JP3015442B2 - Barcode recording medium - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] (Industrial application field) The present invention relates to a recording medium for transferring a barcode using a thermal head, and more particularly, to a recording medium having a metallic luster of an arbitrary hue. The present invention relates to a thermal transfer material for recording a barcode which can be read by a conventionally used barcode reader having an arbitrary reading wavelength.

(Prior art) Conventionally, logistics management, product management, material management, inventory management, PO
2. Description of the Related Art In management systems such as the S system, information input using a barcode is performed to eliminate the complexity of key input and bookkeeping. For barcode marking, source marking that creates a large number of barcodes of the same type by offset printing, gravure printing, flexographic printing, letterpress printing, screen printing, etc., and thermal transfer, thermal coloring, wire dot type bars There are in-store marking, in-house marking or on-demand marking for creating a limited amount of individual bar codes by printers such as code printers, ink jet printers, and laser printers. By measuring using a light source such as a 632.8 nm He-Ne laser, a 660 nm light emitting diode, a 670 nm visible light semiconductor laser, a 690 nm light emitting diode, a 780 nm semiconductor laser, and a 940 nm infrared light emitting diode,
Code information is easily input, and data processing is performed by a computer.

The inks used in these barcodes generally use carbon black, which has a wide range of absorption from the visible region to the near infrared region, as a pigment. Also used are dark chromatic inks such as blue and dark green, or inks using blue or green pigments having absorption at 600 to 700 nm when detecting using a visible light source of 600 to 700 nm. . However, since the color is limited to cool colors such as brown, blue, and green, there is a drawback that the color restrictions on the design are large.

In addition, ink using metal powder is also used in source marking, and the bar code with metallic luster such as gold and silver has a high specular reflectance, so the reflection intensity of the specific light is measured. However, there is a drawback that the color is limited to a metallic color such as gold or silver.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In view of such a problem, the present invention pays attention to the fact that a material causing specular reflection can be read by a conventional bar code reader, and is not limited to a dark or cool color system, but a light or warm color system. The present invention provides a heat-sensitive transfer material for recording a barcode having an arbitrary hue, including the following, and readable by a conventionally used barcode reader having an arbitrary reading wavelength.

[Configuration of the invention]

(Means for Solving the Problems) That is, using a barcode recording medium in which a transparent colored layer formed by dispersing a transparent coloring material in a binder and a metallic gloss layer are sequentially provided on a base material, and transferred by a thermal head. A barcode record having a 60 ° specular gloss of 40 or more is read using a difference in specular reflectance with a barcode reader having an arbitrary reading wavelength. The present invention relates to a barcode recording medium characterized by being provided with a transparent coloring layer obtained by dispersing a transparent coloring material in a binder and a metallic gloss layer on a base material, and being used in the reading method.

The above barcode record can be read as well as a black barcode by a normal barcode reader that reads information by measuring the reflection intensity of visible or near-infrared light. This is effective for collation of the product lot number, product number, etc. given to the user.

The coloring material that can be used for the coloring layer in the thermal transfer material of the present invention is a transparent dye / pigment of any hue such as red, green, blue, yellow, red, indigo, etc., and the coloring layer is transferred. It must be sufficiently transparent to not impair the specular reflection of the underlying metallic gloss layer.

The colored layer needs to have transparency such that the transferred barcode has a 60-degree specular glossiness of 40 or more.

The metallic gloss layer in the thermal transfer material of the present invention comprises a hot-melt ink layer containing a metal powder, or more preferably, a metal deposited layer. The metallic luster layer consisting of a metal deposition layer
As compared with a layer made of an ink containing a metal powder, a barcode recorded matter having excellent mirror reflection characteristics and higher reading accuracy can be provided. The heat-meltable ink layer containing metal powder is obtained by dispersing metal powder of aluminum, gold, silver, copper, copper alloy, platinum, or the like, or a material obtained by plating them in a binder made of wax and / or a thermoplastic resin. It is formed by applying a hot-melt ink by a hot melt coating method or by applying a coating liquid in which the above compound is dispersed in a medium by a solvent coating method. Metal deposition layer, conventionally known vacuum deposition method, sputtering method, by ion plating method, for example, aluminum, zinc,
It is formed by depositing a metal such as gold, silver, copper, tin, nickel and platinum or an alloy thereof to a thickness of about 10 to 100 nm.

As the material of the thermal transfer material of the present invention, conventionally known materials can be used. For example, base films used as base materials include polyester, polyamide, and polyolefin films having excellent heat resistance and mechanical strength, and vehicles used for hot-melt inks include plant-based, animal-based, mineral-based, and petroleum-based vehicles. Natural wax, synthetic wax, fatty acid,
There is a thermoplastic resin having a softening point of 200 ° C. or less. Further, if necessary, a softener such as oil,
Additives such as a surfactant and an ultraviolet absorber can be used.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to examples. All parts in the examples represent "parts by weight".

Example 1 An ink A was obtained by sufficiently kneading a coating liquid having the following composition with three rolls heated to 90 to 120 ° C.

[Ink A]

Yellow pigment 20 parts (Lionol Yellow 1208, manufactured by Toyo Ink Mfg. Co., Ltd.) Ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer 5 parts (Evaflex 577-, manufactured by Mitsui Polychemicals, Inc.)
2) Carnauba wax 16 parts Paraffin wax 59 parts (Nippon Seiro Co., Ltd. HNP-9) The obtained ink A was coated with a hot melt coater 6
It was applied to a 2 μm thick polyethylene terephthalate film.

Next, aluminum is vacuum-evaporated on the colored layer.
The ink was deposited to a thickness of 40 nm, and an ink B having the following composition was further applied thereon using a gravure coater so that the dry coating thickness became 1.6 μm, thereby obtaining a heat-sensitive transfer material.

[Ink B]

Alicyclic saturated hydrocarbon resin 10 parts (Alcon P-100 manufactured by Arakawa Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.) Carnauba wax 10 parts Isopropyl alcohol 15 parts Toluene 65 parts Using the obtained thermal transfer material, a bar code label printer (Tokyo Denki) Beck smoothness with B-30-S1)
A barcode was printed on the recording paper for 100 seconds to obtain a yellow metallic glossy recorded matter. The barcode record has a wavelength of 780 nm as a light source.
Barcode reader using a laser (Token Co., Ltd.)
With TBR-600), the information corresponding to the code could be read.

The barcode printed on the recording paper is
The specular gloss measured at 60 ° by GM-3M manufactured by Murakami Color Research Laboratory was 77.0.

Example 2 A coating liquid having the following composition was sufficiently dispersed at room temperature using an attritor, and the obtained ink C for anchor layer was coated on a 6 μm polyethylene terephthalate film by a gravure coating method to obtain a coating film thickness. It was applied to 1.5 μm.

[Ink C]

Ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer 1 part (Evaflex 577- manufactured by Mitsui Polychemicals, Inc.)
2) Carnauba wax 19 parts Toluene 50 parts Methyl isobutyl ketone 30 parts Next, a coating liquid having the following composition was sufficiently dispersed at room temperature using an attritor, and the resulting hot-melt coloring ink D, hot-melt containing metal powder was obtained. Ink E was applied onto the above anchor layer by gravure coating method when dried to a thickness of 1.5 μm for ink D and 3.0 μm for ink E3.0.
The heat-sensitive transfer material was obtained by sequentially laminating to a thickness of μm.

[Ink D]

2 parts of pink dye (Oil Pink OP manufactured by Orient Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.) 9 parts of alicyclic saturated hydrocarbon resin (Alcon P-100 manufactured by Arakawa Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.) 9 parts of carnauba wax 15 parts of isopropyl alcohol 65 parts of toluene [ Ink E] Aluminum powder 5 parts Alicyclic saturated hydrocarbon resin 7 parts (Alcon P-100 manufactured by Arakawa Chemical Industry Co., Ltd.) Carnauba wax 8 parts Isopropyl alcohol 15 parts Toluene 65 parts Using the obtained thermal transfer material, Beck smoothness with a barcode label printer (B-30-S1 manufactured by Tokyo Electric Co., Ltd.)
A barcode was printed on the recording paper for 100 seconds to obtain a pink metallic glossy recorded matter. The barcode record was used as a light source for 63
Bar code verifier using 2.8nm He-Ne laser (SYM
When read with LASERCHECK LC2811 manufactured by BOL TECHNOLOGIES, Inc., it was possible to read information corresponding to the code, and the reading probability was 65%.

The barcode printed on the recording paper is GM-3M
The specular gloss measured at 60 ° was 56.1.

Example 3 Instead of applying the ink E of Example 2, aluminum was deposited to a thickness of 40 nm by a vacuum deposition method, and further,
The ink B of Example 1 was applied using a gravure coater so that the dry coating thickness was 1.6 μm, to obtain a thermal transfer material.

Using the obtained heat-sensitive transfer material, a barcode was printed on a recording paper having a Beck smoothness of 100 seconds by a barcode label printer to obtain a pink metallic glossy recorded material. The barcode recorded material was analyzed using a barcode verifier (SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, Inc., LASE) using a 632.8 nm He-Ne laser as a light source.
R CHECK LC2811), the reading probability is 80
In%, the information corresponding to the code could be read.

The barcode printed on the recording paper is GM-3M
The specular gloss measured at 60 ° was 79.4.

(Effect of the Invention) By using the thermal transfer material of the present invention, it is possible to record a bar code having a metallic luster of any hue including not only a dark color and a cool color but also a light color and a warm color. In addition to the code as, information as a color can be added. Specifically, since colors can be easily identified visually, information such as season, production line, person in charge, district, size, and manufacturer can be added as colors, which is convenient for sorting these.
In addition, design color restrictions are reduced.

Further, since the barcode can be read by any barcode reader that uses light of a specific wavelength in the visible to near infrared region as a light source, regardless of the reading wavelength, a conventional black barcode can be identified by a wide range of wavelengths. As has been used as possible, identification over a wide range of wavelengths is possible.

Continuation of front page (58) Field surveyed (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B41M 5/38-5/40

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] A bar code recording medium having a transparent coloring layer in which a transparent coloring material is dispersed in a binder and a metallic luster layer sequentially provided on a base material is transferred by a thermal head. A method for reading a barcode record, wherein a barcode record having a degree of specular gloss of 40 or more is read using a difference in specular reflectance with a barcode reader having an arbitrary reading wavelength. 2. A reading method according to claim 1, wherein a transparent colored layer formed by dispersing a transparent coloring material in a binder and a metallic gloss layer are sequentially provided on the substrate. Barcode recording medium. 3. The barcode recording medium according to claim 2, wherein the metallic gloss layer comprises a hot-melt ink layer containing metal powder. 4. The bar code recording medium according to claim 2, wherein the metallic gloss layer comprises a metal deposited layer.