JPH02147275A - Carriage driving apparatus of serial recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To move a carriage quietly at a low cost by fixing a motor for driving the carriage on the carriage loaded with a recording head and driving the roller composed of a rubbery elastic material rolling along a guide rail by a motor. CONSTITUTION:A carriage 1 is held so as to be slidable along a guide shaft and a recording head 3 is mounted on the carriage 1 at a set position. A carriage driving motor 4 is fixed on the carriage 1 and a roller 6 composed of a rubbery elastic material is fixed to the shaft 5 of the motor 4. Then the motor 4 is rotated, the roller 6 mounted to the shaft 5 is rotated and the carriage 1 is moved along the guide shaft 2 by the friction force of the roller 6 with a guide rail 7. Since the carriage 1 is moved by utilizing the rolling due to the friction force of the roller 6 composed of the rubbery elastic material, a carriage driving apparatus reduced in the sound at the time of the movement by extremely simple and inexpensive constitution and operated quietly is obtained.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a carriage drive device for a serial recording device.

[Conventional technology]

Recording devices such as printers and facsimiles are configured to form recorded images on recording media such as paper by driving energy generating means for forming pixels provided in the recording head based on recorded information. .

This recording device can be classified into serial type, line print type, page print, etc. depending on the scanning method of the recording head.In the serial type, the recording head is mounted on a carriage that moves forward IM in the direction of the printing digits. An image is recorded on the recording medium by driving the pixel forming means of the recording head based on recording information in synchronization with the movement of the carriage.

Conventionally, as means for driving a carriage on which a recording head is mounted in this type of serial recording device, a method has been adopted in which the power of a motor is transmitted to the carriage via a belt, or a method in which a motor is mounted together with the recording head on a carriage and a gear on the shaft of the motor is used. A system was adopted in which the machine was driven by a rack.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, in the method of driving the carriage via the belt, the bearing part that fits the guide shaft is the belt tension! Since it was constructed with rolling bearings such as ball bearings to withstand the lateral pressure caused by crushing, there was a problem of high cost, and the method of driving the gears with a rack caused noise due to the meshing of the gears. There is a problem in that this noise is noticeable during quiet recording such as with an inkjet recording apparatus.

An object of the present invention is to provide a carriage for a serial recording device that can solve the problems of the prior art described above, is inexpensive, and can move the carriage silently! M! i) +Providing equipment.

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention fixes a motor for driving a carriage on a carriage on which a recording head is mounted, and uses the motor to drive a roller made of a rubber-like elastic material that rolls along a guide rail. By doing so, the above object is achieved by a carriage drive device configured to move the carriage by the frictional force between the rollers and the guide rail.

[Function] According to the above configuration, since a method is adopted in which a roller made of rubber-like elastic material is rolled along a guide rail, it is possible to eliminate the noise generated when the carriage is driven, and the scanning of the recording head can be made quiet. It can be carried out.

(Example) The present invention will be specifically described below with reference to Figure i61.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a carriage drive device for a serial recording apparatus according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, a carriage l is held so as to be slidable along a guide shaft 2 in its axial direction, that is, in the printing column direction, and a recording head 3 is positioned and mounted on the carriage l.

A motor 4 for driving the carriage is fixed on the carriage l, and a roller 6 made of a rubber-like elastic material such as a rubber roller is fixed to the shaft 5 of the motor 4.

On the other hand, a guide rail 7 is installed parallel to the moving path of the carriage 1, and the roller 6 is held in a state where it is in pressure contact with the guide rail 7 so as to be able to roll.

The guide rail 7 is attached to the main body side of the recording device and is
In the illustrated example, the guide rail 7 is pressed against the roller 6 by applying an upward elastic force (spring force) to the guide rail 7 with a guide rail presser 11 .

Further, a linear scale 9 for detecting the position of the carriage 1 is installed along the movement path of the carriage 1.

This linear thread 9 is made of, for example, a transparent long polyester film, and stripes are attached at predetermined intervals in the length direction (for example, 180 lines per inch).
By detecting this stripe with a photodetector (not shown) attached to the carriage l, the position and moving speed of the carriage l can be detected.

When the motor 4 is rotated to drive the carriage 1, a roller 6 made of a rubber-like elastic material attached to the shaft 5 rotates, and the friction force between the roller 6 and the guide rail 7 causes the motor 4 to rotate.
The rollers 6 roll without slipping, and the carriage I is thus moved along the guide shaft 2.

The moving direction and moving speed of the carriage l, that is, the recording head 3, are controlled each time the rotational output of the motor 4 is adjusted.

The position and moving speed of the carriage I are detected using the output of an encoder comprised of the linear scale 9 and a photodetector (not shown) that travels along the linear scale together with the carriage.

According to the embodiment described above with respect to the fjS1 diagram, a roller 6 made of a rubber-like elastic material is fixed to the shaft of the motor 4 fixed to the carriage LL, and the roller 6 is attached to the guide rail 7 arranged along the path when the carriage moves. The rollers are driven while they are in pressure contact, and the carriage l is moved using the rolling force of the roller 6 made of rubber-like elastic material, so it is a very simple and inexpensive configuration, and there is no noise when the carriage moves. A carriage drive device that operates quietly with little noise was obtained.

Furthermore, since an inexpensive brush motor can be used as the motor 4, manufacturing costs can be reduced accordingly.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing another embodiment of the carriage drive device according to the present invention.

In this embodiment, °ζ forms a guide rail 11 integrally with the bottom FR 10 made of metal (magnetic material such as a steel plate), and provides a permanent magnet 12 in a portion of the carriage 1 facing the bottom plate IO, The carriage 1 is moved by the magnetic attraction force acting between the permanent magnet 12 and the bottom plate 10 made of magnetic material.
The roller 6 made of a rubber-like elastic material is brought into pressure contact with the guide rail 11.

That is, it is constructed so that the pressure force between the rubber roller 6 fixed to the shaft 5 of the motor 4 on the carriage l and the guide rail 7 on the recording apparatus main body side is obtained using magnetic attraction force. In this respect, this embodiment differs from the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, in which the roller pressing force is obtained by elastic force.

The embodiment of FIG. 2 is substantially the same in structure as that of FIG. 1 in other respects, and corresponding parts are designated by the same numerals and detailed description thereof will be omitted.

According to the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the guide rail presser 8 in FIG. 1 is omitted, since the effect of driving the carriage l quietly with an inexpensive structure can be obtained as in the case of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1. The effect of further reducing the number of C parts was obtained.

In the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1, 2, and 2, the recording head 3 is an ink cartridge 1. Although the case where the present invention is applied to a print head, that is, the case where the present invention is applied to an inkjet recording device has been exemplified, the present invention can be similarly applied to recording devices using other printing methods such as a thermal recording device or a wire dot recording device if it is a serial type. be able to.

(Effects of the Invention) As is clear from the above description, according to the carriage drive device for a serial recording apparatus of the present invention, a motor for driving the carriage is fixed on the carriage on which the recording head is mounted, and the motor for driving the carriage is fixed to the guide rail. By driving a rolling roller made of rubber-like elastic material with the motor, the carriage is moved by the frictional force between the roller and the guide rail. It is possible to obtain a quiet carriage drive device with a simple configuration, and furthermore, because a low-voltage brush motor can be used as the motor, manufacturing costs can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing one embodiment of a carriage drive device according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing another embodiment of the carriage drive device according to the present invention. ■−・−・−・−・−Carriage, 3...− Same...
Recording head, 4-・・・・・・・Motor, 6・・・−
・・・－・・・－Roller, l・song---Guide rail,
8...--Guide rail holder, 11...
-・-1-, guide rail, 12-------...permanent magnet.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A motor for driving the carriage is fixed on the carriage on which the recording head is mounted, and a roller made of rubber-like elastic material that rolls along the guide rail is driven by the motor. A carriage drive device for a serial recording device, characterized in that the carriage is moved by frictional force between the carriages.