JPH02241777A - Thermal transfer recording - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To effectively utilize a thermally melting ink material and thereby keep the secret efficiency by providing a recording medium intervening between an ink roller formed using the thermally melting ink material and a thermally printing medium arranged to come into contact with the former, and thermally printing the surface of the ink roller using the thermally printing medium via the recording medium to thermally transfer and record data on the recording medium. CONSTITUTION:A thermally melting ink material of the cylindrical, thermally melting ink section 9b of an ink roller 9 is a sufficiently kneaded mixture of wax and carbon black. If a recording paper 10 is thermally printed by a thermal head 8 when the paper passes through a thermal head 8 and an ink roller 9, the thermally melting ink material of the cylindrical, thermally melting ink section 9a of the ink roller 9 melts, and the molten ink is transferred to the recording paper 10 as a recorded image 9'. A heating roller 12 is applied to the cylindrical, thermally melting ink section 9b of the ink roller 9. During thermally transferable printing, the surface of the ink section 9b becomes irregular, but it can be smoothed by the heating roller 12.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Regarding a new thermal transfer recording method that can be applied to thermal transfer printers, it is possible to effectively utilize heat-melting ink materials. In order to provide a thermal transfer recording method, a recording medium is interposed between an ink roller formed of a heat-melting ink material and a heat-generating print body that is placed in contact with the ink roller, and the recording medium is interposed between A thermal transfer recording method is employed in which printing heat is applied from a heat-generating print body to the surface of an ink roller, and thermal transfer recording is performed on a recording medium.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a novel thermal transfer recording method that can be applied to thermal transfer printers.

[Conventional technology]

Thermal transfer printers are compact and can be constructed at low cost9, and are easy to maintain, so they have attracted attention as printers for office automation, especially printers such as Personal Combi 4 Footer, Fukujimiri, and Word Brosseza. It has become widely popular1,7.

21. Refer to Figure 3. , the structure of a conventional thermal transfer printer is schematically illustrated, and in the figure, 1 is a platen, 2 is
indicates the thermal head, 3 indicates the ink sheet, and 4 indicates the recording paper. The platen I is opposed to the thermal head 2,
An ink sheet 3 is passed between them, and a recording paper 4 is interposed between the platen 1 and the ink sheet 3. During the recording operation, the recording paper 4 is fed by the rotation of the platen 1 (arrow a), while the ink sheet 3 is fed out from the feed reel 5 and taken up on the -6 take-up reel 6.

A large number of fine heating elements are embedded in the printing surface of the thermal head 2 in a matrix or linear form, and each heating element corresponds to one dot, which is the minimum unit of a recorded image.・
Ink sheet 3 is a sheet base material such as a polyester film coated with a heat-melting ink material on one side, and the heat-melting ink material is a combination of a low melting point material such as a binder material mainly composed of wax and carbon. It consists of a colored shrine.

In addition,.

In the figure, numeral 7 indicates a coated layer of heat-fusible ink material, arrow s indicates the feeding direction of the recording paper 4, and arrow C indicates the feeding direction 1 and the rotating direction of the doll 5.

Next, Fig. 3 shows an example <17. One of the recording principles of the thermal transfer printer is that a current is selectively applied to the heating element on the printing surface of the thermal radar 2 based on image data from a personal computer, etc. The hot-melt ink material in a predetermined area (corresponding to the dot) of the hot-melt ink coating layer is melted by the generated heat.
The image is transferred onto the recording paper 4 as a recorded image 7'.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Now, it has been pointed out that the biggest problem with the conventional thermal transfer recording method as described above is that most of the heat-melting ink material coated on the sheet base material is wasted. That is, only the heat-melting ink material in the recorded area is consumed, and the heat-melting ink material in the other unrecorded areas is wasted. The amount of heat-melting ink material actually used for recording differs between image recording such as illustrations, which involves so-called solid black recording, and image recording such as characters and symbols, but overall it is about 10%, and this is This means that approximately 90% of the heat-melting ink material used in the production of ink sheets is not used for recording and is wasted. It was also pointed out that another problem with the conventional thermal transfer recording method is that a reverse image remains on the used ink sheet, so from the viewpoint of confidentiality, the ink sheet cannot be disposed of unnecessarily. has been done.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a new thermal transfer recording method that can be applied to a thermal transfer printer, which makes it possible to effectively utilize a heat-melting ink material and which does not cause problems in terms of confidentiality. The purpose is to provide a method.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve this object9, in the thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention, a recording medium is interposed between an ink roller formed from a heat-melting ink material and a heat-generating printed body that is brought into contact with this ink roller. Then, printing heat is applied from the heat-generating print body to the surface of the ink roller via this recording medium, and thermal transfer recording is performed on the recording medium. In addition, in the thermal transfer recording method according to J-1 of the present invention, an intermediate recording medium is interposed between the ink roller and the heat-generating print body, and after thermal transfer recording is once performed on the intermediate recording medium, thermal transfer recording is performed on the core intermediate recording medium. may be further thermally transferred onto recording paper.

In the thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention, the heat-melting ink material on the surface of the ink roller is locally consumed, and as a result, the surface of the liquid ink roller gradually becomes uneven. Preferably, a heating roller is applied to the surface of the ink roller to melt the hot-melt ink material on the surface, thereby smoothing the surface of the ink roller.

[For production]

In the thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention, instead of forming a heat-fusible ink material as a coating layer on an intermediate recording medium as in the past, an ink roller formed from a heat-fusible ink material is applied to the recording medium. Thermal transfer recording is performed.

In other words, the ink roller functions as an ink supply until its hot melt ink material is substantially depleted.

〔Example〕

Next, an embodiment of the thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 1 Jj and FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, a printing section of a thermal transfer recording apparatus for carrying out a thermal transfer recording method according to a first embodiment of the present invention is schematically shown, and the printing section has a heat-generating printed body. Su--Maru Head 8 and this thermal-\Rad 8
An ink roller 9 is provided opposite to the ink roller 9 . The recording paper 10 is interposed between the thermal head 8 and the ink roller 9, and during the recording operation, the recording paper 10 is appropriately fed in the direction of the arrow C by 1-, which rotates the ink roller 9 in the direction of the arrow d. It will be done.

The thermal transfer recording apparatus having the printing section shown in FIG. 1 is configured as a one-line printer, and for this reason, the full head 8 has a sliding elongated body extending in a direction perpendicular to the paper surface of FIG.
7', and a large number of heating elements are arranged in a straight line on the printing surface in the longitudinal direction. Each heating element has electricity,
A predetermined current is applied by the source 11, and the current application is controlled by the binarized image data from a personal computer, etc., and this point is similar to the case of conventional thermal transfer printers. be.

-J, the ink roller 9 is also constructed as an elongated body similar to the thermal head 8, and consists of a shaft portion 9a and a cylindrical thermofusible ink portion 91 formed around the shaft portion 9a. The shaft portion 9a connects the ink roller 9 to the thermal
It is pivoted so that it can be displaced back and forth with respect to the printing surface of
Moreover, the cylindrical heat-melting ink portion 9b is connected to the thermal head 8.
It is elastically biased toward the printed surface by suitable elastic means (not shown) so as to be elastically pressed against the printed surface I7. With this configuration, even if the diameter of the cylindrical thermofusible ink section 91 is reduced as the thermofusible ink material from the surface side of the cylindrical thermofusible ink section 9b is consumed for thermal transfer printing, the cylindrical thermofusible ink section 91] The thermal head 8 is always kept in contact with the printing surface.

As shown in FIG. 1, a heating roller 12 is applied to the cylindrical heat-fusible ink portion 91) of the ink roller 9, and this heating roller 12 is also applied to the cylindrical hot-fusible ink portion 91' of the ink roller 9. ) is supported so as to be elastically displaceable. The heating roller 12 has a shaft tube section 12a that accommodates a heating element such as a nichrome wire, and a shaft tube section 1 that accommodates a heating element such as a nichrome wire.
The rotation direction of the heating roller 12 is indicated by the arrow f. During thermal transfer printing, the heat-fusible ink material of the cylindrical heat-fusible ink portion 9b is locally consumed on its surface side, and the top of the front surface of the cylindrical hot-fusible ink portion 9b becomes an uneven surface. The heated i-cola 12 melts the heat-fusible ink material of the cylindrical heat-fusible ink portion 9b on its surface side, and as a result, the surface of the cylindrical hot-fusible ink portion 91'J is always maintained in a smooth state. That will happen.

According to the above configuration, when the recording papers 1 and 0 pass between the thermal head 8 and the ink roller 9, the recording paper 1
When printing heat is applied by the thermal head 8 to the ink roller 9, the cylindrical heat-fusible ink material of the ink section 9a melts, and the molten ink forms a recorded image 9' on the recording paper 10. transcribed as .

The first thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention is actually carried out in the thermal transfer recording apparatus as described above, and the embodiment thereof will be described below.

(1) As the heat-melting ink material for the cylindrical heat-melting ink portion 9b of the ink roller 9, one having the following components was used. That is, paraffin wax (HNP-3 = melting point 63℃ 180
% carbon black = 10% ester wax (Diakaruna PA-301,) 8
After thoroughly kneading the mixture having a component of 10% or more in a kneading machine (Daruda), the heat-melting ink material is poured into a mold in a heated molten state, and the ink roller 9 having the heat-melting ink portion 9b Created. The ester wax was used as a dispersant to uniformly disperse carbon black into the paraffin wax.

(2) The thermal head 8 applied printing heat 5 from the back side of the recording paper 10, thereby performing thermal transfer recording on the recording paper 14. The size of the heating element of the thermal head 8 is 150 x 150 M, and the recording energy is 35 mJ.
/mm2.

As a result, clear printing with a transfer density of (0,0,) 1.0 or more was obtained. Also, heated to 80℃
- Since the surface of the cylindrical heat-melting ink portion 9b of the ink roller 90 was always smoothed by the roller 12, clear printing was repeatedly maintained.

Note that, as shown in FIG.
The thermal transfer recording method, in which thermal transfer printing is performed directly on the paper, is suitable for thin recording paper that allows heat to pass through easily, but is not suitable for thick recording paper that does not allow heat to pass through.1 However, as shown in Figure 2, According to the thermal transfer recording method described in Section 1, it is possible to perform thermal transfer printing on thick recording paper in a similar manner.

Referring to FIG. 2, a thermal transfer recording apparatus for carrying out a thermal transfer recording method according to a second embodiment of the present invention is schematically shown, and the thermal head, ink roller, power supply and The heating roller is similar to that shown in FIG. 1, and these components are given the same reference numerals.

An intermediate recording medium 13 made of a suitable synthetic resin film l, such as polyester fillo, is interposed between the multi-head 8 and the ink roller 9. In the example shown in FIG. is constructed in the form of an endless belt. The intermediate recording medium, that is, the endless film base 13 is passed between a drive roller 14 and a driven port 15, and the drive roller 14 is driven so that the upper running portion of the endless film base 13 runs in the direction of arrow g. In this case, the ink +7-ra 9 is rotated in the direction 1 shown by the arrow 1], and the heating roller 12 is rotated in the direction shown by the arrow i. Drive port/
- The lobes 14 also function as heating lobes and heat the portions of the endless filler and base 13 that pass through them.

A platen 16 is placed in contact with the driving roller 14, and a recording paper 17 is placed between the platen 16 and the endless film base 13 to face the platen 16. The platen 16 is rotated 9 in the direction of the arrow j, so that the recording paper 17 is fed in the direction of the arrow.

According to the configuration shown in FIG. 2, the endless film base 1
3 passes between the thermal head 8 and the ink roller 9, when printing heat is applied by the thermal head 8 to the endless filter substrate 13, the cylindrical heat-fusible ink portion 911 of the ink roller 9 is thermally melted. The ink material is melted 9 and the molten ink is transferred to the endless film substrate 1:3 as an intermediate recorded image 9'. Thereafter, when the intermediate recorded image 9' passes between the driving roller chain heating roller 14 and the platen 16, the 2-1 intermediate recorded image 9' heated by the heating roller 14 is melted again to form the final image. The image is thermally transferred to the recording paper 17 as a recorded image 9''.

The thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention is actually carried out in a thermal transfer recording apparatus as shown in FIG. 2, and the embodiment thereof will be described below.

(1) The thermofusible ink material of the cylindrical thermofusible ink portion 9b of the ink roller 9 is the same as in the first embodiment.

(2) Intermediate recording medium endless filter base 13 is 6
- formed from a polyester film having a thickness of -.

(3) Endless film substrate 13 by thermal head 8
Printing heating was applied from the back side of the substrate, thereby thermally transferring the intermediate recorded image to the endless film substrate 13. The size of the heating element of the thermal head 8 is 150 x 150-,
Its recorded energy is 25J, /In1112,
The recording energy is lower by 10 m, J/mm2, than in the first embodiment.

(4) Next, the intermediate recorded image was thermally transferred onto the recording paper 17 by a heating roller (drive roller) 14 heated to 80°C.

As a result, a clear print with a transfer density (0, 1, > 1.0 or more) was obtained. Also, as in the case of the first example, the heating roller 12 heated to 80 tons was used. Since the surface of the cylindrical heat-melting ink portion 9b of the ink roller 9 was always smoothed, clear printing was repeatedly maintained.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As is clear from the above description, in the thermal transfer recording method according to the present invention, by using an ink roller made of a heat-fusible ink material, the heat-fusible ink material can be used without waste. It is extremely economical compared to other thermal transfer recording methods. Furthermore, there is no problem with disposing of used ink sheets as in the past.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a printing section of a thermal transfer recording apparatus for carrying out a thermal transfer recording method according to a first embodiment of the present invention;
The figure is a schematic diagram of a thermal transfer recording apparatus for carrying out a thermal transfer recording method according to a second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a conventional thermal transfer recording method. 8... Thermal head, 9 10... Recording paper, 1 12... Heating roller, 1 14... Drive roller, 16... Platen, 1... Ink roller, 1... Power supply , 3... Intermediate recording medium, 5... Followed roller, 7... Recording paper. Schematic diagram of a printing section implementing the thermal transfer recording method according to the first example of pixel data

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A recording medium is interposed between an ink roller formed of a heat-melting ink material and a heat-generating printed body placed in contact with the ink roller, and the heat-generating material is transmitted through the recording medium. A thermal transfer recording method that performs thermal transfer recording on the recording medium by applying printing heat from the printed body to the surface of the ink roller. 2. The thermal transfer recording method according to claim 1, wherein a heating roller is applied to the ink roller to smooth the surface of the ink roller.