JPH0345356A - Thermal transfer color serial printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate a wasteful use of an ink ribbon and a time for taking up the ribbon by providing a ribbon cassette, a printing head, and a ribbon take-up mechanism for every color. CONSTITUTION:On a carrier 9, ribbon cassettes 5 - 8 of 4 colors, i.e. Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, and Black, are etc. Moreover, printing heads 1 - 4 are respectively provided correspondingly to the ribbon cassettes 5 - 8. With the movement of the carrier 9 in a direction of an arrow, only one of a required color out of the recording heads 1 - 4 presses up an ink ribbon 12 on printing paper 10 loaded on the surface of a platen 11 to apply printing thereon. In addition, a ribbon take-up mechanism is provided correspondingly to each ink ribbon. By using a thermal transfer color serial printer constructed as mentioned above, the respective ink ribbons 12 can be used to their ends. Since the need for rewinding the ink ribbon 12 is eliminated, a high-speed printing is realized.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a thermal transfer color serial printer, and more particularly to a thermal transfer color serial printer using a plurality of color ink ribbons.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, this type of thermal transfer color serial printer has a structure in which the colors yellow, magenta, cyan, and black are sequentially stored in one ink ribbon and printed by one print head.

FIG. 2 is a front view of a carrier section of a thermal transfer color serial printer showing an example of such a conventional printer, and FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the color ink ribbon shown in FIG. 2.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, conventional color printers print yellow, magenta, and cyan.

One ink ribbon 14 containing each color of black is housed in a ribbon cassette 13, and a carrier 9 to which this cassette is fixed moves to print on a printing paper 10 located on the surface of a platen 110.

Incidentally, a ribbon winding mechanism is also naturally provided.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

The conventional thermal transfer color serial printer Zenta mentioned above,
Since it contains four colors of black, if you want to use the same color continuously, you need to wind up the ink ribbon until it reaches the ink ribbon of the required color.

Therefore, there is a disadvantage that the ink ribbons of other colors in between are discarded without being used.

An object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer color serial printer that can efficiently use such an ink ribbon and increase the speed.

[Means to solve the problem]

The thermal transfer color serial printer of the present invention includes yellow,
It carries and moves ink ribbon cassettes of magenta, cyan, and black colors, four print heads corresponding to each of the ink ribbon cassettes, a ribbon winding mechanism corresponding to the ink ribbons of each color, and the two print heads. It is configured with a carrier.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 3 is a front view of a carrier section of a thermal transfer color serial printer showing an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, in this embodiment, ribbon cassettes 5 to 8 of four colors, yellow, magenta, cyan, and black, are set in a carrier 9, and each ribbon cassette 5 to 8 has a corresponding one. Print heads 1-4 are provided, respectively. When the carrier 9 moves in the direction of the arrow, only one of the print heads 1 to 4 of the required color will move to the platen 110.
Printing is performed by pressing the ink ribbon 12 against the printing paper 10 on the surface. Further, in this embodiment, the ink ribbons 12 of each color are provided with one or more ribbon winding mechanisms.

By using a thermal transfer color serial printer with such a configuration, all of the ink ribbons 12 can be used,
Furthermore, since the ink ribbon 12 is not rewound, printing speed is increased.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the thermal transfer color printer of the present invention has a ribbon cassette, a print head, and a ribbon winding mechanism for each color of yellow, iron, magenta, and black, thereby eliminating wasted ink ribbon and ribbon winding. It has the effect of cutting down on the time taken.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view of a carrier section of a thermal transfer color serial printer showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a front view of a carrier section of a thermal transfer color serial printer showing a conventional example, and FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a color ink ribbon shown in FIG. 1-4...Print head, 5-8...Ribbon cassette, 9...Carrier, 10...
...Print paper, 11...Platen, 12...
···ink ribbon.

Claims (1)

[Claims] It is equipped with ink ribbon cassettes of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black colors, four print heads corresponding to each of the ink ribbon cassettes, a ribbon winding mechanism corresponding to the ink ribbons of each color, and the four print heads. A thermal transfer color serial printer comprising a moving carrier.