JPH0532029A - Printing device and printing process - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a printing device which can be operated easily and made compact and light-weight as well as printing technique. CONSTITUTION:A thermally transferable ink ribbon 10 having printing information is prepared, and ink is thermally transferred by heating this thermally transferable ink ribbon 10. An ink ribbon cassette 4 is attached to a main printing device system equipped with a means for storing a thermally transferable ink ribbon 10 in the ink ribbon cassette 24 and providing a heating device and a thermally transferable 10 winding device with a drive power. Thus thermal transfer process is performed using a printing device of the above constitution.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing device and a printing method, and more particularly to a portable type small printing device and a printing method which enables downsizing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, recording paper (recording medium) such as a paper ribbon
Printing with a thermal transfer ink ribbon on a recording paper is performed by heating the thermal transfer ink ribbon by giving information of characters, symbols, or figures (hereinafter referred to as characters) to be printed by the thermal head. Characters are printed.

[0003]

However, in order to obtain a desired print in this way, a thermal head and a print control circuit for giving print information to the thermal head are required, which makes the apparatus large and complicated. There is a drawback. on the other hand,
Although there is a demand for frequently and repeatedly printing fixed characters such as an individual name, a company name, an address, and a trademark, it cannot be easily performed by the conventional printing method.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a printing apparatus and a printing method suitable for repeatedly printing the same characters and the like (not limited to the same characters and the like).

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information, a feeding / winding means for feeding and winding the ink ribbon, and a feeding / winding means. Drive means for driving the means,
Heating means for heating the ink ribbon to perform thermal transfer,
A printing device characterized by having the following is adopted.

Further, according to the present invention, in a printing method for printing using a thermal transfer ink ribbon, a thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information is prepared, and the thermal transfer is performed on a recording medium by heating the ink ribbon. The following printing method is adopted.

[0007]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a perspective view for explaining a method for producing a thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view showing an appearance of a printing apparatus according to the present invention. 4 is a bottom view of the ink ribbon cassette of the printing apparatus, FIG. 4 is a front view thereof, FIG. 5 is a side view thereof, FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing an internal structure of the ink ribbon cassette, and FIG. It is a front view which shows the internal structure of an apparatus main body, and FIG. 8 is the side view.

First, referring to FIG. 1, a method of making a thermal transfer ink ribbon with print information is shown. Both ends of the thermal transfer ink ribbon 10 are the delivery spool 1
1 and the take-up spool 13, and the take-up device 16 associated with the take-up spool 13 sequentially takes up the take-up spool 13 from the take-up spool 11 during the thermal transfer. Recording paper 12 such as a paper ribbon having the same structure and arranged in contact with the thermal transfer ink ribbon.
Is also wound in synchronism with the thermal transfer ink ribbon, and the thermal transfer from the thermal transfer ink ribbon to the recording paper is performed by applying desired print information by the thermal head 14. The print information to the thermal head 14 is given by a print control circuit (not shown) via the lead wire 14a, but this print information is different from the normal print information, white and black (other colors may be used). Is the reverse of. Therefore, reversed characters or the like such as normal characters are printed on the recording paper, and printing information such as normal characters remains on the thermal transfer ink ribbon.

In this way, the thermal transfer ink ribbon 10
From the above, a so-called soft copy can be produced which can be further printed on another recording paper (or any recording medium) by thermal transfer. When the thermal transfer ink ribbon is used to repeatedly print the same character or the like, the same character or the like is left on the thermal transfer ink ribbon as print information. Hereinafter, the thermal transfer ink ribbon having such print information will be simply referred to as a thermal transfer ink ribbon hereinafter. In addition, the thermal transfer ink ribbon, as described later,
A mark sensed by the ribbon position detection sensor for indexing the thermal transfer position of the thermal transfer ink ribbon is provided at the same time when printing information is left at an appropriate position between characters and the like.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is shown a preferred embodiment of the printing device of the present invention. The printing device 20 is
It is composed of a printer main body 22 and an ink ribbon cassette 24 designed to be accommodated in the printer main body.

Details of the ink ribbon cassette 24 will be described below with reference to FIGS. The ink ribbon cassette 24 has a casing 26, and the casing 26 has a take-up spool 28 on which the thermal transfer ink ribbon 10 is wound.
The shafts 28a and 30a for supporting the feeding spool 30 are arranged. A gear 32 is attached to the shaft 28a for the take-up spool 28, and a driving force for rotating the take-up spool from a motor and a gear provided in the printer main body is provided via the gear 32, as will be described later. Given.

Further, on both upper portions of the rear surfaces of both sides of the casing 26 (see FIG. 5), there are provided dowels 34 for fitting the ink ribbon cassette 24 into the printer body 22 by inserting it into dowel holes of the printer body described later. Has been. Further, a notch 29 is formed in the lower portion of the rear surface of the casing 26, and when the ink ribbon cassette 24 is attached to the printer main body 22, the heating device of the printer main body, which will be described later, passes through the notch 29 and the ink ribbon cassette 2 is heated.
The thermal transfer ink ribbon 10 of FIG.

Next, the details of the printer main body 22 will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8. The printer main body 22 has a casing 40 configured to have a space 31 for accommodating the above-described ink ribbon cassette. In the casing 40 above the space 31, the ink ribbon cassette 24
A motor 48 for giving a driving force to the take-up spool 28 (see FIG. 6), a battery 50 for supplying electric power to the motor 48 and the control circuit, and parts constituting the control circuit (reference numerals are not attached) And a printed circuit board 52 is arranged.

A gear train (one of the gears is indicated by 46) is arranged in the casing 40 which is located on the side of the space 31, and the gear 46 is mounted on the printer main body with the ink ribbon cassette 24. In this case, the gear 32 of the ink ribbon cassette 24 is engaged. Dowel holes 59 are also provided on both sides of the casing 40, and these dowel holes 58 are formed in the dowel 34 (see FIG. 5) of the ink ribbon cassette 24 when the ink ribbon cassette 24 is mounted in the printer body. The printer main body 24 is arranged in such a position as to receive it.
Position the ink ribbon cassette to.

A heating device (heating means) 54 is arranged in the casing 40 so as to project into the space 31 from the side of the casing.
When the ink ribbon cassette 24 is attached to the printer main body 22, the ink ribbon cassette 24 is inserted into the ink ribbon cassette through the notch 29 of the ink ribbon cassette 24 and is arranged above the thermal transfer ink ribbon 10. Unlike the conventional thermal head, the heating device 54 already has print information on the thermal transfer ink ribbon, so that the heating device 54 only needs to heat at a certain temperature and can be configured by a simple heating element.

Further, the casing 40 is provided with a ribbon position detecting sensor 56. The ribbon position detection position sensor 56 is for detecting a mark or the like previously attached to the thermal transfer ink ribbon and stopping the thermal transfer ink ribbon at an accurate thermal transfer position. That is, the ribbon position detection sensor 56 detects the mark attached to the thermal transfer ink ribbon, stops the driving of the motor 48 at that position, and stops the thermal transfer ink ribbon being wound.

Next, the operation of the printing apparatus of the present invention thus constructed will be described. First, as described with reference to FIG. 1, the thermal transfer ink ribbon 1 having desired print information.
Create 0. The take-up spool 28 and the pay-out spool 30 on which the created thermal transfer ink ribbon 10 is applied are attached to the shafts 28a and 30a of the ink ribbon cassette 24. Next, the ink ribbon cassette 24 is attached to the printer body 22. At this time, the ink ribbon cassette 24
The dowel 34 is inserted into the dowel hole 58 of the printer body 22 to position the ink ribbon cassette 24 in the printer body 22. In this state, the gear 3 mounted on the shaft 28a of the take-up spool 28 of the ink ribbon cassette
2 and the gear 46 of the gear train driven by the motor 48 of the printer main body 22 are engaged, and the heating device 54 of the printer main body 22 is located above the thermal transfer ink ribbon 10 of the ink ribbon cassette 22. As a result, the printing device 2
0 is ready for printing.

Next, since the printing device 20 is small and lightweight, when printing on a recording medium, the printing device 2 is used.
0 itself is brought close to an arbitrary recording medium to be printed, and the thermal transfer ink ribbon 10 is arranged so as to be placed on the recording medium. Next, the printing device 20 is operated to perform printing.

Although the present invention has been described based on the preferred embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this embodiment, and other modifications can be made. For example, in the embodiment, the ink ribbon is housed in the ink ribbon cassette and mounted on the printer main body, but a shaft for mounting the take-up spool and the pay-out spool of the thermal transfer ink ribbon is provided in the printer main body. Alternatively, the thermal transfer ink ribbon may be directly mounted in the printer body. Further, in the embodiment, the heating device is arranged in the printer main body, but it is arranged in the ink ribbon cassette, the ink ribbon cassette is provided with a terminal for supplying power to the heating device, and the terminal corresponding to the printer main body is provided. It may be configured as follows.

[0020]

As described in detail above, the present invention is
Prepare a thermal transfer ink ribbon with print information in advance, attach the thermal transfer ink ribbon to the printing device, and perform printing without using a thermal head or a print control circuit that provides print information. As a result, the printer itself can be made smaller and lighter, and thus a portable printer can be obtained. Further, since the thermal transfer ink ribbon is given printing information in advance, a simple heating device can be used for printing. Further, since the thermal transfer ink ribbon is housed in the ink ribbon cassette and is attached to the printer main body, the ink ribbon cassette can be disposable when the thermal transfer ink ribbon is used up.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view for explaining a method for producing a thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic perspective view showing the appearance of the printing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a bottom view of the ink ribbon cassette of the printing device.

FIG. 4 is a front view thereof.

FIG. 5 is a side view thereof.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view showing the internal structure of the ink ribbon cassette.

FIG. 7 is a front view showing the internal structure of the printer main body.

FIG. 8 is a side view thereof.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 Thermal transfer ink ribbon 14 Thermal head 20 printer 22 Printer main body 24 ink ribbon cassette 26 Ink ribbon cassette casing 34 Dowel 28 Take-up spool 30 Delivery spool 48 motor 58 Dowel Hole 54 heating device 56 Ribbon position detection sensor

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Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. A thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information,
A printing apparatus comprising: a feeding / winding means for feeding and winding the ink ribbon, a driving means for driving the feeding / winding means, and a heating means for heating the ink ribbon to perform thermal transfer. . 2. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the ink ribbon and the feeding / winding means are attached to an ink ribbon cassette, and the driving means and the heating means are attached to a printing apparatus main body. The ink ribbon cassette is configured to be housed in the printing apparatus main body, and in a state where the ink ribbon cassette is housed in the printing apparatus main body, the feeding / winding means engages with the driving means, A printing apparatus, wherein heating means is arranged so as to heat the ink ribbon to perform thermal transfer. 3. The printing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the feeding / winding means includes a feeding spool and a winding spool that support both ends of the ink ribbon so as to wind the ink ribbon.
A first gear arranged so as to be able to drive the take-up spool, and the drive means drives the take-up spool in a state in which the motor and the shaft of the motor are mounted and the ink ribbon cassette is housed in the printer main body. And a second gear that engages with the first gear that is arranged so that a printing device is provided. 4. The printing device according to claim 1, wherein the thermal transfer ink ribbon is formed in advance with reverse characters and the like of characters to be finally printed. 5. The printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the reverse characters and the like of the thermal transfer ink ribbon are created by using a thermal head to give a signal that is reversed from a normal character print signal. Printing device. 6. The printer according to claim 1, further comprising a ribbon position detection sensor that detects a position of the ink ribbon. 7. A printing method for printing using a thermal transfer ink ribbon, which comprises producing a thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information and heating the ink ribbon to perform thermal transfer on a recording medium. . 8. The printing method according to claim 7, wherein the thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information is created by applying an inversion signal to a character or the like to be finally printed on the thermal transfer ink ribbon. Printing method. 9. The printing method according to claim 7, wherein a thermal transfer ink ribbon having print information is arranged in an ink ribbon cassette so as to be drawn out and wound up, and the ink ribbon cassette is housed in a printer main body. While winding the ink ribbon with the driving means arranged inside the main body,
A printing method characterized in that thermal transfer of an ink ribbon is performed by a heating means arranged in a printing device.