JPH071804A - Ink ribbon - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To effectively prevent occurrence of catch in printing and avoid occurrence of troubles such as defective travel, damage of ribbon, blockage in printing, and contamination of paper by impregnating a ribbon base cloth consisting of tubular seamless woven cloth having a prescribed circumferential length and a width with ink. CONSTITUTION:A tubular seamless woven cloth can be obtained by knitting, for example, tubular weft knitted cloths by using a circular knitting machine. After the tubular seamless woven cloth is obtained, it is cut in a predetermined width. The cutting is performed by mechanical means or thermal means. By inking the ribbon base cloth, an ink ribbon 2 is obtained. As the ink ribbon 2 has the knitted structure, even on the occasion that a thread is likely to be caught by a hole corner of a mask 3, the part where the thread is likely to be caught stretches partially so that a catch can be prevented skillfully and normal state is restored. That is, in the case of the knitted cloth, the part where the catch is likely to occur turns into a part having soft structure only on the occasion that the catch is likely to occur.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink ribbon for impact printing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Woven ribbons woven by using nylon multifilament yarns or polyester multifilament yarns as warp and weft yarns as a mono-color or multi-color ink ribbon used in a wire dot printer for devices such as computers and word processors. A base cloth impregnated with ink is widely used. There are two types of woven ribbon base fabrics, an endless ribbon and a seamless ribbon described below.

The endless ribbon is plain-woven using the above-mentioned yarns as warp yarns and weft yarns, and the plain-woven fabric is cut into a predetermined width so that the warp direction is the length direction of the ribbon, and both ends are joined. It is manufactured by making it endless.

The seamless ribbon is produced by weaving a tubular seamless plain-woven fabric by the bag-weaving method using the above-mentioned yarns as the warp and the weft, and then fusing it in the radial direction. In this seamless ribbon, the weft direction of the woven fabric is the length direction of the ribbon, contrary to the case where the endless ribbon is obtained from the plain woven fabric.

In any of the above types of ribbons, the circumference of the ribbon can be set arbitrarily (often 100 to 6000 mm), and the width of the ribbon can also be set arbitrarily (4 to
It is often 60mm). The width of the ribbon is generally narrow in the case of a single color, and wide in the case of multiple colors in proportion to the number of colors.

[0006] The ink ribbon is accommodated in a ribbon cassette in a state of being bent in a zigzag shape, and is hit by a printer needle when it approaches a print head in one round, and the impregnated ink is diffused and uniformed in other portions. It

In the impact type printing method, as shown in FIG. 1 described later, a platen (5), a paper (4), a perforated mask
(3), the ink ribbon (2) and the head (1) are arranged in this order, and the dot printer needle protruding from the head (1) is projected toward the ink ribbon (2) and the hole of the mask (3) is The ink ribbon (2) is struck through the paper (4) through and the impact is received by the platen (5).

[0008]

In the impact type printing method, the yarns extending in the width direction of the ink ribbon (the weft yarn at the time of weaving for the endless ribbon, the warp yarn at the time of weaving for the seamless ribbon) are used. , Threads that run in the circumferential direction of the ink ribbon (for endless ribbons, warp during weaving,
In the case of a seamless ribbon, it is in a state of protruding from the weft when weaving). FIG. 2 is a schematic enlarged view of a ribbon when a woven seamless ribbon is used.
Of the yarns that compose (2), the warp yarns (the yarns extending in the width direction of the ink ribbon (2)) (a) protrude from the weft yarns (the yarns extending in the circumferential direction of the ink ribbon (2)) (b). It is shown.

Therefore, the protruding thread of the ribbon is caught in the corner of the mask hole, the protruding thread causes fluffing or thread breakage due to friction with the paper, or the protruding thread catches the head pin. Poor running,
Ribbon damage, print inhibition, and paper contamination may occur.

In order to avoid such troubles, the yarn density is increased during the weaving of the ribbon, the thickness of the fabric is adjusted, and crimping is performed so that the protruding yarns are not noticeable. However, even with such a contrivance, the above problems have not been completely solved, and the reality is that they have not fully met the demands of the sophisticated market.

In addition, in the conventional ink ribbon using the woven ribbon base cloth, when the ink ribbon is accommodated in the ribbon cassette in a zigzag bent state, the ink ribbon is easily folded. There are also points.

In addition, the endless ribbon among the woven ink ribbons has a problem that the joining process is complicated and the presence of the joining portion impairs the uniformity in the circumferential direction. With a ribbon, it is not possible to completely prevent the density of both ears at the time of weaving from becoming higher than that of other parts, so the ink impregnation amount at both ears ends differs from that of other parts. As a result, uneven printing density may be caused.

[0013] In some of the conventional documents, there is a suggestive description about an ink ribbon made of a knitted fabric,
The use of "seamless" knit fabrics for ink ribbons appears to be unknown.

Under the circumstances, the present invention effectively prevents the catching at the time of printing.
Trouble such as ribbon damage, print obstruction, and paper contamination does not occur, and it is highly functional ink that is uniform over the entire circumference and does not easily fold in the cassette, so uneven printing density does not easily occur. The purpose is to provide a ribbon.

[0015]

The ink ribbon of the present invention is obtained by impregnating ink into a ribbon base cloth made of a tubular seamless knitted cloth having a predetermined peripheral length and width.

The present invention will be described in detail below.

As the yarn for producing the knitted fabric, a monofilament yarn or a multifilament yarn of synthetic fibers such as nylon (nylon 66 or nylon 6) or polyester is preferably used. It is also possible to use threads made of ultrafine fibers or ultrafine fibers. In addition to synthetic fiber threads, natural fiber threads made of silk or cotton can also be used. The thread thickness is, for example, 20 to 70 d (denier), but is not limited to this range. In the case of a multifilament yarn, the number of filaments f per filament is often 10 to 40, but is not necessarily limited to this range. It is also possible to draw two or more yarns and arrange them for knitting.

The tubular seamless knitted fabric is obtained, for example, by knitting a tubular horizontal knitted fabric using a circular knitting machine. The circular knit fabric is divided into single and double depending on whether it is knitted with one row of needles or two rows of needles.
“Seamless” means that there is no seam in the circumferential direction.

Instead of circular knitting, warp knitting using a warp knitting machine can be adopted. The warp knitting machine includes a tricot knitting machine and a Russell knitting machine, both of which are divided into single and double. In addition to the warp knitting machine, there is also a Milanese knitting machine.

After the tubular seamless knitted fabric is obtained, it is cut into a predetermined width. The cutting may be performed by mechanical means or thermal means.

A product ink ribbon is obtained by performing inking on the ribbon base fabric having the above-described structure. Although the color of the ink is arbitrary, when a multicolor ink ribbon is used, it is often a total of two colors of black and red and a total of four colors of black, cyan, magenta and yellow. In the case of a multicolor ink ribbon, border lines are provided in advance in the circumferential direction of the ribbon, and the regions sandwiched by the border lines are impregnated with the inks of the respective colors.

The ink ribbon of the present invention is a computer,
It is useful as an ink ribbon used in a printer such as a word processor.

[0023]

The printing operation using the ink ribbon is schematically shown in FIG. As mentioned earlier, (1) is the head, (2) is the ink ribbon, (3) is the mask, (4) is the paper,
(5) is the platen.

In the conventional woven ink ribbon,
Since the thread extending in the width direction of the ink ribbon is protruding from the thread extending in the circumferential direction of the ink ribbon, the protruding thread is caught in the corner of the mask hole or fluffed due to friction with the paper, It was not possible to completely prevent breakage or the head pin getting caught in the protruding thread.

However, since the ink ribbon of the present invention adopts the knitting structure, even if the yarn is caught in the corner of the mask hole, the yarn is partially stretched to cause a catch. It is skillfully evaded and then restored to its original state. In other words, in the case of knitted fabric, it changes to a flexible structure only when it is caught. Therefore, problems such as poor running, damage to the ribbon, obstruction of printing, and contamination of the paper, which cannot be avoided in the case of the woven cloth, can be solved all at once.

In addition, in the ink ribbon of the present invention,
Since it does not have a joint part like a conventional woven fabric endless ribbon and does not have a high-density tissue part at both ear ends like a conventional woven fabric seamless ribbon, the structure is perfect over the entire circumferential direction. Therefore, the ink impregnation is also uniform throughout.

Further, since the knitted fabric is flexible as a whole, even if the ink ribbon is accommodated in the ribbon cassette in a zigzag bent state, so-called folding is less likely to occur and the front side of the head when the ribbon is driven. Thus, when the zigzag posture is changed to the stretched posture, the ink is immediately diffused, and the high spot phenomenon at the start of printing, which is the case with the conventional woven ink ribbon, cannot be seen.

In addition, the ink impregnation amount is larger than that of the woven ink ribbon, and the sharpness of the print is improved even in the super high speed printing or the high dot printing.

[0029]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be further described with reference to examples.

<Preparation of Ink Ribbon> Example 1 A cylindrical seamless knitted fabric having a circumferential length of 1800 mm was knitted by a circular knitting machine using a 40d / 34f multifilament yarn of nylon 6,6. This was mechanically cut into a width of 8 mm in the radial direction to form a ribbon base fabric, and then the ribbon base fabric was inked to form an ink ribbon.

Comparative Example 1 40d / 34f of nylon 6,6 as warp and weft
By weaving using the multifilament yarn of
A plain weave woven fabric was obtained. After scouring and calendering this woven fabric, it is fused and cut to a width of 8 mm, then both ends are joined and the circumference is 18
A 00 mm endless ribbon was produced. The ribbon base fabric was inked to form an ink ribbon.

Comparative Example 2 40d / 34f of nylon 6,6 as warp and weft
A tubular seamless woven fabric was obtained by weaving the multifilament yarn of No. 1 by the bag-weaving method. After scouring and calendering this woven fabric, it was melt-fused in a radial direction to a width of 8 mm to produce a seamless ribbon having a circumference of 1800 mm. The ribbon base fabric was inked to form an ink ribbon.

<Evaluation of Ink Ribbon Performance> With respect to the ink ribbons obtained in Example 1 and Comparative Examples 1 and 2, cold-cutting property (whether or not fraying occurs even if mechanical cutting is performed), uniformity of ribbon base cloth are obtained. Characteristics, degree of folding in the cassette, presence or absence of high spot phenomenon at the start of printing, presence or absence of print definition and print density unevenness, troubles due to the ribbon being caught in the corner of the mask hole or the head pin (running Defective, ribbon damage, print inhibition, paper contamination)
Was checked for. The printing was performed at high speed. The results are shown in Table 1.

[0034]

[Table 1] Example 1 Comparative Example 1 Comparative Example 2 Seamless presence / absence Seamless endless Separate knitting / weaving Knitted fabric Woven fabric Woven fabric Cold cut property Possible Difficult Difficulty Uniform ribbon base fabric Uniform seam High density part Folding in cassette Very slight Yes Yes High-spot phenomenon Almost none Somewhat Fair Yes Sharpness of printing Clear, almost clear, almost clear Print density unevenness Partially present, partly present Trouble due to catching No running defect Yes Very rare Ribbon damage No Yes Yes Yes Print inhibition No Yes Yes Sometimes Yes Paper contamination Minimal Yes Yes Yes

[0035]

Since the ink ribbon of the present invention adopts the knitting structure, troubles due to the ribbon being caught at the corners of the mask holes or the head pins (running defects, ribbon damage, print inhibition, Paper pollution) is completely eliminated.

Further, since the ink impregnation is uniform over the entire circumference because it has a uniform structure over the entire circumference, and the knitting cloth is flexible throughout, the ink ribbon is accommodated in the ribbon cassette in a zigzag bent state. Even if you do, it is hard to get folded. Therefore, the high spot phenomenon at the start of printing and the uneven density at the time of printing do not occur.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory view showing a printing operation using an ink ribbon.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged view schematically showing a conventional woven seamless ribbon.

[Explanation of symbols]

 (1) ... head, (2) ... ink ribbon, (3) ... mask, (4) ... paper, (5) ... platen, (a) ... warp, (b) ... weft

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ink ribbon formed by impregnating ink into a ribbon base cloth made of a tubular seamless knitted cloth having a predetermined circumference and width.