JPH0780331B2 - Thermal transfer serial printer - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal transfer serial printer, and more particularly to a print position adjustment method for a thermal transfer serial printer that performs bidirectional printing with two thermal heads.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in this type of thermal transfer serial printer, 2
The printing position is determined by the mechanical mounting position of each thermal head, and even if the printing position of each thermal head is deviated, the deviation is not compensated.

In such a conventional thermal transfer serial printer, the printing positions of the two thermal heads are determined by the mechanical mounting positions. Therefore, when the mounting accuracy is poor, the printing positions of the two thermal heads are displaced, There is a drawback that high quality printing results cannot be obtained.

Further, in the case where the printing positions of the two thermal heads are misaligned, it is necessary to select attachment parts in order to match these printing positions, which makes the device expensive. There is.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks of the conventional ones, and the printing positions of the two thermal heads are matched regardless of the mechanical mounting positions of the two thermal heads, so that high-quality An object of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive thermal transfer serial printer that can obtain a printing result.

Configuration of the Invention A thermal transfer serial printer according to the present invention is a thermal transfer serial printer that performs reciprocal printing with first and second print heads, and the first and second thermal transfer serial printers respond to external signals.
A first adjusting means for adjusting a print line interval by the print head, and a second adjusting means for adjusting a print interval by the first and second print heads according to an external signal. .

Embodiment Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a thermal transfer serial printer according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a platen 1, a carriage 2, a spacing motor 3, a timing belt 4, carriage guide shafts 5 and 6, thermal heads 7 and 8, and a paper. The feed motor 9 is included.

The carriage guide shafts 5 and 6 are installed in parallel with the platen 1 by left and right frames (not shown), and the carriage 2 slides on these carriage guide shafts 5 and 6.

The carriage 2 is connected to a timing belt 4 driven by a spacing motor 3, and is driven in rotation by the spacing motor 3 in parallel with the platen 1 in the forward direction (direction of arrow F) and the reverse direction (direction of arrow R). Moving.

The paper feeding operation of the printing paper is performed by rotating the platen 1 by driving the paper feeding motor to rotate nine times.

Two thermal heads 7 and 8 are installed on the carriage 2, and when the carriage 2 is moved in the forward direction, the thermal head 7 is pressed against the platen 1 side for printing, and the carriage 2 is moved in the reverse direction. When this is done, the thermal head 8 is pressed against the platen 1 side and printing is performed.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a control unit of the spacing motor 3 of FIG. In the figure, the spacing motor 3
The control unit includes a lateral carriage movement control unit (hereinafter referred to as a movement control unit) 11, a spacing motor drive circuit (hereinafter referred to as a motor drive circuit) 12, and a DIP switch 13.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the control unit of the paper feed motor 9 of FIG. In the figure, the control unit of the paper feed motor 9 is
The paper feed control unit 21, a paper feed motor drive circuit (hereinafter referred to as a motor drive circuit) 22, and a dip switch 23 are included.

The operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

Since the thermal heads 7 and 8 are provided side by side on the carriage 2, the printing position intervals of the thermal heads 7 and 8 must be adjusted in order to match the printing positions of the thermal heads 7 and 8. .

That is, when the thermal head 7 on the carriage 2 prints in the forward direction and then the thermal head 8 on the carriage 2 prints in the reverse direction, the thermal heads 7, 8
The spacing motor 3 must be driven by an amount commensurate with the print interval distance between them.

The spacing motor 3 is controlled by the movement control unit 11 and driven by the motor drive circuit 12.

The movement control unit 11 has a built-in spacing motor drive step number corresponding to the printing interval distance. By varying the number, the compensation of the print position interval of each of the thermal heads 7 and 8, that is, the compensation of the feed amount in the printing direction is performed.

Further, in order to make the vertical print positions of the thermal heads 7 and 8 coincide with each other, when a dimensional error occurs between the thermal heads 7 and 8 in the vertical direction, the dimensional error may be corrected by the paper feed amount.

That is, when the printing direction is changed, the dimensional error in the vertical direction between the thermal heads 7 and 8 may be corrected by the paper feed amount (paper feed motor driving step number).

The paper feed motor 9 is controlled by the paper feed control unit 21,
It is driven by the motor drive circuit 22.

For example, the position of the thermal head 7 is
When the print direction is switched from the thermal head 7 to the thermal head 8 when the position is higher than the position, the paper is fed by an amount obtained by subtracting the dimensional error from the normal paper feed amount, and the thermal head 8 moves to the thermal head 7. When the printing direction is changed, it is necessary to feed the paper by the amount of the normal paper feed plus the dimensional error.

At this time, by turning on / off the switch I of the dip switch 23, which one of the thermal heads 7 and 8 is higher is recognized, and the switches II and III are used to adjust the paper height corresponding to the printing height dimensional error of each thermal head 7 and 8. The number of steps of driving the feed motor can be input, and this dimensional error can be corrected.

In this way, in order to match the printing positions of the two thermal heads 7 and 8, the feed amount in the printing direction corresponding to each of the thermal heads 7 and 8 is changed by the movement control unit 11 and the dip switch 13, By changing the feed amount of the print paper corresponding to each of the thermal heads 7 and 8 by the paper feed control unit 21 and the DIP switch 23,
The printing positions can be matched regardless of the precision of the mechanical mounting positions of the individual thermal heads 7 and 8, and high-quality printing results can be obtained.

In addition, since it is possible to match the printing positions regardless of the precision of the mechanical mounting positions of the two thermal heads 7 and 8, it is not necessary to request the component precision so much.
An inexpensive thermal transfer serial printer can be provided.

As described above, according to the present invention, the print line interval by the first and second print heads for reciprocal printing is adjusted according to an external signal, and the print interval by the first and second print heads is adjusted. Is adjusted according to an external signal, the print positions of the two print heads can be matched regardless of the mechanical mounting positions of the print heads to obtain a high-quality print result. There is an effect that an inexpensive thermal transfer serial printer can be provided.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the control unit of the spacing motor shown in FIG. 3, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the control unit of the paper feed motor shown in FIG. Description of main part code 1 …… Platen 3 …… Spacing motor 7,8 …… Thermal head 9 …… Paper feed motor 11 …… Carriage lateral movement control unit 13,23 …… Dip switch 21 …… Paper feed Control unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A thermal transfer serial printer for performing reciprocal printing with first and second print heads, wherein the first adjustment adjusts a print line interval by the first and second print heads in accordance with an external signal. A thermal transfer serial printer comprising: means and second adjusting means for adjusting a printing interval by the first and second print heads according to an external signal.