JPH06312548A - Printer having continuous-paper cutting function - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a printer having a continuous-paper cutting function, which can exclude the useless consumption of paper as much as possible and can obtain the output paper without unnecessary blank part at the same time of printing. CONSTITUTION:A printer roller 6 feeds continuous paper 4. A printing head 10 performs printing on the continuous paper 4, which is carried on the surface of the printer roller 6. A cutting mount plate 16 is arranged in front of the paper feeding direction with respect to the printer roller 6. A cutting head 14 is arranged in the vertical direction with respect to the paper feeding direction of the continuous paper 4 and cuts the continuous paper 4, which is arranged on the surface of the cutting mount plate 16. These parts are provided.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer used as, for example, an output means of a computer. More specifically, continuous continuous roll paper is used, and printing is performed on the continuous roll paper. The present invention relates to a printer with a continuous paper cutting function, which has a function of automatically cutting continuous paper when the printing of the above is completed.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a conventional printer used as an output means of a computer or the like, a printer of a type that prints on continuous paper having a break and a printer of a type that prints on standard paper such as copy paper There is.

A printer of the type that prints on continuous paper having a break is used as an output device of a computer used for applications such as program development, complicated calculation, or simulation calculation. Also,
A printer of a type that prints on standard-size paper is used as an output device of a computer used for applications such as a word processor.

[0004]

However, there is a problem that any type of printer according to the conventional example can basically print only within the range of a fixed size paper. is doing. For example, when printing several lines of data on continuous paper with a break,
Several lines of data are printed within the range from one break line to the next break line, resulting in a large margin.

In order to delete the blank portion, the paper including the printed portion is manually cut along the cut line, and the blank portion of the paper is cut with a cutter such as a cutter knife. That is, the marginal area of the sheet from the cut line to the next cut line is a waste of material. Such inconvenience also occurs when printing is performed on a standard size sheet.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and a printer with a continuous paper cutting function capable of eliminating waste of paper as much as possible and obtaining output paper with a small unnecessary margin portion at the same time as printing. The purpose is to provide.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, a printer with a continuous paper cutting function of the present invention is a printer roller for feeding continuous paper, and a continuous paper fed to the surface of the printer roller. A print head for performing printing on a sheet, a cutting mount plate arranged in front of the printer roller in the paper feed direction, and a movable print head arranged in a direction perpendicular to the paper feed direction of the continuous paper, A cutting means for cutting the continuous paper arranged on the surface of the cutting mount plate.

The cutting means may control the continuous paper arranged on the surface of the mount plate to be cut in a direction substantially perpendicular to the paper feeding direction in a state where the paper feeding of the continuous paper is stopped. preferable.

Further, the cutting means can be controlled to cut the continuous paper arranged on the surface of the mount plate along the paper feeding direction in cooperation with the paper feeding by the printer roller.

[0010]

In the present invention, after the continuous paper fed by the printer roller has been printed by the print head, for example, when a page feed signal is input, the paper feed is first stopped, and then, The cutting means is moved in the direction perpendicular to the paper feed and along the mount plate direction to cut the continuous paper. That is, in the present invention, it becomes possible to cut the paper at an arbitrary position along the paper feeding direction of the continuous paper. The cutting start signal of the cutting means is not limited to the page break signal, and the ruled line printing code can be used as the cutting means control signal.

If the printing width of characters, symbols, figures, etc. to be printed is smaller than the width of the continuous paper, the printing means is driven in conjunction with the paper feeding by the printer roller, and the continuous paper is The width can be freely cut along the feeding direction of continuous paper with a width that matches the print width. As the cutting means, various cutting devices such as a print head type cutting head having the same structure as the wire dot type print head, a roll cutter type cutting head, a cutting tooth head having a knife edge, and a laser cutting head are used. You can

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A printer with a continuous paper cutting function according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view of a main part of a printer with a continuous paper cutting function according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic side view showing the main part of the printer of the same embodiment, and FIG. 3 is another embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a schematic view showing a modified example of the cutting means used in the example, and FIG. 4 is a schematic perspective view of a main part of a printer with a continuous paper cutting function according to another embodiment of the invention.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the printer 2 with a continuous paper cutting function of this embodiment has a main printer roller 6 for feeding the continuous paper 4. The continuous paper 4 is wound in a roll shape, for example, and is detachably and replaceably mounted at a predetermined position in the printer 2. In the present invention, continuous paper 4
For this, it is not necessary to form a break or the like, but continuous paper having a break can also be used.

The continuous paper 4 is fed from the continuous paper winding section 4a to the position shown in FIG.
A sheet feeding roller (not shown) or the like feeds the sheet in the direction of arrow A. The continuous paper 4 fed in the direction of arrow A is fed by the paper feed roller 8 to the main printer roller 6 as shown in FIG.

On the front surface of the printer roller 6, a print head 10 is arranged close to the roller 6. The print head 10 is movable along the longitudinal direction B of the printer roller 6 (a direction substantially perpendicular to the paper feed) by a well-known moving mechanism. The print head 10 is not particularly limited, but a wire dot print head, a thermal transfer print head, an inkjet print head, a laser print head, or the like can be used.

The continuous paper 4 is guided into a gap between the tip of the print head 10 and the printer roller 6, and the print head 10 prints on the surface of the continuous paper. At the time of printing, the print head 10 moves along the longitudinal direction B of the printer roller 6.

As shown in FIG. 2, a guide plate 12 is preferably provided below the print head 10 to guide the paper feed of the continuous paper 4. Below the guide plate 12, a cutting head 14 serving as a cutting means is provided separately from the print head 10 by a moving mechanism similar to the print head 10 so as to separate the roller 6 from the print head 10.
It is mounted so as to be movable in the longitudinal direction B. A cutting mount plate 16 is arranged on the back side of the continuous paper 4 with respect to the cutting head 14. The cutting mount plate 16 is located below the roller 6 and is arranged close to the back side of the continuous paper 4 along the longitudinal direction B of the roller 6.

The cutting head 14 has a wire dot portion having a structure similar to that of a wire dot type print head, for example, and is drive-controlled in accordance with a cutting control signal, and the wire dot portion is directed toward the continuous paper 4 on the surface of the mount plate 16. It is possible to cut the continuous paper 4 by stamping with. Further, it is also possible to insert a cutting line for cutting without completely cutting.

As shown in FIG. 2, a discharge roller 18 and a guide plate 20 are mounted on the printer roller 6. The continuous paper 4 guided along the paper discharge roller 18 and the guide plate 20 is housed in the paper take-out guide 22.

Next, the operation of the printer 2 of this embodiment will be described. The continuous paper 4 fed from the continuous paper winding unit 4a by the paper feed roller 8 and other paper feed rollers not shown.
Passes through the cutting mount plate 16 and the cutting head 14, and is fed between the printer roller 6 and the print head 10. The print head 10 moves along the longitudinal direction B of the roller 6 in a direction substantially perpendicular to the paper feeding direction based on a printer control signal from a computer or the like connected to the printer 2, and the surface of the continuous paper 4 is moved. Print.
Paper feeding by the printer roller 6 is stopped during printing.

When one line is printed on the continuous paper 4 from the print head 10, the printer roller 6 feeds the continuous paper by the next one line, and the print head 10 prints the next line. To do. When the printer control signal includes the continuous paper cutting instruction signal, the printer control device reads the control signal, and then the continuous paper 4 is cut.

As the cutting instruction signal, a print code signal can be converted into a cutting instruction code signal and used.
For example, a page break signal, a ruled line print signal, etc. are used as the cutting instruction code signal.

When the cutting instruction signal is input to the printer controller, the printer roll 6 is stopped and the print head 10 returns to the standby position. Next, the cutting head 14 is shown in FIG.
Is moved in the direction of the arrow B, and the continuous paper 4 located on the surface of the cutting mount plate 16 is cut along the direction of the arrow B.
In addition, it is also possible to make a cutting cut line by the cutting head 14 without completely cutting.

After the printing of one page is completed, the paper of the continuous paper 4 which is cut or has the cut lines is discharged into the paper take-out guide 22 by the paper discharge roller 18.
Next, printing and cutting of the next page are performed in the same manner as above.

FIG. 4 shows another embodiment of the present invention. The printer 2a with a continuous paper cutting function of this embodiment has two first and second cutting heads 30 and 32. The first cutting head 30 is controlled in the same manner as the cutting head 14 shown in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, and forms a cutting line 34 along the paper feed direction and the direction B perpendicular to the continuous paper 4.

The second cutting head 32 is the first cutting head 3
The continuous paper 4 arranged on the surface of the mount plate 16 is controlled separately from 0 and interlocked with the paper feeding by the printer roller 6.
On the other hand, a cutting line 36 is formed along the paper feeding direction.
The cutting line 36 does not necessarily have to be a straight line, and may be a curved line or another diagonal line depending on the control signal.

The hardware configuration of the second cutting head 32 is the first
Similar to the cutting head 30, but the control is different. The second cutting head 36 is controlled based on, for example, a code signal relating to the paper size input to the control device of the printer. When the second cutting head 32 is controlled based on the paper size code signal, it is possible to freely cut the size of the continuous paper 4 printed by the print head 10 into a standard size of paper at the same time as printing. Become. Other print code signals can be used as the control signal for the second cutting head 32. For example,
It is also possible to control the second cutting head 32 based on the line feed signal. Specifically, the maximum value of the line feed signal is detected, and the second cutting head 3 is detected based on the line feed signal having the maximum value.
Variations such as controlling 2 can be considered.

The second cutting head 32 does not have to be provided separately from the first cutting head 30, but only the first cutting head 30 is provided, and the second cutting head 32 also functions as the second cutting head. It is also possible to let.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, but can be variously modified within the scope of the present invention.

For example, the cutting means is not limited to the cutting head 14 of the above-mentioned embodiment, and for example, FIG.
A cutting tooth head 2 having a knife edge, as shown in FIG.
4 or various cutting devices such as a roll cutter type cutting head 26 or a laser cutting device can be used as shown in FIG. FIG. 3 (A),
In the embodiment shown in (B), a linear actuator for moving the cutting knife 25 or the roll cutter 27 in a projecting and retracting manner in response to a cutting control signal is required. As the linear actuator, solenoid means or the like can be used. With the roll cutter type cutting head 26, a cutting score line is formed without completely cutting the continuous paper 4.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention, after the continuous paper is printed, the continuous paper is automatically cut in accordance with the printing range and the like, so that the waste of the paper is minimized. Can be suppressed. In addition, since unnecessary unprinted margins are automatically removed, there is no need for work such as cutting after printing by the printer, and usability is improved. Further, it is also possible to freely cut the continuous paper in, for example, an oblique direction or a curved shape by cutting the continuous paper along the paper feeding direction by the cutting means in conjunction with the paper feeding mechanism by the printer roller. .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a main part of a printer with a continuous paper cutting function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic side view showing a main part of the printer of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view showing a modified example of the cutting means used in another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic perspective view of a main part of a printer with a continuous paper cutting function according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 ... Printer with continuous paper cutting function 4 ... Continuous paper 6 ... Printer roller 8 ... Paper feeding roller 10 ... Print head 14, 30, 32 ... Cutting head 16 ... Cutting mount plate 24 ... Cutting tooth head 26 ... Roll cutter type cutting head

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A printer roller that feeds continuous paper, a print head that prints on the surface of the printer roller that prints the continuous paper, and a printer roller that is arranged in front of the printer roller in the paper feed direction. Continuous paper cutting having a cutting mount plate for cutting and a cutting means movably arranged in a direction perpendicular to the paper feeding direction of the continuous paper and cutting the continuous paper arranged on the surface of the cutting mount plate. Printer with functions. 2. The cutting means controls the continuous paper arranged on the surface of the mount plate so as to cut the continuous paper in a direction substantially perpendicular to the paper feeding direction in a state where the paper feeding of the continuous paper is stopped. The printer with continuous paper cutting function according to claim 1. 3. The cutting means controls the continuous paper arranged on the surface of the mount plate to cut along the paper feeding direction in conjunction with the paper feeding by the printer roller. A printer with a continuous paper cutting function according to claim 1.