JPH05270105A - Image deleting device and image recording device using same - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a recording medium to be used repeatedly and improve a reflection optical density contrast by thermally fusing ink on a recording medium using a cleaning means to wipe the ink off and at the same time, removing the ink sticking to the cleaning means. CONSTITUTION:If a recording medium 10 is introduced into a blade cleaner 20, a blade 21 becomes into contact with the recording medium 10, and the ink 25 on the recording medium 10 is thermally fused by a blade heater 22. In this case, a sealing device 24 seals the entire surface of the recording medium 10 hermetically to enhance heating effects. Next, the recording medium 10 is guided to a roll cleaner 30 and the roll cleaner 30 is pressed between backup rolls 32 and then is heated using a heater 31. Thus the ink 25 now in a molten state is allowed to stick to the surface of the roll 38. The ink sticking to the roll 38 is scraped off by a blade 33 and is stored in a housing 36 as an ink 34.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image erasing device and an image recording device using the same, and more particularly to erasing an image recorded on a recording medium to enable reuse of the recording medium. The present invention relates to an image erasing device and an image recording device that re-uses a recording medium from which an image is erased by using the image erasing device for another image formation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the importance of protecting the global environment has been emphasized, and the need for developing a printing system using a reusable paper substitute sheet (flexible still image display) is increasing for forest protection. There is. Conventionally, as a printing system using a reusable sheet of this kind, a sheet containing an electrochromic material or a thermochromic material is used, and electric field or current writing or thermal writing is performed to develop color, and after use, write again Therefore, methods for repeated use have been researched and developed.

[0003]

However, in order to obtain a sufficient optical density contrast in the written image,
Flexible printing systems for still image displays have not been put to practical use because they do not have the repetitive writing life and the required writing energy required in a range that does not cause any practical problems. As a specific example of prior art, a reusable heat-writing display sheet in which a second transparent resin having a different melting point from that of the transparent resin is dispersed is already known (for example, US Pat. No. 4,268,413). Issue No. 4
695528, JP-A-55-154198). This sheet has an excellent feature that it can be easily written by a thermal head and can be easily erased by making the temperature higher than the writing temperature. However, according to the printing system using this sheet, not only the composition of the sheet changes but also the repeated writing life of the sheet cannot be sufficiently lengthened.
The image part is only clouded, and it is possible to obtain a moderate contrast as a transparent original such as transparency, but it is not possible to obtain sufficient optical density contrast as a reflective original as seen on paper. The problem remains.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above technical problems, and uses a reusable recording medium, withstands a sufficient number of times of use with a low writing energy and a sufficient reflection optics. An image erasing apparatus and an image recording apparatus using the image erasing apparatus, which are effective in realizing a printing system capable of reproducing an image with density contrast.

[0005]

That is, as shown in FIG. 1, an image erasing apparatus according to the present invention displays an image composed of a heat-meltable ink 2 held on a recording medium 1 impermeable to ink. An image erasing device for erasing, wherein the recording medium 1
It is characterized by comprising a cleaning means 3 for heating and melting the upper ink 2 and wiping it off, and a cleaning holding means 4 for removing the ink 2 adhering to the ink wiping surface of the cleaning means 3.

An image recording apparatus invention using this image erasing apparatus, as shown in FIG. 1, is provided with the above-mentioned image erasing apparatus and the image erasing apparatus, which is arranged on the downstream side of the recording medium 1 in the conveying direction. An image forming means 5 for forming an image composed of the heat-meltable ink 2 is provided on the recording medium 1 on which the image has been erased and which has been carried in.

In such technical means, the recording medium 1 may be a transparent sheet, an opaque white sheet or another color. In order to efficiently perform heating and cleaning described later, the recording medium 1 needs to be impermeable to ink.

The image forming means 5 using the hot-melt ink 2 is a well-known melt type thermal transfer (hereinafter abbreviated as TTP).
Inkjet using heat-meltable ink, so-called hot melt inkjet (hereinafter referred to as HMI)
Abbreviated as J). Most preferably, an electrostatic suction type ink jet using a heat melting ink, which is capable of printing at high speed and relatively without being affected by the surface property of the recording medium 1, a so-called hot melt electrostatic suction ink jet (Hot-). Melt Electrostatic I
nk-Jet: hereinafter abbreviated as HMEIJ) to form an image. This HMEIJ is a recording medium 1 at the time of printing.
Since the printing is performed in a non-contact manner, the surface of the recording medium 1 can be printed even with a relatively low surface energy (20 to 25 dyne / cm), and if the surface has fine irregularities, it can be fixed. It is very suitable to select HMEIJ as the image forming unit 5 because the cleaning performance described later can be enhanced by selecting such a recording medium 1.

The recording medium 1 on which an image is formed in this manner
Is appropriately used for the purpose of use. That is, it is a widely used document such as used as a conference material, filed, or referred to as a drawing.
After this, some material loses its existence value and becomes disposable. Because of the confidentiality of certain materials, the owners of the materials also need to erase and destroy them. Here, the document image that needs to be disposed of / erasable is erased by the image erasing device according to the present invention.

In the present invention, the cleaning means 3 can be appropriately changed in design as long as it melts and removes the hot-melt ink 2 on the recording medium 1. Here, the heating means for melting the heat-meltable ink 2 is one that transfers Joule heat generated by energizing a metal resistor to the surface of the recording medium 1 by heat conduction, an infrared lamp, a ceramic heater, a laser, a microwave. The heating means and the like can be appropriately selected.

It is preferable to heat the surface of the recording medium 1 from the viewpoint of thermal efficiency. However, when it is difficult to heat the surface of the recording medium 1 by the cleaning means 3, the heating may be performed from the rear surface of the recording medium 1. In any case, the heating means may be any one that controls heating so that the ink on the recording medium 1 reaches the melting point of the ink with a margin over the entire ink removal area described later. For example, when heating from the surface of the recording medium 1, the surface temperature of the heating means is detected,
The heating means is controlled so that the temperature becomes a control target value obtained by adding a slight margin temperature to the ink melting point. On the other hand, in the case of heating from the back surface of the recording medium 1, the recording medium 1 depends on the thickness of the recording medium 1 and the temperature at the time of rushing (in many cases, environmental temperature).
Since the surface temperature is affected, the margin temperature needs to be set higher.

As means for removing the ink 2 of the cleaning means 3, there is a blade, roll, web, brush or the like. The blade presses the recording medium 1 to remove the ink melted on the surface of the recording medium 1. The material of the blade is determined in consideration of heat resistance, wear resistance, and mechanical strength, but a metal plate, a ceramic plate, a heat resistant plastic plate, etc. are preferable. Further, the roll transfers the ink 2 melted on the surface of the recording medium 1 to the roll surface due to the difference in surface energy (difference in wetting). The roll material may be determined in consideration of surface energy, mechanical strength, heat resistance, etc., but metal rolls and ceramic rolls are suitable because they have high surface energy and thus have high removal ability and high mechanical strength. Is. Further, the web removes the ink 2 from the surface of the recording medium 1 by permeating the ink 2 inside. The web material may be determined in consideration of the permeation performance, scratch resistance to the recording medium, heat resistance, etc., but cotton cloth, nylon cloth, paper, glass wool, fluororesin fiber, etc. are preferable. A cotton cloth or the like may be disposable, and the fluororesin fiber can be easily recycled off-line in a factory. Furthermore, the brush wipes off the ink 2 melted on the surface of the recording medium 1 by rubbing the brush on the recording medium 1. A nylon brush or the like is suitable as the brush material.

The cleaning / holding means 4 may be appropriately selected as long as it can remove the ink 2 adhering to the ink wiping surface of the cleaning means 3. For example, when the cleaning means is of the blade removing type, a phenomenon of pooling of the removed ink occurs on the front surface of the blade. In order to prevent the ink from flowing out of the ink reservoir and to smoothly insert the recording medium 1, it is necessary to provide a flexible ink seal as the clean holding means 4 upstream of the ink reservoir. Here, when the blade which is the cleaning unit 3 is arranged vertically with respect to the recording medium 1, the ink flows to the holding end of the blade by the action of gravity, but the top and bottom of the entire apparatus are not always Flexible ink seals are needed as they are often not guaranteed. The material of the ink seal may be determined in consideration of flexibility, scratch resistance of the recording medium 1, heat resistance, ink resistance, etc.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sheet, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sheet, silicone rubber and the like are suitable.

When the cleaning means 3 is of a roll removing type, it is preferable that the cleaning and holding means 4 is scraped off by a blade pressed against the roll surface. Further, when the cleaning means 3 is of the web removing type, the cleaning holding means 4 stains the surface of the web in a relatively short period of time and the removal performance is deteriorated. Therefore, the web itself is rotated, fed or exchanged. It is preferable to use one that conveys and holds the ink that has been removed. Further, the cleaning means 3
In the case of the brush removing method, as the clean holding means 4, a catch bun, a gutter, a groove or the like for receiving and holding the ink splash / solidified ink powder in the brush rotating direction is used.

By the above-mentioned cleaning means 3 and clean holding means 4, substantially all the ink on the recording medium 1 can be removed, and further, the texture and afterimage of the background portion at the time of reuse are perfect. To obtain the above, it is effective and preferable to repeatedly use the cleaning means 3 and the clean holding means 4 a plurality of times or to provide a plurality of sets in the apparatus and perform a plurality of treatments.

As described above, the image erasing device can be used alone as a device, but the optimum image erasing device parameter depends on the ink thickness and the ink melting point on the recording medium 1. Since they are different from each other, it is preferable that they are integrated with the image forming unit 5 as in the second invention and configured as an image recording apparatus capable of recording an image immediately after erasure. That is, when the image forming means 5 made of hot-melt ink such as TTP, HMIJ, and HMEIJ is provided on the downstream side of the image erasing device in the conveyance direction of the recording medium 1, the total device becomes more compact and more efficient. It is possible to erase and record images.

[0017]

According to the technical means as described above, when the ink impermeable recording medium 1 on which the image made of the heat-meltable ink 2 is held is inserted into the image erasing device, first the cleaning 3 is performed. The ink 2 held on the recording medium 1 is heated and melted and wiped off. Next, the ink 2 wiped off by the cleaning means 3 is transferred to the clean holding means 4 which carries out or holds the ink 2, and the ink 2 attached to the ink wiping surface of the cleaning means 3 is removed. Further, in the image recording device in which the image erasing device and the image forming means 5 are integrated, the recording medium 1 whose image has been erased by the image erasing device is carried into the position of the image forming means 5, and the image forming means 5 is An image composed of the heat-meltable ink 2 is formed on the recording medium 1 on which the image has been erased.

[0018]

【Example】

Example 1 FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an image erasing device of Example 1 to which the present invention is applied. In the figure, the recording medium 10 is configured to continuously pass through a unit having a blade as a cleaning unit and a unit using a roll. The unit on the left is the blade cleaner 20.
Then, the blade 21, the blade heater 22, and the seal 24
Consists of. Reference numeral 27 is a chute for guiding the recording medium 10. The blade 21 is retractably held by the recording medium 10 by a blade holding means (not shown). When the recording medium 10 is not in the apparatus, the blade 2
1 is retracted, and when the recording medium 10 is inserted into the apparatus and the tip reaches the tip position of the blade 21, the blade 21 contacts the recording medium 10. The blade 21 was formed by sharply polishing the tip portion of a stainless steel plate having a thickness of 0.8 mm. The blade heater 22 used was a nichrome wire coated with silicon rubber. A thermistor (not shown) is sandwiched and bonded between the blade heater 22 and the blade 21. The thermistor is connected to a temperature controller (not shown), and the blade 21
Control the temperature to the desired value. The temperature of the blade 21 was set to 120 ° C in consideration of the ink melting point of 90 ° C.
In the present embodiment, the thermistor can detect only the temperature in the vicinity of the center of the blade 21. Therefore, in order to make the tip of the blade 21 exceed the melting point of the ink over the entire width, it is necessary to set this 120 ° C. was there. Further, the seal 24 is made of polyethylene terephthalate (PE) of 50 μm.
T) The film was prepared by cutting it with a rotary cutter. The surface of the recording medium 10 was evenly adhered to the surface of the recording medium 10 and carefully positioned so that the recording medium 10 could be sealed without leakage, and then adhered to the housing of the blade cleaner 20.

Heat roll cleaner 30 on the right side
There is. The heat roll cleaner 30 includes a roll 38, a heater 31, a back roller 32, a blade 33, and a cleaner housing 36. The roll 38 has a diameter of 15
It is a steel pipe of mm plated with nickel. The heater 31 is a 300 W infrared lamp and is controlled by a temperature control device (not shown) so that the surface temperature of the roll 38 is kept constant. The surface temperature of the roll 38 is detected by pressing a copper constantan thermocouple together with the backing of silicon rubber against the surface of the roll 38, and the surface temperature of the roll 38 is set to 130 ° C. When the used recording medium 10 is continuously inserted into this apparatus, most of the heat generated by the heater 31 is carried away by the recording medium 10. The heater 31 is continuously turned on to apply heat to the roll 38, but the surface temperature of the roll 38 is lowered and saturated at a certain temperature due to the amount of heat carried away by the recording medium 10. It goes without saying that the roll surface temperature and the rated power of the heater 31 must be determined so that the saturation temperature does not fall below the melting point of the ink. Furthermore,
The back roller 32 is a roll in which chloroprene rubber is wound around an iron shaft having a diameter of 8 mm, and also serves as a transport roll for transporting the recording medium 10. The pressing force between the back roller 32 and the roll 38 is not a particularly important parameter, and may be a pressing pressure that ensures the conveyance of the recording medium 10 and the close contact of the roll 38 with the recording medium. Furthermore, the blade 33 is a stainless steel plate having a thickness of 0.8 mm, and its tip always slides on the surface of the roll 38. The ink 34 scraped off by the tip of the blade 33 is stored in the cleaner housing 36.

Next, when the recording medium 10 to which the image-like ink 35 formed by HMEIJ was attached was inserted into the apparatus of this embodiment and conveyed at a feed speed of 50 mm / s, the following results were obtained. It was The recording medium 10 uses a polyethylene terephthalate (hereinafter abbreviated as PET) film containing a white pigment, and the old image-shaped ink 3 is used.
5 has an initial thickness of about 15 μm. Most of the ink 35 was scraped off by the blade cleaner 20 described above. It was confirmed that the ink 35 remained in the form of streaks, but the thickness of the remaining ink was 2 μm or less. Further, the thickness of the ink remaining on the recording medium 10 that has passed through the heat roll cleaner 30 was below the detection limit of the microscope. There was no afterimage that could be a problem for practical use even when visually observed.

[Second Embodiment] FIG. 2 is a schematic view of an image erasing apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention. This image erasing device is of a two-stage erasing type, which comprises a blade cleaner 20 and a revolver type web cleaner 60. The unit of the blade cleaner 20 is the same as that of the above-described first embodiment, and the description thereof will be omitted. The revolver type web cleaner 60 comprises a rotatable web 61 and a backside heating device 62. The back surface heating device 62 is a hollow steel roll containing an infrared lamp, and the surface temperature of the back surface heating device 62 is controlled to a constant temperature by a temperature control device (not shown). The surface temperature of the backside heating device 62 is detected by pressing a copper constantan thermocouple against the surface of the backside heating device 62 together with the backing of silicon rubber, and the surface temperature of the backside heating device 62 is set to 160 ° C. It Here, when the used recording medium 10 is continuously inserted into this device, most of the heat generated by the infrared lamp is carried away by the recording medium 10. The infrared lamp is continuously turned on and applies heat to the back surface heating device 62, but the surface temperature of the back surface heating device 62 is lowered and saturated at a certain temperature due to the amount of heat carried away by the recording medium 10. Of course, the roll surface temperature and the rated power of the infrared lamp must be determined so that the saturation temperature does not fall below the melting point of the ink. Further, since the heating is performed from the back surface of the recording medium 10, the temperature on the ink side of the recording medium 10 at the time of saturation should not be below the melting point of the ink. In addition, in consideration of changes in ambient temperature such as operation in cold regions, the back side heating device 62
The set temperature of should be decided. In the case of this example, as a result of various experiments, the temperature was set to 160 ° C as described above.
When the recording medium is continuously flowed at a conveying speed of 50 mm / s, the saturation temperature on the ink side of the recording medium is 110 ° C, and even if the ambient temperature change of 20 ° C is taken into consideration, the melting point of the ink is 85 ° C.
There is no need to worry about breaking ° C.

As the web 61, a cotton cloth was rolled around an iron core material and the ends were fixed with an adhesive to form a roll. Here, when the recording medium 10 on which the old image 35 is placed is poured, the web 63 in use is gradually soiled with ink. Further, the ink that exceeds the absorption capacity of the web 61 and cannot be completely removed by the blade cleaner 20 is not absorbed, and is simply stretched and discharged. A user who is tolerant of scumming did not complain even in this state, but some users said that scumming was annoying. For this reason, in this embodiment, there is a switch on the console panel of the device (not shown) for rotating the revolver so that a new web hits the switch. Have been instructed to. In this embodiment, the revolver is capable of exchanging 10 webs. When all 10 are used up, a message is displayed on the console panel (not shown) to replace the revolver itself.

Next, the same image erasing test as in Example 1 was conducted. That is, the recording medium 10 (PET film containing a white pigment) to which the image-like ink 35 (initially having a thickness of about 15 μm) formed by HMEIJ is attached is inserted into the apparatus of the present embodiment and is fed. When conveyed at a speed of 50 mm / s, most of the ink was scraped off by the blade cleaner 20 described above. At this time, it was confirmed that the streaky ink remained, but the thickness of the remaining ink was 2 μm.
It was m or less. Furthermore, revolver type web cleaner 6
The thickness of the ink remaining on the recording medium 10 that passed through 0 was below the detection limit of the microscope. There was no afterimage that could be a problem for practical use even when visually observed. Also, 2
After processing eight recording bodies 10, the user pressed the revolver alternation switch at the 29th sheet. Although depending on the coverage of the old image-like ink 35, the thickness of the ink, and the user's tolerance for background stains, the web replacement switch was pressed at intervals of about 35 sheets.

[Embodiment 3] FIG. 4 is a schematic view of an image erasing apparatus of Embodiment 3 to which the present invention is applied. In this embodiment, first, the blade cleaner 20 scrapes roughly the old image-like ink 35, and then the two heat roll cleaners 30 and 50 make the surface cleaner. Each blade cleaner 20,
The heat roll cleaner 30 has the same configuration, operation, and effect as those of the first embodiment, and thus the description thereof will be omitted. Also,
The latter heat roll cleaner 50 is similar to the former heat roll cleaner 30 in terms of the unit configuration. still,
Each component 51 to 5 of the latter heat roll cleaner 50
Reference numerals 4, 56 and 58 correspond to the respective constituent elements 31 to 34, 36 and 38 of the heat roll cleaner 30 in the preceding stage.

In this example, the same image erasing test as in Example 1 was conducted. That is, the recording medium 10 (PE containing a white pigment) to which the image-like ink 35 (initially having a thickness of about 15 μm) created by HMEIJ is attached.
T film) is inserted into the apparatus of this embodiment, and the feeding speed is 50.
When it was transported at mm / s, the blade cleaner 2
Most of the ink was scraped off by 0. At this time,
It was confirmed that the ink remained in the form of streaks, but the thickness of the remaining ink was 2 μm or less. Furthermore, the thickness of the ink remaining on the recording medium that has passed through the heat roll cleaner 20 was below the detection limit of the microscope. There was no afterimage that could be a problem for practical use even when visually observed.
However, when the recording medium 10 was observed with the surface-reflected light, the afterimage of the old image could be slightly read. further,
The recording medium 10 output after passing through the heat roll cleaner 50 in the subsequent stage was very clean and could not read an afterimage of an old image even when observed with surface reflected light.

Example 4 FIG. 5 is a schematic view of an image recording apparatus of Example 4 to which the present invention is applied. In this embodiment, after the image is erased by the blade cleaner 20 and the heat roll cleaner 30, the ink 80 on the new image is formed on the recording medium 10 by the well-known thermal transfer recording apparatus (TTP). is there. The TTP used in this embodiment is the thermal head 70, the ink donor film 72 wound on the winding roll 73 continuously supplied from the supply roll 72,
The platen roll 74 holds the recording medium 10 between the ink donor film 72 moving along the thermal head 70 and the ink donor film 72.

Since the structure is integrated with the TTP, the total size of the apparatus including the printing apparatus can be made smaller than that in the first embodiment. Further, the operation is simplified by erasing and recording a new image at the same time. Furthermore, by using a dedicated recording device, the image structure such as the physical properties such as the melting point of the ink of the old image and the thickness of the ink will be constant, so it is easy to set the parameters in the image erasing device, and as a result the cleaning performance will be improved. Can be increased. For example, in the first embodiment, the set temperature of the blade heater 22 is 120 ° C.
Otherwise, the temperature at the tip of the blade 21 could fall below the melting point of the ink, but in the present embodiment, the set temperature of the blade heater 22 could be 100 ° C.
This is because the melting point of the ink applied to the ink donor film 71 is 60 ° C. to 70 ° C.
Because it is lower than ° C. Similarly, the set value of the surface temperature of the roll 28 could be 110 ° C. As described above, by lowering the heating temperature, it is possible to suppress the power consumption of the apparatus, and it is possible to prevent the cleaning performance from being lowered by raising the temperature more than necessary. That is, when the ink is heated far beyond the melting point of the ink, the viscosity of the ink is lowered and the ink easily flows, and the blade 2
1 The amount of ink that escapes through the minute recess / gap at the tip increases. Further, even with a roll cleaner, the thickness of the ink taken at one time is reduced because the viscosity of the ink is reduced.
Needless to say, this setting cannot be performed if it is not known what kind of printing device is to be inserted as the old image.

Example 5 FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of an image recording apparatus of Example 5 to which the present invention is applied. In this embodiment, the heat roll cleaner 30 is used.
Remove the ink 35 on the old image with HMEIJ91
To form a new image 80. The heat roll cleaner 30 has the same structure, action, and effect as those of the first embodiment, and therefore its explanation is omitted.

The head 91 is an HMEIJ head. The powder ink 92 is supplied into the head by powder ink supply means (not shown). The powder ink 92 is mainly composed of linear polyethylene, and each color dye is used as a colorant.
It was prepared by adding an antioxidant, a viscosity modifier, and the like. The head heater 94 is a thick film resistor formed on the PI (polyimide) flexible substrate 97,
Power is supplied to the powder ink 92 by a head heater driving means (not shown) during standby and operation of the printer.
Is heated above its melting point to produce a molten ink 93. P
An orifice 98 is provided on the I-flexible substrate 97. In this embodiment, the PI flexible board 97
Is made of a photosensitive polyimide, and the orifice 98 is formed in the developing step of the photosensitive polyimide, but is not particularly limited to this method. PI flexible board 97
A liquid-repellent layer (not shown) is formed on the surface facing the recording medium 10 to prevent the molten ink 93 from flowing out of the head 91 due to gravity and surface tension. The surface opposite to the PI flexible substrate 97 (the surface inside the head)
A control electrode 96 is provided in the. Further, a large number of orifices 98 and control electrodes 96 are lined up in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the drawing, and they operate in parallel, contributing to the improvement of the printing speed. Preferably, the orifice 98 and the control electrode 96
Is desired to be formed at the desired dot interval of the printer over the maximum paper width in order to maximize the printing speed. One control electrode 96 is provided so as to communicate with one orifice 98 and is processed into a shape surrounding the circular orifice 98. The control electrode 96 is formed by adhering a copper foil to the PI flexible substrate 97 with an epoxy resin adhesive and applying a well-known photoetching process, but the method is not particularly limited to this method. The control electrode 96 is pressed against the pixel driving substrate 95 via a well-known anisotropic conductive film. Pixel drive board 9
5 controls a large number of control electrodes 96 to a high voltage (400 in this embodiment).
Drive to V). In this embodiment, a high breakdown voltage drive element array and a shift register for serial / parallel conversion of image data are formed on a glass substrate by a well-known thin film transistor (TFT) technique. Furthermore,
When a +1.8 KV bias pulse is applied to the print back electrode 101 and a +400 V pulse is applied according to the image by the pixel drive substrate 95, the molten ink 93 in the vicinity of the orifice 18 receives the Coulomb force. hand,
An ink tow thread 99 is formed and flies toward the recording medium 10. The recording medium 10 is maintained at the ink softening temperature by the back electrode heater 102. Since the surface tension of the ink and the surface energy of the recording medium 10 are substantially equal to each other, the dots formed by the ink pulling threads 99 continue to expand gently and form a new image-like image on the relatively flat recording medium 10. Ink 80 is formed.

In this embodiment, the recording medium 10 made of a PET film containing a white pigment is used, and the recording medium 10 is transferred from the image erasing device to the HMEJ91 side at a recording medium conveying speed of 12.5 mm / s. Convey continuously, HME
When IJ91 was repeatedly used to perform image recording at a flight frequency of 100 Hz and a dot density of 8 / mm (both vertical and horizontal), the image on the recording medium 10 on which the old image was retained was completely erased, and the image-erased recording medium was erased. It was confirmed that good image recording was performed for 10.

Example 6 FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of an image recording apparatus of Example 6 to which the present invention is applied. In this embodiment, the blade cleaner 20 and the heat roll cleaner 30 remove the ink 35 on the old image, and the HMEIJ 91 forms a new image 80.
In addition, the blade cleaner 20, the heat roll cleaner 30
Has the same configuration / operation / effect as in the first embodiment, and HMEIJ91 has the same configuration / operation as in the fifth embodiment.
I will omit the explanation because it works. In such an example, the recording material 10 of a PET film containing a white pigment was used, and the recording material conveying speed was 12.
The recording medium 10 is moved from the image erasing device to the HME at 5 mm / s.
The image was continuously conveyed to the IJ91 side and the HMEIJ91 was repeatedly used to perform image recording at a flight frequency of 100 Hz and a dot density of 8 / mm (both vertical and horizontal), and the image on the recording medium 10 holding the old image was completely erased. It was confirmed that good image recording is performed on the recording medium 10 from which the image has been erased. In particular, in the present embodiment, since the blade cleaner 20 is provided in the preceding stage, it has an advantage that even if the ink 35 on the old image has a high pile height, it can be erased without any problem.

[0032]

As described above, according to the invention of claim 1 or 2, the ink image held on the non-ink-permeable non-recording medium is wiped off by the wiping surface of the cleaning means, and the cleaning means is used. Since the ink adhering to the wiping surface was removed to maintain the cleanliness of the wiping surface, there are no special requirements other than that the recording medium is impermeable, and The ink image can be repeatedly and easily erased. Therefore, it is possible to easily realize a printing system which uses a reusable recording medium, can withstand a sufficient number of times of use with a low writing energy, and can reproduce an image with a sufficient reflection optical density contrast. In particular, according to the second aspect of the present invention, it is possible to further enhance the erasing performance of the ink image on the recording medium, so that the afterimage phenomenon on the recording medium when the recording medium is reused, etc. Can be reliably avoided. According to the third aspect of the invention, since the image erasing device and the image forming means are integrated, not only the individual devices can be downsized, but also the image can be downsized. Since erasing and image recording can be performed continuously at one time,
Image erasing and image recording operations can be simplified, and by using a dedicated recording device, the image structure such as the melting point of the old image for erasing and the physical properties such as ink thickness and the ink thickness can be made constant. As a result, it becomes easier to set parameters in the image erasing apparatus, and as a result, good image erasing performance can be maintained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of an image erasing apparatus according to the present invention and an image recording apparatus using the same.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an image erasing device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an image erasing device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing an image erasing device according to a third embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing an image recording apparatus according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an image recording apparatus according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing an image recording apparatus according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Recording medium, 2 ... Thermal melting ink, 3 ... Cleaning means, 4 ... Clean holding means, 5 ... Image forming means

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An image erasing device for erasing an image made of a heat-meltable ink (2) held on a recording medium (1) which is impermeable to ink, wherein the recording medium (1) is provided on the recording medium (1). A cleaning means (3) for heating and melting the ink (2) to wipe it off, and a cleaning holding means (4) for removing the ink (2) adhering to the ink wiping surface of the cleaning means (3) are provided. Image erasing device. 2. The image erasing device according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of cleaning means (3) and clean holding means (4) are provided. 3. An image erasing device according to claim 1,
An image formation is provided on the downstream side of the recording medium (1) conveyance direction of the image erasing apparatus, and forms an image of the heat-meltable ink (2) on the image-erased recording medium (1) that has been carried in. An image recording apparatus comprising means (5).