JPH06218966A - Thermal transfer recording apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a low cost thermal transfer recording apparatus having good transfer properties even with respect to transfer paper large in surface unevenness and imparting excellent printing quality. CONSTITUTION:At first, a negative pattern is transferred to the rear surface of an ink ribbon 2 already completed in transfer using a thermal head 1 to perform pattern formation and, next, the transfer of the remaining pattern is applied to transfer paper 3 under high pressure using a hot press roll 5.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording apparatus for transferring using an ink ribbon.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, since thermal recording has excellent characteristics such as non-impact, noise-free, maintenance-free, low cost, small size and light weight, and colorization, it has been used in many fields such as facsimiles, computer terminals and recorders. It is used. In particular, since the thermal printer has a simple structure and is inexpensive, the demand is expanding for personal use such as a terminal system and a personal computer.

In the conventional thermal transfer recording apparatus, it is difficult for the ink ribbon to transfer following the unevenness of the surface of the transfer paper, which is the transfer body, and it has been a problem to secure the quality for plain paper and the like. Therefore, JP-A-62-68788 and 62-6
As shown in Japanese Patent No. 8790, a technique has been devised in which an ink pattern is formed on a drum or the like as an intermediate transfer medium and then retransferred to a transfer paper. However, this technique has a problem that a means for removing the ink remaining on the drum is required, and the device is large in size to secure the intermediate transfer area for one time, and the cost is increased.

In view of this, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-193854 proposes a technique having a thermal head for forming an ink pattern on an ink ribbon and a thermal head for transferring the ink pattern onto a transfer paper.
FIG. 3 shows a schematic structural diagram thereof. That is, the ink 202
On the back surface of the base material 201 of the ink ribbon 2 after the transfer of
The negative pattern is transferred by the thermal head 1, leaving only the ink 202 to be transferred onto the transfer paper. Base material 201
The ink 202 remaining on the top is transferred onto the transfer paper 3 by the second thermal head 9. By using two thermal heads and having a pattern forming function and a transfer function to transfer paper separately, good printing can be performed on plain paper.

[0005]

However, since the thermal transfer recording apparatus described above uses a thermal head for transfer to transfer paper, there is a limit to the pressing force at the time of transfer. Transferability is inferior to transfer paper with large unevenness,
Also, having two thermal heads leads to high cost,
Further, there is a problem that wrinkles are likely to occur at the time of transfer, and as a result, the quality at the time of forming an ink pattern is deteriorated.

An object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost thermal transfer recording apparatus which has good transferability even on a transfer paper having a large surface irregularity and is excellent in printing quality.

[0007]

A thermal transfer recording apparatus of the present invention comprises a thermal head for forming an ink pattern on an ink ribbon, and a thermal pressure roll for pressing and thermally transferring the formed ink pattern onto a transfer body. Characterize.

[0008]

EXAMPLES Examples of the present invention will be described in detail below by taking a line type thermal transfer recording apparatus as an example, but the present invention is not limited to this and can be applied to, for example, a serial type thermal transfer recording apparatus. Is.

(Embodiment 1) FIG. 1 is a structural sectional view of a monochrome line type thermal transfer recording apparatus for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

First, the ink pattern forming mechanism will be described.
Reference numeral 1 is a line-type thermal head, which is pressed against the roll platen 4. Further, the ink ribbon 2 has the ink 202 applied on one surface of the substrate 201. The ink 202 of the ink ribbon 2 supplied from the ribbon supply roll 203 is transferred by the thermal head 1 to the negative side of the back surface of the substrate 201 which has already been transferred. The substrate 201 to which the negative pattern has been transferred is sent by the rotation of the roll platen 4 and then wound on the ribbon winding roll 204. On the other hand, the ink 202 that has not been transferred is conveyed to the hot press roll 5 via the guide roll 7.

The ink ribbon 2 used in this embodiment is
The following composition was used.

The substrate 202 is a PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film having a thickness of 3.5 μm, and the ink 201 is a hot-melt ink mainly composed of wax, pigment and resin having a thickness of 3.0 μm.

Further, generally, on the back surface of the base material 201 of the ink ribbon 2 on which the ink 202 is not applied, a heat-resistant layer such as silicon is provided in order to improve heat resistance. In the present invention, in order to transfer the ink 202 onto the back surface, a resin component compatible with the ink 202 is added to the heat-resistant layer, or unevenness is provided to increase the surface area to improve the transferability of the ink 202. It is possible to increase. In this embodiment, an inorganic filler having an average particle diameter of 1 μm is added to the heat-resistant layer mainly composed of silicon, and the heat-resistant layer has a coating thickness of 0.
It was applied so as to have a thickness of 5 μm, and the one having irregularities formed by an inorganic filler was used. The ink 201 was of a type in which the melt viscosity drastically decreased around 70 degrees.
Then, by increasing the adhesiveness with the base material 201, it is possible to obtain the characteristics that the storage characteristics are excellent and the transfer characteristics are excellent.

Further, the ink ribbon 2 needs to be designed so that the ink 202 does not come into contact with the roll platen 4 when mounted. This can be dealt with by not coating the ink 202 on the end portion or by adding a PET film. In this embodiment, the end of the ink ribbon 2 has a structure in which the ink 202 is not formed on the base material 201 by the length of the winding from the ribbon take-up roll 204 to just below the thermal head 1.

Next, the mechanism for heat transfer by pressing onto the transfer body will be described. By interposing the transfer paper 3 and the ink ribbon 2 which are transfer bodies between the hot press roll 5 and the second roll platen, pressing the hot press roll 5 in the P direction in the drawing and rotating it in the direction of the arrow causes transfer. The ink 202 is thermally transferred onto the paper 3. The surface temperature of the hot press roll 5 is set higher than the melting point of the ink 202, and control is performed so that a constant temperature can be maintained.
In this embodiment, the thermistor is used to control the application time to the heater so that the surface temperature becomes about 85 degrees. Further, with respect to the pressing force, it is possible to further improve the transfer characteristics by setting a plurality of steps depending on the paper thickness and the surface condition of the transfer paper 3. In this embodiment, the pressing force of 20, 40, and 80 kgf is set over the width of 230 mm, and the transfer paper 3 which is thin and has excellent smoothness such as thermal transfer paper has low pressure and is similar to bond paper. The transfer paper 3 having a large thickness and large unevenness was transferred at a high pressure. Further, the surface of the hot press roll 5 or the second roll platen 6 may be made to have elasticity so that the thermal transfer of the ink 202 is surely performed and wrinkles are not generated in the base material 201. In this embodiment, NBR rubber having a thickness of 1 mm is wound around the surface of the hot pressing roll 5.

With the above-described structure, the ink 202 having the pattern formed in advance is transferred to the transfer paper 3 by pressing and heat transfer using the hot press roll 5, so that the transfer with good print quality can be performed even on the plain paper. became. Further, since all of the ink 202 is transferred onto the transfer paper 3, the transfer of the negative pattern onto the substrate 201 by the thermal head 1 is stabilized, which leads to an improvement in print quality.

(Embodiment 2) Next, application to color recording will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a structural sectional view of a color line type thermal transfer recording apparatus for explaining an embodiment of the present invention.

The ink 202 of the ink ribbon 2 is formed by applying Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan), and optionally Bk (black) ink on the base material 201 in a frame sequential manner. Each ink pattern is created by the thermal head 1 using the same ink ribbon 2 as in the first embodiment.

The transfer paper 3 is held by the transfer paper fixing portion 8 on the second roll platen 6. First, in order to transfer the Y ink, the hot press roll 5 is rotated in the FF direction while being pressed by the pressing force P, while the second roll platen 6 is rotated in the F direction to perform thermal transfer on the transfer paper 3. After thermally transferring the Y ink, the heat and pressure roll 5 releases the pressure, and only the second roll platen 6 returns in the R direction to adjust the position of the transfer paper 3. Then, the M ink is transferred in the same manner as the ink, and the C ink and the Bk ink are also thermally transferred in the same manner, whereby color printing can be performed. In this embodiment, the second roll platen 6 is rotated in the R direction to adjust the position of the transfer paper 3, but the position may be adjusted by rotating the second roll platen 6 in the F direction once.

A thermal transfer recording apparatus was prepared so as to have the same configuration as in Example 1 except for the above, and three colors of Y, M and C were superposed on PPC paper having a Bekk smoothness of about 45 seconds with a pressing force of 40 kgf. A matching print was made. As for the printing result, since the high-pressure thermal transfer was performed as in Example 1, it was possible to obtain an excellent color image with no omission due to insufficient ink transfer.

As described above, since the pattern formation is performed by the thermal head 1 and the transfer onto the transfer paper 3 is performed by using the thermocompression roll 5, the recording having good transferability is achieved even on the transfer paper having a large surface irregularity. Can be achieved with an inexpensive thermal transfer recording apparatus.

[0022]

As described above, in the thermal transfer recording apparatus of the present invention, the pattern formation is performed by the thermal head and the thermal transfer to the transfer paper is performed by using the hot pressing roll, so that the transfer paper having a large unevenness on the surface is formed. On the other hand, it has the effect of inexpensively obtaining a recording having good transferability.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a structural sectional view of a monochrome line-type thermal transfer recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the thermal transfer recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a structural cross-sectional view of a color line type thermal transfer recording apparatus showing an embodiment of the thermal transfer recording apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a structural cross-sectional view for explaining a conventional thermal transfer recording device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Thermal Head 2 Ink Ribbon 201 Base Material 202 Ink 203 Ribbon Supply Roll 204 Ribbon Winding Roll 3 Transfer Paper 4 Roll Platen 5 Heat Press Roll 6 Second Roll Platen 7 Ribbon Guide Roll 8 Transfer Paper Fixing Section 9 Second Thermal Head 10 Second platen

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location 8305-2H B41M 5/26 M

Claims (1)

[Claims] A thermal transfer recording apparatus comprising: a thermal head that forms an ink pattern on an ink ribbon; and a thermal pressure roll that press-heat transfers the formed ink pattern onto a transfer body.