JPH0789140A - Printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To securely perform perfect printing even on a small sized and comparatively hard recording paper such as a postcard by a small and simple constitution. CONSTITUTION:Printing heads 18 and 19 of a first printer 12 and a second printer 13 are disposed respectively face to face across a horizontal paper route 50 on one face of each of support fitments 11 disposed in front and rear cases 9 and 10 of a printer main body 200 and the other face of each of same support fitments, and a paper feed roller 25 is installed on a paper route 50 on an intermediate section between both printers 12 and 13. Perfect printing can be performed securely even on a small size recording paper comparatively hard such as a postcard by one paper setting to improve the operating characteristics.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a small-sized printer device suitable for an output terminal of a small-sized information processing device such as a notebook type Japanese word processor and a personal computer. The present invention relates to a small-sized printer device capable of printing by passing paper.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, information processing apparatuses such as Japanese word processors and personal computers, which have been rapidly popularized, are often portable type called notebook type. In this type, generally, the information processing apparatus main body and the printer unit are separated and configured separately. Further, the printer itself is generally a one-sided printer for consumer use, and there are some printers with a double-sided printing function for special purposes.

By the way, postcards are used for New Year's cards and summer greeting cards, and in many cases, postcards are also used for various greeting cards. On the other hand, with the spread of word processors and personal computers in general processes as described above, postcard printing has become one of the important functions in these devices. However, even if the printer has a postcard printing function, since it prints on each side, it is necessary to turn over to print the text after printing the address, for example. If the sheet is turned upside down like this, not only the printing efficiency is poor, but also the sheet may be turned upside down and printed. To avoid this, both sides can be printed at the same time. That is, if the printer is provided with the function of performing double-sided printing, the printer will process the data and the user will not make a mistake.

As a method of double-sided printing, one printing means is made to pass the printing paper twice, that is, after printing on one side, the printing paper is automatically turned over and the opposite side is printed on the printing means. There are two methods, that is, a method of printing by facing each other and a method of providing a pair of printing means on both sides of the printing paper so as to face each other, and printing by these printing means at the same time. The former method is often used in electrophotographic printers, but in the printer used for small book-type printers as described above, the paper path and the transport mechanism become complicated, so it should be used. Is difficult On the other hand, the latter method of performing double-sided printing at one time may be mechanically simpler because two print heads may be provided.

For example, a high-speed double-sided printer device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 61-134246 and a printing device disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-224760 are known as those which perform double-sided printing at one time.

The former printer device is equipped with two printers for visualizing a digital signal on a recording cylinder and transferring the pressure onto a recording sheet. The two printers are brought into pressure contact with each other at a pressure transfer portion of the recording cylinder, and recording is performed at this position through the recording sheet. It is configured to record on both sides of the paper at the same time. Further, in the latter printing apparatus, the roll paper is stretched between platen rollers provided at different positions in the paper path, and the respective faces of the roll paper are made to face the print heads provided so as to face the respective platen rollers. It is configured to perform double-sided printing.

[0007]

By the way, in the former printer device, a visible image of print information is formed on a recording cylinder, a recording paper is passed between the opposing recording cylinders, and the visualized image is pressed. Since it is transferred, it is necessary to have a mechanism for writing to the recording cylinder, a developing mechanism that visualizes the written image, a cleaning mechanism for the cylinder surface after transfer, etc. Also, one transfer corresponds to the specified recording sheet size. Since it is necessary to form an image to be printed, the diameter of the recording cylinder also becomes large, and the entire printer device is large.
It will be expensive. In other words, the size of the printer itself is several times or several tens of times larger than that of a notebook personal computer or a word processor body, which meets the demand for miniaturization as an output device of this type of information equipment. It is not possible.

In the latter printer, the printing paper is fed in a bent state along the platen roller, so that it is impossible to print on a relatively hard and small paper such as a postcard. Further, in addition to the platen roller, a pressure contact roller for pressing the sheet against the platen roller side is required, which limits the miniaturization.

The present invention has been made in view of such a background, and an object thereof is to provide a printer device capable of performing double-sided printing with a small size and a simple structure. Another object of the present invention is to provide a printer device capable of surely performing double-sided printing on a small paper such as a postcard such as a card.

[0010]

In the printer device for printing on a printing sheet according to input print information, a linearly formed sheet passing path of the printing sheet and a downstream side in the sheet passing direction are provided. First and second printing means respectively provided on the upstream side across the paper passage, and a pair of paper feed rollers provided at an intermediate portion of the first and second printing means of the paper passage. It is achieved by providing.

In this case, the print heads of the first and second printing means are preferably serial printer heads such as thermal heads, ink jet heads, and wire dot heads.
A guide plate for conveying the print paper to the paper passage between the paper feed roller and the second print means without passing through the second print means, and a guide for guiding the print paper from the outside of the apparatus to the guide plate. It is advisable to further provide a plate.

[0012]

According to the above means, when the printing paper is inserted into the linear paper passage, the printing paper is fed by the first and second printing means while being conveyed by the pair of paper feed rollers. Is printed on the surface of. In this case, since the first and second printing units are provided on the upstream side and the downstream side in the sheet passing direction, first, the second printing unit on the upstream side in the sheet passing direction.
When printing is performed on one surface by the printing unit and is conveyed to a position facing the first printing unit on the downstream side, printing on the other surface is started. Then, the double-sided printing is completed when the printing paper passes through the first printing means. Therefore, by simply or manually inserting the printing paper into the paper feeding path, double-sided printing is performed at the same time although there is a timing difference, and an operation such as turning over is unnecessary.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the entire system using the printer according to the embodiment. In the figure, this system is a notebook personal computer main body 1
00 and the printer body 200, and the printer body 200 is connected to the printer connector of the personal computer body 100 via the printer cable 37.

The personal computer main body 100 mainly comprises a keyboard 1 for inputting characters and symbols and a liquid crystal display device 2, and the liquid crystal display device 2 displays input data input from the keyboard 1. It is built in an LCD case 3 that can be opened and closed with respect to the other case, and the front surface of the LCD case 3 is covered with a liquid crystal panel 4. Reference numeral 5 denotes an external storage device composed of a magnetic disk driving device for recording the input and edited information, which is provided between the main body upper case 6 and the main body lower case 7. A control board 8 for controlling the entire apparatus is arranged below the lower case 7 of the main body.

The printer body 200 has a casing formed by a front case 9 and a rear case 10, and various mechanisms are provided inside the casing. On a front surface of the front case 9, a release lever 26, a front paper guide 29, and a density adjusting knob 33 are arranged, which will be described later. The internal structure of the printer main body 200 is as shown in FIG. 2, and the first printer 12 as the first printing means is also supported on one side of the upper part of the support metal fitting 11 provided in the center part inside. Metal fittings 1
A second printer 13 as a second printing unit is arranged on the other side of the first printer 13. Then, the first printer 12
The first carriage 14 and the second carriage 15 of each printer of the second printer 13 and the second printer 13 are slidably arranged on the first guide shaft 16 and the second guide shaft 17, respectively. The first print head 18 and the second print head 19 for printing are provided so as to face the first platen 20 and the second platen 21, respectively, with the paper passage 50 interposed therebetween. In this embodiment, a thermal head is used as the print head, and the ribbon cassette 22 for thermal transfer can be mounted on the first and second carriages 14 and 15 correspondingly. With this configuration, in the first printer 12 and the second printer 13, the first print head 18 and the second print head 19 are staggered so to speak on the downstream side and the upstream side of the sheet passing path 50 in the sheet passing direction. It is installed in.

A drive motor 24 is provided at the center of the first printer 12 and the second printer 13, and a paper feed roller 25 is connected to the drive shaft of the drive motor 24. The paper feed roller 25 has an auxiliary roller. 27 is provided so that it can be pressed. The auxiliary roller 27 can be opened and closely contacted by a release lever 26, and is conveyed along a paper passage 50 of the print paper 23 by both rollers 25 and 27. Therefore, the rollers 25 and 27 form a paper feed roller. Further, in the vicinity of the paper feed roller 25 and at a position along the paper feed path 50 on the upstream side in the transport direction of the paper feed roller 25, the paper sensor 28 for detecting the leading edge of the paper when the print paper 23 is inserted. Are provided as shown in the perspective view of the main part of FIG.

On the other hand, a front paper guide 29 is provided at the position of the front case 9 facing the carriage 14 of the first printer 12 so as to be openable and closable. The front paper guide 29 serves as a guide for discharging the print paper 23 and is opened to replace the ribbon cassette 22. Similarly, a rear paper guide 30 is openably and closably provided at a position of the rear case 10 facing the carriage 15 of the second printer 13. Reference numeral 31 is a printer control board for controlling the first printer 12, the second printer 13, the drive motor 24, etc., and is provided with a print density adjusting volume 32 and an adjusting knob 33.

In the printer constructed as described above, when the printing paper 23 is inserted from the paper insertion opening 34 of the rear case 10, the printing paper 23 advances along the transport path 50, and its leading end is near the paper feeding roller 25. When it reaches the position of the paper sensor 28 provided in the
Starts to rotate, the printing paper 23 is conveyed to the printing position by the paper feeding roller 25, and the second printer 13 starts printing on the back side. As the printing progresses, paper feeding is executed at a preset pitch, and printing is performed by the second printer 13 in accordance with the paper feeding. When the printing paper 23 reaches the printing position of the first printer 12,
In parallel with the printing operation of the second printer 13, the first printer 1
The printing on the front side is executed by 2. In this way, double-sided simultaneous printing is performed.

The printing control of the first printer 12 and the second printer 13 is controlled according to a program stored in the ROM of the control board 8 and the printer control board 31 in advance. In this control, it goes without saying that it is also possible to operate each of the printers 12 and 13 independently to perform printing on only one side in the one-sided printing mode. In this case, if the paper is thick and hard,
It is sufficient to convey the recording paper 23 horizontally and print only one side by using only the first printer 12 or the second printer 13 as shown in FIG.

On the other hand, in the case of thin and soft paper, as shown in FIG.
When printing is performed as shown in (4), the trailing edge of the printing paper 23 hangs down, which may cause inconvenience in transporting the printing paper 23 or stain the paper. In order to avoid this, a paper guide 35 is provided on the upper surface of the front case 9 of the printer main body 200 according to this embodiment, and a guide plate 36 is provided on the rear case 10, respectively, and as shown in FIG. The recording sheet can be fed directly to the sheet feeding roller 25 through the guide plate 36 by tilting the sheet sideways to open the sheet guide 35. That is, the guide plate 36 is curved so that one end faces the rotating portion of the paper guide 35, and the other end faces the position upstream of the paper feeding roller 25 in the paper feeding direction and close to the paper feeding roller 25. The shape of the paper guide 35
When the is opened, one sheet passing path is configured. As a result, as shown in FIG. 5, the printing paper 23 can be supplied in a state where the trailing edge of the printing paper 23 is raised, and it is possible to avoid the inconvenience caused by the hanging of the trailing edge of the printing paper 23. In the case of performing one-sided printing in the horizontal orientation, that is, in the case of winding printing, in other words, the recording paper 23 is not conveyed to the position facing the second printer 13, so naturally the first printer 12 is used.
Is executed only by.

In any case of the present printer structure in the above horizontal printing and winding printing, it is easy to combine an automatic paper feeding device for printing paper. Further, although the thermal printer is exemplified in the printer apparatus according to this embodiment, it goes without saying that it can be applied not only to a serial printer such as an inkjet printer or a dot impact printer but also to a line printer or the like.

According to this structure, the pair of paper feed rollers 25 may be used, and the platens 20 and 21 may be simple plates. Therefore, miniaturization and cost reduction can be promoted, and a notebook personal computer. It is possible to make the size compatible with the above, while fully exerting the double-sided printing function. In this embodiment, a notebook personal computer is illustrated, but it goes without saying that the printer according to the embodiment can be used as an output terminal of a similar Japanese word processor or other information processing equipment.

[0024]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention configured as described above, the recording paper conveying path is formed linearly and is arranged in a state of being displaced in the conveying direction. Since the paper feed roller is provided in the conveyance path in the middle of the two printing means, it is possible to reliably perform double-sided printing even on a small recording sheet that is thick and hard such as a postcard. Also,
It is possible to provide a printer device that can be mechanically configured easily and has a double-sided printing function at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a personal computer system using a printer device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the printer device according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an essential part showing a paper feed roller portion of the printer device according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a different method of using the printer apparatus according to the embodiment.

5 is a cross-sectional view showing a mode of use during single-sided printing of the embodiment of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 keyboard 2 liquid crystal display device 9 printer front case 10 printer rear case 11 support metal fittings 12 first printer 13 second printer 18 first print head 19 second print head 23 printing paper 25 paper feed roller 35 paper guide 36 guide plate 50 through Paper path 100 Personal computer main body 200 Printer main body

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Ryuichi Nemoto 1-280, Higashi Koikeku, Kokubunji, Tokyo Inside Design Research Center, Hitachi, Ltd. (72) Koichi Umezawa 1-280, Higashi Koikeku, Kokubunji, Tokyo Hitachi Ltd. In-house Design Research Center (72) Inventor Koichi Saito 4-6, Surugadai Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Inside Hitachi, Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A printer device for printing on a printing sheet according to input print information, wherein a linearly formed sheet passing path for the printing sheet, and the sheet passing path on the downstream side and the upstream side in the sheet passing direction. It is provided with a first and a second printing means that are respectively sandwiched between them, and a pair of paper feed rollers provided in the intermediate portion of the first and the second printing means of the paper passing path. A printer device, which is configured to print on both sides of printing paper with paper. 2. The printer device according to claim 1, wherein the print heads of the first and second printing means are any one of a thermal head, an inkjet head and a wire dot head. 3. A guide plate is further provided in a paper passage between the paper feed roller and the second printing means for transporting the printing paper without passing through the second printing means. The printer device according to claim 1. 4. The printer device according to claim 3, wherein a guide plate for introducing printing paper from the outside of the apparatus main body is provided on the guide plate in a part of a housing of the apparatus so as to be openable and closable.