JPH02145347A - Print recording head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To arbitrarily perform a dot modulation in a lateral scanning direction with high resolution by specifying the ratio of the length of a main scanning direction of a conductive protrusion to that of the lateral scanning direction to a specific value or more. CONSTITUTION:The shape of a conductive protrusion 1 formed on a pattern electrode 2 is so formed that the ratio of the length of a main scanning direction of the protrusion 1 to that of a sub scanning direction is set to 4 or more. Thus, the area of an electrode is reduced as compared with the case that it is formed in a square shape, and a dot of starting to print becomes to have a slender and small area. When the width of an application pulse is increased, the dot becomes correspondingly long, and a dot modulation can be performed by the regulation of the width of the pulse. Accordingly, when an ink recording head is conveyed in an analog manner to print record, the dot modulation in a sub scanning direction can be achieved by controlling the width of the application pulse.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a print recording head for applying an image electrical signal to a print recording medium.

Conventional technology Conventionally, an electrical recording method has been devised as a print recording method in which an image is formed by converting an image electrical signal into thermal energy, melting the ink layer with the thermal energy, and transferring it to transfer paper. There is.

A print recording head used in such a recording method is a print recording head in which a return electrode having a larger contact area than the pattern electrode is integrally provided, and the pattern electrode and the return electrode are integrated (for example, a special print recording head). 1977
171666), or a print recording head made by laminating a patterned electrode made of a patterned metal layer on a ceramic substrate and a ceramic material. For example, in the former case, since a pattern electrode and a return electrode are present on the contact surface, the pressure contact area of the print recording head becomes large, and a large total pressure is required, making it difficult to maintain uniform contact pressure. There are also problems such as pressure contact and an increase in the torque of the drive roll, and in the latter case, the print recording head must always be held vertically, which requires a high-precision head holding mechanism. There is a problem that.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention In order to solve the above conventional problems, the present inventors previously proposed a structure in which a conductive protrusion is provided near the end surface of a print recording head. In the print recording head, the length of the conductive protrusion provided near the tip of the pattern electrode is approximately the same in the main scanning direction (electrode width direction) and the sub-scanning direction (electrode length direction). It is formed a certain way.

However, when the ratio of the length of the conductive protrusion in the main scanning direction to the length in the sub-scanning direction is almost the same, the following problem occurs. 1) If the ink recording medium is conveyed in an analog manner and printing is performed by controlling the pulse width of the signal, even if the size of one dot is small, it will be the same size as the conductive protrusion, resulting in high resolution. The problem is that it cannot be obtained.

2) When printing is carried out by conveying the ink recording medium step by step and controlling the pulse width of the signal current or the amount of electric power, the dot size is controlled by the amount of input energy, so the conductive protrusion In order to hit a dot larger than the size of the ink, a large amount of energy per unit volume is required in the heat generating layer of the ink recording medium, so the addition to the heat generating layer becomes large. There is a problem that the life of the recording medium is shortened. 3) When an ink recording medium is conveyed in an analog manner and printing is performed by controlling the amount of power of the signal current, there is a problem similar to that in 2) above.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances.

That is, an object of the present invention is to provide a print recording head that can perform dot modulation in the sub-scanning direction arbitrarily and with high resolution.Another object of the present invention is to provide a print recording head that can perform dot modulation in the sub-scanning direction arbitrarily and with high resolution. An object of the present invention is to provide a print recording head that does not require inputting large amounts of energy.

Means for Solving the Problems The print recording head of the present invention includes an insulating substrate, a plurality of patterned electrodes arranged in parallel on the insulating substrate, and an exposed portion near the tip of the patterned electrode. It consists of an insulating layer and a conductive protrusion provided in the exposed portion, and the ratio of the length of the conductive protrusion in the main scanning direction to the length in the sub-scanning direction is 4 or more. do.

In the print recording head of the present invention, cutout grooves may be provided between the pattern electrodes at least at the tip portions of the plurality of pattern electrodes.

Function The print recording head of the present invention is used when obtaining a recorded image by an electric transfer recording method or an electrostatic recording method.For example, in an electric transfer recording method, the print recording head is
It is pressed against a print recording medium having a heating element layer and a heat-melting ink layer, and is brought into contact with the print recording head so that the plurality of patterned electrodes slide on the print recording medium. The image electrical signal from the print recording head is input to the heating element layer, generating Joule heat in the heating element layer, thermally melting the adjacent ink layer according to the image shape, and inking the transfer material (generally paper). The layers are transferred and recording is performed.

In this case, in the print recording head of the present invention, the shape of the conductive protrusion formed on the pattern electrode has a ratio of the length of the conductive protrusion in the scanning direction to the length in the sub-scanning direction of 4 or more. Therefore, the electrode area is smaller than in the case of a square shape, and the initial dots are also elongated and have a small area.

If the applied pulse width is increased, the dots will also become longer, so dot modulation becomes possible by adjusting the pulse width. Therefore, when printing is carried out using the print recording head of the present invention by analog transport of the ink recording head, dot transformation in the sub-scanning direction can be arbitrarily performed by controlling the applied pulse width.

EXAMPLES Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to examples shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view thereof. A plurality of pattern electrodes 2 formed in a pattern are arranged in parallel on an insulating substrate.
These patterned electrodes are covered with an insulating layer 3 except for a part of the area near their tips. Conductive protrusions 1 are formed in exposed portions of these patterned electrodes that are not covered by the insulating film. The insulating substrate is composed of an insulating support layer 4, an elastic layer 5, and a rigid body 6 in FIG.

In the present invention, the insulating substrate used may be one made of an insulating material, or one in which an insulating material is laminated on a rigid metal body. Examples of insulating materials include insulating resins such as polyester, vinyl chloride resin, polyurethane, polyorganosilicone, polyacetal, polyimide resin, polyimide amide resin, polyacrylate, polyurea, and epoxy resin, and also elastomers. can be used. When the insulating substrate is made of an insulating resin, the thickness is preferably in the range of 0.1 m to 7 mm. If the thickness is thinner than 0.1 m, sufficient elastic pressure weldability cannot be obtained. Moreover, if the thickness exceeds 7 m, it will behave like a rigid body and sufficient stable contact characteristics cannot be obtained. If aluminum or other metal rigid body is used, an insulating layer will be formed on its surface. It is preferable that an insulating elastic layer is provided.

A plurality of patterned electrodes are formed in parallel in strips on the insulating substrate. Examples of substances that can be used include conductive metals (Ni, Cr, Au, Cu, Ta, Ti%Fe, A
I, Mo, W, Zn, Sn.

pt, pb and alloys containing them), conductive metal compounds (VO, RuO2, TaN, Ta2N, HfB2, Ta
B2, MoB2, B4C% MOB, ZrC1VC, Ti
c) and mixtures containing these substances. The volume resistivity required for these materials is 10-4
Patterned electrodes made of these materials, which only need to be Ω・1 or less, can be made by metal foil adhesion, electrolytic plating, electroless plating, vacuum evaporation, sputtering, printing or other coating methods, P
VD method, CVD method, plasma deposition method, etc. can be selected according to the material and substrate material, and the film can be deposited to a thickness of 0.1a to 50ρ to form a striped pattern electrode. In this case, the deposited conductive layer can be patterned and formed by a combination of lithography using light, laser, or electron beam and wet etching, or a combination of dry etching. Alternatively, patterned electrodes can also be formed by directly drawing a conductive layer.

On the formed patterned electrode, a photosensitive insulating film (dry film), for example, which is covered with an insulating layer, is then thermocompressed to expose the part of the patterned electrode corresponding to the part that will come into contact with the print recording medium. It is removed by photolithography and wet etching. Alternatively, without using a photosensitive insulating film, the patterned electrodes can be exposed by thermocompression bonding an insulating film, using a resist film, and a combination of photolithography and dry etching. The thickness of the insulating layer is 5-50a
The range is preferably used.

A conductive protrusion is formed on the part not covered by the insulating layer on the patterned electrode, that is, the exposed part. It can be formed by being attached to the exposed portion of the electrode so that it is thicker than the insulating film.

In the present invention, the conductive protrusion has a rectangular shape with long sides in the electrode direction, as shown in FIG. The ratio of the length of the conductive protrusion in the main scanning direction to the length in the sub-scanning direction is required to be 4 or more, and preferably 8 or more.

The conductive protrusion is 2.0 to 100 squarer than the insulating layer,
In particular, it is preferable to provide 10a to 40 chains so as to protrude.

In the print recording head of the present invention, the pattern 'r/X[
! A cutout groove may be provided between them.

The notched grooves can be formed by a rotary cutting method using a cutting disk, a laser processing method, a dry etching method, a fluid cutting method, or the like. The depth of this notch groove is preferably in the range of 5 mm to 40 mm from the tip of the print recording head.

Next, a more specific embodiment of the print recording head of the present invention will be described.

Example of creation An insulating film with a thickness of 30 mm for arranging electrodes.
A 20 silk copper foil was laminated on top of the polyimide film as an electrode material and adhered with a thermosetting adhesive. The bonded copper foil was patterned by photolithography and etching to form an electrode with a width of 80 mm and a pitch of 125 mm.
Next, a thermosetting polyimide resin solution was applied to the side of the formed patterned electrodes and cured by heating to form an insulating layer with a thickness of 10a. . The thermosetting polyimide resin on the patterned electrodes was removed by photolithography and etching, and one square hole with a size of 80a x 20μ was made on each pattern electrode.

Apply N1 to the above hole by electroplating, 15mm thicker than the insulating layer.
It was provided to a protruding height to form a protrusion made of N1.

In order to use the protrusions lined up on the pattern electrodes as contact electrodes of the print recording head, the wiring board was cut at a position 16a1 from the row of protrusions.

Next, with the protruding side of the wiring board facing up, this wiring board, a silicone rubber plate with a thickness of 1+n+, and an aluminum plate with a thickness of 3+m were laminated in this order and bonded with a thermosetting adhesive. . In this case, the end faces of each material were aligned and bonded so that the row of protrusions of the wiring board was aligned with the edge of the print recording head.

A print recording head was prepared in the same manner as in the comparative example. However, the pattern electrode has an electrode width of 80a and a pitch of 125mm,
The size of the hole in the insulating layer on the pattern electrode is 65n x 6
It was set to 5m. (See Figure 3) Evaluation method 1 Perform print recording using the print recording device shown in Figure 4.
We conducted an evaluation.

In the figure, 7 is a print recording head, 8 is an ink recording medium, 9 is a transfer paper, and 10 is a platen roll.

An aluminum drum having a diameter of 50 mm was used as a platen roll, and the ink recording medium was stacked from the platen roll side with the transfer paper and the ink side facing up, and pressed into contact with a print recording head. The platen roll was rotated at a constant speed of 5 rpm by an analog motor to convey the transfer paper and the ink recording medium, and a rectangular pulse electric signal was applied from the print recording head to perform dot transfer. The electrical signal was applied at a constant voltage with varying pulse width conditions.

The resulting transferred image was as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 5, (a) shows the transferred dots when the print recording head of the present invention is used, and (b) shows the transferred dots when the print recording head of the comparative example is used. (a),
(b) In both cases, when the pulse width is 111S, a dot with the size of the conductive protrusion is obtained. Pulse width is 5 ms
, 20m5, the dot becomes longer, but (b
) is longer in the electrode width direction than (a).

For long dots close to the line, the difference between (a) and (b) is small, but for short dots, a dot smaller than the size of the conductive protrusion cannot be hit, so depending on the length of the pulse width, the difference between (a) and (b) is small. When performing modulation, the print recording head of the comparative example cannot output a high-resolution image.

Effects of the Invention In the print recording head of the present invention, the shape of the conductive protrusion formed on the pattern electrode has a ratio of the length of the conductive protrusion in the main scanning direction to the length in the sub-scanning direction of 4 or more. Therefore, when using the print recording head of the present invention to carry out print recording by analog conveying the ink recording head, dot modulation in the sub-scanning direction can be arbitrarily performed by controlling the applied pulse width. Print recording can be performed with high resolution. Furthermore, since it is not necessary to input a large amount of energy to the ink recording medium, there is no need to apply a large amount of energy to the heat generating layer of the ink recording medium, and the life of the ink recording medium can be extended.

In addition, if a notch groove is provided between the pattern electrodes, the pattern electrodes will be pressed one by one or in groups independently, and dust etc. will be removed from the pattern electrode part. Even if some foreign matter gets mixed in, the entire printing recording head will not lift up, and even if some lifting occurs,
This reduces the possibility that the floating will affect other pattern electrodes, and if there is a minute foreign object, it can be swept away into the notch groove, making it possible to remove the foreign object and Since the contact reliability is increased, it is possible to reduce the contact pressure, which contributes to the wear characteristics of the ink recording medium, the reliability of the patterned electrode contact portion, and a longer life.

1... Conductive protrusion, 2... Pattern electrode, 3...
- Insulating layer, 4... Insulating support layer, 5... Elastic body layer, 6... Rigid body, 7... Print recording head, 8...
Ink recording medium, 9... transfer paper, 10... platen roll.

Patent applicant Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Agent
Patent attorney Tsuyoshi Liquidbe

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an embodiment of the print recording head of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view taken along line A-A of the print recording head of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is a print recording head of a comparative example. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the general configuration when printing is performed using the print recording head of the present invention, and FIGS. 5(a) and (1)) are the plan view of the present invention and FIG. FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the shape of transfer dots when a print recording head of a comparative example is used. Figure 1 Figure 2 1S as (a) Figure 3 1IS (b) Figure 5

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) An insulating substrate, a plurality of patterned electrodes arranged in parallel on the insulating substrate, an insulating layer having an exposed portion near the tip of the patterned electrode, and an insulating layer provided in the exposed portion. 1. A print recording head comprising a conductive protrusion, the ratio of the length of the conductive protrusion in the main scanning direction to the length in the sub-scanning direction being 4 or more. (2) The print recording head according to claim 1, wherein cutout grooves are provided between the pattern electrodes at least at the tip portions of the plurality of pattern electrodes.