranged in parallel on the thermal head 15.

  Each transfer unit 14 is provided with a pair of ribbon rolls 19 around which an ink ribbon 18 is wound. The ink ribbon 18 is interposed between the platen roller 2 and each heating element 16 of the thermal head 15. Guided. Further, inks of different colors are applied to the ink ribbons 18 wound around the respective ribbon rolls 19, and in this embodiment, in order from the most upstream transfer portion 14 of the intermediate transfer sheet 7, Cyan ink, magenta ink, yellow ink, and black ink are applied.

  In these transfer portions 14, the thermal head 15 is pressed against the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 via the ink ribbon 18, and each heating element 16 selectively generates heat, whereby the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7. The primary transfer image is transferred to the first.

  A detection unit (detection means) 20 for detecting a marker, which will be described later, is provided outside the platen roller 2 in the vicinity of the entrance of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 to the platen roller 2. The detection unit 20 detects a marker by a sensor capable of detecting an image such as a photo sensor or a CCD sensor.

  The detection unit 20 is connected to a control unit (not shown), and each thermal head 15 is also connected to the control unit.

  Although not shown, the intermediate transfer printer of this example is provided with a retransfer unit that retransfers the primary transfer image transferred to the intermediate transfer sheet 7 to a recording medium. In this retransfer section, a recording medium is disposed so as to face the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7, and a heat roller is placed on the recording medium at a position facing the recording medium via the intermediate transfer sheet 7. It is installed so that it can be pressed against. As the recording medium, paper, resin, glass, metal, ceramic, cloth, etc. that are not deformed by heat when retransferring the primary transfer image formed on the intermediate transfer sheet, such as plain paper, compact disc, various cards, etc. Recording media composed of these various materials.

  Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. First, when a signal is input to the intermediate transfer type printer 1, the platen roller 2 is rotated in the direction of arrow A by driving the drive source, and the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is moved in the conveying direction as the platen roller 2 rotates. It is conveyed to a predetermined position of the transfer unit 14 on the most upstream side.

  Subsequently, the thermal head 15 is pressed against the intermediate transfer sheet 7 through the ink ribbon 18 coated with cyan ink. In this state, the heating elements 16 of the thermal head 15 are selectively energized based on the transfer information. Thus, each heating element 16 generates heat, the cyan ink of the ink ribbon 18 is transferred to the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7, and the cyan reverse image is transferred to one transfer region of the intermediate transfer sheet 7.

  Next, the rotation of the platen roller 2 conveys the intermediate transfer sheet 7 to the next transfer unit 14 and presses the thermal head 15 against the intermediate transfer sheet 7 so as to magenta on the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 based on the transfer information. By transferring the color ink, the reverse image of the magenta color is transferred to the reverse image recorded with the cyan ink.

  Similarly, the third transfer unit 14 and the most downstream transfer unit 14 transfer the yellow and black inverted images to transfer the full color inverted image to the surface of the intermediate transfer sheet 7.

  In the present embodiment, in the above-described transfer process of the full-color reversal image, as shown in FIG. 2, each transfer region 21 of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is used by using one or more transfer units 14. The marker 22 is formed by transferring the ink in the vicinity of. The shape of the marker 22 may be any shape as long as it can detect the positions of the marker 22 in the front-rear direction C and the width direction D, and includes, for example, the quadrangle shown in FIG. It is not something. There is no limitation on the color of the marker 22, for example, a black color, but is not limited thereto.

  As described above, the reverse image is transferred to all the transfer regions 21 of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 and the markers 22 are formed in the vicinity of each transfer region 21 to thereby transfer the first ink onto the intermediate transfer sheet 7. Ends.

  Thereafter, by driving the drive source, the platen roller 2 is rotated in the direction of arrow B, and the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is rewound from the take-up roller 5 to the feed roller 4. Next, the second ink transfer is performed on each transfer region 21 of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 in the same manner as the first ink transfer described above. However, as the ink ribbon 18, a color different from the color used in the first ink transfer is used. This is in order to meet a high demand for an image to be retransferred to a recording medium, for example, a demand for an image having a more complicated color. The color of the ink ribbon 18 used in the second ink transfer can be selected as appropriate.

  In the present embodiment, the position of the marker 22 in the front-rear direction C and the width direction D is detected by the detection unit 20 at the time of the second ink transfer to the intermediate transfer sheet 7. In this case, the position of the marker 22 is detected while detecting the feed amount of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 (equivalent to the number of steps when the driving source of the platen roller 2 is a stepping motor). That is, since the positional relationship between the transfer region 21 and the marker 22 and the positional relationship between the adjacent transfer regions 21 are constant, by detecting the position of the marker 22 while detecting the feed amount of the intermediate transfer sheet 7, the transfer It is possible to prevent the reverse image formed in the region 21 from being mistaken for the marker 22.

  Then, the controller performs the second ink transfer while positioning the intermediate transfer sheet 7 in the front-rear direction and the width direction of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 based on the detection result by the detection unit 20. In this case, positioning of the ink transfer location in the width direction of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is performed by selecting the heating element 16 of the thermal head 15. For example, if the position of the ink transfer location in the width direction of the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is changed between the first ink transfer and the second ink transfer, the heating element 16 that generates heat from the thermal head 15 is set to 1. Change from the first ink transfer. As a method for positioning the intermediate transfer sheet 7 at the ink transfer location in the front-rear direction and the width direction based on the detection result by the detection unit 20, a general method for positioning using a marker is used. Can do.

  Further, at the time of the second ink transfer described above, the intermediate transfer sheet 7 after the second ink transfer is conveyed to the retransfer section. Then, the heated heat roller is brought into pressure contact with the recording medium via the intermediate transfer sheet 7, and the primary transfer image transferred to the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is retransferred to the surface of the recording medium, whereby the image is formed on the surface of the recording medium. Form.

  In addition, this invention is not limited to embodiment mentioned above, A various change is possible as needed. For example, in the present embodiment, the intermediate transfer sheet 7 is rewound onto the feeding roller 4 by the rotation of the platen roller 2, but another rewound device may be used to rewind the intermediate transfer sheet 7. In this embodiment, the first transfer and the second transfer are performed. However, the third and subsequent transfers may be performed. Furthermore, in the present embodiment, the intermediate transfer type printer 1 having a plurality of transfer units 14 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it may have a single transfer unit.

1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an embodiment of an intermediate transfer printer according to the present invention. It is explanatory drawing which shows the transfer area | region of an intermediate transfer sheet, and the marker formed in the vicinity.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Intermediate transfer type printer 2 Platen roller 4 Feeding roller 5 Take-up roller 7 Intermediate transfer sheet 14 Transfer part 15 Thermal head 16 Heating element 18 Ink ribbon 20 Detection part 21 Transfer area 22 Marker

Claims (4)

In forming a primary transfer image by transferring ink to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member fed from the roller by an ink transfer means using a thermal head, the first ink transfer is performed to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member. After that, the intermediate transfer member is rewound onto a roller, and then the ink is transferred to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member for the second and subsequent times.
During the first ink transfer to the intermediate transfer body, ink is transferred to the vicinity of each transfer area of the intermediate transfer body to form a marker, and during the second and subsequent ink transfer to the intermediate transfer body, the marker And detecting the position of the intermediate transfer member in the front-rear direction and the width direction of the intermediate transfer body based on the detection result, and positioning the ink transfer portion in the width direction of the intermediate transfer member. A method for forming a primary transfer image in intermediate transfer type image formation, which is performed by selecting a heat generating element.   2. The method of forming a primary transfer image in intermediate transfer type image formation according to claim 1, wherein a feeding amount of the intermediate transfer member is detected at the second and subsequent ink transfers to the intermediate transfer member. In forming a primary transfer image by transferring ink to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member fed from the roller by an ink transfer means using a thermal head, the first ink transfer is performed to each transfer region of the intermediate transfer member. After that, the intermediate transfer body is rewound onto a roller, and then the intermediate transfer printer performs the second and subsequent ink transfer to each transfer area of the intermediate transfer body,
Marker forming means for forming a marker by transferring ink to the vicinity of each transfer area of the intermediate transfer body during the first ink transfer to the intermediate transfer body, and during the second and subsequent ink transfer to the intermediate transfer body A detecting means for detecting the position of the marker, and positioning of the intermediate transfer body at the ink transfer location in the front-rear direction and the width direction based on the detection result by the detection means, and the width of the intermediate transfer body at the ink transfer location An intermediate transfer type printer comprising: a control unit that performs positioning in a direction by selecting a heating element of the thermal head.   4. The intermediate transfer type printer according to claim 3, wherein the control unit detects a feeding amount of the intermediate transfer member at the second and subsequent ink transfers to the intermediate transfer member.

Images