JPH01182084A - Thermal transfer serial printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable printing in both directions and contrive a higher printing speed, by setting take-up directions of used first and second ink ribbons to be opposite to each other. CONSTITUTION:When a carriage 1 is moved from left to right, a thermal head 4 is separated from a platen, while a thermal head 5 is pressed against a printing paper set on the platen, and printing in the next line is conducted. In this case, take-up of an ink ribbon 10 by upper driving knobs 6, 7 is stopped, and, instead, an ink ribbon 11 is taken up leftward by lower driving knobs. When the printing is finished, the carriage 1 is stopped at the position before the start of printing in the first line, namely, at the right end of the platen. Printing in the next line and the subsequent lines is conducted by bidirectional printing in the same manner as above, whereby high-speed printing can be achieved.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to thermal transfer serial printers, and more particularly to the structure of thermal transfer serial printers.

BACKGROUND ART Conventionally, in a thermal transfer serial printer, as shown in FIG. Characters, figures, etc. are printed on the printing paper by melting it with the thermal head 23.

The carriage 21 carries a thermal head 23 and an ink ribbon cartridge 24, and the shaft 22 is provided parallel to the platen 28.

Printing one line at a time is performed by moving the carriage 21 on the shaft 22 in the digit direction.

At this time, the ink on the ink ribbon 25 is melted by the thermal head 23, so once printing is performed, that part cannot be used again.
The used ink ribbon 25 is wound up in a direction opposite to the moving direction of the carriage 21. That is, the ink ribbon 25 is wound up from the hub 26 to the hub 27.

When printing for one line is completed, the platen 28 rotates to feed the printing paper in the line direction in order to print the next line, and the carriage 21 moves the thermal head 23 to the platen 28.
Release the button and return to the printing start position. At this time, the hub 27
Winding up of the ink phone 25 is not performed.

In such conventional thermal transfer serial printers, once printing has been performed, the used ink ribbon 25 cannot be used again, so it is not possible to perform printing operations in both directions, that is, high-speed printing operations. There are drawbacks.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to eliminate the drawbacks of the conventional printers as described above, and an object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer serial printer that can perform printing operations in both directions and can perform high-speed printing operations.

Composition of the Invention The thermal transfer serial printer according to the present invention is characterized in that it is provided with a winding means for winding up a used first ink ribbon and a used second ink ribbon in mutually different directions.

Embodiment Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of an embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, a thermal transfer serial printer according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a carriage 1 and shafts 2 and 3.

A thermal head 4.5, an upper drive knob 6.7, and a lower drive knob (not shown) are provided on the carriage 1, and an ink ribbon cartridge 8 containing ink ribbons 10 and 11, respectively. .9 can be installed. Further, the carriage 1 moves horizontally on the shaft 2.3 in parallel along a platen (not shown).

The carriage 1 is located at the right end when viewed from the platen side before printing starts, and when printing starts, the thermal head 4
is moved from right to left on shaft 2.3 while pressing against printing paper (not shown) on a platen.

At this time, the ink ribbon 10 is wound by the upper drive knob 6.7 in a direction opposite to the direction of movement of the carriage 1, that is, from left to right. During this time, the thermal head 5 is separated from the platen, and the winding of the ink ribbon 11 by the lower drive knob is also stopped.

When printing of the first line is completed, the carriage 1 stops at the left end of the platen. The next line is printed by moving the carriage 1 from this position to the right end.

That is, when the carriage 1 moves from left to right, the thermal head 4 is separated from the platen, and the thermal head 5 is pushed against the printing paper on the platen to print the next line. At this time, winding of the ink ribbon 10 by the upper drive knob 6.7 is stopped, and the ink ribbon 11 is instead wound from right to left by the lower drive knob.

When printing of the next line is completed, the carriage 1 stops at the position before printing the first line, that is, at the right end of the platen. Printing of the next line after this line is performed in a bidirectional printing operation in the same manner as the above-mentioned printing operation.

In this way, when printing the first line, the upper drive knob 6
．． 7 while winding up the ink ribbon 10, the thermal head 4 is pressed against the printing paper on the platen (4-) to perform printing, and during the second line printing operation, while winding up the ink ribbon 11 with the lower drive knob, Thermal head 5
By pressing the paper against the printing paper on the platen to perform printing, printing operations can be performed in both directions, and high-speed printing operations can be performed.

Incidentally, in one embodiment of the present invention, the ink ribbon 10.11 can be mounted on the carriage 1, and the ink ribbon 1.0 can be mounted on the carriage 1.
．． 11 are each provided with a dedicated thermal head 4.5, an upper drive knob 6.7, and a lower drive knob. The ink ribbons 10 and 11 may also serve as the ink ribbons 10 and 11, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, by winding the used first and second ink ribbons in opposite directions, printing operations in both directions are possible. This has the effect of allowing high-speed printing operations.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the structure of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the structure of a conventional example. Explanation of symbols of main parts 1... Carriage 4.5... Thermal head 6.7... Drive knob 8.9... Ink ribbon cartridge 10. 1
1... Ink ribbon

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A thermal transfer serial printer characterized in that a winding means is provided for winding a used first ink ribbon and a used second ink ribbon in different directions.