JPH0422645A - Recording head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily perform enlarged and reduced printing of characters by a method wherein head pins are attached on a base plate in a line, in the traveling direction of a recording head and at a specified angle to the traveling direction, and the base plate with the pins is rotated within a plane which is parallel with a recording surface. CONSTITUTION:A setting assembly consists of a magnetic driving members 12 and 13, a plate spring 15, an armature 16 and head pins 17, and two or more setting assemblies are arranged on a base plate in a line and at a diagonal angle theta1 to the traveling direction of a recording head. The pin 17 made of a short rod material is put through a through-hole 18 from behind the base plate and projects forward. A driving motor 30 is brought in operation when a magnifying power is designated, and a setting block 40 is rotated within a plane which is parallel with a printing surface, so that the diagonal angle theta1 of a line of head pins is changed, causing the height to be increased or decreased. When the diagonal angle is increased, enlarged printing takes place, and when it is decreased, reduced printing is performed. Setting data of two or more characters are transferred simultaneously with traveling of the recording head, and setting action is carried out with two or more head pins 17 actuated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording head, and particularly to a recording head that can be easily enlarged or reduced during a recording operation.

2. Description of the Related Art With the recent development and spread of office automation equipment, printers are being used in offices as accessories for office computers and word processors. The printing head of such a printer is at issue, and a conventional example of such a printing head is as shown in FIG. 5, for example.

This recording head includes a yoke body 1 for forming an electromagnetic circuit, a permanent magnet 2 fixed to this yoke body 1,
a base plate 4 provided adjacent to the permanent magnet 2;
It consists of an armature 6 attached to a leaf spring 5 held between a yoke body 1 and a base plate 4, and a printing wire 7 attached to the tip of the armature 6.

The base plate 4 is provided with a cylindrical wire holder 9 protruding forward at approximately the center thereof.

This wire holder 9 has a guide portion 8 at its tip portion, and accommodates the printing wire 7 therein so as to be movable forward and backward. A plurality of sets of magnet members 2 and 3, leaf springs 5, armature 6, and printing wire 7 are provided at equal angular intervals in the exercise direction in a plane perpendicular to the center line ○ of the recording head, and printing for the number of sets is provided. A wire 7 extends through the wire holder 9 and reaches the outlet of the guide part 8.

In this type of recording head, for example, 24 printing wires 7 are loaded, and the tips of these 24 printing wires 7 are located at the guide portion 8 of the wire holder 9 in an extremely narrow space in the direction perpendicular to the scanning direction of the recording head. They are held in various ways so that they are arranged at equal intervals within the interior and do not come into contact with each other. For this reason, the printing wire 7 is made of a very fine wire. And when it comes to printing,
The 24 printing wires 7 print one line of the printer. When the recording head having such a configuration is inactive, no current is conducted to the electromagnetic coil 3, and the armature 6 is attracted to the yoke 1 surface by the magnetic flux of the permanent magnet 2. Therefore, the leaf spring 5 is bent and deformed rearward, and the printing wire 7 is held in the retracted position (the state shown in FIG. 5). When current is applied to the electromagnetic coil 3, the electromagnetic coil 3 is excited and cancels the magnetic flux caused by the permanent magnet 2. As a result, the armature 6 is forcefully separated from the surface of the yoke due to the restoring force of the leaf spring 5 attached to it, and this momentum causes the printing wire 7 to rush forward, and its tip is set on the platen (not shown) and the platen (not shown). collides with the recorded paper. When the current to the electromagnetic coil 3 is cut off, the armature 6 is again attracted to the surface of the yoke by the permanent magnet 2.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, in such a conventional recording head, the tips of the 24 printing wires 7 are aligned vertically at equal intervals in the guide portion 8 of the wire holder 9, as described above. Since they are held in various ways to prevent them from coming into contact with each other or colliding with each other, the structure is complicated and the manufacturing process becomes complicated.

Furthermore, in conventional recording heads, one assembly having the above-mentioned configuration is generally moved back and forth in the main scanning direction to print on the recording paper. It was difficult to enlarge or reduce the figure. When trying to enlarge or reduce the data using this conventional recording head, the dot data sent during the printing operation is struck twice and enlarged only in the horizontal direction, or the reduction pattern for each character is prepared in advance on the processing device side. The only way was to register it in , and then specify it when you needed a reduced font.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object thereof is to provide a recording head that has a relatively simple structure and can be easily enlarged or reduced.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, the present invention uses a short head pin as an element for printing, and places this head pin on the base plate in the scanning direction of the recording head. The gist is that a rotary drive member is provided that rotates the base plate and the head pin while being linearly arranged at a predetermined inclination angle with respect to the head pin.

Function As mentioned above, since a plurality of head pins are arranged in a straight line in a direction oblique to the scanning direction of the recording head, when attaching one head pin to the adjacent head pin, it is necessary to leave enough space between them. can be set. and,
During a printing operation, print data for a plurality of characters is transferred to the recording head in synchronization with the scanning of the recording head, and a plurality of herad pins arranged in an oblique direction are activated. As a result, when printing characters using the recording head, between the head pin located on the front side in the scanning direction of the recording head and the head pin located on the rear side in the scanning direction of the recording head among the plurality of head pins, the printing The characters to be displayed are shifted from each other in the front-back direction. If we pay attention to the printing operation for one character, printing begins when the head pin located at the forefront in the scanning direction of the recording head among the plurality of head pins passes.
Printing of the character is completed by the passage of the head pin located at the rear end of the recording head in the scanning direction. This operation is executed sequentially to print one line. Also, when enlarging or reducing characters, the operation of the rotary drive member
A print block with a base plate and head pins is rotated. As a result, the inclination angle of the head pin array of the recording head changes, and the dimension between the head pin at the highest position and the head pin at the lowest position, that is, the height dimension increases or decreases. As a result of the rotation operation, when the tilt angle increases with respect to the reference tilt angle, the character is enlarged, and when it decreases, the character is reduced.

Embodiment FIGS. 1 and 3 are diagrams showing an embodiment of a recording head according to the present invention.

Of these, FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing the overall structure of the recording head according to this embodiment, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the structure of a part of the print assembly of the same recording head, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a front view of the head.

The recording head according to the second embodiment includes a rotary drive motor 30 as a rotary drive member that is slidably attached to a track member 50 made of a rod via a sleeve 51;
The printing flock 40 is fixedly attached to the rotation shaft 31 of the rotation drive motor 30.

As shown in FIG. 2, the printing block 40 is wound around a yoke body 11 for forming a magnetic circuit, and a permanent magnet 12 fixedly attached to this yoke body 11. an electromagnetic coil 13 constituting a magnetic drive member; a base plate 14 attached to the front surface of the yoke body 11; an armature 16 attached to a leaf spring 15 held between the yoke body 11 and the base plate 14; It consists of a hemetopin 17 for printing attached to the tip of the armature 16.

In this embodiment, the permanent magnet 12 and the electromagnetic coil 1
3, the leaf spring 15, the armature 16, and the pin 17 collectively constitute one printing assembly, and a plurality of printing assemblies (for example, 24 pieces) are arranged at the rear of the base plate 14. , as shown in FIG. 3, are arranged in a straight line in the scanning direction of the recording head at a predetermined inclination angle θ1 with respect to the scanning direction.

The head pin 17 is made of a rod member having a shorter dimension than the printing wire 7 in the conventional example, and is formed to have a larger diameter than the printing wire 7 except that the tip has an extremely small diameter and is sharp. This head pin 17 is attached to the base plate 14
It protrudes from the rear to the front. The base plate 14 is formed with through holes 18 into which the head pins 17 are inserted, corresponding to the arrangement of the hepto pins 17.

The arrangement configuration of the hemetopin 17 described above is modeled and shown in FIG. In this figure, the right side is the front part,
Let the left side be the rear part. The head pins 17 are arranged at equal intervals at a pitch P from the hemetopin 17a at the forefront to the hemetopin 17b at the rear in the direction of the inclined row. Since the inclination angle of the row is θ1, a shift (that is, a difference in height) occurs in the longitudinal direction between the head pins 17 that are in contact with each other. If the dimension of this vertical deviation is d, then d=P sin θ1 holds true.

Therefore, assuming that there are 24 head pins from 17a to 17b, there are 24 head pins from 173 to 17b.
Letting the vertical distance to D be -23d = 23P sin θ1.

On the other hand, the arrangement space of the head pins 17 is 3P, and compared to the arrangement space of the head pins 17, it looks like a large number of head pins are arranged in a narrow vertical space.

Therefore, the head pin 17 and its drive mechanism can be arranged with more space, and manufacturing is easier than with the conventional recording head.

The operation of the recording head having such a configuration will be explained below.

When operating a printer or the like, an operator first selects and specifies a print magnification.

This printing magnification designation operation activates the rotation drive motor 30 to rotate the printing block 40 in a plane parallel to the recording surface. The printing block 40 rotates about the point of connection with the rotating shaft 31 by the operation of the rotational drive motor 30 . When the operator's instruction is for reduction, the character block 4o is rotated in the direction of arrow S1 in FIG. 3, so that the height of the printing range by the recording head becomes D':=
23d・1/α = 23P sin θ1・1/a On the other hand, when an enlargement instruction is given, by rotating in the direction opposite to the arrow S1, the print range height by the recording head is D=236−β = 23P sin θ 1 ・β.

Once this printing magnification is designated, the actual printing operation is then performed. During printing, print data for multiple characters is transferred in synchronization with the scanning of the recording head.
Activation is applied to a plurality of diagonally arranged herad pins 17. Therefore, in the case of printing characters by the recording head, the head pin 17 located at the front side in the scanning direction of the recording head among the plurality of head pins 17
The characters to be printed are shifted from each other in the front-rear direction between the head pin 17a and the head pin 17b located at the rear portion of the recording head in the scanning direction. If we pay attention to the printing operation of a character, printing begins when the head pin 17a located at the forefront in the scanning direction of the recording head among the plurality of head pins passes, and when the head pin 17b located at the rearmost position in the scanning direction of the recording head passes. Printing of that character is completed.

When this printing is completed, the head pin 17a at the forefront of the recording head is either printing another character further ahead, or has completed the printing operation for that line. When the printing operation is reduction printing, the array inclination angle θ of the head pins 17 is set to a smaller angle than the angle θ1, and printing is performed with the recording head scanning speed reduced. The finished print will be of high quality. Further, when the printing operation is enlarged printing, the arrangement inclination angle θ of the head pins 17 is set to a larger angle than the angle θ1, and the scanning speed of the recording head is controlled to an appropriate value, and the scanning direction is Since printing is performed after data is added according to the magnification, the resulting print is of high quality.

The above embodiment shows an example in which the recording head pins are arranged in a straight line in a line at a predetermined inclination angle with respect to the scanning direction of the recording head and attached to the base plate 14. However, various other changes and modifications can be made to the arrangement structure of the head pins. For example, on the base plate, the head pins may be arrayed linearly and obliquely as described above, or may be divided and arranged in two or more rows.

Further, although a dot matrix type recording head is used as the recording head in the above embodiment, unlike this, the present invention can be similarly applied to a thermal transfer type recording head.

As described in detail, according to the present invention, the blade pins of the recording head are arranged linearly in the scanning direction of the recording head at a predetermined inclination angle with respect to the scanning direction and attached to the base plate. On the other hand, since a rotary drive member is provided that rotates the base plate and head pins in a plane parallel to the recording surface, the operation of the rotary drive member rotates the printing assembly having the base plate and head pins, thereby causing the head bin row of the recording head to rotate. The inclination angle changes, making it easy to enlarge or reduce the characters. Particularly, according to the present invention, if many reduction printing operations are employed, a larger amount of print data can be printed on one page of paper, and paper can be saved. For example, if you write in font size that is 1/2 the width and height, the amount of paper used will be reduced to 1/4, contributing to the saving of resources.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing the overall structure of a recording head according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a side sectional view showing an embodiment of a printing block used in the recording head. FIG. 3 is a front view of the printing block, FIG. 4 is a modeled view of the inclined array structure of head pins in FIG. 3, and FIG. 5 is a side sectional view showing an example of a conventional recording head. 11...Yoke body 12...Permanent magnet 13
... Electromagnetic coil 14 ... Base plate 1
7...Head pin 18...Through hole 30...
・Rotary drive motor 31...Shaft 40...Printing block 50...Trajectory 51...Sleeve Patent applicant Mechatronics Co., Ltd. Name of agent Patent attorney Masahiro Kura Go/"-16 Figure 2 3 Figure/14 7b Procedural Amendment (Shoplifting August 1990: L6th day)

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A base plate in which a plurality of through holes are provided in a straight line and scans in a direction parallel to the recording surface; a head pin driving member attached to the rear of the base plate; A recording head comprising: a head pin that is moved back and forth in the front-back direction through a through hole in a base plate by a head pin drive member; and a rotational drive member that rotates the base plate and the head pin in a plane parallel to a recording surface.