JPH0825770A - Color ink ribbon switching apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To easily oppose the desired print zone of a multicolor ribbon cassette to the front face of a print head by arbitrarily setting the moving amount of a carrier out of a printing area at the time of switching a print color, bringing a slide support base into contact with a stationary reference surface to be moved, and altering the support surface for supporting a shift base. CONSTITUTION:A shift base 4 for detachably holding a multicolor ribbon cassette 17 in a carrier 1 for holding a print head 3 is rotatably provided in a direction perpendicular to a carrier moving direction. A slide support base 7 formed with a plurality of support surfaces 11-14 for deciding the rotating position of the base 4 corresponding to a printing color is provided slidably at the carrier 1 near the free end side of the base 4. When a color switching signal is inputted, the carrier 1 is moved by a distance corresponding to the color to an area out of the print area, the base 4 is displaced to the carrier 1, and the surfaces 11-14 are selected, thereby opposing the desired print zone of the cassette 17 to the front face of the head 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a color ink ribbon switching device used in a serial printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a shift base in which a multicolor ribbon cassette is detachably mounted on a carrier that holds a print head and is reciprocally driven along a platen is rotatable in a direction orthogonal to the moving direction of the carrier. The color of the multi-color ribbon cassette allows the print zone of the desired color of the ink ribbon to face the front face of the print head by rotating the shift base by a predetermined angle according to the specified print color. There is an ink ribbon switching device.

Such a color ink ribbon switching device requires a dedicated motor for shifting the ink ribbon. Therefore, as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 5-88199, the multicolor ribbon cassette is driven in the direction orthogonal to the moving direction of the carrier by using the reciprocating motion of the carrier having the print head and the multicolor ribbon cassette as a driving source. There is an invention in which the print zone of the desired color of the multicolored ink ribbon is made to face the front surface of the printhead by moving it.

That is, according to the invention disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 5-88199, a lift cam is rotatably provided on a carrier for shifting a ribbon holder on which a multicolor ribbon cassette is mounted, and a switching lever for rotating the lift cam. Are slidably arranged on both sides of the carrier, and when the carrier is moved to the outside of the printing area, the switching lever is brought into contact with the stopper and moved, and the sliding operation of the switching lever causes the lift cam to move. By rotating the lift cam, the ribbon holder is moved in the print color switching direction together with the multicolor ribbon cassette.

[0005]

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Japanese Patent Publication No. 5-88199
In the invention described in the publication, the lift cam is rotated by a quarter by one operation of the switching lever to move the ribbon holder to the one position.
It is a structure that shifts step by step. As a result, if the order of arranging the print zones of the ink ribbon is black, blue, red, and yellow, one-step printing color such as black-red or blue-yellow can be obtained by one sliding operation of the switching lever. Cannot be switched.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, a carrier that holds a print head and is reciprocally driven by a carrier driving unit and a multicolor ribbon cassette are detachably held and are orthogonal to the moving direction of the carrier. A shift base rotatably held in a direction, a ribbon drive shaft mounted on the carrier and driving the multicolor ribbon cassette,
A plurality of support surfaces are formed that are arranged in a stepwise manner along the moving direction of the carrier and support the vicinity of the free end side of the shift base to determine the rotational position of the shift base corresponding to the printing color. A sliding support base, a holding means provided on the carrier for holding the sliding support base slidably along the arrangement direction of the support surface and stationary at arbitrary positions, and both ends in the moving range of the carrier. A fixed reference surface which is disposed outside the printing area and comes into contact with the end of the sliding support base, and movement of the carrier outside the printing area by controlling the operation of the carrier driving section based on the printing color switching signal. It is a color ink ribbon switching device constituted by ribbon shift control means for designating an amount.

[0007]

According to the present invention, when the print color switching signal is input, the operation of the carrier drive unit is controlled by the ribbon shift control means to arbitrarily set the movement amount of the carrier outside the print area, The position of the shift base in the rotational direction can be arbitrarily determined by bringing the sliding support base into contact with the fixed reference surface and moving it with respect to the carrier to change the support surface that supports the shift base. It is possible to make a desired print zone of the multicolor ribbon cassette face the front surface of the print head by one movement operation of the carrier.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. First, the configuration on the carrier 1 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. The front part of the carrier 1 is slidably fitted to the carrier shaft 2, and the rear part is slidably supported by guide rails (not shown). In addition, a print head (dot printer head) 3 is provided at the front of the carrier 1.
The shift base 4 is rotatably held on the upper surface by a pair of left and right support shafts 5 in the Y direction orthogonal to the moving direction X of the carrier 1. Further, a ribbon drive shaft 6 projecting upward from the center of the shift base 4 is rotatably provided at the center of the upper surface of the carrier 1, and the lower surface of the carrier 1 is reciprocally moved linearly in one direction. A power conversion mechanism (not shown) that converts the rotational movement and transmits it to the ribbon drive shaft 6 is provided.

Further, a holding means 8 is provided on the upper surface of the rear portion of the carrier 1 for holding the sliding support base 7 slidably along the moving direction X of the carrier 1 and free to stand at an arbitrary position. A spring 9 (see FIG. 2) is attached to the sliding support base 7.
The plurality of support surfaces 11, 12, 13, 14 for supporting the protrusion 10 on the free end side of the shift base 4 biased by the above and determining the rotational position of this shift base 4 in accordance with the print color are the carrier 1. Are formed so as to be arranged stepwise along the movement direction X of. Further, the sliding support base 7 has rods 7a protruding from both ends thereof. A fixed reference surface 15 is formed on the inner surface of a frame (not shown) that supports both ends of the carrier shaft 2 and is in contact with the tip of the rod 7a. In addition, the sliding support base 7 has the support surface 1 on its side surface.
A plurality of locking recesses (not shown) corresponding to 1 to 14 are formed. Then, the holding means 8 is a steel ball (which is elastically engaged with any of the locking recesses of the slide support base 7 inside the rail 16 that slidably holds both sides of the slide support base 7). (Not shown) is provided so as to hold the slide support base 7 slidably and stationary at any position.

Next, the multicolor ribbon cassette 17 which is detachably mounted on the shift base 4 will be described. FIG. 3 is a plan view of the multicolor ribbon cassette 17, and FIG. 4 is a side view thereof. The multicolor ribbon cassette 17 is provided in the cassette case 19 in which an endless ink ribbon 18 is stored, and in the cassette case 19. A ribbon winding shaft 20 is provided, and the ink ribbon 18 is run by rotating the ribbon winding shaft 20.
The upper end of the ribbon winding shaft 20 is projected from the upper surface of the cassette case 19 so as to be manually rotated to apply tension to the loose ink ribbon 18. Further, an opening (not shown) for connecting the ribbon winding shaft 20 to the ribbon drive shaft 6 is formed on the lower surface of the cassette case 19. Furthermore, the ink ribbon 18 has black, blue, red,
A plurality of printing zones 21, 22, 23, which are color-coded yellow
24 are formed.

Next, FIG. 5 shows an electronic circuit. CPU25
And ROM2 in which fixed data such as programs are written
6 and the RAM 27 in which variable data is temporarily written are connected by a bus line 36. Also, CPU
A reset IC 28 and a gate array 29 are connected to 25, and an interface 30 connected to an external circuit and a head driver 31 for driving the print head 3 are connected to the gate array 29. Furthermore, C
The PU 25 is connected to a carrier driver 32 and a paper feed driver 33, which are carrier drive units. The carrier driver 32 is connected to a forward / reverse rotatable carrier motor 34 that reciprocates the carrier 4, and the paper feed driver 3
A paper feed motor 35, to which a platen (not shown) and other rollers of the transport system are connected, is connected to 3.

In such a configuration, the carrier driver 32 rotates the carrier motor 34 to move the carrier 1, and in this process, the head driver 31 prints the print head based on print data sent from the host computer through the interface 30. Printing is performed by driving 3. The printing color in this case is determined by which of the supporting surfaces 11 to 14 of the sliding support base 7 supports the protrusion 10 of the shift base 4. In the state shown in FIG. 1, the protrusion 10 is supported by the supporting surface 14 corresponding to yellow, and since this supporting surface 14 has the highest step, the shift base 4 has its front portion lowered to the lowest as shown in FIG. The yellow print zone 21 faces the front surface of the print head 3. Similarly, when the protrusion 10 is supported by the supporting surface 13 corresponding to red, the red print zone 22 is
When the protrusion 10 is supported by the supporting surface 12 corresponding to blue, the print zone 23 of blue is projected on the supporting surface 11 corresponding to black.
When 0 is supported, the black print zones 24 face the front surface of the print head 3, respectively.

When the carrier 1 is moved to the left and right shift areas of the print area, the sliding support base 7 is moved relative to the carrier 1 by the contact between the rod 7a of the sliding support base 7 and the fixed reference surface 15. Since it slides in the left-right direction, a state in which the protrusion 10 of the shift base 4 is supported by the arbitrary support surfaces 11 to 14 can be obtained by controlling the movement amount of the carrier 1 in the shift area. In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 6, by setting the movement amount of the carrier 1 in the left shift area, the printing color is switched to blue, red or yellow, and the carrier 1 in the right shift area is set.
The print color can be switched to any of red, blue, and black by setting the movement amount of. In the slow-up area and slow-down area inside the shift area, the output of the carrier motor 34 is gradually increased or decreased, and in the central print area (printing area), the carrier motor 34 is driven with a constant high output.

The structure for switching the printing color has been mainly described above, but the printing color switching control process will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. First, step (hereinafter st.
1), initial processing is performed. In this initial processing, the carrier driver 32 rotates the carrier motor 34 in a predetermined direction by a predetermined number of steps to move the carrier 1 to a fixed position outside the printing region, and slides it by contact between the rod 7a and the fixed reference surface 15. The movable support base 7 is positioned at a fixed position, and the shift base 4 is positioned at a fixed position. Based on this fixed position, st. If it is determined that there is a print color switching signal in step 2, st. In 3, CPU2
Reference numeral 5 controls the operation of the carrier driver 32 to rotate the carrier motor 34 in a predetermined direction by a predetermined number of steps to move the carrier 1 to a desired position. This st. Reference numeral 3 corresponds to ribbon shift control means for controlling the operation of the carrier driver 32 based on the print color switching signal and designating the movement amount of the carrier 1 outside the print area. As a result, the sliding support base 7 is moved by the above-described operation, and the shift base 4 is rotated together with the multicolor ribbon cassette 17 by selecting the supporting surfaces 11 to 14 that support the protrusion 10 of the shift base 4. As a result, the desired print zones 21 to 24 of the ink ribbon 18 are opposed to the front surface of the print head 3. After this, st. Printing is started in step 4, and st. In step 5, until it is determined that there is no print data for the next line, s
t. 2 to st. The operation of 5 is repeated.

[0015]

According to the present invention, there is provided a sliding support base in which a plurality of supporting surfaces that determine the rotational position of the shift base corresponding to the printing color are arranged in a stepwise manner along the moving direction of the carrier. Is provided with a holding means for slidably holding the supporting surface so as to be slidable and stationary at an arbitrary position, and is disposed outside the printing area at both ends in the moving range of the carrier, and an end portion of the sliding support base. Since a fixed reference surface that comes into contact with the carrier is provided and ribbon shift control means for controlling the operation of the carrier drive unit based on the print color switching signal to specify the movement amount of the carrier outside the print area is provided, the print color switching is performed. When a signal is input, the operation of the carrier drive unit is controlled by the ribbon shift control unit to arbitrarily set the movement amount of the carrier outside the printing area, and the sliding support base is brought into contact with the fixed reference surface. For career By changing the support surface that supports the shift base by moving it, the position of the shift base in the rotating direction can be arbitrarily determined, and as a result, the desired printing of the multicolor ribbon cassette can be performed by one movement operation of the carrier. The zone can face the front of the printhead.

[Brief description of drawings]

1A and 1B show an embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 1A is a plan view of a carrier and FIG. 1B is a front view of a sliding support base.

FIG. 2 is a side view of a carrier.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a multicolor ribbon cassette.

FIG. 4 is a side view of a multicolor ribbon cassette.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an electronic circuit.

FIG. 6 is a time chart showing changes in carrier motor output in a print area and a shift area.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a print color switching process.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 carrier 3 print head 4 shift base 6 ribbon drive shaft 7 sliding support base 8 holding means 11 to 14 support surface 15 fixed reference surface 17 multicolor ribbon cassette 32 carrier drive unit st. 3 Ribbon shift control means

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A carrier, which holds a print head and is reciprocally driven by a carrier driving unit, and a multicolor ribbon cassette, are detachably held and are rotatably held by the carrier in a direction orthogonal to the moving direction. A shift base, a ribbon drive shaft mounted on the carrier to drive the multicolor ribbon cassette, and arranged in a stepwise manner along the moving direction of the carrier, and supporting the vicinity of the free end side of the shift base. A slide support base formed with a plurality of support surfaces that determine the pivotal position of the lever shift base corresponding to the print color, and the slide support base provided on the carrier along the arrangement direction of the support surfaces. Holding means for slidably and statically holding any position, and abutting against the end of the slide support table, which is disposed outside the printing area at both ends in the moving range of the carrier. Color ink ribbon switching comprising a fixed reference surface and ribbon shift control means for controlling the operation of the carrier driving unit based on a printing color switching signal to specify the movement amount of the carrier outside the printing area. apparatus.