JPH04347658A - Thermal transfer recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obviate the use of special paper by forming an image receiving layer of a sublimating dyeable resin on an endless film and thermally transferring to a recording paper after an image is recorded on the layer. CONSTITUTION:A material 1 of an image receiving layer formed of a transparent and insulating powdered sublimating dyeable resin such as polyester resin or the like is moved onto an endless film 7 by the action of the Coulomb force. The material is pressured and heated by fixing rollers 9, 10, thereby to obtain a transparent image receiving layer 11. Yellow, magenta, cyan ink sheets 13, 14, 15 are sequentially pressured by a platen roller 16 and a thermal head 17, and a heat generating resistance body is selectively allowed to generate heat based on the image data. As a result, the sublimating dye stuff in the ink sheets are dispersed and transferred to the image receiving layer 11, whereby a full- color reversal image is obtained. Accordingly, a special recording paper is not necessary for the thermal transfer recording using the sublimating dye, and a general paper can be used. The user's convenience is improved and the running cost can be eventually reduced remarkably.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording device using a sublimable dye, and more specifically, the present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording device using a sublimable dye. The present invention relates to a usable thermal transfer recording device.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional thermal transfer recording apparatus using a sublimable dye has a structure as shown in FIG. 4, for example. In the figure, 101 is a recording paper, 113 is an ink sheet, and 117
118 is a thermal head, 118 is a heating resistor, and 116 is a platen roller. Here, the ink sheet 113 generally has a structure comprising a base film such as PET, a color material layer containing a sublimable dye, and a slippery heat-resistant layer on the opposite side, and is supplied in a roll. Ru. Moreover, the recording paper 101 is
Generally, it has a three-layer structure as shown in FIG. 5, including an anti-slip layer 110 to keep the recording paper well conveyed, and a synthetic paper (white concealed polypropylene) or PET with a thickness of 100 to 200 micrometers. A base 111 having a white hiding layer provided on a film and an image receiving layer 112 made of polyester resin or the like are laminated in this order.

Therefore, when recording an image, the ink sheet 113 and the recording paper 101 are stacked and pressed together by the thermal head 117 and the platen roller 116, and the heating resistor 118 is energized in accordance with the image signal. By generating heat, the sublimable dye pigment on the ink sheet 113 is diffused and transferred to the recording paper 101, and a desired image is obtained.

0004

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technology, the recording principle is that the sublimable dye in the color material layer of the ink sheet 113 activated by heating is diffused and transferred to the image receiving layer 112. Therefore, it is necessary to provide the recording paper with an image-receiving layer, which is a layer that has a high affinity with the sublimable dye pigment, and it is not possible to record good images on commercially available plain paper, which is very inconvenient.

[0005] In addition, in order to obtain uniform pressure contact with the thermal head during recording, it is possible to increase the smoothness of the base of the recording paper provided with the image-receiving layer, or to laminate a film having a foam structure on both sides of natural paper. Special measures such as using a structural base were required.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its object is to form an image-receiving layer made of a sublimable dyeable resin on an endless film, and to form an image on the image-receiving layer. It is an object of the present invention to provide a thermal transfer recording device that eliminates the need to use special dedicated paper by thermally transferring the image receiving layer onto recording paper after recording.

[0007]

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention provides means for supplying a sublimation dye-dyeable resin to an endless film and forming an image-receiving layer made of the resin on the endless film, and a means for forming the image-receiving layer. means for diffusing and transferring a sublimable dye to an image receiving layer formed on an endless film;
The present invention is a thermal transfer recording device characterized by comprising means for thermally transferring an image receiving layer formed on the endless film and a sublimable dye onto recording paper.

[0008]

[Operation] In the present invention, the sublimable dye is diffused and transferred to the image receiving layer formed on the endless film, which is made of a sublimable dye-dyeable resin. A sublimable dye is recorded on the image-receiving layer.

Furthermore, since the image-receiving layer and the sublimable dye formed on the endless film are simultaneously thermally transferred to the recording paper, plain paper can be used as the recording paper.

0010

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be explained below based on drawings showing embodiments thereof.

FIG. 1 is a side view of a recording apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of the image-receiving layer forming section of FIG. 1, and FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of the image-receiving layer transfer section of FIG. 1.

In the figure, 1 is a transparent, insulating, powder-like sublimable dye-dyeable resin made of polyester resin or the like (hereinafter abbreviated as powder image-receiving layer material), and 11 is a powder image-receiving layer. This is a transparent image-receiving layer formed by heating and pressing the layer material 1. 13 is a yellow ink sheet,
A magenta ink sheet 14 and a cyan ink sheet 15 are coated with ink containing a sublimable dye. 17 is a thermal head, 18 is a heating resistor, 16 is a platen roller, 21 is plain paper, 2 is magnetic carrier particles, 3 is a screw roller that stirs and conveys the powder image-receiving layer material 1 and the carrier particles 2, 6 8 is a doctor blade for obtaining a uniform layer thickness of the powder image-receiving layer material 1 and carrier particles 2; 8 is an electrode plate forming a counter electrode with the sleeve roller 4; 7 is a heat-resistant endless film made of polyimide resin, etc. It is. 9, 10 and 23, 24 are
Both are a pair of fixing rollers consisting of a heating roller and a pressure roller, 26 is a cleaning blade, 19 is a paper feed cassette, and 20 is a paper feed roller.

The recording operation will be explained below. The powder image-receiving layer material 1 and the carrier particles 2 are stirred and conveyed onto the sleeve roller 4 by the screw roller 3, and are formed into spikes along the lines of magnetic force created by the fixed magnet roller 5 disposed inside the sleeve roller 4. The raised ears are brought to a constant height by the doctor blade 6. On this occasion,
The powder image-receiving layer material 1 is triboelectrically charged negatively by stirring with the positively charged carrier particles 2 . Then, by the rotation of the sleeve roller 4, the powder image-receiving layer material 1 and the carrier particles 2 are conveyed to the vicinity of the endless film 7, and among the conveyed particles, the negatively charged powder image-receiving layer material 1 has a In the electric field formed by the sleeve roller 4 and the electrode plate 8, a Coulomb force acts in the direction of the electrode plate 8, and the powder image-receiving layer material 1 moves onto the endless film 7. The powder image-receiving layer material 1 moved onto the endless film 7 is pressed and heated by a pair of fixing rollers 9 and 10 while being conveyed by the endless film 7 driven by a drive source (not shown). An image-receiving layer 11 is formed. A voltage changing circuit (not shown) is connected to the electrode plate 8, and the voltage changing circuit controls the potential difference between the electrode plate 8 and the sleeve roller 4, and determines the range of the image receiving layer 11 to be formed.

Thereafter, the formed image-receiving layer 11 is transferred to the static eliminating roller pair 12, 12 by conveying the endless film 7.
After the static electricity is removed, the sheet is transported to the recording section. Therefore, first, in the yellow recording section, the image receiving layer 11 and the ink sheet 1 are
3 are overlapped and pressed by the platen roller 16 and the thermal head 17, a thermal head drive circuit (not shown) selectively causes the heat generating resistor 18 of the thermal head to generate heat according to image data, thereby ink in the ink sheet. The sublimable dye pigment is diffusely transferred to the image-receiving layer 11. Note that the image data generated by the thermal head drive circuit is created by the thermal head drive circuit so that it becomes an inverted image of the desired recorded image. Similarly, by recording image data for magenta and cyan, a full-color inverted image is obtained on the image receiving layer 11.

Next, the paper feed roller 2 is removed from the paper feed cassette 19.
The plain paper 21 fed by the registration roller pair 2
2 and 22, the image receiving layer 11 is formed on the endless film 7.
The image is conveyed to a pair of fixing rollers 23 and 24 in synchronization with the inverted image. The endless film 7 carrying the image-receiving layer 11 and the plain paper 21 are pressed together and heated by the pair of fixing rollers 23 and 24, so that the image-receiving layer 11 is melted and thermally transferred from the endless film 7 onto the plain paper 21, thereby forming the desired image. After the recorded image is formed, the plain paper 21 is transferred to a pair of ejection rollers 25,
25, the liquid is discharged to the outside of the main body of the apparatus. In addition, the image receiving layer 1
The image-receiving layer 11 remaining on the endless film 7 after the transfer of the image-receiving layer 11 is scraped off by the cleaning blade 26 and stored in the cleaning box 27, and the entire process of image recording is completed.

In this example, a two-component magnetic brush development method was used to apply the powder image-receiving layer material onto the endless film, but other methods, such as a one-component insulating toner development method, a one-component insulating toner development method, etc. A conductive toner development method or the like may also be used. Further, instead of the counter electrode 8, the endless film 7 may be corona charged or contact charged.

In the image recording section, three thermal heads and three independent ink sheets for three colors were used in this embodiment, but four or more thermal heads and the same number of ink sheets, or one thermal head were used. You may also use a single ink sheet on which multiple colors are gradually applied.

[0018]

[Effects of the Invention] With the present invention, in thermal transfer recording using sublimable dye, there is no need to use special recording paper, and plain paper can be used, so the usability for the operator is greatly improved, and as a result, Running costs can be significantly reduced.

Furthermore, since actual recording is performed on the image receiving layer on the endless film which has excellent smoothness, high quality recording can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of the image-receiving layer forming part of the embodiment in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged view of the image-receiving layer transfer portion of the embodiment in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a conventional thermal transfer recording device.

FIG. 5 is a sectional view of a main part of a recording paper used in a conventional thermal transfer recording device.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 Powder image-receiving layer material (sublimable dye-dyeable resin) 2 Carrier 3 Screw roller 4 Sleeve roller 5 Magnet roller 6 Doctor blade 7 Endless film 8
Electrode plates 9, 23 Heating rollers 10, 24 Pressure roller 11 Image receiving layer 21 Plain paper 101 Recording paper

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. Means for supplying a sublimable dye-dyeable resin to an endless film and forming an image-receiving layer made of the resin on the endless film, and an image-receiving layer formed on the endless film by the image-receiving layer forming means. A thermal transfer recording device comprising: means for diffusing and transferring a sublimable dye to an image-receiving layer; and means for thermally transferring the image-receiving layer and the sublimable dye formed on the endless film to a recording paper. 2. The image-receiving layer forming means includes means for uniformly supplying a powdered sublimable dye-dyeable resin onto the endless film, and heating and pressurizing the endless film supplied with the resin. 2. The thermal transfer recording apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a fixing means for fixing the resin onto the endless film.