JPH08150741A - Thermal printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To dispense with the detachment of an ink ribbon or the replacement of paper by providing two independent systems for thermal transfer paper and thermal paper to a platen and a feed passage and moving one thermal head to enable the common use of two systems. CONSTITUTION: At the time of the printing of plain paper, a roll-shaped ink ribbon 4 and plain paper 5 are fed by the platen 2 rotated by an actuator to print the plain paper 5 by a thermal head 1. At the time of the printing of thermal paper, the thermoplastic head 1 is moved by the operation of an actuator not shown in a drawing and the thermal paper 6 is fed by the rotation of the platen 3 to be subjected to printing.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal printer for printing by thermal transfer, and more particularly to a thermal paper which enables easy printing regardless of whether the printing paper is plain paper or thermal paper. The present invention relates to a thermal printer compatible with plain paper.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional thermal printer that performs printing by a thermal transfer system, there is only one sheet conveyance path and one platen, and the thermal head is also fixed. Therefore, when the thermal paper and the plain paper are mixed and printed, it is necessary to remove or attach the ink ribbon depending on each paper, which is inconvenient and inconvenient in use.

[0003]

In the conventional thermal transfer type thermal printer, since the sheet conveying path and the platen are one and the thermal head is also fixed,
Printing when the thermal paper and the plain paper are exchanged involves complicated operations such as exchanging the respective papers and attaching and detaching the ink ribbon, and it is often difficult to perform the printing.

[0004]

A thermal printer according to the present invention prints on a conveyance path provided corresponding to each case of plain paper and thermal paper and one prespecified conveyance path. A thermal head that generates heat according to power supply based on data and a platen facing the thermal head are provided, and when printing on plain paper, printing is performed through a thermal ink ribbon containing a heat-meltable ink, and printing on thermal paper. In this case, in the thermal printer that directly prints from the thermal head, the thermal head facing the platen corresponding to the designated sheet is movable.

[0005]

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

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a cross section of a mechanical portion when printing on plain paper 5, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a cross section of the mechanical portion when printing on thermal paper 6.

To print on plain paper, the ink ribbon 4 and the plain paper 5 in FIG. 1 are set in a state as shown in FIG. 1, and the platen 2 is operated by an actuator (not shown).
The plain paper 5 and the ink ribbon 4 are conveyed by rotating in the direction of the arrow. At this time, by applying a print signal to the thermal head 1, the ink of the ribbon 4 adheres to the plain paper,
Printing is performed. The ribbon take-up roller 7 rotates the ink ribbon 4 by the operation of an actuator (not shown) to wind up the ink ribbon 4 used for printing. Then, the printed plain paper is discharged from the plain paper discharge port 8.

Further, referring to FIG. 2, the printing on the thermal paper is
The thermal paper 6 is set as shown in FIG. 2, and the platen 3 is rotated in the arrow direction according to the operation of an actuator (not shown) to convey the thermal paper 6. At this time, the thermal head 1
The thermal paper 6 is printed by applying. The printed thermal paper 6 is discharged from the thermal paper discharge port 9.

Next, switching from the printing state on the plain paper (state shown in FIG. 1) to the printing state on the thermal paper (state shown in FIG. 2) will be described.

The drive source for moving the thermal head 1 from the plain paper 5 side to the thermal paper 6 side is the motor 10. The motor 10 rotates a ball screw 12 that rotates in conjunction with the motor 10 via a timing belt 11. By reversing this rotation, the thermal head 1 can be moved upward and downward as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and the thermal head 1 is moved to a position contacting the platen (for thermal paper) 3 Printing is performed on the paper 6. In this way, plain paper 5
It is possible to print relatively easily with either the thermal paper 6 or the thermal paper 6. Next, the position control of the print position on the plain paper side of the thermal head 1 and the print position on the thermal paper side is performed when the light shielding plate 13 mounted on the thermal head 1 passes a sensor 14 attached to the apparatus. It is managed by step control by turning on / off. A slide screw may be used instead of the ball screw described above.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view showing the positional relationship between the platen of the thermal printer of the present invention and plain paper and thermal paper.

The platens 2 and 3, which require rotation, clarify the movement of the paper and the printing position when printing on the plain paper 5 and the thermal paper 6, respectively.

First, the thermal paper 6 is placed on the platen 3 from above in the drawing.
The print head moves to the upper right through the back surface of the sheet, and the thermal head prints on the thermal paper 6 in the direction perpendicular to the platen 3 from the lower side of the figure. When printing on the plain paper 5, the plain paper 5 and the ink ribbon 4 on the outside of the plain paper 5 are overlapped from the lower left side toward the drawing, and the lower side of the platen 2 is returned and moved to the lower side of the drawing.
The ink ribbon 4 is taken up by the take-up roller 7 and used again when necessary. Further, the plain paper 5 also moves to the lower left direction toward the drawing, and the plain paper output direction becomes the plain paper discharge port 8 and the thermal paper output direction becomes the thermal paper discharge port 9 so that the separate paper is outputted. It is also possible to do so.

[0014]

As described above, the present invention has two types of paper feed paths, the plain paper and the thermal paper are independent from each other, and the thermal head is moved to the platen position by the head slide mechanism. Therefore, there is an effect that it is possible to provide a thermal printer capable of switching between plain paper and thermal paper for easily performing thermal transfer without attaching or detaching an ink ribbon.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view of a section of a mechanical portion of a thermal printer of the present invention during printing on plain paper.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a section of a mechanical portion of the thermal printer of the present invention during printing on thermal paper.

FIG. 3 is a front view of a cross section of a mechanical portion of the thermal printer of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a plan view of a cross section of a mechanical portion of the thermal printer of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory view showing the positional relationship between the platen of the thermal printer of the present invention and plain paper and thermal paper.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 thermal head 2 platen (for plain paper) 3 platen (for thermal paper) 4 ink ribbon 5 plain paper 6 thermal paper 7 take-up roller 8 plain paper outlet 9 thermal paper outlet 10 motor 11 timing belt 12 ball screw 13 light shielding Board

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location B41J 25/28 W

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A conveyance path provided corresponding to each of the case where the printing paper is a plain paper or a thermal paper, and a thermal head which generates heat in one previously specified conveyance path according to power supply based on print data. A thermal printer that is provided with a platen facing the thermal head, prints through a thermal ink ribbon containing a heat-meltable ink when printing on plain paper, and directly prints from the thermal head when printing on thermal paper 2. A thermal printer, wherein a thermal head facing a platen corresponding to the designated sheet is movable. 2. As a means for moving the thermal head in correspondence with plain paper and thermal paper, a screw hole corresponding to a ball screw is provided in the moving direction of the thermal head, and is moved by rotation of the ball screw. The thermal printer according to claim 1, which is characterized in that. 3. As a means for moving the thermal head in correspondence with plain paper and thermal paper, a screw hole corresponding to a slide screw is provided in the moving direction of the thermal head to move by rotation of the slide screw. The thermal printer according to claim 1, which is characterized in that.