JPH0434046Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] Industrial Application Field The present invention relates to printing devices such as dot printers and line printers, and particularly to impact printing devices.

Prior Art Although this type of impact printing device has advantages such as sharpness of printing and ability to print copies, it has the drawback of making a lot of noise during printing.
They are becoming more and more commonplace in offices.

Some of this noise during printing is generated on the platen side being struck, but the source of the noise is the printing head, which is the striking mechanism.

An impact print head consists of a print head body that causes a dot wire to perform a striking action, and an outer casing that covers it.Generally, the print head body consists of a cylindrical main body casing that houses multiple solenoids in a ring shape. One end of the dot wire of the book is pulled in, and the armature, return spring, etc. related to each of the dot wires are locked, and the outer casing is
It consists of a part that covers the print head body from the front while dot wires are arranged in a matrix, and a part that covers the print head body from the rear to protect the armature, return spring, etc. The covering part is integrated with one of these, and most of the outer casing is made of a metal body with excellent heat conductivity, and fins etc. are formed to improve heat dissipation. Common. Furthermore, in the past, no particular vibration damping member was placed between the print head main body and the outer casing, and the gap was either left open or filled with aluminum fibers.

The problem that the invention aims to solve Impact printing devices are noisy even on their own, but in recent years, efforts have been made to increase the printing speed and improve the printing quality, and the noise and heat generated by the printing head itself has become considerably lower. I'm getting used to it. Therefore, in order to eliminate noise during printing, it is important to attenuate the impact vibration, but it is also necessary to find a solution to this heat generation at the same time.

Means for Solving the Problems In the present invention, when the print head main body is fitted into the outer casing of the print head, a gel filling sheet is inserted into the gap between the outer casing and the printing head main body, and the gel filling sheet is , a large number of gel-filled cells are arranged in parallel, and the gel-filled cells are divided by dividing lines so as to be independent of each other, and a gel-like substance is contained inside, and the gel-like substance is formed on a sheet-like substrate. It is characterized by being filled so that the flexible surface bulges out, suppressing noise generation in the print head, and aiming to maximize this effect even if the amount of gel material used is small. It is something. Furthermore, by using a gel-filled sheet coated with a thin film layer with good thermal conductivity, it is possible to actively dissipate the heat from the print head body to the outer casing, making it possible to maintain the print head even after long periods of use. This allows the main unit to continue to perform its original performance of suppressing noise generation without overheating.

Function: Since the printing device of the present invention has a gel filling sheet sandwiched inside the outer casing of the printing head, the impact vibration generated in the printing head body is encapsulated in a large number of gel filling cells arranged in parallel therein. This is absorbed by the inelastic deformation of the gel-like material contained therein and by the deformation of the gel-filled cell itself, thereby suppressing noise generation in the print head. Further, the gel-like substance is divided by dividing lines so that the gel-filled cells are mutually independent, and the flexible surface of the sheet-like substrate is bulged. Since it is filled in that space and a more limited portion of the space between the print head body and the outer casing, an extremely small amount is required.

Furthermore, if you use a sheet with a thin film layer of good thermal conductivity on at least the gel-filled cell side surface of the sandwiched gel-filled sheets, the heat of the printing head body can be passed through the partition lines, and this By conducting the thin film layer, it is possible to actively transmit the information to the outer casing and quickly release it to the outside.

Embodiment FIG. 1 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing an embodiment of the printing apparatus of the present invention, which is constructed as an impact dot printer.

1 is a print head, 2 is an ink ribbon cartridge, and 3 is a platen. Although not shown, the print head 1 is movable left and right on a guide at the inner bottom of the device housing 5 by a belt driven by a stepping motor or the like. The end faces of the supported dot wires arranged in a matrix are opposed to the platen 3 via the ink ribbon pulled out from the ink ribbon cartridge 2.

Further, the ink ribbon cartridge 2 is fixed on the base of the print head 1, and is configured to circulate the ink ribbon stored therein while moving with the movement of the print head 1.

The platen 3 is assembled with a stepping motor or the like (not shown) so that a line feed can be performed every time the print head 1 finishes printing each line.

FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the printing head 1, which is assembled by wrapping a gel filling sheet 4 around a printing head main body 6, which is a striking mechanism, and fitting it into an outer casing 7 through this.

That is, the print head main body 6 is drawn into a cylindrical main body casing 61 which houses a plurality of solenoids in an annular manner so that the base ends of a plurality of dot wires 62 are passed through the cylindrical main body casing 61. At the rear of this dot wire 62
The armature, return spring, etc. related to each are locked. Further, the outer casing 7 has dot wires 62 arranged in a matrix, and the print head main body 6.
front outer casing 71 that covers the print head body 6 from the front;
It consists of a rear outer casing 72 that covers the print head body 6 from the rear in order to cover the circumferential direction of the head and protect the armature, return spring, etc., and the rear outer casing 72 is made of a metal material with excellent thermal conductivity such as aluminum. Furthermore, a large number of fins 73 are formed to improve heat dissipation. Then, the print head main body 6 and the outer casing 7,
In the embodiment, the cylindrical main body casing 61 and the rear outer casing 72 are
As it is, the inner and outer diameters fit into each other with a slight gap, so the gel filling sheet 4 is wrapped around the circumference of the cylindrical main body housing 61 of the printing head main body 6, and the gel filling sheet 4 is A rear outer casing 72 is directly fitted onto the top so that the bulging gel-filled cells of the gel-filled sheet 4 are slightly crushed by the inner circumferential wall of the rear outer casing 72.

Incidentally, when sandwiching the gel-filled sheet 4 between the print head main body 6 and the outer casing 7 in this way, a spacer such as silicone rubber may also be inserted as an auxiliary.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 3, in which a portion of the gel-filled sheet 4 is taken out, the gel-filled sheet 4 includes a sheet-like base 41 whose at least one surface is made of a flexible material;
A large number of gel-filled cells 42 are arranged in parallel on this sheet-like base 41, and a thin film layer 8 having good thermal conductivity is provided on the sheet-like base 41.

That is, in this embodiment, synthetic resin films are used on the front and back sides of the sheet-like substrate 41, and the synthetic resin films are melted together to form a single-lobed dividing line 4.
3, and each of the dividing lines 43 is in the form of a checkerboard in which square shapes are closely spaced adjacent to each other. A substance 44 is filled so as to bulge out the flexible surface of a synthetic resin film, and a thin aluminum layer 8 with good thermal conductivity is further applied on the sheet-like substrate 41 by vacuum deposition. .

In addition, silicone gel is well suited as a gel substance due to its stability as a material, and JIS K
Silicone gel with a penetration of about 50 to 200 measured by 2530-1976- (50g load) and composite silicone gel made by mixing microscopic hollow spheres into this gel have particularly excellent buffering and vibration-proofing abilities. , the use of these silicone gels is recommended.

In addition, the size and height of the gel-filled cell 42, whether or not a thin film layer with good thermal conductivity is applied on the sheet-like substrate, and the thickness of the thin film layer are determined by the type and size of the printing head of the printing device. , the number of dots, the level of noise, the degree of heat generation, cost, and other conditions.

Next, an example of a method for manufacturing the gel-filled sheet used in the above examples will be described for reference.

To do this, it is first necessary to obtain a gel-like substance in the form of a thin plate with a size of a few tenths of a millimeter to several millimeters. This includes:
The gel raw materials are kneaded and defoamed by hand, poured onto a glass plate, etc., and spread into a uniform layer with a spatula, or covered with upper and lower films and rolled with rolls, and then gelled in a heating furnace. Appropriate measures will be taken. In addition, as raw materials for the gel-like substance, for example,
There are Toray Silicone CF5027 manufactured by Toray Silicone Co., Ltd., Filite (registered trademark) manufactured by Nippon Filite Co., Ltd., Expancel (registered trademark) sold by Nippon Filite Co., Ltd., etc., but when filling micro hollow spheres. It is necessary to select one that can be used within the temperature rise range of the print head.

Next, a synthetic resin film such as vinyl chloride film, which has good heat weldability, or urethane film, which has inferior heat weldability but does not change much over time, is attached to the obtained thin plate-like gel material. , synthetic resin film, gel-like substance,
It is made of three layers of synthetic resin film.

Incidentally, if the synthetic resin film has weak thermal weldability, the synthetic resin film may be a film obtained by overlaying a so-called hot melt on the original film.

Thereafter, this layered material sheet is pressed with a mold, and at the same time heat is applied to the synthetic resin film from the welding surface of the mold.This method includes high frequency welding, hot press welding, ultrasonic welding, etc. It can be fried as a convenient method.

In addition, the mold in this case is one in which partitioned welding surfaces and adjacent recesses are formed alternately, and a partitioned welding surface is a welding surface that surrounds one recess and is closely adjacent to each other, for example, a Go board shape. A mold with a mesh-shaped welding surface, that is, a mold in which square-shaped holes with rounded corners, which are concave parts, are arranged vertically and horizontally on the entire surface of the mold, alternating with the partitioned welding surface, and not only square-shaped holes like this, but also round holes. , triangular, or other irregularly shaped holes may be used, but it is desirable that they be uniformly distributed. Further, the depth of the hole serving as the recess is preferably made sufficiently deep to provide a space in which the synthetic resin film can be deformed so as not to hinder the formation of the gel-filled bulge.

When welding, by applying this mold to one side of the synthetic resin film and using a flat mold on the other side, it is possible to obtain a gel-filled cell 42 with bulges on one side as shown in the figure. If it is used on both sides, gel-filled cells bulge out on both sides, and the former ensures secure connection with the printing head main body 6 or outer casing 7.

However, no matter what type of mold is used, the division lines that are the lines after the synthetic resin film is welded are formed in a dense manner, and the gel-like material where the division lines are formed is formed by the division welding surface of the mold. In order to divide the layer, it escapes into adjacent recesses on the front, back, left and right sides. Since there is a gel-like material originally located in the adjacent recess, the gel-like material escaping from front to back, left and right pushes in the gel-like material that was originally located, and is thicker than the original thin plate, and partially erodes by itself. It escapes into the adjacent recess in the form of being folded in.

On the other hand, the synthetic resin films on the welded surfaces of the sections are stacked one on top of the other, receive localized heat from an appropriate type of heating means in a well-timed manner, and are welded in a single leaf shape, forming section stripes.

At this time, the synthetic resin film corresponding to the adjacent concave portion is stretched by the gel-like substance escaping from the front, rear, left, and right sides and encloses the gel-like substance, and its surface swells into a substantially spherical shape, resulting in the gel-like substance 44 Enclosed gel-filled cells 42 are formed over the sheet.

In this way, a large number of gel-filled cells 42 are formed corresponding to the recesses of the mold.

Therefore, the higher the formation density of the pores of the mold, that is, the adjacent recesses, the finer and more densely formed the gel-filled cells are, and the higher the filling effect of gel from the partition lines, the greater the degree of protrusion. In this case, for example, one side of a grid welding surface is
If the thickness is more than 10 mm, the filling effect from the dividing stripes will be low, and the swelling of the gel-filled cells will tend to be insufficient. Although it depends on the size, when we tried using something smaller than that, about 5 mm to 2 mm, we found the optimal one.

Next, when applying a thin film layer with good thermal conductivity to this, vacuum evaporation, sputtering, ion plating, electroless plating, electroplating after these plating treatments, metal spraying, metal fine powder coating, etc.
This is done in a way that does not damage the sheet-like substrate. In addition, the thin film layer with good thermal conductivity may be selected from silver, aluminum, etc. depending on the conditions under which the gel-filled sheet is used, cost, thermal conductivity, etc. In this example, aluminum is used. This was done by vacuum evaporation. Furthermore, even in this case,
If the adhesion of the aluminum evaporated layer is poor, the sheet-like substrate may be undercoated with a plummer, etc.
It is preferable to appropriately perform activation treatment using corona discharge.
For example, when a vinyl chloride film is used as the material for the sheet-like substrate, a treatment such as applying a urethane resin paint is performed. In addition, it is desirable to apply this thin film layer to both sides of the sheet-like substrate, but it is better to apply it at least to the side surface where the gel-filled cells are bulged, and from the approximately spherical surface of the gel-filled cells to the root. It is desirable to rotate the vacuum evaporation during vacuum deposition so that it is continuous over the sectioning strips.

Of course, the gel-filled sheet used in the present invention does not have to be made using such a method; for example, it can be bonded with an adhesive, or it can be made using a material whose sheet-like substrate itself is originally coated with a thin film layer that has good thermal conductivity. It is possible to use a gel-filled sheet manufactured by any suitable method, such as by making the gel-filled sheet.

Therefore, if a printing device such as the above-mentioned impact dot printer is used, which is equipped with a print head 1 in which a gel-filled sheet 4 is sandwiched between a print head main body 6 and an outer casing 7, it is possible to avoid the occurrence of problems in the print head during printing. The impact vibration in the print head main body 6, which is the source of the noise, deforms the gel-like substance 44 sealed in the gel filling cell 42 inside the rear outer casing 72 of the print head 1. However,
The deformation of the gel-like substance is inelastic deformation and does not cause rebound resilience, and the gel-filled cell 42 itself also has a high degree of freedom of deformation, so vibrations are attenuated and absorbed in this region, and even the outer casing is Less vibration is transmitted, less noise is generated, and the noise generated in the print head 1 is suppressed. At this time, if the gel-filled sheet 4 is one in which a thin film layer 8 made of aluminum or the like with good thermal conductivity is applied on the sheet-like base 41 as in this embodiment, the heat on the print head body 6 side can be reduced. can escape to the outer casing 7 side, and there is no possibility of overheating. In other words, the gel-filled sheet 4 has a gel-like substance 44 in the gel-filled cell 42 on the sheet-like base 41 as if it were a thick lump.
This portion exhibits a buffering and vibration-proofing performance comparable to that of a thick plate-like gel material layer. On the other hand, the partition bars 43 are continuous around the gel-filled cells 42. It has a single leaf shape that is less than the thickness of two sheets of original synthetic resin film stacked together, and is much thinner than the height of the gel-filled cell 42, so heat is transferred to the dividing line 4.
Part 3 can be penetrated quickly. Moreover, since the aluminum thin film layer 8 on the surface is applied in a continuous manner from the approximately spherical surface of the gel-filled cell 42 to the parting line 43 at the root thereof, the heat that penetrates is applied to the surface. The heat is transmitted through the thin film layer 8 with good thermal conductivity.
It can escape from the top of the gel-filled cell 42 to the outer casing. In this way, if a gel-filled sheet with a thin film layer of good thermal conductivity is used, the thick plate-like gel-like material sheet or gel-filled cells are bulged, but the thermal conductivity is Compared to a gel-filled sheet that does not have a good thin film layer! It can dissipate heat much faster, so there is less risk of overheating the print head body even when used for a long time.

Further, in particular, since silicone gel does not show much change in properties over a wide range of -50 to 200°C, if silicone gel is used as the gel-like substance, a synergistic effect can be exerted.

Note that the term "inelastic deformation" as used herein means that the material does not undergo strong elastic deformation like rubber or springs, but does not mean that it does not undergo any elastic deformation at all. Similarly, "having no impact resilience" means that it does not exhibit strong impact resilience like rubber or springs, but does not mean that the impact resilience is absolutely zero.

Further, in the above embodiment, the gel filling sheet is sandwiched only on the circumferential surface of the cylindrical body housing 61 of the print head body 6, but the gel filling sheet is not limited to this, and may be sandwiched on the front and rear surfaces.

Furthermore, although the problems of the conventional printing head have been described in detail with respect to the primitive impact type printing head, the present invention is not limited to this. Although the noise level is not as high as that of the impact type, it is of course possible to apply it in the same way as long as it generates a considerable amount of noise.

Effects of the Invention As stated above, the printing device of the present invention has a gel-like substance encapsulated in a large number of gel-filled cells arranged in parallel between the printing head body and the outer casing. Therefore, this gel-like substance and the gel-filled cells themselves disperse and absorb impact vibrations during printing, and noise generation at the printing head can be significantly reduced. Further, since the gel-like substance is filled in a very limited area between the print head body and the outer casing, and moreover, within the gel-filled cell, the amount used can be extremely small. Furthermore, if a thin film layer with good thermal conductivity is provided on the sheet-like substrate, there is no need to worry about overheating of the print head body even when used for a long time.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a partially cutaway perspective view of an embodiment of the printing device of the present invention, Fig. 2 is an exploded perspective view of an embodiment of the printing head, and Fig. 3 shows only the gel-filled sheet. FIG. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Printing head, 2...Ink ribbon cartridge, 3...Platen, 4...Gel-filled sheet, 41...Sheet-like substrate, 42...Gel-filled cell, 43...Dividing stripes, 44...Gel substance, 6...
...print head body, 7...outer casing, 8...thin film layer with good thermal conductivity.

Claims (1)

[Claims for Utility Model Registration] (1) It has a platen that supports paper to be printed on, and a print head, and the print head is fitted with the outer casing and the print head main body when the print head body is fitted into the outer casing. A gel-filled sheet is sandwiched between the gel-filled sheet and the gel-filled sheet. The gel-filled cells are separated from each other by partition lines, and
1. A printing device characterized in that the interior thereof is filled with a gel-like substance such that the gel-like substance causes a flexible surface of a sheet-like substrate to bulge out. (2) A utility model characterized in that a gel-filled sheet having a thin film layer with good thermal conductivity applied to at least the gel-filled cell side surface of the gel-filled sheet is sandwiched between the outer casing and the print head body. A printing device according to registered claim 1.