JPH0679894A - Thermal head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To conduct alignment while using positioning marks as references, and to perform accurate alignment comparatively simply by giving the positioning marks in response to thermal recording elements in specified order of each thermal head. CONSTITUTION:A first positioning mark 106 and second positioning marks 107 are formed onto an alumina substrate 101. The first positioning mark 106 is formed at a position corresponding to the specific thermal recording element of the thermal recording element row of a thermal head 10. An apex A is given as a triangular mark corresponding to a No. 3 thermal recording element from the left. Since the intervals of the array of the thermal recording elements are extremely reduced generally in such a thermal head, the size of the positioning mark 106 corresponds to the width of several dozen thermal recording elements in the actual thermal head 10.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal head structure for securing a wide recording width by arranging a plurality of thermal heads having a large number of thermal recording elements formed in a row in a direction traversing a thermal recording medium. In particular, the present invention relates to a thermal head provided with positioning marks so that these thermal heads can be arranged at appropriate positions when a plurality of thermal heads are arranged.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional thermal head structure of this type will be described with reference to FIG. Although the thermal head structure shown in FIG. 4 also shows one embodiment of the present invention, only the conventional structure will be described here. This apparatus relates to a thermal head configuration in which three thermal heads 11, 12, and 13 are arranged at appropriate intervals in the transverse direction of the recording paper, that is, in the Y direction, and a recording width of about 3 times is secured. These thermal heads 11, 12 and 13 are mounted on the indicating tools 111, 121 and 131, respectively, and are attached to predetermined positions of the apparatus. A first platen roll 21 is disposed facing the first thermal head 11 and the third thermal head 13 so as to be separated from the first and second thermal heads 11 and 13 by a predetermined distance in the X direction. The second platen rolls 22 are provided so as to face the two thermal heads 12, respectively.

Then, when a thermal recording medium (not shown) is moved between the thermal head and the platen roll, a desired recording is performed by operating a thermal recording element of one of the thermal heads. In addition, these 2
Since the two platen rolls 21 and 22 are actually arranged close to the upper surfaces of the thermal heads 11, 12 and 13, the platen rolls 21 and 22 are shown by broken lines in FIG. There is.

Now, in such a thermal head structure, the conventional positioning method for each thermal head is to perform precise alignment using a jig or the like. For example,
First thermal head 11 and second thermal head 12
Regarding the arrangement direction of the thermal recording elements, that is, the Y direction, the first thermal recording element array 111 and the second thermal recording element array 112 are located at the boundary as if they were one thermal recording element array. It is desirable to arrange the two thermal recording elements so as to have an interval equal to the arrangement interval of the thermal recording elements. However, since such an arrangement is extremely difficult, it is generally arranged such that the boundary portions of the respective thermal recording elements overlap each other.

[0005]

In this type of thermal head, since the thermal recording elements are arranged at minute intervals, it is extremely difficult to realize a uniform overlap, and it is very difficult to achieve a uniform overlap between the thermal recording element rows. However, there is a drawback that the recorded image of becomes unnatural. Further, the same problem may occur in the arrangement of the thermal heads in the X direction. The present invention has been made to improve this point.

[0006]

Therefore, in the present invention, a large number of thermal recording elements arranged in a row on a substrate and leads for supplying signals and electric power to the large number of thermal recording elements are provided. A thermal head structure for performing recording with a wide recording width by arranging a plurality of thermal heads in which a conductor group is formed in a pattern, and heats a thermal recording element of a desired thermal head according to a recording signal. In a thermal head used in a thermal head configuration for obtaining desired recording on a thermal recording medium, the thermal head has positioning marks at positions corresponding to at least one thermal recording element of the plurality of thermal recording elements. It was given.

[0007]

Since the positioning marks are provided corresponding to the thermal recording elements in the predetermined order of each thermal head, precise positioning can be performed relatively easily by performing the positioning based on the positioning marks. it can.

[0008]

1 to 4 are explanatory views each showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a detailed view of a positioning mark of a thermal head according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a front view of the thermal head according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a front view showing a first thermal head configuration example according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a front view showing a second thermal head configuration example of the present invention.

Please refer to FIG. In the thermal head 10 shown in FIG. 1, a common electrode 102, a common side lead conductor group 103, a ground side lead conductor group 104, and a heating resistor 105 are formed on an alumina substrate 101. Of these, the common electrode 102 is supplied with electric power required for recording from the outside, and the common side lead conductor groups 103 are arranged at equal intervals in the straight portion of the common electrode 102 extending in the longitudinal direction of the thermal head 10. It is formed to protrude. The ground side lead conductor group 104 is formed such that each lead conductor is located at the center of the common side lead conductor group 103, is connected to a control circuit (not shown), and is turned on / off (grounded or not) in response to a recording signal. ) Be controlled. Heating resistor 10
5 is formed so as to overlap both the common side lead conductor group 103 and the ground side lead conductor group 104. Therefore, if the ground-side lead conductor 1042 is grounded by a control circuit (not shown), the common electrode 10
The power supplied to 2 is consumed as a current flowing through the common side lead conductors 1032 and 1033 to the ground side lead conductor 1042. Therefore, the portion of the heating resistor 105 sandwiched between the common side lead conductor groups 1032 and 1033 generates heat due to this current, and desired recording is performed on a thermal recording medium (not shown). In this specification, the region sandwiched between the common-side lead conductors that generate heat in accordance with the recording signal as described above is referred to as a thermal recording element, and a set thereof is referred to as a thermal recording element array.

Now, in such a thermal head 10, in the present invention, the first positioning mark 106 and the second positioning mark 107 are provided on the substrate, for example, the alumina substrate 101. The first positioning mark 106 is provided at a position corresponding to a specific thermal recording element in the thermal recording element array of the thermal head 10. In the example shown in FIG. 1, the vertex A is provided as a triangular mark corresponding to the third thermal recording element from the left. In this type of thermal head, the arrangement interval of the thermal recording elements is generally extremely small (several tens of microns to several hundreds of microns). Therefore, in the actual thermal head 10, the size of the positioning mark 106 is several tens. Although it corresponds to the width of the thermal recording element of FIG. 1, a sufficient positioning function can be exhibited by specifying the corresponding thermal recording element of the vertex A shown in FIG.

The second positioning mark 107 is composed of several linear marks formed in parallel with the heating resistors 105 forming the thermal recording element array. The distance between each of these marks and the heating resistor 105 may be fixed.

These first and second positioning marks 10
As a method of forming 6 and 107, it is desirable to form them simultaneously at the time of forming each lead conductor group or the heating resistor so as to form at the accurate thermal recording element corresponding position and the heating resistor corresponding position. For example, when the thick film forming method by screen printing is used, each positioning mark pattern is formed in advance on the screen printing plate that forms the lead conductor group, and these positioning marks are printed together with the printing of each pattern. Just do it. In the thin film forming method, these positioning patterns may be formed at the same time when the pattern is formed by vapor deposition or the like.

In this way, the thermal head substrate (alumina substrate) 101 provided with the positioning marks 106 and 107 is attached to a thermal head indicator (for example, a heat radiating plate) 201 as shown in FIG. The thermal head indicator 201 is provided with an indicator-side positioning mark 207 corresponding to the second positioning mark 107 provided on the thermal head substrate 101 described above. In this embodiment, since the indicator 201 is formed by the extrusion method or the drawing method, the positioning marks 207 are formed in a groove shape at that time.
Therefore, this positioning mark can also be formed inexpensively.
Second of the thermal head substrate 101 of the thermal head 10
The thermal head 10 is constructed by aligning the positioning marks 107 of (1) and the positioning marks 207 of the pointing device 201 so as to match each other.

FIG. 3 shows a first structural example of a thermal head structure using a plurality of such thermal heads. First, second and third thermal heads 11, 12 and 13
Are attached to the same indicator 201. The first thermal head 11 and the third thermal head 13 are
The positioning marks 117 and 137 of the same are attached to the positioning marks 207 on the pointing device side of the pointing device 201,
The second thermal head 12 has the first positioning marks 126 provided at both ends thereof as the first positioning marks 11 of the first and third thermal heads 11 and 13, respectively.
6 and 136 are attached to match. With this structure, the Y-direction positions of the thermal heads can be easily aligned, and the positions to be alternately arranged can also be easily aligned. Therefore, since it is possible to manage how many thermal recording elements are in the overlapping portion of each thermal head, it is sufficient to add an extremely simple configuration even when performing electrical compensation or adjustment. There are advantages.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view showing a second structural example of the thermal head according to the present invention. The apparatus of FIG. 4 is one in which an indicator is provided for each thermal head. The first positioning mark (for example, 11) of the thermal head (for example, 11) is attached to each of these pointing tools.
6) corresponding to the first pointing device side positioning mark (eg 1111) and the second positioning mark (eg 117) of the thermal head (eg 11) corresponding to the second pointing device side positioning mark (eg 1112). Are provided respectively.

Each of these thermal head mechanisms is constructed using a jig. By making the respective positioning marks coincident with each other, it is possible to know how much the overlapping portion of each thermal head is, so that there is an advantage that electrical compensation is simplified.

[0017]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the pattern of the thermal head is formed, the positioning mark is provided at the position corresponding to each position of the specific thermal recording element or the thermal recording element array. When forming a thermal head structure using a plurality of thermal heads, for the thermal head groups to be arranged at the same position in the X direction, the positioning marks provided on the respective thermal heads corresponding to the above-mentioned thermal recording element array are arranged. With respect to the thermal head group which should be aligned and displaced in the X direction, the positioning marks provided corresponding to the specific thermal recording elements are aligned, and the thermal heads are mounted so that the thermal heads of the thermal heads are aligned. When it is possible to know how much the thermal recording element overlaps and electrical compensation becomes extremely easy. Moni, can be very easily aligned during its assembly.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing an example of a thermal head substrate of a thermal head according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of a thermal head in which a thermal head substrate and an indicator thereof are combined.

FIG. 3 is a first diagram of the thermal head configuration of the present invention.
It is an explanatory view showing an example of.

FIG. 4 is a second view of the thermal head configuration of the present invention.
It is an explanatory view showing an example of.

[Explanation of symbols]

 106: first positioning mark 107: second positioning mark

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A thermal head in which a large number of thermal recording elements arranged in a row on a substrate and a lead conductor group for supplying signals and electric power to these large number of thermal recording elements are formed in a pattern. A thermal head configuration for arranging a plurality of recording heads to perform recording with a wide recording width, and heats a thermal recording element of a desired thermal head according to a recording signal to obtain desired recording on a thermal recording medium. In the thermal head used in the above-mentioned thermal head configuration, the thermal head is provided with a positioning mark at a position corresponding to at least one thermal recording element of the plurality of thermal recording elements. 2. The thermal head according to claim 1, wherein the positioning mark is provided when the thermal recording element or the lead conductor group is formed on a pattern.