JPH05138988A - Printer integrated information processing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To release heat to an atmosphere from a thermal transfer printer and thereby ensure that stable print quality is obtained by pulling a wire using a carriage which travels laterally and realizing the subsequent drive of a movable carriage cover which is open during printing and closed during carriage return action. CONSTITUTION:A movable carriage cover 28 is driven by pulling a wire using the carriage which travels laterally. Subsequently, the cover 2 is open during printing process and closed during carriage return. As a result, a fan is no longer required so that no noise is generated and at the same time, heat is released to an atmosphere from a thermal transfer printer under a simple mechanical structure. In addition, a temperature is prevented from becoming high, and high, reliable print quality is maintained at low cost.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing device integrated with a printer or an output device of an information processing device such as a computer and a word processor. The present invention relates to a control method for preventing the problems by printing and cooling, eliminating problems such as print stains and ribbon breakage, and maintaining print quality.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a publicly known example, there is a general printer integrated type information processing apparatus. The current general printer-integrated information processing device has no fan or continuous fan operation. The former is quiet when editing documents because it has no fans. However, since there is no fan, the printer is located in the upper part of the main body when printing a document, and it is warmed by the heat of the power supply, main board, CRT unit, etc., and the heat of the thermal head, line feed motor, carriage motor, Since the temperature in the vicinity of the thermal head rises by 20 to 25 Kelvin (= deg) from room temperature due to the heat in the printer such as the ribbon feed motor, printing stains occur and the printed paper becomes soiled. The latter has a fan and radiates the heat inside the printer to the outside.
Although there is no stain on the print, there is a problem that the sound is noisy when the document is edited. This is because with the spread of information processing devices, there are increasing complaints about fan noise when editing documents at home late at night or when editing documents during overtime hours at office. .. From the viewpoint of processing, the claims indicate that noise of 30 to 40 dB (A range) is a concern. Therefore, the present invention was made in consideration of the conventional technology and the usage environment.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to produce no sound when editing a document,
This is to maintain good print quality without causing stains on the printing surface, crushing of character dots, retransfer of the ink ribbon, defective winding of the ink ribbon, and ink ribbon breakage during printing. To reduce the temperature rise during printing, it is necessary to radiate the heat inside the housing to the outside. The cause of print quality deterioration is largely due to temperature. It is due to the chemical properties of the ink ribbon. Generally, the melting point of the ink ribbon is 60 to 7
It is 0 ℃, and if you print continuously without a fan, it will be 20-25
Since the temperature rises by Kelvin (= deg), when printing is performed at room temperature of 35 ° C., the temperature near the thermal head reaches 55 to 60 ° C. As a result, the ink on the ink ribbon surface becomes softened or melted, and the above-mentioned problem occurs.

According to experiments, the temperature near the thermal head is
The print quality cannot be maintained unless it is within 15 Kelvin (= deg). Another cause of the temperature rise is also the structure. That is, the printer unit is stored in the box. In particular, the top of the printer is provided with a carriage cover (also called a printer cover, which is a top cover that covers the top of the printer with transparent plastic) to prevent dust and foreign matter from entering. There is only a gap for paper discharge. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a quiet printer-integrated information processing device with high printing quality by eliminating the complaint of sound without a fan and improving the structure of the carriage cover part.

[0005]

As technical means for achieving the above object, (1) the fan is eliminated, a part of the printer carriage cover is interlocked with the transverse movement of the carriage, and opened during printing, It has a mechanism to close it when the carriage returns.

(2) The carriage cover of the printer is divided into two parts, and at least half of the carriage cover has a mechanism for opening and closing.

(3) When the carriage is at the home position, the carriage cover is closed.

[0008]

The temperature in the vicinity of the thermal head is determined by the heat generated by the thermal head itself, the heat generated by the power supply device for supplying electric power to the printer, the carriage motor for driving the carriage inside the printer, and the paper feeding or discharging paper. The temperature rises due to the heat of the line feed motor, the ribbon feed motor for winding the ink ribbon, the heat of the display CRT and the power source of the CRT unit, and the heat from the control board. If the temperature in the vicinity of the thermal head is exposed to a temperature near 60 ° C. for a long time, the ink on the ink ribbon surface is softened, which causes print stains, winding defects, and ribbon breakage. Therefore, the present invention reduces the temperature rise. The present invention operates the opening and closing by interlocking a part of the carriage cover with the traverse of the carriage,
The heat inside the printer is released to the outside to prevent temperature rise. The present invention is a mechanism for opening and closing a part of the carriage cover according to the traverse of the carriage. The mechanism is a simple mechanism that changes the parallel movement into the vertical movement, and does not malfunction. As an alternative, it is possible to adopt a method in which a DC motor or the like is used to open and close the carriage cover and software control is performed. Also, the temperature sensor is placed inside the printer so that the temperature inside the printer is 5
It is possible to open the carriage cover when the temperature rises above 0 ° C. and close it when the temperature approaches room temperature.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The configuration, operation and effect of the embodiments of the present invention will be described below. The present invention relates to a printer-integrated information processing apparatus, and more particularly to a mechanism and a control method for reducing noise during document editing and stabilizing the print quality of the printer. Before describing the mechanism and control method of the present invention, an outline of a printer-integrated information processing apparatus and a thermal transfer printer provided therein will be described with reference to FIGS.

As shown in FIG. 2, the printer-integrated information processing apparatus includes a CRT 2, a CRT unit 3, an FDD 4, a power supply unit 5 for power supply, a main board 6, a fan 7, and a thermal transfer printer 9 in a machine frame 1. Etc. are arranged. Reference numeral 8 denotes a keyboard, which is connected to the main body by a jack. When editing a document, after turning on the power, press F
Insert a floppy disk into the DD4 and use the keyboard 8
By inputting with an input device such as, a command is sent to the main board 6 through software, and character input, graphic input, etc. are performed. The CRT 2 is a device that displays the input data. When printing a document, by pressing the print key 26 from the keyboard 8, a control command is sent to the main board 6 through the software and the thermal transfer printer 9 is sent from the main board 6.
To print, send an operation signal to. The fan radiates heat inside the machine body to the outside to prevent temperature rise. 10 is a power switch. As shown in FIG. 3, the thermal transfer printer 9 is provided with a carriage 12 on a main body frame 11. The carriage 12 is supported by the main body frame 11 so as to be able to traverse left and right. The timing belt 14 driven by the carriage motor 13 is installed between the left and right sides of the main body frame 11. The carriage 12 is connected to the timing belt 14. Carriage motor 13
The rotation of the carriage causes the carriage 12 to move transversely through the gears. A platen 15 extending in the transverse direction of the carriage 12 is arranged in front of the carriage 12. A thermal head 16 is provided in front of the carriage 12. The transfer paper 20 and the ink ribbon 19 are sandwiched between the thermal head 16 and the platen 15, and the ink of the ink ribbon 19 is transferred to the transfer paper 20 by heating the thermal head 16. In this way, thermal transfer is performed. A line feed motor 17 is driven when the transfer target paper 20 is ejected. Reference numeral 18 is an ink ribbon cassette. The decrease in print quality is largely due to the temperature increase in the vicinity of the thermal head 16. The melting point of the ink ribbon 19 is generally 60.
This is because the temperature is set at 70 ° C. Ink ribbon 1
When 9 is left at about 55 ° C., the ink starts to soften, and when printing is performed in this state, the character dots are crushed, the ink ribbon 19 is not wound properly, and the surface of the transfer paper 20 is stained. Further, the winding load increases due to the defective winding of the ink ribbon 19, the ink ribbon 19 is also broken, and the function of the thermal transfer printer 9 is lost.

Next, an embodiment and an application example to which the mechanism and the control method according to the present invention are applied will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 4, 5 and 6. First, description will be made with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a three-dimensional perspective view showing the internal structure and external appearance of a printer-integrated information processing apparatus adopting the present invention. Figure 4
FIG. 3 is an enlarged perspective view of a thermal transfer printer unit. In the printer-integrated information processing apparatus, the thermal transfer printer 9 is
Since it is located at the upper part of the main body, heat of the power supply unit 5, the CRT unit 3, the main substrate 6 and the like rises and heats the inside of the thermal transfer printer 9. The temperature rise value inside the thermal transfer printer 9 during document editing is 1
Although the print quality is at a level of 1 to 12 Kelvin (= deg), the heat of the thermal transfer printer 9 itself is also added when printing is performed in the print mode after the document is edited, reaching 18 to 20 Kelvin (= deg). 55 at room temperature 35 ° C
Since the temperature of the ink ribbon 19 rises to nearly the melting point of the ink of the ink ribbon 19, problems such as crushing of character dots, stains on the print, and poor winding of the ink ribbon 19 occur.
Here, when the degree to which the heat source inside the printer-integrated information processing device gives to the temperature rise in the vicinity of the thermal head 16 in the thermal transfer printer 9 is measured by experiments, the CRT unit 3 for driving the CRT 2 has 6.5 Kelvin ( = De
g), the power supply power supply unit 5 is 3.0 Kelvin (=
deg), the main substrate 6 is 3 Kelvin (= deg), the thermal transfer printer 9 itself is 6.5 Kelvin (= deg), and the total is 19.0 Kelvin (= deg). The present invention exhausts the heat in the thermal transfer printer 9 by replacing the conventional carriage cover with the fixed carriage cover 27 with the half movable carriage cover 28. The reason why the carriage cover portion is fixed and movable is that the discharge guide 31 is required when the ink of the ink ribbon arranged in the ink ribbon cassette is transferred by the thermal head 16 to the transfer target paper 20 and discharged. is there. That is, the paper discharge guide 31 has a role of smoothly ejecting the transferred paper 20 out of the machine. Without the discharge guide 31, the transfer paper 20 cannot be discharged. Therefore, the fixed carriage cover 27 has an important function for paper ejection. The movable carriage cover 28 has a mechanism that opens and closes in conjunction with the traverse of the carriage 12, closes at the print start position, and opens as it moves to the right. With this opening, the temperature in the thermal transfer printer 9 can be lowered by 5 to 6 Kelvin (= deg), and printing defects do not occur even at room temperature of 35 ° C.
Reference numeral 13 is a carriage motor for traversing the carriage 12. Reference numeral 17 denotes a line feed motor for feeding the transfer paper 20. Reference numeral 25 is a paper guide. Next, the opening / closing mechanism will be described with reference to FIG. When the movable carriage cover 28 is moved up and down, the wire 23 is fixed in the reverse rotation preventing mechanism 24 integrated with the carriage 12 via the roller 22 so that the opening area becomes wide around the pin 21 at the same time as the start of printing, and the carriage turn At this time, the movable carriage cover is closed by its own weight.

FIG. 6 shows an application example, in which the drive of the line feed motor is interlocked with the gear 29 and the arm 3
The movable carriage cover 28 is moved up and down through 0 to prevent temperature rise. With the above configuration, it is possible to provide the customer with the printer-integrated information processing device which is quiet and has stable print quality.

[0013]

According to the present invention as described above, the following effects can be obtained.

(1) There is no fan, and the problem of fan noise when editing a document is solved, and at the same time,
People on the back of the main unit will not be bothered by the exhaust air.

(2) By efficiently reducing the temperature rise of the thermal head, it is possible to completely prevent dirt on the paper surface, crushing of character dots, retransfer of the ink ribbon, defective winding of the ink ribbon, ink ribbon breakage, etc. ..

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a printer-integrated information processing apparatus embodying the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view of a printer-integrated information processing apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a schematic explanatory perspective view of a thermal transfer printer.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a thermal transfer printer unit embodying the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view for explaining an opening / closing mechanism for carrying out the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing an application example in which an arm is interlocked with a gear.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Machine frame, 2 ... CRT, 3 ... CRT unit, 4 ... F
DD, 5 ... Power supply unit, 6 ... Main board, 7 ... Fan, 8 ... Keyboard, 9 ... Thermal transfer printer, 10 ... Power switch, 11 ... Main frame, 12 ... Carriage, 13 ...
Carriage motor, 14 ... Timing belt, 15 ... Platen, 17 ... Line feed motor, 18 ... Ink ribbon cassette, 19 ... Ink ribbon, 20 ... Transfer paper,
21 ... Pin, 22 ... Roller, 23 ... Wire, 24 ... Reverse rotation prevention mechanism, 25 ... Paper guide, 26 ... Print key, 27 ... Fixed carriage cover, 28 ... Movable carriage cover, 2
9 ... Gears, 30 arms, 31 ... Paper ejection guide.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. An output device for outputting characters, graphics and the like in response to a command from a printer-integrated information device or an information processing device such as a computer and a word processor, in which a part of a carriage cover is interlocked with a transverse direction of the carriage, A printer-integrated information processing device having a mechanism for driving up and down. 2. A printer-integrated information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vertical drive range of the carriage cover is on the side opposite to the paper discharge side, and at least half of the carriage cover in the longitudinal direction is vertically driven. 3. The printer-integrated information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the carriage cover is controlled to be closed at the home position of the carriage when the carriage traverses in conjunction. 4. The carriage cover according to claim 1,
A printer-integrated information processing device characterized by being divided.