JPH0776074A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To print the original picture by injecting ink to the surface of a solid object by driving a printing head by the output of an electronic control unit based on the image signal of the original picture photographed by an electronic imaging device. CONSTITUTION:The image signal of the original picture 2 photographed by an electronic imaging device 3 is stored in an image memory part 7 and a printing head 22 is reciprocally driven by the output of an electronic control unit 8 based on the image signal from the image memory part 7. A lift table 29 supports a solid object such as soap 25 in opposed relation to the ink nozzle 23 of the printing head 22 and moves the solid object by a predetermined dimension in the alternate relation to the reciprocating movement of the printing head 22 in the direction vertical to the reciprocating movement direction of the printing head 22. The printing head 22 injects ink on the insoluble surface of the preliminarily surface-treated soap 25 to print the original picture on the soap 25.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for printing an original image (photograph, etc.) on a solid material such as soap whose surface is not flat.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, as disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 4-69067, in order to print an original image on the surface of a solid material, a transfer film on which the original image is printed is superposed on the surface of the solid material. It is thermally transferred. The above-mentioned printing apparatus requires at least about 50,000 frames for manufacturing the transfer film in terms of cost, and is not suitable for production of various kinds in small quantities. For example, soap for commercial advertisements, etc. is required to be able to print the original image in units of about 500 in real time.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to use a transfer head to drive and control a printing head based on an image signal picked up by an electronic image pickup device without using a transfer film. An object of the present invention is to provide a printing device that prints an original image by ejecting ink on the surface of the.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the structure of the present invention stores an image signal of an original image photographed by an electronic image pickup device in an image storage section, and based on the image signal from the image storage section. The print head is reciprocally driven by the output of the electronic control unit, and the support table, which faces the ink nozzles of the print head and supports solid substances such as soap, reciprocates the print head in a direction perpendicular to the reciprocating direction of the print head. The printing heads print the original image by spraying ink onto the insoluble thin film of soap which has been surface-treated in advance.

[0005]

According to the present invention, the original image or the three-dimensional model is photographed by the electronic image pickup device (for example, CCD camera), and the image signal is temporarily stored in the image storage section. The image in the image storage unit is displayed on a display unit such as a cathode ray tube, and an original image correction and character addition can be processed from an input device such as a keyboard.

The print head is driven by the output of the electronic control unit based on the image signal from the image storage unit. The printing head reciprocates left and right or up and down to intermittently eject ink onto the surface of a solid material. The support for supporting the solid material moves by a predetermined dimension in a direction perpendicular to the reciprocating movement direction of the printing head for each reciprocating movement of the printing head. When the solid is soap, a thin film that does not dissolve in water is formed on the surface in advance, and ink is jetted from the printing head onto the thin film to print the original image on the thin film of soap.

[0007]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a printing apparatus according to the present invention,
2 is a front view of the same apparatus, FIG. 3 is a plan view showing the inside of the same apparatus, and FIG. 4 is an enlarged plan view showing an essential part of the same apparatus.
In the present invention, the original image 2 taken by the electronic image pickup device 3 is CCD.
The image receiving unit 4 converts the red, green, and blue image signals 5 and stores them together with the luminance signal 6 in an image storage unit 7 composed of a RAM.
The image signal of the image storage unit 7 is input to an electronic control unit 8 composed of a micro computer, and a display unit 9 such as a cathode ray tube is input.
Is displayed. The original image 2 can be corrected and characters can be written by an input operation from the keyboard 10. If necessary, the image signal of the image storage unit 7 can be transferred to a storage medium such as a floppy disk so that a new original image can be printed.

The output signal of the electronic control unit 8 based on the corrected image signal is sent to the print control unit 12 and the drive control unit 31 of the servo motor 30 for positioning the soap 25.
In the print control unit 12, the inks of red, yellow, blue, and black are sent to ink pressure feed valves 13 to 16 that adjust the supply timing and supply amount, and the pressurized air from the pressurized air tank 21 causes the ink tanks 17 of the respective colors to be supplied. 〜20 to a predetermined amount of ink
It is supplied to the ink nozzles 23 of the printing head 22 via 16.

The printing head 22 is supported by a pair of horizontal guide rods 24 extending vertically with respect to the surface of the paper so as to be able to reciprocate, and a surface detecting section 40 for detecting the uneven pattern of the printing surface 25a of the soap 25, and the soap 25. And four ink nozzles 23 for ejecting ink of each color onto the printing surface 25a.
The soap 25 ascends or descends by a predetermined dimension each time the printing head 22 reciprocates, and the original image 2 is printed on the printing surface 25a of the soap 25. The printing surface 25a of the soap 25 is previously coated with a thin film that does not dissolve in water. The surface treatment of the soap 25 is disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 4-69067 and does not directly relate to the gist of the present invention, so the description thereof will be omitted.

The soap 25 is placed on a sliding plate 28 having an L-shaped cross section which can be brought into and out of contact with the printing head 22 in the front-back direction (left-right direction in FIG. 1). Although not shown in FIG. 3, each soap 25 is held by a pair of left and right sandwiching plates 28a having both side surfaces supported by sliding plates 28 so as not to fall down, as shown in FIG. The sliding plate 28 is guided and supported by an elevating table 29, and the elevating table 29 is pushed up by a predetermined size by a servo motor 30 based on a signal from a drive control section 31 synchronized with the reciprocating movement of the printing head 22. The distance between the sliding plate 28 and the ink nozzle 23 is adjusted by the servo motor 27 fixed to the lifting table 29.

The surface detecting section 40 is a printing surface 25a of the soap 25.
Drive control section 26 based on the detection signal.
The servo motor 27 is driven by the signal from the printing surface 2
Sliding plate 2 for supporting the soap 25 corresponding to the uneven pattern of 5a
8 slide back and forth to print the ink nozzle 23 and the printing surface 25a.
Adjust the interval between and.

As shown in FIG. 2, the printing apparatus described above is provided with an electronic image pickup device 3 for fixing the original image 2 and a keyboard 10 on a table board 33a on the front wall of the box 33, and an electronic image pickup device on the front wall surface. Display 9 and Electronic Control Device 8 for Displaying Images of Digital Imaging Device 3
And are arranged. The lower half part of the box 33 is provided with a soap storage part 36, and the soap 25 taken out from the soap storage part 36
The original image displayed on the display unit 9 is printed by the print head 22 inside the box 33, and is sent to the product sending table 35.

As shown in FIG. 3, a power supply unit 45, an electronic control unit 8, a pressurized air tank 21, and ink tanks 17 to 20 are arranged in the upper half of the box 33. Is supplied to the print head 22 by the supply mechanism 43. The excess ink is collected in the ink collecting section 44. Lift 29
Soaps 25 are placed one by one on a large number of sliding plates 28 supported on the above, and the front and rear (vertical direction in FIG. 3) positions are finely adjusted by a servo motor 27.

The printing head 22 is supported by a pair of front and rear guide rods 24 so as to be capable of reciprocating. The endless wire 38 stretched along the guide rod 24 is wound around the shaft 37 a of the pulse motor 37. The print head 22 is locked by the endless wire 38, and reciprocates as the pulse motor 37 rotates forward and backward.

As shown in FIG. 4, the printing head 22 faces the printing surface 25a of the soap 25 and the ink nozzles 23 of four colors.
And the surface detector 40, that is, the light emitter 41a and the light receiver 42.
a. In the illustrated embodiment, the printing head 22 ejects ink from the ink nozzles 23 onto the printing surface 25a while moving to the left. Sending part 4 before ink is jetted
The infrared ray emitted from the light source 1 through the light emitter 41a is reflected by the printing surface 25a of the soap 25 and is received by the light receiver 42a. The receiving unit 42 corresponds to the uneven pattern on the printing surface 25a,
The current of the coil 27b of the servo motor 27 is adjusted, and the sliding plate 28 is moved forward and backward (vertical direction in FIG. 3) by the rod 27a against the force of the spring 46 to adjust the distance from the ink nozzle 23.

As shown in FIG. 3, while the printing head 22 moves to the left, the surface detecting section 40 causes the printing surface 2 of the soap 25 to be printed.
The uneven pattern of 5a is detected, and a drive signal corresponding to the uneven pattern is sent from the drive control unit 26 to the servo motor 27 to adjust the distance between the ink nozzle 23 and the printing surface 25a of the small area of the soap 25. The printing head 22 repeatedly ejects ink of each color linearly on the printing surface 25a of the seven soaps 25 based on a signal from the printing control unit 12. While the print head 22 is returning to the right, the lift table 29 is raised by, for example, 0.1 mm based on a signal from the drive control unit 31, and provides a new printing surface 25a facing the ink nozzle 23. Similarly, when the original image 2 for commercial advertisement is printed on each of seven soaps 25 while the printing head 22 reciprocates several hundred times, the soaps 25 are printed on the right side of the box 33 by a pusher (not shown). The product is sent to the product delivery table 35. Next, when new soap 25 in the soap container 36 is supplied to the sliding plate 28,
The original image 2 is printed as described above.

In the above-described embodiment, in order to save the planar space of the printing apparatus, the soap 25 is held in an upright position and ink is jetted from the side onto the printing surface 25a for printing. The soap 25 may be held in a horizontal position and ink may be jetted onto the printing surface 25a from above to perform printing. In this case, since the position of the soap 25 is stable, the soaps 25 are arranged in a line, for example. The mechanism can be simplified by only sandwiching both sides of each soap 25.

[0018]

As described above, according to the present invention, the image signal of the original image photographed by the electronic image pickup device is stored in the image storage section, and the print head is output by the output of the electronic control unit based on the image signal from the image storage section. A support table that reciprocates and supports solid objects such as soap facing the ink nozzles of the printing head moves in a direction perpendicular to the reciprocating movement direction of the printing head, and alternately moves by a predetermined dimension with the reciprocating movement of the printing head. Since the printing head sprays the ink onto the insoluble surface of the soap that has been surface-treated in advance to print the original image, it does not require a transfer film as in the past and can be printed quickly and inexpensively, and it can be used for a wide variety of small amounts of advertising. It is advantageous for printing soap etc.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a printing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the same device.

FIG. 3 is a plan view showing the inside of the apparatus.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged plan view showing a main part of the apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

2: Original image 3: Electronic imager 7: Image storage unit 8: Electronic control device 13 to 16: Ink pressure feeding valve 22: Printing head 23: Ink nozzle 27, 30: Servo motor 28: Sliding plate 29: Elevating table 40 : Surface detector

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An image signal of an original image photographed by an electronic image pickup device is stored in an image storage unit, and an output of an electronic control unit based on the image signal from the image storage unit drives a printing head to reciprocate, and an ink of the printing head is printed. The support head, which is opposed to the nozzle and supports solid substances such as soap, moves in a direction perpendicular to the reciprocating movement direction of the printing head by a predetermined dimension alternately with the reciprocating movement of the printing head, and the printing head is previously surface-treated. A printing device characterized by printing an original image by injecting ink onto an insoluble thin film of soap.