JPH03215078A - Printer and ink ribbon - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable an ink ribbon to be further cut short by arranging a device to detect a reference position area so that it detects a reference position area between a supply side reel and a printing part. CONSTITUTION:Sensors 2 are arranged in mutually opposed positions through an ink ribbon 10 so that the sensors can detect the reference position area 14 of the ink ribbon 10 between a supply side ribbon reel 11 and the printing point 13 of a platen 4. Then if the reference position area 14 of the ink ribbon 10 is detected by the sensors 2, a reference position detection signal is connected to a control part. The control part controls a motor for driving a winding side ribbon reel 12 based on the reference position detection signal and thereby stops the winding action of the ink ribbon 10. Subsequently, the length of the ink ribbon 10 required for printing a single printing sheet 8 can be brought closer to a unit print length, and thus the entire length of the ink ribbon can be shortened.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a printer and an ink ribbon, particularly to a sublimation type thermal transfer printer and an ink ribbon suitable for the sublimation type thermal transfer printer.

[Summary of the invention]

The invention of claim (1) provides a printer in which the means for detecting the reference position area is arranged between the reel on the supply side and the printing section so as to detect the reference position area. The overall length of the ink ribbon can be shortened and the tension can be easily controlled.

The invention of claim (2) provides an ink ribbon in which the distance between a reference position area and a coloring area formed subsequent to the reference position area is such that the distance between the reference position area and the coloring area formed subsequent to the reference position area is set such that the interval between the reference position area and the coloring area formed subsequent to the reference position area is By setting the tip of the coloring area to reach the printer's print head when it reaches a predetermined position between the reels on the supply side and the take-up side, the overall length of the ink ribbon can be shortened. This is what I did.

[Prior Art] A conventional example of a sublimation type thermal transfer printer that performs color printing is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-249486.

FIG. 5 shows an example of an ink ribbon and printing section in a conventional dye sublimation thermal transfer printer.
1 is a printing section, 42 is a sensor, and 43 is a ribbon cartridge.

The printing section 4l mainly includes a platen 44 and rollers 45 and 46.
and a print head 47.

The platen 44 includes a rotating shaft driven by a motor (not shown) and an elastic body covering the rotating shaft. Rollers 45 and 46 that rotate integrally with the platen 44 are provided on the outer periphery of the platen 44.
, 46, the printing sleeve 48 is wrapped around the platen 44 and pressed against it.

The print head 47 is rotatably supported by a shaft 49 in the direction of arrows T and IT. In the print mode, the print head 47 rotates in the direction of arrow T and prints on the ink ribbon 5.
In the non-printing mode, the print head 47 rotates in the direction of the arrow IT to press the ink ribbon 50 and the platen 44
shall be non-contact.

The sensor 42 is arranged to face the ink ribbon 50 between the printing point 53 of the platen 44 and the ribbon reel 52 on the take-up side so as to be able to detect the reference position area 54 of the ink ribbon 50. .

The ribbon cartridge 43 has a ribbon reel 51 on the supply side.
A ribbon reel 52 on the winding side is rotatably provided, and the ink ribbon 50 is wound around the ribbon reels 51 and 52 described above.

The ink ribbon 50 shown in FIG. 6 includes a black reference position area 54, followed by coloring areas 55 of each of the three primary colors, for example, yellow Y, magenta M, and cyan CV.
56 and 57 are set as one sheet of printing paper 48.

In the print mode, the print head 47 rotates in the direction of arrow T to press the ink ribbon 50 against the photographic paper 48 wrapped around the platen 44. This allows the platen 44
The yellow colored area 55 comes into contact with the surface of the photographic paper 48 that is wrapped around the surface of the photographic paper 48 .

Next, the platen 44 rotates in the direction of the arrow T, and the photographic paper 48 and the ink ribbon 50 are rolled up onto the ribbon reel 5 on the winding side.
At the same time, a still image corresponding to yellow is printed by the print head 47.

At this time, the ink ribbon 50 is attached to the ribbon reel 5 on the supply side.
1, back tension is applied to prevent slack. Further, the ink ribbon 50 is attached to the platen 44.
As a result of the rotation, the ribbon is sent to the ribbon reel 52 on the winding side, and is wound up by the ribbon reel 52.

When the yellow printing is completed, the printing hand 47 is separated from the platen 44, and the platen 44 rotates in the direction of the arrow IT, so that the printing head 48 is returned to the position before printing. Further, the printing point 53 of the platen 44 is positioned so as to correspond to the magenta coloring area 56 of the ink ribbon 50. Then, the print head 47 is again pressed against the leading edge of the photographic paper 48 through the magenta coloring area 56, and magenta is printed in the same manner as yellow.

Similarly, when printing of the cyan coloring area 57 is completed, the non-printing mode is entered.

In the non-print mode, the print head 47 rotates in the direction of the arrow IT to bring the ink ribbon 50 and platen 44 out of contact. The ink ribbon 50 is then wound up by a ribbon reel 52 on the winding side.

This winding operation is an operation for printing on the next photographic paper 48. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately move the tip of the yellow coloring area 55 to the position of the print head 47. Therefore, the sensor 42 detects the reference position area 54 of the ink ribbon 50, and the winding operation of the ink ribbon 50 is controlled based on this detection.

When the reference position area 54 is detected by the sensor 42, a reference position detection signal is supplied to a system controller (not shown), and this system controller controls a motor (not shown) that drives the ribbon reel 52 on the winding side. The winding operation of the ink ribbon 50 is stopped.

As a result, the yellow color developing area 55 is wound up to the position of the printing point 53, and preparation for printing on the next printing ring 48 is made.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In the conventional technology as described above, the detection of the reference position area 54 is performed between the print point 53 and the ribbon reel 52 on the winding side, so the length of the ink ribbon 50 may be longer than necessary. There was a problem with this.

That is, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 7, if the distance between the sensor 42 and the printing point 53 is L6, the reference position area 54
is detected at the detection position 58 and the winding operation of the ink ribbon 50 is stopped. It overruns to the ribbon reel 52 side.

As a result, the length of the ink ribbon 50 required to print one sheet of photographic paper 48 becomes longer than the unit printing length by the length L7. In addition, the portion between the reference position area 54 and the coloring area 55 is also required to have a certain length depending on the arrangement of the sensor 42 and the printing section 41. For this reason, in the entire ink ribbon 50, the wasteful portion unrelated to printing has a length that cannot be ignored, and the ink ribbon 50 becomes much longer than necessary. Furthermore, in this specification,
The unit printing length represents the length size of one still image to be printed.

When the ink ribbon 50 becomes longer than necessary, the diameters of the ribbon reels 5l and 52 become larger, and the ribbon cartridge 4
There was a problem in that 3 became large.

As the ink ribbon 50 becomes longer, the winding diameter ratio (the ratio of the diameter of the ribbon reels 51 and 52 to the diameter when the ink ribbon 50 is wound to its maximum length) increases, so the winding force increases accordingly. There was a problem in that this required a certain amount of tension, making it difficult to control the tension.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a printer and an ink ribbon that can make the ink ribbon even shorter.

[Means to solve the problem]

The invention of claim (1) provides means for detecting a reference position area formed on an ink ribbon wound from a supply reel to a take-up reel, and a reference position detected by the means for detecting the reference position area. In the printer including means for controlling winding of the ink ribbon based on the detection signal, the means for detecting the reference position area detects the reference position area between the supply side reel and the printing unit. The structure is arranged as follows.

The invention of claim (2) provides an ink ribbon that is wound around a supply reel and a take-up reel and has a reference position area and a coloring area, the ink ribbon having a reference position area,
When the distance between the reference position area and the coloring area formed subsequent to the reference position area reaches a predetermined position between the supply side and take-up side reels after the reference position area is detected, the tip portion of the coloring area is The configuration is such that it reaches the print head of the printer.

[Effect]

In the invention of claim (1), since the reference position area is configured to be detected between the reel on the supply side and the printing section, the ink ribbon is not moved for a predetermined period of time after the reference position area is detected. After winding, winding of the ink ribbon can be stopped.

Therefore, by making the above-mentioned predetermined time correspond to the distance that the color development area moves from the detection point to the print head of the printing section, the length of the ink ribbon per sheet of photographic paper can be brought closer to the unit print length. This makes it possible to shorten the overall length of the ink ribbon, thereby facilitating tension control.

In the invention according to claim (2), the distance between the reference position area of the ink ribbon and the coloring area is close to each other. That is, if the reference position area is configured to be detected between the reel on the supply side and the printing unit, after the reference position area is detected, the detection is performed at a predetermined position between the reel on the supply side and the take-up side, for example. , the tip of the coloring area is set so as to reach the print head of the print unit when the coloring region reaches a position immediately after passing through the print head of the print unit.

Therefore, by winding up the ink ribbon for a predetermined period of time after detecting the reference position area, and then stopping the winding of the ink ribbon, the entire length of the ink ribbon can be shortened. [Embodiment] An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4. This embodiment describes an example in which the invention is applied to a sublimation type thermal transfer printer and a ribbon cartridge used in this sublimation type thermal transfer printer.

Further, in this embodiment, it is assumed that the ribbon reels on the supply side and take-up side and the ink ribbon are configured as a ribbon cartridge. In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, 1 is a printing section, 2 is a sensor, and 3 is a ribbon cartridge. The printing section 1 mainly includes a platen 4, rollers 5 and 6, and a print head 7.

The platen 4 includes a rotating shaft driven by a motor (not shown) and an elastic body covering the rotating shaft. Rollers 5 and 6 that rotate integrally with the platen 4 are provided around the outer periphery of the platen 4, and the printing sleeve 8 is wound around and pressed against the platen 4 by the rollers 5 and 6.

The print head 7 is rotatably supported by a shaft 9 in the directions of arrows T and IT. In print mode, print head 7
rotates in the direction of arrow T to press the ink ribbon 10 against the photographic paper 8 wrapped around the platen 4, and in the non-printing mode, the print head 7 rotates in the direction of arrow IT,
The ink ribbon 10 and the platen 4 are made non-contact.

The sensor 2 is arranged to face the ink ribbon 10 between the ribbon reel 11 on the supply side and the printing point 13 of the platen 4 so as to be able to detect the reference position area l4 of the ink ribbon 10.

The ribbon cartridge 3 includes a ribbon reel 11 on the supply side,
A ribbon reel 12 on the winding side is rotatably provided, and the ink ribbon 10 is wound around the ribbon reels 11 and 12 described above.

The ink ribbon 10 shown in FIG. 3 includes a black reference position area l4, followed by coloring areas 15 for each of the three primary colors, for example, yellow Y1 magenta M1 cyan Cv.
16 and 17 are set as one sheet of printing paper 8.

In the print mode, the print head 7 rotates in the direction of the arrow T and presses the ink ribbon lO against the print sleeve 8 wound around the platen 4. As a result, the yellow colored area 15 comes into contact with the surface of the photographic paper 8 wound around the platen 4.

Next, the platen 4 rotates in the direction of arrow T, and the photographic paper 8
Then, the ink ribbon 10 is sent to the ribbon reel 12 on the winding side, and a still image corresponding to yellow is printed by the print head 7.

At this time, the ink ribbon 10 is transferred to the ribbon reel 11 on the supply side.
Back tension is applied to prevent slack. Further, the ink ribbon 10 is sent to the ribbon reel 12 on the winding side by the rotation of the platen 4, and is wound up by the ribbon reel 12. When the yellow printing is completed, the printing end 7 is separated from the platen 4, and the platen 4 is rotated in the direction of the arrow IT, so that the photographic paper 8 is returned to the position before printing. Further, the printing point 13 of the platen 4 is positioned so as to correspond to the magenta coloring area 16 of the ink ribbon 10. Then, the print head 7 is again pressed against the leading edge of the photographic paper 8 through the magenta coloring area l6, and magenta is printed in the same manner as yellow. Similarly, when printing of the cyan coloring area 17 is completed, the non-printing mode is entered.

In the non-print mode, the print head 7 rotates in the direction of the arrow IT to bring the ink ribbon 10 and platen 4 out of contact.

The ink ribbon 10 is placed on a ribbon reel 1 on the winding side.
2.

This winding operation is an operation for printing on the next photographic paper 8. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately move the tip of the yellow coloring area 15 to the position of the print head 7. Therefore, the reference position area l4 of the ink ribbon 10 is detected by the sensor 2, and the winding operation of the ink ribbon 10 is controlled based on this. The reference position area 1 of the ink ribbon 10 is detected by the sensor 2.
4 is detected, the reference position detection signal SD is sent to the control section 18.
is supplied to

The control unit 18 controls the motor that drives the ribbon reel 12 on the winding side based on the reference position detection signal SD to stop the winding operation of the ink ribbon IO.

The configuration of the control unit for one day is shown in FIG.

FG19 provided on the ribbon reel 12 on the winding side
A pulse PL of a predetermined period formed by is supplied to a counter 22 via an amplifier 20 and a pulse shaping circuit 2l.

The counter 22 receives the reference position detection signal SD from the terminal 23.
When supplied, the count value is reset. Thereafter, counting of pulses P1 supplied from the pulse shaping circuit 21 is started. This count value C22 is supplied to the comparison circuit 24.

The comparison circuit 24 compares the above-mentioned count value C22 with a reference value Cref. This reference value Cref is
This is the count value of pulses P1 generated during the time when the tip of the coloring area l5 of the ink ribbon 10 reaches the printing point 13 from the detection position 25, and is determined in advance. When the count value C22 mentioned above reaches the reference value Cref, a signal is sent from the comparison circuit 24 to the system controller 2.
6.

When the system controller 26 is supplied with the above-mentioned signal, the system controller 26 controls the vertical movement of the print head 7 in response to the signal.
Control signals SC7 and SC12 for controlling the motor of the ribbon reel 12 on the winding side are formed, respectively. The control signal SC7 is supplied to the motor that drives the print head 7, and the control signal SC12 is supplied to the ribbon reel 12 on the take-up side.
is supplied to the motor. Note that 27, 28, and 29 are terminals, respectively.

As a result, when the yellow coloring area 15 is wound up to the printing point l3, the winding operation is stopped and preparations for printing on the next photographic paper 8 are made.

With such a configuration, the detection of the reference position area 14 is possible.
Since the printing is performed between the printing point l3 and the ribbon reel 11 on the supply side, it is possible to bring the length of the ink ribbon lO necessary for printing one sheet of photographic paper 8 closer to the unit print length. The overall length of the ink ribbon 10 can be shortened. Therefore, the diameters of the ribbon reels 11 and l2 can be reduced, and the ribbon cartridge 3 can be made smaller.

Since the overall length of the ink ribbon 10 can be shortened, the winding diameter ratio (the ratio of the diameter of the ribbon reels 11 and 12 to the diameter when the ink ribbon 10 is wound to the maximum) can be reduced, and accordingly, Since the winding force is not required to be so large, tension control becomes easy.

An example of an ink ribbon 10 suitable for a printer having the printing section 1 and sensor 2 as described above is shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.

In this ink ribbon 10, the distance L1 between the reference position area 14 and the coloring area l5 is close to each other. 1st
In the configuration shown in the figure, the reference position area 1 by the sensor 2 is
4 is performed between the printing point 13 and the ribbon reel 11 on the supply side. Therefore, after the reference position area 14 is detected, a predetermined position between the ribbon reels 11 and 12 on the supply side and the winding side, e.g. , position 3 immediately after passing through the print head 7
It can be set so that the leading end of the coloring area I5 reaches the print head 7 when the coloring area I5 reaches 0.

Therefore, after the reference position area 14 is detected at the detection position 25 and the ink ribbon 10 is wound up by a distance L3,
When the winding operation is stopped at 0, the ink ribbon 10
The tip of the yellow coloring area l5 is the print head 7
For example, the ribbon reel 1 on the take-up side is
All you have to do is go to the 2nd side. In other words, since the length L4 of the leading end that overruns is extremely small, the ink ribbon I required to print one sheet of photographic paper 8 is
It becomes possible to bring the length O closer to the unit printing length, and the overall length of the ink ribbon 10 can be shortened.

Although this embodiment is explained using a sublimation type thermal transfer printer as an example, it is not limited to this. A reference position area 14 is set on the ink ribbon 10, and the ink ribbon is The present invention is applicable to all printers that can control the winding operations described in 10.

Furthermore, although this embodiment explains that the operation is controlled by the system controller, the system controller is not limited to this, and the same function can be achieved by a mechanical configuration or an electronic circuit configuration. You may.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the invention of claim (1), the detection of the reference position area includes:
Since this is done between the printing section and the ribbon reel on the supply side, it is possible to bring the length of the ink ribbon per sheet of photographic paper closer to the unit printing length, and the overall length of the ink ribbon can be shortened. effective.

Since the overall length of the ink ribbon can be shortened, the diameter of the ribbon reel can be reduced, and the ink ribbon cartridge can be miniaturized.

Furthermore, since the length of the entire ink ribbon can be shortened, the winding diameter ratio can be reduced, and tension control becomes easier.

The invention of claim (2) provides that when a means for detecting a reference position area is arranged between the printing unit and the reel on the supply side so as to detect the reference position area, the reference position area is detected. The tip of the coloring area is set so that it reaches the print head of the printer when it reaches a predetermined position between the reels on the supply side and the take-up side, for example, just after passing the print head of the printing section. Therefore, similar to the effect of the invention of claim (1), there is an effect that the entire length of the ink ribbon can be shortened.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram explaining the control section, FIGS. 3 and 4 are plan views explaining the reference position area and coloring area of the ink ribbon, Figure 5 is a side view explaining the conventional example, Figures 6 and 7.
The figure is a plan view illustrating the reference position area and coloring area of a conventional ink ribbon. Explanation of main symbols in the drawings 1, 4l: Printing section, 2, 42: Sensor, 7, 47:
Print head, 10, 50: Ink ribbon, 11, 12, 51, 52: Ribbon reel, l4, 54:
Reference position area, 15, l6, 17, 55, 56, 57: Color development area, 18
: Control unit, 26: System controller, SD two reference position detection signal, L1: Interval.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) Based on a means for detecting a reference position area formed on an ink ribbon wound from a supply reel to a take-up reel, and a reference position detection signal from the means for detecting the reference position area, In the printer comprising means for controlling the winding of the ink ribbon, the means for detecting the reference position area detects the reference position area between the reel on the supply side and the printing section. A printer characterized by: (2) In an ink ribbon that is wound on a reel on a supply side and a reel on a take-up side and has a reference position area and a coloring area, the ink ribbon has a reference position area and a coloring area formed subsequent to the reference position area. When the distance between the coloring area and the coloring area reaches a predetermined position between the reels on the supply side and take-up side after the reference position area is detected, the tip of the coloring area reaches the print head of the printer. An ink ribbon characterized by being set to.