JPH0474654A - Thermal transfer printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent an ink sheet film from becoming creased by providing a storage part where data on a frame for encircling a printed image area outside the printed image area, and allowing dots, corresponding to the frame data transferred to a thermal head, of the head to become heated. CONSTITUTION:A thermal head 17 causes dots corresponding to left and frame data, a single line of printed image data and right end frame data to become heated, and then prints an image with the dots. The dots corresponding to the right end frame data and the left end frame data are located outside an ink-applied area 18A. If an image is printed using last line data and a blank image is printed using left end frame data and right end frame data by repeating a process of printing an image equal to a single line sequentially, lower frame data is read from memory 13 and is transferred to the thermal head 17 through an output port 13a and a P/S conversion circuit 11'. Subsequently, dots corresponding to this lower end frame data become hot to allow a blank image to be printed using the lower end frame data. Thus an ink sheet film 18 is prevented from becoming creased, if an image is printed at an offset area using image data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Field of Application] This invention relates to prevention of wrinkles in ink sheet films in thermal transfer printers.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the basic printer mechanism of a thermal transfer printer, and FIG. 7 shows its control circuit. In both figures, 1 is a microprocessor (MPU), 2 is a program memory (ROM), 3 is a data memory (RAM) that stores temporary data, 4 is a command and print data, 5 is an input port, and 6 is an address/data 7 is an output port, 8 is a drive circuit for driving the platen motor, 9 is a drive circuit for driving the ink sheet film transport motor, and 11 is a parallel/serial conversion circuit (P/S conversion circuit). Then, the print data is converted into serial data 12 and sent to the thermal head.

Reference numeral 14 designates a print paper for printing the print data, 17 a thermal plate, 18 an ink sheet film as shown in FIG. 8, 19 an ink sheet take-up roll, 20 an ink sheet delivery roll, and 21 a platen roll. .

In FIG. 8, reference numeral 16 denotes a printing area on the ink sheet film 18 within an ink application area 18A coated with hot melt ink.

In this printer, the MPUI decodes commands input through input port 5, and if printing data is input, the MPUI
This print data is transferred to the thermal head 17 through the /S conversion circuit 11, and drive signals are sent to the drive circuits 8 and 9 via the output port door. As a result, the dots corresponding to one line of print data on the thermal head 17 generate heat, and the platen roll 21 and ink sheet film take-up roll 19 rotate, and the print paper 14 and ink sheet film 18 are fed, and the ink sheet The ink applied on the film 18 is melted by the heating dots and transferred onto the printing paper 14, and 1547 minutes of printing is performed in the printing area 16.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] In this thermal transfer printer, the above-mentioned thermal transfer is performed while rotating the platen roll 21 and the ink sheet take-up roll 19, so as shown in FIG. In the case of uneven area printing where data D is concentrated, the load applied to the take-up port 19 becomes uneven in the axial direction, causing wrinkles in the ink sheet film 18, resulting in a problem of deterioration of printing quality. .

This invention was made to solve the above problem.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a thermal transfer printer that can prevent wrinkles from forming on an ink sheet film in the case of uneven area printing, and can improve the printing quality compared to conventional printers.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention transfers input printing data line by line to a thermal head, causes dots corresponding to the printing data in the thermal head to generate heat, and uses the heated dots to print on an ink sheet film. In a thermal transfer printer that melts ink within a printing area and transfers it to printing paper, a storage unit is provided outside the printing area that stores data of a frame surrounding the printing area, and the data of this frame and the printing data are stored as described above. The dots on the thermal head corresponding to both data are transferred to the thermal head and generate heat.

In a second aspect of the present invention, the frame is a frame that surrounds the print area outside the ink application area of the ink sheet film.

[Effect]

In this invention, the dots of the thermal printer corresponding to the data of the frame generate heat, and blank printing of the frame is performed outside the printing area, so that the ink sheet fill is given stiffness and wrinkles are prevented.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

In FIG. 1, 13 is a memory that stores frame data. This frame data is as shown in Figures 3 and 4.
This is data of a frame 15 surrounding the print area 16 outside the ink application area 18A on the ink sheet film 18.

13a is an output port for outputting frame data, 13b is an output port for data switching, and 11'' is a parallel/serial conversion circuit (P/S conversion circuit).Other configurations are the same as those shown in FIG.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained according to the flow shown in FIG.

MPUI decodes the command input to input port 5, and if printing data is input, checks whether it is the first line or not.
When inputting the first line, specify the P/S conversion circuit 11'' through the output port 3b, read out the upper frame A of the frame data 15 from the memory 13, and input the P/S conversion circuit through the output port 13a. The data is sent to the conversion circuit 11'' and transferred to the thermal head 17 through the P/S conversion circuit 11''.In the thermal head 17, the dots corresponding to the data in the upper frame A generate heat, and in the normal mode, the prints in the upper frame A are However, since this print is outside the ink application area 18A of the ink sheet film 18, it becomes a blank print.Next, 1 line data print processing is performed, but at this time, first, frame 1
5, one line of data in the left end frame B is transferred from the memory 13 to the thermal radar 17 through the output boat 13a and the P/S conversion circuit 11'', and after the transfer is completed, one line of print data is transferred to the P/S conversion circuit 11. through the thermal head 17
When the transfer is completed, the data for the line in the rightmost frame C of the frame 15 is read out from the memory 13 and transferred to the thermal radar 17 through the output capacitor 13a and the P/S conversion circuit 11'. be done. When this transfer is completed, the thermal head 17 generates heat and prints dots corresponding to the data in the left end frame B, one line of the print data, and the data in the right end frame C. The pig in the left end frame B and the heating dot corresponding to the data in the right end frame C are ink application areas 1.
It's outside 8A. This one-line data printing process is repeated in sequence, and when the printing of the final line of print data and the blank prints of the left end frame B and right end frame C of the line are completed, the data in the lower frame is read out from the memory 13. , output port 13
a, Thermal Held 1 through the P/S conversion circuit 11゛
7, the dots corresponding to the data in the lower edge frame generate heat, and blank printing is performed in the lower edge frame.

As described above, in this embodiment, the frame surrounding the print area 16 is printed outside the ink application area by heating the corresponding dots of the thermal head 17 in the same way as the input print data. Even if the print is a print of a scratched area, the load applied to the take-up roll 19 can be made uniform in the axial direction, and wrinkles in the ink sheet film 18 can be prevented.

In the above embodiment, the frame 15 is used as the ink application area 18A.
However, as shown in FIG. 5, the same effect can be obtained even by using a frame surrounding the print area 16 within the ink application area 18A.

Furthermore, the frame 15 does not have to be a frame that draws a complete closed loop, but it is sufficient that it has at least two parallel line portions with the print area in between.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, in this invention, the data of the frame surrounding the printing area is stored in the memory, and at the time of printing, the data of this frame and the print data are transferred to the thermal.

By adopting a configuration in which the data is transferred to the card, printing of the frame or blank printing is performed, so even if the printing data is biased to one side of the printing area, the load applied to the take-up roll is averaged in the axial direction. , it is possible to prevent the occurrence of wrinkles on the ink sheet film and obtain good print quality.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is an operation flow diagram for explaining the operation of the above embodiment, and Fig. 3 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.
5 to 5 are diagrams for explaining the frame in the above embodiment, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the printer mechanism of a thermal transfer printer.
FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a control circuit of a conventional thermal transfer printer, and FIG. 8 is a plan view of an ink sheet film and printing paper. In the figure, 1--Microprocessor, 8-Platen motor drive circuit, 9-Ink sheet motor drive circuit, 13-Memory, 13a, 13b output ports, 14-
-Print paper, 15-frame, 16-print area, 17-
Thermal head, 18 ink sheet film, 18 A
-=ink application area, 19-take-up roll, 20-feed-out roll, 21-platen roll. In addition, in the figures, the same reference numerals indicate the same or corresponding parts.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) Transfer the input print data one line at a time to the thermal head to generate heat in the dots corresponding to the above print data in the thermal head, and the heated dots melt the ink in the print area on the ink sheet film. A thermal transfer printer that transfers images onto printing paper includes a storage unit that stores data of a frame surrounding the printing area outside the printing area, and the data of this frame and the printing data are transferred to the thermal head, and both data are transferred to the thermal head. A thermal transfer printer characterized by the fact that the dots of the thermal head generate heat. (2) The thermal transfer printer according to claim 1, wherein the frame data is data of a frame surrounding the print area outside the ink application area of the ink sheet film.