JPH0747728A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform printing by simple input operation and to reduce the number of mechanism parts to recduce cost in a printer fitted with a cutter. CONSTITUTION:In a printer having a rotary drum 11 rotatlonally operated at the time of the selection of an element to be printed and selecting a printing element by the rotational operation of the rotary drum 11 and the pushing operation of a determination button, a cutter member cutting a member to be printed on which the selected printing element is printed is provided and a cutter lever 21 rotationally operated in order to operate the cutter member is supported on the shaft member 13 common to the rotary drum 11 in a revolvable manner.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing device with a cutter that can perform printing by a simple operation.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a printing apparatus, a handy type printing apparatus which can easily print desired information at a desired place has been widely used. As one of such handy type printing devices, desired information can be printed on an adhesive tape with release paper, and the printed adhesive tape can be cut by a cutter device (mechanism) and used as a label. There is a so-called label printer.

In a printing cassette used in such a label printer, a so-called label tape and an ink ribbon are housed in a cassette body, mounted on the label printer, and then a print head such as a thermal head of the label printer is used. Desired information is printed on the label tape using the ink ribbon. After the printing, the ink ribbon is rewound into the cassette body again, and only the label tape is sent out of the cassette body, and the label tape is pushed out at a predetermined position by the cutter provided in the label printer.

For example, in the cutter mechanism provided in the label printer, the cutter lever is attached using a shaft dedicated to the cutter lever.

Most of the conventional label printers are keyboard input printers, and some are dial input printers.

[0006]

As described above, according to the label printer having the cutter mechanism, the user can easily cut the label tape after printing.

However, since the conventional cutter mechanism has a structure in which it is added in addition to the main constituent parts for printing, the number of parts is large and the cost is high.

Further, in the case of a keyboard input type label printer, it is difficult for children and middle-aged and elderly people who are not accustomed to the arrangement of keys to operate it. Further, the dial input type label printer has to turn the dial every time a character is selected, which is troublesome when inputting numbers.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a printing device with a cutter that can print by a simple input operation and has a reduced number of mechanical parts.

[0010]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is directed to a rotary drum which is rotated when selecting an element to be printed, and printing selected by the rotary operation of the rotary drum. A cutter member that cuts a member to be printed on which elements are printed, a cutter lever that is rotated to operate the cutter member, and a shaft member that rotatably supports the rotary drum and the cutter lever, It has a configuration with.

[0011]

[Function] For example, by rotating the rotary drum and selecting a column containing an element such as a character to be printed displayed on the outer peripheral surface thereof, a plurality of columns are provided below the row of the element such as a character to be printed. Printing can be performed by a simple input operation such as deciding with a certain button.

Since the cutter lever is supported by the shaft member common to the rotary drum, the shaft dedicated to the cutter lever is not required, and the number of parts can be reduced.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of a printing apparatus according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

First, FIGS. 1 to 6 show a printing apparatus 1 as an example to which the present invention is applied, and 2 is an apparatus main body, 1
1 is a rotary drum, 12 is a drum knob, 13 is a drum rotation shaft, 21 is a cutter lever, 31 is a cutter holder,
41 is a cassette loading section.

As shown in FIG. 1, the printing apparatus 1 has a power switch 3 for turning the power on / off, a type selection switch 4 for selecting a printing type, and a printing size on the upper surface of the apparatus body 2. A print size selection switch 5, a repeat button 6 for repeatedly printing already printed contents, a feed button 7 for feeding out a print-receiving tape, a drum display window 8 and a lever slide hole 9 are provided.
Further, ten selection buttons 10 are provided in front of the drum display window 8.

As shown in FIG. 4, a cylindrical rotary drum 11 having an outer peripheral surface facing the drum display window 8 is mounted on a drum rotary shaft 13 together with drum knobs 12 and 12 rotatably supported on the left and right sides of the apparatus main body 2. It is fixed. As shown in FIG. 6, the drum rotating shaft 13 is mounted on bearing brackets 15 and 15 provided on the left and right sides of a sub chassis 14 fixed to the apparatus body 2 between the rotating drum 11 and one drum knob 12. It is rotatably supported.

On the outer peripheral surface of the rotary drum 11, for example, characters, symbols, control characters, pictograms (hereinafter referred to as "pictograms") 11a, which are elements to be printed, are arranged in a matrix, that is, in the circumferential direction. 32 columns and 10 rows are printed in the horizontal direction. Then, by the rotating operation of the rotary drum 11, the row of the particular pictogram is selected in a state where the row of the particular pictogram is located in the portion along the selection button 10, and
By pressing one of the 10 selection buttons 10 corresponding to the number of rows, that row is selected. As a result, the pictograms located at the intersections of the selected columns and rows will be selected for printing.

As shown in FIG. 4, a drum base plate 16 is fixed to the drum rotary shaft 13 between the rotary drum 11 and a bearing bracket 15 adjacent to the rotary drum 11, and an outer surface of the drum base plate 16 is fixed to the drum base plate 16. A plurality of electronic circuit patterns corresponding to the string of pictograms are concentrically provided (not shown). Reference numeral 17 is a drum contact spring having contacts corresponding to the electronic circuit pattern, 18 is a chassis arranged above the sub chassis 14, and 19 is a rotary drum 1.
A circuit board disposed on the front side of 1 and a power source section 20 provided along the rear side of the apparatus body 2.

Further, as shown in FIG. 6, the drum rotating shaft 13 has a bearing bracket 1 on the side opposite to the rotating drum 11.
A cutter lever 21 is rotatably mounted so as to be in contact with the inner surface of the blade 5. This cutter lever 21
Has a knob portion 22 at the upper end protruding upward from the lever slide hole 9, and an arcuate portion 23 therebelow covers the inside of the lever slide hole 9.

The cutter lever 21 is shown in FIG.
As shown in, the left and right forked portions 24 are provided at the lower end. The bifurcated portion 24 is provided so as to extend downward from the penetrating portion of the drum rotation shaft 13, and the drum rotation shaft 13
Is located rearward of the concave portion 25 formed below the through portion. The front edge of the bifurcated portion 24 serves as cutter holder pressing surfaces 26, 26.

As shown in FIG. 5, the cutter holder 31 which is operated by pressing the cutter lever 21 is slidably arranged between the sub chassis 14 and the chassis 18. That is, the cutter holder 31 has guide convex portions 32 and 33 on the upper and lower surfaces, and columnar pressed portions 34 and 34 on the left and right of the rear portion. The guide protrusions 32 and 33 engage with the guide grooves of the chassis 18 and the sub-chassis 14, and the cutter holder pressing surfaces 26 and 26 contact the outer peripheral surfaces of the pressed portions 34 and 34, respectively.

Further, between the rear portion of the cutter holder 31 and the projecting piece 14a provided on the rear portion of the sub chassis 14,
A tension coil spring 35, which is a cutter spring, is installed. Due to the tensile force of the tension coil spring 35, the cutter holder 31 is pulled backward in the backward direction. Therefore, the pressed portion 3 at the rear of the cutter holder 31
The cutter lever 21 in which the cutter holder pressing surfaces 26, 26 come into contact with the blades 4, 34 is in a state in which the knob portion 22 is inclined toward you.

And, in the front part of the cutter holder 31,
As shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, the cutter cartridge 3
6 is attached. This cutter cartridge 3
6 includes a cutter blade 37, and is detachably attached to the cutter holder 31 by a wedge-shaped engaging structure.

Further, at the front of the cutter cartridge 36, a cutter guard 38 having a cutter blade 37 projecting freely is provided.
Is provided. The cutter guard 38 has a passage hole through which the cutter blade 37 protrudes, and a compression coil spring 39.
Is urged in the protruding direction. The cutter device is configured in this way. Note that the cutter guard 38 is omitted in FIG. 10 and subsequent figures.

The above-mentioned printing apparatus 1 is provided with a cassette loading section 41 which is open on the lower surface side of the apparatus main body 2. As shown in FIG. 3, the cassette loading unit 41 is provided with a drive shaft 42 on the right side in the figure, a positioning pin 43 on the left side in the figure, and a positioning pin 44 on the upper right side in the figure, and a platen roller 45 on the upper left side and printing. A thermal head 46 (see FIG. 5), which is a head, and its guard 47 are provided.

The cutter device is arranged in the cassette loading section 41. That is, the cutter holder 36 including the cutter guard 38 is arranged so as to face the positioning pin 44 on the right side of the drawing.

Further, as shown in FIG. 2, a tape discharge port 48 is formed on the side wall of the apparatus main body 2. further,
A detachable lid 49 is attached to the above cassette loading section 41.

The drive shaft 42 and the thermal head 4
Rotational power is transmitted from 6 to the drive motor 51 via the gear mechanism 52. Further, an operation button 53 is provided in a part of the periphery of the cassette loading portion 41, and by pressing the operation button 53 by mounting the lid 49, the thermal head 46 is pressed against the platen roller 45 side. Rock.

Next, FIG. 7 shows a printing cassette 70 used in the printing apparatus 1 described above. An ink ribbon supply spool 82 around which an ink ribbon 81 is wound and an ink ribbon 81 are provided in the cassette body 71. The ink ribbon take-up spool 83 for taking up the print tape and the print-receiving tape supply spool 89 around which the print-receiving tape 85 is wound are assembled.

Here, the ink ribbon 81 has a well-known structure in which a base material is impregnated with a hot melt ink or a heat sublimable ink. Further, the print-receiving tape 85 is shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, the release paper 88 is formed on the base material 86 made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) or the like via the adhesive layer 87.
It is a label tape formed by laminating.

Further, the cassette body 71 has a print head accommodating recess 72 formed on one long side thereof.
In the print head accommodating recess 72, the ink ribbon 81 and the print-receiving tape 85 are inserted from the passage hole 73 on the right side of the drawing.
Is exposed to the outside. Then, the ink ribbon 81 is returned to the inside of the cassette body 71 from a passage hole (not shown) on the left side of the print head accommodating recess 72 in the drawing, but the print-receiving tape 85 is directly ejected to the left side of the print head accommodating recess 72 in the drawing. It is supposed to be done.

That is, the cassette body 71 has upper and lower protruding pieces 74, 7 on the left side of the print head accommodating recess 72 in the drawing.
4 and a tape guide pin 75 is provided between the projecting pieces 74, 74, and the left side of the drawing is a tape cutting receiving portion 76.
I am trying.

The above-mentioned printing cassette 70 is used in the printing apparatus 1
With respect to the cassette loading section 41, the print head housing recess 72 of the cassette body 71 is aligned with the thermal head 45, the ink ribbon take-up spool 83 is engaged with the drive shaft 42,
The print-tape supply spool 89 is aligned with the positioning pin 43, and the positioning hole 77 (see FIG. 8) is aligned with the positioning pin 44 and mounted.

In this mounted state, the ink ribbon 81
The print-receiving tape 85 is sandwiched between the thermal head 46 and the platen roller 45.

After mounting the printing cassette 70 in the cassette loading section 41 in this way, the drum knobs 12 and 12 are turned to select the row containing the pictogram 11a to be printed, which is displayed on the outer peripheral surface of the rotary drum 11. Drum display window 8
When a row of pictograms is selected by the selection button 10 on the front side of the column according to the position to be determined, one character of the pictogram 11a located at the intersection of these columns and rows is printed.

As described above, by directly selecting the pictogram to be printed, it is possible to easily input and print.
A wide range of age groups can be targeted.

Printing is performed by driving the heating element of the thermal head 46 together with the driving of the drive shaft 42 and the platen roller 45.

That is, the drive shaft 42 and the platen roller 4
Ink ribbon take-up spool 8
3, the ink ribbon 81 is wound up, and the ink ribbon 81 sandwiched between the thermal head 46 and the platen roller 45 is printed from the ink ribbon 81 in a close contact state to the print target tape 85. It is ejected from the tape ejection port 48 of the printer 1 via the tape guide pin 75.

When the printing of one character or the continuous printing of such characters is completed, the cutter lever 21 of the printing apparatus 1 is rotated to move the cutter blade 37 forward, and the printing cassette 70 is set. On the surface of the tape cutting receiving portion 76 of the cassette body 71, the printed tape 85 that has been printed is printed.
Is cut into a desired length by a cutter blade 37.

The cutting of the print-receiving tape 85 is performed in detail as follows.

First, as shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, when a force in the direction of arrow Y is applied to the cutter lever 21 forming the cutter holder pressing member, the cutter lever 21 rotates the drum against the spring force of the tension coil spring 35. The cutter lever 2 rotates about the shaft 13 in the arrow Z direction.
The cutter holder pressing surface 26 of the bifurcated portion 24 of No. 1 presses the pressed portion 34 of the cutter holder 31 forming a cutter member.

In this case, the cutter holder pressing surface 26 changes step by step depending on the rotational angle position of the cutter lever 21 with respect to the drum rotation shaft 13, and therefore the cutter holder 31.
The direction of the force applied to changes. That is, since the pressed portion 34 of the cutter holder 31 has a cylindrical shape, the mutual contact is point contact, and a force that continuously changes the direction is received. However, in the initial stage of rotation of the cutter lever 21, the sub-chassis 1 that guides the cutter holder 31 in a predetermined direction.
Since the cutter holder 31 is fixed with a certain space so that the cutter holder 31 can be swung in the left-right direction in FIG.
When the force F ₀ (see FIG. 10) acts on the pressed portion 34 from the cutter holder 31, the cutter holder 31 moves as shown in FIG. 11.

That is, in the cutting process 1 shown in FIG.
Since the force F ₁ is applied from the cutter holder pressing surface 26 to the pressed portion 34 in a diagonally leftward and downward direction, the cutterholder 31 is located in the subchassis 14 and 18 from the position indicated by the two-dot chain line in the diagonally leftward and downward direction in FIG. Move in the direction. Therefore, the cutter blade 37 comes into contact with the print-receiving tape 85 at an angle, and the cutting of the print-receiving tape 85 is started from the right end side of the cutter blade 37 in the figure.

When the cutter lever 21 is subsequently rotated, the cutter holder 31 is moved as shown in FIG. In the cutting process 2 shown in FIG. 12, when the cutter lever 21 moves to the position indicated by the solid line, the horizontal surface 26a of the cutter holder pressing surface 26 contacts the pressed portion 34, so that the cutter holder pressing surface 26 moves to the pressed portion 34. A force F ₂ is applied in the vertical direction (downward in the figure), and at this time, the cutter blade 37 is pushed straight in the direction of the center line CH, and the cutting of the print-receiving tape 85 proceeds.

Further, when a force is applied to the cutter lever 21, as shown in FIG. 13 showing the completion process of cutting, a force F ₃ is applied to the pressed portion 34 from the cutter holder pressing surface 26 in an obliquely right downward direction, so that the cutter is pressed. The tip of the holder 31 moves slightly to the right in the figure. As a result, the cutter blade 37 moves from the left side to the right side in the figure with respect to the print-receiving tape 85,
The print-receiving tape 85 is completely cut. That is, FIG.
13 through 13, the cutter blade 37 moves in the direction of the center line and rocks as shown by the arrow (a) in FIG.
The tape to be printed 85 is satisfactorily cut as if the food is cut with a kitchen knife. After that, even if a force is further applied to the cutter lever 21, the cutter lever 21 has a lever stop surface 27 (see FIG. 5) on its arcuate portion 23, so that this lever stop surface 27 is the inner wall of the case of the apparatus main body 2. It hits and stops, and does not rotate any further.

When the force applied to the cutter lever 21 is removed, the restoring force of the tension coil spring 35 causes
As the cutter holder 31 moves backwards and returns,
The cutter lever 21 also returns to the initial state.

As described above, in the cutter device, since the cutter lever 21 and the cutter holder 31 are in direct contact with each other and the number of parts is small, the cost can be reduced, and the loss of force is mechanically small. Further, since the cutter blade 37 is reciprocated along both directions of the edge of the blade for cutting, the sharpness is improved.

Moreover, since the drum rotary shaft 13 and the cutter lever 21 are rotatably supported by the common drum rotary shaft 13, the number of parts is small in this respect as well, and the drum can be provided at a low price. The entire device can be made smaller and lighter than in the case where the rotary shaft 13 and the cutter lever 21 are supported by separate shaft members.

In the above embodiments, the printing apparatus has a cutter for mounting the cassette containing the ink ribbon and the tape to be printed. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and only the tape to be printed is used. It may be another printing device with a cutter that includes a cassette loading unit for loading a cassette that stores therein or a loading unit for loading a print target member such as another tape.

The cam profile and the like of the pressing engagement portion of the cutter device are also arbitrary, and it is needless to say that the specific detailed structure and the like can be appropriately changed.

[0051]

As described above, according to the printing apparatus of the present invention, since the rotary drum having the elements to be printed on the outer peripheral surface is provided, printing can be performed by a simple input operation, and a wide range of age groups can be used. It can be used as a target, especially because the cutter lever is supported by the same shaft member as the rotating drum, a dedicated shaft for the cutter lever is not required, and the number of parts can be reduced. Therefore, a printer with a cutter is low cost. Can be provided to.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view showing a printing apparatus as an example to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a left side view of the same printing apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the printing apparatus with the lid removed from the bottom side.

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing the internal configuration of the printing apparatus.

5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line AA of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a view of the back of the device as seen from the direction of arrow B in FIG.

FIG. 7 is a schematic perspective view showing an example of a tape cassette mounted in the printing apparatus of the embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a bottom view of essential parts showing a state in which the cutter device to which the present invention is applied is viewed from below together with the tape cassette.

FIG. 9 is likewise a side view of the essential parts of the cutter device in the initial state.

FIG. 10 is an enlarged side view of essential parts showing an initial state of the cutter device.

FIG. 11 is an enlarged side view of an essential part showing the state of the cutting process 1 of the cutter device.

FIG. 12 is an enlarged side view of an essential part showing a state of a cutting process 2 of the cutter device.

FIG. 13 is an enlarged side view of an essential part showing the cutting completed state of the cutter device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Printing Device 10 Selection Button (Enter Button) 11 Rotating Drum 12 Drum Knob 13 Drum Rotating Shaft (Shaft Member) 15 Bearing Bracket 16 Drum Substrate 17 Drum Contact Spring 21 Cutter Lever 22 Knob 23 Arc Section 24 Bifurcated 26 Pressing Surface 31 Cutter Holder 32, 33 Guide Convex Part 34 Pressed Part 35 Tension Coil Spring 36 Cutter Cartridge 37 Cutter Blade 38 Cutter Guard 41 Cassette Loading Part 42 Drive Shaft 45 Platen Roller 46 Printing Head 48 Tape Discharge Port 49 Lid 70 Printing Cassette 71 Cassette body 72 Print head accommodating recessed portion 76 Tape cutting portion 81 Ink ribbon 82 Ink ribbon take-up spool 83 Ink ribbon supply spool 85 Printed tape (printed member) 89 Printed tape supply spool

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A rotary drum that is rotated when selecting an element to be printed, and a cutter member that cuts a member to be printed on which the print element selected by the rotary operation of the rotary drum is printed. A printing apparatus comprising: a cutter lever that is rotated to operate the cutter member; and a shaft member that rotatably supports the rotary drum and the cutter lever.