JPH05232840A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To work a surface as a printing surface by providing a printing means with transparent toner, in a recorder using toner. CONSTITUTION:The developing process of the transparent toner, as a recording mechanism for selecting the surface property, is added. At this time, units (printing means) A-D composed of a latent image writing part and a developing part, are provided, and the developing units A-C correspond to the developing processes of the color toner of cyan, magenta, and yellow, so that a full color image is printed. For selectively working the surface, a developing part D corresponding to the developing process for the transparent toner, is added to the conventional developing process, and the surface property is added to the printing surface with the transparent toner. For giving the surface property of a glossy tone, the form is sufficiently and electrostatically charged so as to form the latent image of a uniform charge in a surface having the glossy tone, the latent image of the uniform charge is developed with the transparent toner in true transparent toner developing part D, and a uniform transparent toner film is formed, to realize the glossy tone.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording device for printing an image with toner.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, techniques for recording color images using toner such as electrophotographic recording and electrostatic recording have been developed. Along with this, there is an increasing demand for easily printing photographs and computer graphics with color copiers instead of photographic printing paper.

[0003]

However, in the conventional printing apparatus using toner, the surface property of the printing surface is determined by the properties of the paper used, and as shown in the photograph, glossy, semi-glossy, and matte tones are obtained. Cannot be selected. In addition, there is a drawback that the gloss of a photograph is not generally obtained.

An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus capable of processing the surface property of a printing surface in a recording apparatus using toner.

[0005]

A recording apparatus according to the present invention records a latent image for a transparent toner in a recording apparatus for printing a monochrome or color image with a monochrome or color toner, and records the latent image for the transparent toner. It is provided with a printing means using a transparent toner, which is formed by selectively developing the surface property of the black-and-white or color image to be entirely or locally developed by developing.

[0006]

In the present invention, the printing surface can be entirely or partially processed by the transparent toner by forming a latent image for surface processing.

[0007]

The present invention employs an electrostatic recording system. Therefore, a latent image is recorded on an electrostatic recording medium by controlling an ion current, which is one of electrostatic recording systems, and an image is formed by toner. A recording device for printing will be described first, and then an embodiment of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a monochrome recording apparatus using the ion flow recording technique. In FIG. 5, 1 is an electrostatic recording sheet (hereinafter, simply referred to as a sheet), 1A is a roll of the sheet 1, 2 is a sheet guide drum, and also serves as a sheet supporting portion for development. 3 is a developing drum, 4 is a developing tank, 5 is a developing solution, 6 is a wire electrode of a latent image writing charger, 7 is a shield electrode of the latent image writing charger, 8 is a control electrode for controlling the ion current, 9 is a counter electrode of the latent image writing charger, 10 is a developer solvent from the sheet 1 to the developing tank 4
Electrode of squeeze charger for pushing back to
Is a shield electrode thereof, 12 is a counter electrode of the squeeze charger, and 13 is a sheet feeding drum, which is connected to a step motor (not shown). 14 is a pressure roller,
Reference numeral 15 is a guide roller, and 16 is a back tension roller for removing the slack of the paper 1.

Next, referring to FIG. 5, the monochrome printing operation of the apparatus according to the ion flow recording technique will be described. First, paper 1
When the paper is being fed by the paper feed drum 13 and the pressure roller 14 at the feed pitch and speed set to the right, the latent image writing charger +
A latent image is formed with (plus) or- (minus) charges. Hereinafter, the case of a + electrostatic latent image will be described. That is, when a voltage of several KV to 10 KV is applied between the wire electrode 6 and the shield electrode 7, a positive ion current is generated by corona discharge.

Now, the control electrode 8 for controlling the ion flow will be described. FIG. 6 shows an example of the configuration of the electrostatic electrode 8 and FIG.
(A), (b) shows the explanatory view of the control method, respectively. As shown in FIG. 6, the control electrode 8 is composed of an upper electrode 8A1 and a lower electrode 8A2 and an insulating plate 8B interposed therebetween, and is provided with a plurality of apertures 8C. It is attracted to the electrode 9 and adsorbed on the paper 1. The aperture 8C to be activated at this time is selected by selecting the lower electrode 8A2, and the passing amount of the ion flow is the charge voltage accumulated on the paper 1, that is, the density of the image. The passing amount can be controlled by the voltage applied to the control voltage 8 or the application time. In order to obtain an image with high gradation, a method of changing the application time depending on the number of unit electric pulses that give the density of the pixel to be written to the control electrode 8 is advantageous in terms of easiness of control and device configuration such as a power supply device. is there. FIG. 7A shows the case where the ion flow passes, and FIG. 7B shows the case where the ion flow is blocked.

The latent image on the sheet 1 advances to the developing section when the sheet 1 is further fed. The developing tank 4 contains toner liquid having toner powder of negative polarity, and is wound up toward the paper guide drum 2 by the rotating developing drum 3.
When the latent image portion reaches here, it is immersed in the developer 5 that has been wound up, and the toner is adsorbed by the electric charge of the latent image portion to perform development. Further, when the sheet 1 advances to the right, there is a squeeze charger, and the excess toner liquid adhering to the sheet 1 due to the ionic current (in this case, either polarity has an effect) is used to remove excess toner liquid. Is pushed back to.

An embodiment of a recording apparatus of the present invention which can select the surface property using the above-mentioned recording apparatus using the ion flow will be described below. FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a recording apparatus according to the present invention, in which a developing process of transparent toner is added to a conventional recording apparatus as a recording mechanism for selecting a surface property. In this example, four units (printing means) consisting of the latent image writing unit and the developing unit described in the example of the monochrome image recording apparatus are provided, and the developing units A to C are C (cyan). , M (magenta), Y (yellow)
A full-color image can be printed by making it compatible with the color toner development process. Here, in order to selectively process the surface property, the number of developing processes for the transparent toner is increased to the conventional developing process, and the surface property is added to the printing surface with the transparent toner. Reference numeral 17 denotes a sensor provided in each of the units A to D, which is for reading the alignment required mark.

In order to provide a glossy surface property, the paper is charged with sufficient electric charge so that a latent image of uniform electric charge is formed on the surface to be glossy, and the uniform charge is applied in the transparent toner developing section D. The latent image is developed with a transparent toner, and a uniform transparent toner film is formed to realize a glossy tone.

In order to give a semi-glossy surface property, a circular pattern having a diameter of 0.26 mm and an interval of 0.37 mm is written in the semi-glossy surface, as shown in FIG. A semi-glossy surface is realized by developing with a transparent toner in the toner developing section D and forming a transparent toner film having irregularities.

In practice, for example, in order to realize with a recording device having a resolution of 200 DPI, 2 × as shown in FIG.
A two-dot area is written at intervals of one dot.

In order to give a matte surface property, a dot pattern having a diameter of 0.1 mm and an interval of 0.125 mm as shown in FIG. 3A is written in the matte surface.
A semi-glossy surface is realized by developing with a transparent toner in the transparent toner developing section D and forming a transparent toner film having unevenness finer than the semi-glossy.

For example, in order to realize it with a recording device having a resolution of 200 DPI, one dot is written every other dot as shown in FIG. 3B, and a dot having a diameter of 0.1 mm is written by controlling the ion flow. Will be realized in.

Further, in this method, by changing the position where the latent image is written in one sheet of paper, the surface property can be partially selected in one sheet of paper as shown in FIG. For example, when it is desired to write characters with a writing instrument such as a pencil or a fountain pen later, the surface of the paper is exposed as it is without writing a latent image with transparent toner. In FIG. 4, 1-
Reference numeral 1 denotes a paper portion whose surface property is not processed, 1-2 denotes a glossy tone portion, 1-3 denotes a semi-glossy tone portion, and 1-4 denotes a matte tone portion.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described method of directly writing a latent image on a sheet by controlling the ion flow, but can be realized by a method using a photosensitive drum. For example,
The gloss tone can be realized by using the photoconductor drum by forming a latent image of uniform electric charge on the photoconductor drum, developing the latent image with transparent toner, and transferring the latent image to paper.

Further, in order to give a semi-glossy surface property, for example, as shown in FIG.
A semi-glossy surface is realized by forming a circular latent image of m and an interval of 0.37 mm on a photosensitive drum, developing it with transparent toner, and transferring the uneven toner film onto a sheet.

Similarly, in practice, for example, a resolution of 200
In order to realize it with a DPI recording apparatus, as shown in FIG. 2B, a latent image in which a 2 × 2 dot area is spaced by 1 dot is formed on the photosensitive drum. Needless to say, the present invention can be realized by recording devices having different resolutions.

In order to give a matte surface property, for example, as shown in FIG. 3 (a), the diameter is 0.1 mm and the interval is 0.1.
A 25-mm dot pattern is formed on a photosensitive drum, developed with transparent toner, and a semi-glossy surface is realized by transferring a transparent toner film having unevenness finer than semi-glossy onto paper.

Various materials can be used as the material of the transparent toner, but the simplest is to use a composition obtained by removing only the color material component from the composition of the conventional electrostatic recording color toner. For example, in the case of a liquid developer, as an example, 0.1 μ
About m of polymer fine particles such as styrene are suspended in the isopar liquid, and the required amount of charge control material (prior art)
A transparent toner liquid may be obtained by adding. At this time, the final gloss can be adjusted to a desired value by changing the diameter and material of the polymer particles.

The embodiment of the present invention is not limited to the ion flow recording method described as an example, but an electrophotographic method such as laser writing, LED writing, liquid crystal liquid crystal shutter writing, or using a multi-needle electrode is used. It goes without saying that the recording method having the electrostatic latent image forming process and the developing process with toner can be commonly used. In this case, the process of developing with a transparent toner is added to the prior art as in the case of the recording apparatus using an ion flow.

Further, although the liquid development process (wet type) is given as an example in the embodiment, the powder development process (dry type) may of course be used. Further, after the transparent toner developing process, a fixing process using heat, pressure or the like is provided, so that it is possible to set a wider range of adjusting the surface property.

[0026]

As described above, the recording apparatus according to the present invention is a recording apparatus for recording a latent image on an electrostatic recording medium and printing the image with toner, further comprising a printing means using transparent toner. It is possible to change the surface property entirely by holding it, and it is also possible to select it depending on the position on one sheet of paper. For example, if you print a full-color image on paper, you can select only the full-color area to be glossy and the other areas to be matte so that you can achieve various surface properties with a single sheet of paper. , It is like cutting a photo or a color image on a single sheet of paper so that a glossy tone is given to an image part such as a photo and the paper is exposed as it is in a part where characters are written. Can be realized with this device. At this time, it is possible to give a photographic-like gloss to an image formed by toner development, which is generally not sufficiently glossy in the prior art.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an example of an image written with transparent toner in order to process the surface property to semi-gloss.

FIG. 3 is an example of an image written with a transparent toner in order to process the surface property to be matte.

FIG. 4 is an example of a sheet whose surface property is selectively processed.

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram showing a monochrome image recording apparatus using an ion flow recording technique.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a control electrode.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of a method of controlling an ion flow.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Electrostatic Recording Paper 1A Roll of Electrostatic Recording Paper 2 Paper Guide Drum 3 Development Drum 4 Development Tank 5 Developer 6 Wire Electrode 7 Shield Electrode 8 Control Electrode 9 Counter Electrode 10 Wire Electrode 11 Shield Electrode 12 Counter Electrode 13 Paper Feed Drum 14 Pressure roller 15 Guide roller 16 Back tension roller 17 Sensor

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification number Reference number within the agency FI Technical indication location G03G 15/01 J 7818-2H (72) Inventor Masataka Ota 1-1-6 Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo No. Japan Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A recording device for printing a black-and-white or color image with black-and-white or color toner, recording a latent image for a transparent toner, developing the latent image with the transparent toner, and printing surface of the black-and-white or color image. A recording apparatus comprising a printing unit using a transparent toner that is formed by arbitrarily selecting the surface properties of the entire surface or locally.