JPH08258302A - Thermal transfer printer and copying/printing method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a thermal transfer printer and a copying/printing method of the printer whereby a plurality of sheets of paper can be copied/printed well while a power supply time to heat-generating elements and a capacity of a buffer memory are kept in the ordinary state, and a clear printing state is obtained even in a low-temperature ambience. CONSTITUTION: The printer has a control part 11 which controls to repeatedly print the same line based on the same printing data when a plurality of overlapping sheets of paper are printed.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal transfer printer and a copy printing method therefor, and more particularly to a thermal transfer printer and a copy printing method for printing on a plurality of sheets of paper.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as shown in FIG. 3, in a general thermal transfer printer, a long plate-shaped platen 2 is provided at the center of the frame 1 in the front-rear direction so that its printing surface is substantially vertical. A carriage shaft 3 is arranged so as to extend and below the front surfaces of the frame 1 and the platen 2 in parallel with the platen 2. A flange-shaped guide portion 4 is formed on the front end edge of the frame 1, and a carriage 5 is reciprocally movable along the carriage shaft 3 and the guide portion 4 on the carriage shaft 3 and the guide portion 4. Is attached to. A motor (not shown) for driving the carriage 5 is mounted on the carriage 5, and a thermal head 6 that can be brought into contact with and separated from the platen 2 is provided at the tip of the carriage 5. It is attached so as to face the platen 2. A winding bobbin 7 is arranged on the upper surface of the carriage 5 to guide the ink ribbon stored in an ink ribbon cassette (not shown) between the platen 2 and the thermal head 6.

Further, behind the platen 2, there is formed a sheet insertion port 8 which serves as an introducing portion for feeding a sheet (not shown) to the front of the platen 2. Inside the sheet insertion port 8, stepping (not shown) is carried out. A paper feed roller 9 which is rotationally driven by a motor via a transmission mechanism to convey the paper at a predetermined speed.
Is provided. A pressure contact roller 10 that is pressed against the paper feed roller 9 is rotatably disposed below the paper feed roller 9, and the paper insertion port is provided between the paper feed roller 9 and the pressure contact roller 10. The sheet inserted from 8 is pinched and conveyed to the print position.

A thermal paper printing mode in which the thermal paper is directly colored to perform printing in accordance with the type of the paper inserted into the paper insertion port 8 and the ink of the ink ribbon is melted and transferred to plain paper. It has a changeover switch 12 capable of switching between two normal print modes of a thermal transfer print mode for recording and a control unit (not shown) for controlling the thermal transfer printer in accordance with this changeover.

Next, the operation of the conventional thermal transfer printer will be described.

In the conventional thermal transfer printer, a paper is inserted from the paper insertion port 8, the paper is nipped between the paper feed roller 9 and the pressure contact roller 10, and the paper feed roller 9 is rotationally driven. As a result, the paper is conveyed in the direction orthogonal to the moving direction of the carriage 5, and when the print start position of the paper faces the platen 2, the driving of the paper feed roller 9 is stopped and the conveyance of the paper is stopped. In this state, the thermal head 6 is brought into pressure contact with the ink ribbon and the paper with a predetermined pressure contact force, and then the carriage 5 is moved and the winding bobbin 7 is rotated so that the ink ribbon of the ribbon cassette is removed. While winding
The heating element of the thermal head 6 selectively generates heat on the basis of a desired print signal to perform desired printing on the paper.

At this time, when the paper is thermal paper, the ink ribbon cassette is not mounted and the changeover switch 12 is used.
To the thermal paper printing mode, and the control unit controls the thermal head 6 directly to the platen 2 via the thermal paper.
The thermal head 6 is selectively driven while moving the carriage 5 in this state to control the color of the thermal paper to perform desired printing.

When printing on plain paper as the paper, the changeover switch 12 is switched to the thermal transfer print mode, the ink ribbon cassette is mounted on the carriage 5, and the control section controls the ink of the ink ribbon. Control to print by melting and transferring.

[0009]

However, in the conventional thermal transfer printer as described above, it was possible to print on thermal paper or plain paper one by one, but copying on a plurality of stacked papers. It was not possible to print. Therefore, when a plurality of printed matters having the same content are required, the same data is divided into a plurality of times and printed on the required number of sheets, or a plurality of carriages 5 are arranged in parallel and the number of carriages 5 is increased. It was necessary to print the same contents on each of the carriages 5 on the aligned sheets.

Therefore, when the same data is divided into a plurality of times and printed on the required number of sheets, a considerable time is required until the printing is completed, and a plurality of carriages 5 are arranged in parallel and are the same. When printing the required number of sheets of the content, there is a problem that the size of the apparatus of the thermal transfer printer itself becomes considerably larger than the apparatus when only printing one sheet.

In view of the above, the present invention overcomes the above-mentioned problems and enables good copy printing on a plurality of sheets of paper while keeping the energization time for the heating element and the capacity of the buffer memory in the normal state. An object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer printer and a copy printing method thereof that can obtain a clear printing state even in a low temperature atmosphere.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a thermal transfer printer according to claim 1 of the present invention comprises:
A thermal transfer printer that prints on one or more sheets by driving a thermal head mounted on a carriage in contact with a platen. When printing on multiple sheets of paper, the same line is the same. It is characterized by having a control unit for controlling to repeatedly print based on the print data of.

A thermal transfer printer according to a second aspect of the present invention is a thermal transfer printer which drives a thermal head mounted on a carriage in contact with a platen to print on one or a plurality of sheets of paper. A temperature detector for detecting the ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer, and if the temperature detected by the temperature detector is lower than the temperature suitable for copy printing, the same line is repeatedly printed based on the same print data. In the first copy print mode and when the detected temperature is higher than the temperature suitable for copy print, the energization time to the thermal head is set to be longer than the energization time when printing on one sheet of paper. Printing is performed or printing is performed so that the moving speed of the carriage is slower than that for printing on one sheet so that the thermal head is energized multiple times. It is characterized by having a selectively switchable control unit in the 2 copy print mode.

Further, the copy printing method of the thermal transfer printer according to the third aspect of the present invention is the copy printing method of the thermal transfer printer for performing copy printing on a plurality of sheets of paper, and the same line has the same print data. It is characterized by repeatedly printing multiple times based on the above.

A copy printing method of a thermal transfer printer according to a fourth aspect of the present invention is a copy printing method of a thermal transfer printer for performing copy printing on a plurality of sheets of paper, and the ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer is The feature is that the same line is repeatedly printed multiple times based on the same print data only when the temperature is lower than the temperature suitable for copy printing.

[0016]

According to the thermal transfer printer of the present invention, in the thermal transfer printer according to the first aspect of the present invention, when a plurality of sheets of paper are conveyed and printed at a position facing the thermal head, the sheets are stacked. In order to secure the thermal energy of the thermal head necessary for printing a plurality of stacked sheets, the control unit controls the same line to be repeatedly printed based on the same print data. Therefore, it is possible to perform excellent copy printing on a plurality of sheets of paper while keeping the energization time for the heating element and the capacity of the buffer memory in the normal state.

According to the thermal transfer printer of the second aspect, when the temperature around the thermal transfer printer detected by the temperature detector by the controller is lower than the temperature suitable for copy printing, the same line is printed. Printing is repeated based on the data, and when the detected temperature is higher than the temperature suitable for copying, printing is performed so that the energization time for the thermal head is longer than the energization time for printing on one sheet of paper. Alternatively, the moving speed of the carriage is controlled to be slower than that for printing on one sheet of paper so that the thermal head is energized a plurality of times to perform printing. Therefore, good printing can be performed even when the temperature around the thermal transfer printer is low, and copy printing can be efficiently performed.

[0018]

The present invention will be described below with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings. It should be noted that the same components as those of the conventional one described above are denoted by the same reference numerals as those used in FIG. 3, and the repetitive description will be omitted.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, a thermal transfer printer as one embodiment of the present invention drives a thermal head 6 mounted on a carriage 5 in contact with a platen 2 to drive one or more sheets. A thermal transfer printer that prints on a sheet of paper, and when the number of sheets is 1, the normal print mode is selected. When the number of sheets is 2 or more, the copy print mode is selected manually or automatically. A changeover switch 12 which can be changed over, a temperature detector 13 connected to the changeover switch 12 for detecting an ambient temperature such as an ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer, and the changeover switch 12
And a control unit 11 for controlling the thermal transfer printer based on each print mode switched by.

Each printing mode switched by the changeover switch 12 will be described in detail. The normal printing mode can be further switched to two normal printing modes depending on the type of paper. For example, when thermal paper is used as the paper, it is switched to the first normal print mode, and when plain paper is used as the paper and printing is performed with an ink ribbon, it is switched to the second normal print mode. There is. That is, in the first normal print mode, the thermal head 6 is brought into contact with the platen 2 via the thermal paper, and in this state, the thermal head 6 is driven while moving the carriage 5 to develop the thermal paper. In the second normal print mode, the ink ribbon cassette is mounted on the carriage 5, and the ink of the ink ribbon is melted and transferred to the plain paper. The desired printing is performed. The control of the thermal transfer printer based on the first normal printing mode and the second normal printing mode is performed by the control unit 11 in the same control method as that of the conventional thermal transfer printer.

Next, the copy print mode will be described in detail.

This copy print mode is a print mode selected when printing on a plurality of sheets of paper. First, there are several methods for printing the plurality of sheets of paper in an overlapping manner. When applying the heat-melting ink to the back side of the plain paper of the eye and printing the second plain paper by overlapping it,
Alternatively, printing may be performed through an ink film coated with a heat-melting ink between the first and second sheets, or printing may be performed on a set of two thermal papers.
Assuming that the plurality of sheets of paper in the present embodiment are composed of, for example, two sheets of paper, first of all, the surface of the first sheet of paper is covered with heat-sensitive ink that is colored by heat as in the principle of the heat-sensitive paper. It has been applied, and on the back side of it, a heat-melting ink is applied, similar to the principle of the ink ribbon.
It is assumed that normal plain paper is stacked as the first sheet.

First, there are several methods for printing a plurality of sheets of paper in an overlapping manner. For example, a heat-melting ink is applied to the back surface of the first sheet of plain paper, and then the second sheet of plain paper is applied. When printing on top of each other, when printing through an ink film coated with hot-melt ink between the first and second sheets of paper, or when printing on two sets of thermal paper is there. When printing on such a plurality of sheets, in order to perform good printing on the above-mentioned proposal and also on the second sheet, the heat applied to the back surface of the first sheet is used. Experiments have shown that it is sufficient that the heat energy transferred to the meltable ink exceeds a certain amount and the temperature of the meltable ink rises sufficiently.

Therefore, the copy print mode is a print mode in which the two copy print modes can be largely switched according to the ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer. That is,
If the temperature around the thermal transfer printer is quite low, the temperature of the heat-meltable ink applied to the back surface of the first sheet of paper does not rise sufficiently, so the second sheet of paper may not be printed or may be printed. Becomes thin. Therefore, in the copy print mode, when the temperature around the thermal transfer printer is low enough to melt the heat-fusible ink, for example, at 15 ° C. or less, the same line is repeatedly printed based on the same print data. If the ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer is higher than 15 ° C. after switching to the first copy print mode, the print mode in which the energization time per dot of the heating element is longer than usual, or the heating element 1
The printing mode in which the dots are energized a plurality of times for the same time as usual is switched to the so-called second copy printing mode in which the printing mode can be arbitrarily selected.

Next, the operation of the above-described one embodiment of the present invention will be described.

First, depending on the number of sheets to be inserted into the sheet insertion port 8, the changeover switch 12 is automatically or manually switched to a normal print mode for one sheet and a copy print mode for two sheets. . In the normal print mode, depending on the type of paper, if the paper is thermal paper, it is switched to the first normal print mode, and if it is plain paper, it is switched to the second normal print mode.

On the other hand, when the changeover switch 12 is switched to the copy print mode, the temperature detector 13 further detects the ambient temperature, and when the detected temperature is lower than the set temperature, it is automatically or manually operated. The changeover switch 12 is changed over to the first copy print mode. When the temperature detector 13 detects a temperature higher than the set temperature, the changeover switch 12 is automatically or manually switched to the second copy print mode. Then, when the changeover switch 12 is switched to the first normal print mode or the second normal print mode, the control unit 11 controls in the same manner as in the prior art to print on each sheet. On the other hand, when the changeover switch 12 is switched to the copy print mode, printing is performed as follows.

That is, the two stacked sheets are inserted into the sheet insertion port 8 of the thermal transfer printer, sandwiched between the sheet feed roller and the pressure contact roller, and conveyed to the printing position. And
The controller 11 drives the thermal head 6 mounted on the carriage 5 to perform printing. At this time, since the ambient temperature is lower than 15 ° C., the changeover switch 12 is switched to the first copy print mode. In this case, the control unit 11 drives the thermal head 6, prints one line, raises the temperature of the heat-meltable ink to some extent, and again prints the same line based on the same print data. Control to print.

On the other hand, when the changeover switch 12 is changed over to the second copy print mode because the ambient temperature is higher than 15 ° C., the control section 11 controls the dots per heating element according to the user's arbitrary selection. Is controlled so as to make the energization time longer than usual for printing, or to control so that one dot of the heating element is energized a plurality of times for the same time as usual for printing. Then, when the heat-meltable ink applied to the back side of the first sheet is melted by heat energy and transferred to the second plain paper, the copy printing is completed.

Therefore, according to the thermal transfer printer and its copy printing method of the present embodiment, the changeover switch 12 can be used even when printing is performed on a plurality of sheets.
Can be easily printed by setting to the copy print mode. Further, when the changeover switch 12 is switched to the first copy print mode, it is possible to perform good copy print on a plurality of sheets while keeping the energization time for the heating element and the capacity of the buffer memory in the normal state. A clear printing state can be obtained even in a low temperature atmosphere.

Further, as the above-mentioned copy print mode, three patterns of print modes can be arbitrarily selected, so that printing with a wide range of use is possible according to each condition, which leads to an increase in efficiency.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, but can be modified as necessary.

For example, the above-described configuration of a plurality of sheets is subordinate to a configuration in which a transfer ink sheet is inserted between each sheet, instead of applying a heat-melting ink to the back surface of the sheet disposed above. The transfer may be performed on the sheet arranged in the above, or a sheet obtained by combining a plurality of heat-sensitive sheets having high heat permeability. With such a configuration of the sheets, the number of sheets can be easily increased.

The copy print mode can select either the first copy print mode or the second copy print mode, and the selection criterion is that the ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer is higher or lower than 15 ° C. The temperature condition is not limited to the temperature of 15 ° C., but may be changed according to the type of printing paper.

In the second copy print mode, two patterns are arbitrarily selected, one for increasing the energization time per heating element dot and one for energizing the heating element a plurality of times. These copy print modes may be automatically selected, or the thermal transfer printer may have only one of the copy print modes.

Further, although the temperature detector 13 is supposed to detect the actual temperature by digital display or the like,
This may be used to warn the user with a warning lamp or a warning sound when the ambient temperature reaches a temperature range in which good printing cannot be performed, or the automatic switching is performed in conjunction with the changeover switch 12 without giving any warning to the outside. It may be configured to be possible.

[0037]

As described above, according to the thermal transfer printer and the copy printing method thereof of the present invention, good copy printing can be performed on a plurality of sheets of paper while keeping the energization time for the heating element and the capacity of the buffer memory in the normal state. It is possible to obtain a clear printed state even in a low temperature atmosphere.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a thermal transfer printer according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a main part of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a conventional thermal transfer printer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Platen 5 Carriage 6 Thermal head 8 Paper insertion port 11 Control unit 12 Changeover switch 13 Temperature detector

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A thermal transfer printer for printing on one or a plurality of sheets of paper by driving a thermal head mounted on a carriage in contact with a platen, and printing on a plurality of sheets of stacked paper. A thermal transfer printer having a control unit for controlling the same line to be repeatedly printed based on the same print data. 2. A thermal transfer printer that prints on one or a plurality of sheets by driving a thermal head mounted on a carriage in contact with a platen, the temperature detecting a temperature around the thermal transfer printer. When the detector and the temperature detected by the temperature detector are lower than the temperature suitable for copy printing, the first line and print mode in which the same line is repeatedly printed based on the same print data, and the detected temperature is copy print If the temperature is higher than the temperature suitable for printing, printing is performed so that the energization time to the thermal head is longer than the energization time when printing on one sheet of paper, or the carriage moving speed is set to one sheet. A control unit that can be selectively switched to a second copy print mode in which the thermal head is energized a plurality of times so that the thermal head is energized multiple times later than when printing on paper. And a thermal transfer printer. 3. A copy printing method of a thermal transfer printer for performing copy printing on a plurality of sheets of paper, wherein the same line is repeatedly printed a plurality of times based on the same print data. Printing method. 4. A copy printing method of a thermal transfer printer for performing copy printing on a plurality of stacked sheets, wherein the same line is the same only when the ambient temperature of the thermal transfer printer is lower than the temperature suitable for copy printing. A copy printing method for a thermal transfer printer, which is characterized by repeatedly printing a plurality of times based on print data.