JP2863337B2 - Serial recording device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a serial printing apparatus, and more particularly, to a serial printing apparatus capable of performing high-quality printing while preventing rattling of a carriage.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A printer or a facsimile apparatus is an apparatus for recording an image on a recording sheet by driving a recording head based on image data. Various recording methods such as a thermal recording method and a wire dot recording method are available. There is a method. In this type of printing apparatus, there is also a line printing type in which a full line head is used to collectively print one line at a time. Many serial recording systems are used in which recording sheets are sent in the sub-scanning direction one line at a time.

A general configuration of the serial recording device is as follows.
As shown in FIG. 7, the recording head 50 is mounted on a carriage 51, and the carriage 51 is mounted on a motor 52 and a timing belt 53.
Guide rail by the driving force from the drive transmission system
Move left and right along 54 and 55, and
The recording sheet is driven based on the image data.
Recorded in 56.

In the conventional serial recording apparatus, the carriage 51 is an important component that affects the recording quality.
Since it is required to be highly accurate and resistant to temperature changes, it is mainly made by processing aluminum die cast and sheet metal to make the outer shape,
Sintered bearings have been used for the sliding portions of the guide rails 54 and 55. In recent years, however, the carriage 51 has often been integrally formed of resin in order to reduce the cost and weight of the recording apparatus.

[0005]

However, when the carriage 51 is integrally formed of resin, the guide rail 54 and the bearings 51a and 51b of the carriage 51 shown in FIG.
The projections 51c, 51d, etc., with the guide rail 55 may have a small gap with the rails 54, 55 if the hole diameter becomes small due to variations during molding or temperature changes, unless there is some play.
When the coaxiality of the holes of the bearing portions 51a and 51b is out of order, the carriage 51 may not move. Therefore, the rail 54 and the bearings 51a and 51b must have a certain amount of backlash, which causes the recording quality to be disturbed. Further, there is a problem that noise occurs when the carriage 51 starts or stops moving due to the play between the rail 54 and the bearings 51a and 51b.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the invention is to provide a serial recording system which is capable of performing high-quality recording with a simple structure by preventing rattling of a carriage and preventing noise and the like. It is to provide a device.

[0007]

A representative means according to the present invention for achieving the above object is a resin carriage capable of moving a recording means for recording on the sheet along a guide member; The serial recording apparatus is characterized in that a serial recording device is provided by integrally forming with the carriage, and a regulating member having elasticity for regulating the carriage in a direction for eliminating the play generated between the carriage and the guide member. I have.

[0008]

In the above means, the carriage is urged in a certain direction by the regulating member, and the rattling of the guide member is regulated. Therefore, recording quality can be improved without generating noise due to the rattling.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS [First Embodiment] Next, a first embodiment of a serial recording apparatus in which the above-described means is applied to an ink jet recording system will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the serial recording apparatus, FIG. 2 is a view A of the carriage in FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a view B of the carriage in FIG.

In FIG. 1, a recording head 1 serving as a recording means is mounted on a carriage 2, and the carriage 2 is slidably supported along guide rails 3, 4 serving as guide members. , 6 are connected to a timing belt 7 stretched. As a result, when the carriage motor 8 connected to the pulley 5 is driven forward / reverse, the carriage 2
Reciprocates along the guide rails 3 and 4 in the direction of arrow a. The carriage 2 is provided with a guide rail 4
Is regulated so as to be regulated in a certain direction, and the configuration thereof will be described later in detail. The recording head 1 is driven in synchronization with the reciprocating movement of the carriage 2 to perform recording. In the present embodiment, an ink jet recording head is used as the recording head 1, and the energy of the recording head is changed according to a recording signal. The application discharges ink from the ink discharge port. In this embodiment, a means for generating thermal energy (for example, an electrothermal converter or a laser beam) is used as the energy to be used for ejecting the ink, and a means for changing the state of the ink by the thermal energy is used. ing. This is because according to this method, it is possible to achieve higher density and higher definition of recording.

A capping means 9 is provided at the home position of the carriage 2 (position deviating from the recording area, and in FIG. 1, at the left end of the guide rails 3 and 4). The capping unit 9 sucks unnecessary ink from the ink ejection port of the recording head 1,
This is to cap the ink ejection port 1a so that the vicinity of the ink ejection port does not dry during non-recording. This capping means 9 is configured to be movable in the direction of arrow b in FIG. 1. When capping, after moving the carriage 2 to the home position, the capping means 9 is advanced to eject ink from the recording head 1. The outlet 1a is sealed.

Recording sheet (paper, platen sheet, etc.) 10
The sheet conveying means for conveying the sheet includes a conveying roller (not shown) connected to the conveying motor 11 and a pinch roller which is pressed against the roller and is driven to rotate. That is, the recording sheet 10 guided by the paper pan 12 is conveyed U-turn by the conveyance roller and the pinch roller by the driving of the conveyance motor 11. The recording sheet 10 conveyed in the U-turn is conveyed in such a manner that the recording sheet 10 is tensioned by the discharge roller 13 and the spur 14 and is pressed by the elastic plate 15 against the platen 16 arranged on the opposite surface of the recording head 1. . The transport motor 11 drives the recording sheet 10 to transport the recording sheet 10 by one line in the direction of the arrow c for each line recording of the recording head 1 during recording.

Next, the carriage 2 and the guide rails 3,
4 will be described. At the front of the carriage 2, bearings 2a and 2b slidable on the guide rail 3 are provided. The carriage 2 is made of resin, and takes into account variations during formation and dimensional changes due to temperature changes, and takes into account the bearing portion 2.
Each of the guide rails a and 2b has a play of about 0.01 mm to 0.1 mm with respect to the guide rail 3. Protrusions 2c and 2d protrude from the rear portion of the carriage 2, and the protrusions 2c and 2d are supported by engaging with the guide rails 4.
For the same reason as described above, a play of about 0.01 mm to 0.1 mm is provided between the projections 2c and 2d and the guide rail 4.

In the present embodiment, the regulating members 17, 18 having elasticity are integrally formed on the rear portion of the carriage 2 by resin.
Is provided. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the restricting members 17 and 18 are in a state shown by a dashed line when the guide rail 4 is removed, and are in a state where the carriage 2 is engaged with the guide rail 4. In the regulation member
The guide rails 4 are urged in the directions of arrows d and e, respectively, by the elasticity of 17 and 18. The elastic force of each of the restricting members 17 and 18 is set so as to be sufficient to restrict the carriage 2 in a certain direction.
Is not energized.

The carriage 2 is always urged in a fixed direction with respect to the guide rails 3 and 4 by the urging of the regulating members 17 and 18, so that the carriage bearings 2a and 2b, the guide rail 3 and the protrusions 2c and 2c are urged. Even if the 2d and the guide rail 4 are backlashed, the carriage 2 does not rattle. As a result, the carriage 2 slides smoothly with respect to the guide rails 3 and 4, so that high-quality recording can be performed without setting noise.

[Other Embodiments] In the above-described first embodiment, an example is shown in which a cylindrical guide rail 4 is used. However, as shown in FIG. 4, an L-shaped guide rail 19 having a sectional shape may be used. The same effects as in the first embodiment can be obtained. Therefore,
The shape of the guide rail 4 is not limited as long as the carriage 2 can slide.

In the first embodiment described above, two regulating members 17 and 18 for urging the guide rail 4 are provided, and the member 17 is
The member 18 is urged in the direction of arrow e in FIG. 3 in the direction of arrow d, but only one regulating member 17 is provided as shown in FIG. It is possible to achieve a considerable effect by just energizing.

Further, when only one regulating member is provided,
As shown in FIG. 6, when the guide rail 4 is urged obliquely from above to below (in the direction of arrow f), the same effect as in the first embodiment can be obtained only by providing one regulating member 20. I can do it.

In the first embodiment described above, the ink jet recording system is used as the recording means. However, an electric current is supplied to the electrothermal transducer in accordance with the recording signal, and bubbles generated by heating exceeding the nucleate boiling by the electrothermal transducer are generated. It is more preferable that the recording is performed by discharging the ink from the discharge port by the growth. Regarding the typical configuration and principle, it is preferable to use the basic principle disclosed in, for example, US Pat. Nos. 4,723,129 and 4,740,796. This method can be applied to both the so-called on-demand type and the continuous type. In particular, in the case of the on-demand type, the system is arranged corresponding to a sheet or a liquid path holding a liquid (ink). By applying at least one drive signal corresponding to the recorded information and providing a rapid temperature rise above nucleate boiling to
This is effective because heat energy is generated in the electrothermal transducer, causing film boiling on the heat-acting surface of the recording head, and as a result, bubbles in the liquid corresponding to this drive signal one-to-one can be formed. The liquid is ejected through the ejection opening by the growth and contraction of the bubble to form at least one droplet. When the drive signal is formed into a pulse shape, the growth and shrinkage of the bubble are immediately and appropriately performed, so that particularly excellent liquid ejection can be achieved, which is more preferable.

As the pulse-shaped drive signal, those described in US Pat. Nos. 4,463,359 and 4,345,262 are suitable. Further, if the conditions described in US Pat. No. 4,313,124 relating to the temperature rise rate of the heat acting surface are adopted, more excellent recording can be performed.

As the configuration of the recording head, in addition to the combination of a discharge port, a liquid path, and an electrothermal converter (a linear liquid flow path or a right-angle liquid flow path) as disclosed in the above-mentioned respective specifications, The present invention also includes a configuration using U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,558,333 and 4,459,600 which disclose a configuration in which a heat acting portion is arranged in a bending region. For a plurality of electrothermal transducers, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 59-123670 discloses a configuration in which a common slit is used as a discharge section of the electrothermal transducer, and an opening for absorbing a pressure wave of heat energy is formed in the discharge section. The effect of the present invention is effective even if the configuration is based on JP-A-59-138461 which discloses a configuration corresponding to the above. That is, according to the present invention, the recording can be performed reliably and efficiently regardless of the form of the recording head.

In addition, even with the above-mentioned serial type, the recording head fixed to the carriage or mounted on the carriage enables electrical connection with the apparatus main body and supply of ink from the apparatus main body. A replaceable chip type recording head or a cartridge type recording head in which an ink tank is provided integrally with the recording head itself may be used. In the above-described embodiment, the capping unit is provided as the recording head recovery unit provided as a configuration of the recording apparatus of the present invention. However, as another embodiment of the recovery unit, a cleaning unit, pressure or suction is used. It is also effective to perform stable printing by performing a pre-heating mode using means, an electrothermal conversion type, a pre-heating means using a heating element different from this, or a combination thereof, and a pre-ejection mode in which ejection is performed separately from recording.

The type and number of recording heads mounted on the carriage are, for example, not only those provided for one color ink but also a plurality of inks having different recording colors and densities. May be provided in plurality. That is, for example, the printing mode of the printing apparatus is not limited to a printing mode of only a mainstream color such as black, and may be a combination of a plurality of print heads integrally formed. To at least one of the full-color devices.

In addition, in the above-described embodiment, the ink is described as a liquid. However, an ink which solidifies at room temperature or lower and which softens or liquefies at room temperature, or an ink jet recording system 30 ink itself
It is common to control the temperature so that the viscosity of the ink is in the stable ejection range by adjusting the temperature within the range of not less than 70 ° C and not more than 70 ° C if the ink is in a liquid state when the use recording signal is applied. good. In addition, positively prevent the temperature rise due to thermal energy by using it as energy for changing the state of the ink from a solid state to a liquid state, or use an ink that solidifies in a standing state to prevent evaporation of the ink. In any case, the ink is liquefied by the application of the heat energy according to the recording signal, and the ink is liquefied, and the liquid ink is discharged. The present invention is also applicable to a case where an ink that liquefies for the first time by energy is used. The ink in such a case is disclosed in
No. 56847 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 60-71260, in which the porous sheet is opposed to the electrothermal converter while being held as a liquid or solid substance in the concave portion or through hole of the porous sheet. It is good. The most effective one for each of the above-mentioned inks is to execute the above-described film boiling method.

Further, as the form of the above-mentioned ink jet recording apparatus, in addition to the one used as an image output terminal of an information processing apparatus such as a computer, a copying apparatus combined with a reader or the like, and a facsimile apparatus having a transmission / reception function can be used. It may take a form.

The recording means applicable in the present invention is not limited to the ink jet recording method described above. That is, other recording methods, for example, various recording methods such as a thermal transfer recording method, a thermal recording method, and a wire dot recording method can be applied.

[0026]

According to the present invention, as described above, the elastic regulating member for regulating in the direction of eliminating the play between the carriage and the guide member is formed integrally with the carriage by the resin, so that the present invention is simple. With this configuration, the rattling of the carriage can be prevented, and high-quality printing can be performed without generating noise or the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory perspective view of a serial recording apparatus according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of the carriage viewed from an arrow A in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an explanatory view of the carriage viewed from an arrow B in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view illustrating a serial recording device according to a second embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view illustrating a serial recording apparatus according to a third embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory perspective view of a serial recording apparatus according to a fourth embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a conventional technique.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Recording head 2 ... Carriage 3,4 ... Guide rails 5,6 ... Pulley 7 ... Timing belt 8 ... Carriage motor 9 ... Capping means 10 ... Recording sheet 11 ... Convey motor 12 ... Paper pan 13 ... Discharge roller 14 ... Spur 15 … Sheet presser plate 16… Platen 17,18… Regulator

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] 1. A resin carriage capable of moving recording means for performing recording on a recording sheet along a guide member, and integrally formed with the carriage, wherein the carriage is disposed between the carriage and the guide member. A serial recording device, comprising: a regulating member having elasticity for regulating in a direction to eliminate the play. 2. The serial recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said serial recording apparatus performs recording using an ink jet recording method in which recording means performs recording by discharging ink according to a signal. 3. An ink jet recording system according to claim 1, wherein said serial recording apparatus is configured such that a recording unit supplies a current to said electrothermal converter in response to a signal, and performs recording by discharging ink using thermal energy of said electrothermal converter. 3. The serial recording device according to claim 2, wherein the serial recording device is used for recording. 4. The serial recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording means supplies a current to the electrothermal transducer in response to a signal, and discharges ink from an ejection port to perform recording by growing bubbles generated by heating by the electrothermal transducer. 4. The serial recording apparatus according to claim 3, wherein recording is performed using an ink jet recording method.