JPH01225580A - Polishing film cassette - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To polish a recording head at an arbitrary time by a slight amount of emery paper, by unevenly arranging a plurality of polishing films different in roughness to a polishing film. CONSTITUTION:A polishing film cassette consists of a polishing film 101, a cassette 102, a supply core 103 and a take-up core 104. When this polishing film cassette is inserted in a current supply thermal transfer type printer, a recording head is polished by lapping films 501, 502, 503 whose particle sizes are rough in this order. Thereafter, the polishing film cassette is taken out, and a cassette having an ink film mounted therein and image receiving paper are inserted in the printer and a recording signal is given to a recording head to perform printing. Since the polishing films different in a particle size are arranged as mentioned above to constitute the polishing film cassette, the amount of the polishing film necessary for polishing the head can be made slight and the time required in polishing can be shortened and the head can be polished at an arbitrary time and an image having high image quality can be always obtained.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to the structure of an abrasive film cassette used in an electrical thermal transfer recording type printer.

[Prior Art] An electric thermal transfer method in which thermally activated ink is transferred to an image receiving paper for printing will be described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. - Layered force-receiving paper (general term for ink transfer material that receives melted ink and leaves a printed image as a record) 2
06 and the ink film 205 are arranged between the platen 207 and the recording head 202. By controlling the rotation of the ink film take-up core 208 and the supply core 209, and the rotation of the paper support rollers 210 and 211, the ink film and image receiving paper are moved to the print head in synchronization with the print signal sent to the print head. An example of the structure of the ink film is shown in Fig. 3. 301 is a resistance layer, which is generally a layer in which metal powder or carbon particles are dispersed in a resin. 302 is a support layer, which is generally 5. ~6 μm thick polyester film (generally P
A resin film called ET is used, and the ink layer 303 is a layer in which pigment or dye is dispersed in wax or resin, and it has the property of being activated at 60 to 500 sq. It is. By bringing the recording electrode 201 of the recording head into contact with the resistive layer of the ink film and applying a potential difference between the recording electrodes, a current flows through the resistive layer, generating Joule heat, which activates the ink and transfers it to the receiver paper, printing or printing. Printing is done. In order to achieve a good electrical connection between the recording electrode and the resistive layer and to improve ink transferability, the recording head is usually pressed around the rotating shaft 203 by a spring 204 against the resistive layer and further against the platen.

When the recording electrode is repeatedly printed, the fourth
As shown in the figure, only the end face of the recording electrode 401 retreats from the end face of the head support substrate 402, resulting in poor electrical connection with the resistance layer, uneven pressure on the platen, and incomplete ink transfer. The quality of the printed image will deteriorate significantly.

Therefore, in the past, as in JP-A-59-165080, an abrasive film such as abrasive paper or a wrapping film is attached to a part of the ink film of an ink film cassette, and recording is performed until the end surface of the recording electrode that recedes during use of the ink film cassette recovers. The head was being shaved.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the conventional technology, if the ink film cassette is replaced before the part to which the polishing film is attached is used, the end surface of the recording head electrode is not polished.
The problem is that the printed image quality deteriorates due to unstable conduction and uneven pressurizing force, and since abrasive paper with the same roughness was used, fine-grained abrasiveness is required to uniformly abrade the recording electrode. It is necessary to use the paper for a long time, which increases the cost of the ink film cassette and increases the diameter of the core, which is an obstacle to compactness.

The present invention is intended to solve these problems, and its purpose is to make it possible to polish the recording head at any time and to polish it with a small amount of abrasive paper.
The purpose is to provide a low-cost polishing film cassette.

[Means for Solving the Problems] A polishing film, a supply core that winds and supplies the polishing film, a winding core that winds the polishing film, and a cassette case that houses the polishing film, the supply core, and the winding core. A plurality of polishing films having different roughnesses are gradually arranged on the polishing film for polishing the recording head.

[Function] According to the above structure of the present invention, the recording head is slightly scraped until the end face of the recording electrode, which has receded due to mechanical wear due to sliding with the resistance layer and electric discharge caused by the potential difference with the resistance layer, recovers. This can be achieved with abrasive paper, making it possible to maintain stable printing quality.

[Example] FIG. 1 shows an example of the present invention, in which 101 is a polishing film, 102 is a cassette case, 103 is a supply core, 1
04 represents the winding core. Figure 5 shows the structure of the polishing film in detail, where 501 is 3 μm and 502 is 1 μm.
．． In 503, wrapping films of 0.3 μm are gradually arranged. The amount required for one polishing is approximately 40c.
It was m. An electrical thermal transfer method in which only the end surface of the recording electrode 40-1 of the recording head retreats from the end surface of the head support substrate 402 due to mechanical abrasion due to repeated printing and sliding with the resistive layer and potential difference with the resistive layer. When this polishing film cassette is inserted into a printer of
Polish in the order of 3.

After that, the polishing film cassette is taken out, the ink film cassette loaded with the ink film of the electrical thermal transfer method and the image receiving paper are inserted into the printer, and a recording signal is given to the recording head to perform printing.

For example, in the printer of the electric thermal transfer method,
78772, the amount of ink to be transferred changes and gradation can be expressed by changing the time during which electricity is applied to the recording electrodes. FIG. 6 is a graph showing the amount of transferred ink expressed as an OD value and the relationship with the current application time. 601 is the OD of the printed image when polishing was performed using the polishing film cassette of this example, and 602 is the OD of the printed image when printing was performed with the recording electrode retracted before polishing. shows. Also, the same -O
Transfer dot 702 before polishing at D value and actual implementation f
FIG. 7 shows a transfer dot 701 obtained by polishing based on l-. From FIG. 6, it can be seen that when printing is performed with a head in which the recording electrode is retracted, the energization time is short and the amount of transfer ink is small, the transfer is not completed completely. Furthermore, it can be seen from FIG. 7 that the shape of the transferred dots is non-uniform when printing is performed with a head in which the recording electrode is retracted. However, the printed image after polishing the electrode with the polishing film cassette of this example becomes stable from low density as shown in FIG. 6.7, and the image quality is good.

The finer the grain size of the lapping film, the better the contact between the recording electrode and the film resistive layer when polished, making it easier to obtain high image quality. Same particle size as conventional method (μm)
The length of the wrapping film (c
m) Table 1 shows the results of measuring the transfer dot variation (standard deviation) at a certain oD value.

Table 1 When printing was performed using the recording head polished according to this example, the transfer dot variation was 0°08.

This value is 0.00 in the conventional method of polishing with a lapping film of the same grain size. Although this cannot be achieved without polishing as much as 160 cm at 3 μm, by the method of the present invention in which lapping films of different particle sizes are gradually arranged and the recording head is polished, it was possible to achieve the amount of lapping film of about 174 cm.

In this example, three types of wrapping films with different particle sizes were arranged: 10cm, Locm, and 20cm, but the types and lengths of the wrapping films are not limited to these, and the abrasive paper was also limited to the wrapping film. It's not a thing.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present application, abrasive films with different particle sizes are arranged to form an abrasive film cassette, so 1. Only a small amount of abrasive film is required to polish the recording head. Therefore, the time required for polishing can be shortened, and the polishing film cassette can be made more compact and lower in cost.

2. Since it has a structure called a polishing film cassette, polishing can be performed at any time, and high-quality images can always be obtained.

There are other effects.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIGS. 1(a) and 1(b) are a main sectional view and a top view showing one embodiment of the polishing film cassette of the present invention. 101... Polishing film 102... Cassette case 103... Supply core 104... Winding core FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electrical thermal transfer type printer. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of an ink film structure of an electric thermal transfer method. FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view of a recording head using an electric thermal transfer method that has been used for a long time. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the structure of the polishing film in this example. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the relationship between energization time and printing oD value when printing with an energized thermal transfer recording type printer. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing the shape of transfer dots. Above is Figure 2/-Nono. Figure 5 Energization between B1 Figure 6 oooo○○ 0OOOOOO ○OOOO○○ 000000 000000 0oOOOO Figure 7

Claims (1)

[Claims] The polishing film is composed of a polishing film, a supply core for winding and supplying the polishing film, a winding core for winding the polishing film, and a cassette case for accommodating the polishing film, the supply core, and the winding core, and polishes the recording head. A polishing film cassette characterized in that a plurality of polishing films having different roughness are arranged in a gradual manner.