JPH0867017A - Re-transferring printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide an apparatus which can simplify controlling the transfer of an intermediate recording medium and reduce the cost of the intermediate recording medium itself and the running cost. CONSTITUTION: Printing in the first color is conducted with a thermal head 4a pressed on a platen roller 3 at a position where a print positioning sensor 26 detects a marker 27a (a marker printed by a thermal head 4a). When printing in the first color is finished, an intermediate recording medium 1a is transferred in the reverse direction to that in printing. The printing in the next color is conducted from the position where the print positioning sensor 26 detects the marker 27a. When the printing in all colors is finished, the next marker is printed on the intermediate printing medium 1a. In this way, the control of a printing position can be conducted by the marker to simplify the control operation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to conveyance control of an intermediate recording medium in a retransfer printing apparatus. An object of the present invention is to provide a retransfer printing apparatus that can simplify the conveyance control of the intermediate recording medium and can reduce the cost of the intermediate recording medium itself.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is a retransfer type printing apparatus which transfers an ink of a transfer paper onto an intermediate recording medium to form an image once and transfers the image onto a recording medium (for example, various cards).
A conventional retransfer printing apparatus is shown in FIGS. FIG. 8 is an enlarged view of the vicinity of the retransfer portion of the apparatus shown in FIG.

Next, the retransfer printing operation will be described. First,
The printing unit including the thermal head 4 (first heating unit) and the platen roller 3 transfers the ink of the transfer paper 2 onto the intermediate recording medium 1 to obtain an image. This image has four colors (Y, M, and
C, K) inks are sequentially formed on the intermediate recording medium 1. Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan),
The control of the print start position of each color of K (black) is performed by counting the operation pulses of the stepping motor (not shown) for driving the platen roller. FIG. 7 shows an example of print start position control.

After printing on the intermediate recording medium 1, the intermediate recording medium 1 is conveyed to the retransfer position. At this time, FIG.
As shown in, when the intermediate recording medium position sensor 9 detects the marker 47 provided in advance on the intermediate recording medium 1, the conveyance of the intermediate recording medium 1 is stopped. The distance between the intermediate recording medium position sensor 9 and the center of the heating roller 5 is adjusted in advance so that the center of the heating roller 5 and the print start position of the image 43 printed on the intermediate recording medium 1 coincide with each other.
(Of course, the distance between the position of the marker 47 and the print start position of the print image 43 is always constant.)

The print image 43 on the intermediate recording medium 1 is re-transferred onto the recording medium 7 by the re-transfer portion composed of the heating roller 5 (second heating means) and the recording medium conveying roller 6. The retransfer start position alignment of the recording medium 7 is based on the position where the rear end of the recording medium 7 is detected by the recording medium alignment sensor 8 as a reference, and the operation pulse of the stepping motor (not shown) for driving the recording medium conveying roller is used. Do by counting.
When the alignment between the intermediate recording medium 1 and the recording medium 7 is completed, the heating roller 5 is pressed to perform retransfer.

[0006]

The above-mentioned conventional retransfer printing apparatus has the following problems. The control for the printing position of each color of Y, M, C, and K of the intermediate recording medium 1 in the printing unit including the thermal head 4 and the platen roller 3 is the operation of the platen roller driving stepping motor (not shown). Since the control is based on the pulse count, the control is complicated.

It is necessary to previously provide a marker 47 as shown in FIG. 9 on the intermediate recording medium 1. Therefore, due to the complicated production process of the intermediate recording medium, the cost of the intermediate recording medium becomes higher than that of the medium without the marker.

The inter-marker distance on the intermediate recording medium 1 (marker interval in the conveying direction of the intermediate recording medium) needs to be constant according to the length of the recording medium used (length in the conveying direction of the intermediate recording medium). is there. Therefore, when the print area is small as indicated by a in FIG. 9, a useless portion b is generated on the intermediate recording medium. Further, since the distance between the markers is constant, when using a plurality of types of recording media having different lengths, it is necessary to prepare a plurality of types of intermediate recording media having different distances between the markers according to the recording medium used. There is. These increase the running cost of the intermediate recording medium and deteriorate the usability.

An object of the present invention is to provide a retransfer printing apparatus capable of simplifying the conveyance control of the intermediate recording medium, reducing the cost of the intermediate recording medium itself, and reducing the running cost.

[0010]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a printing section for transferring an ink of a transfer paper onto an intermediate recording medium by a first heating means to obtain an image,
In a retransfer printing apparatus having a retransfer unit that transfers the image on the intermediate recording medium onto the recording medium by a second heating unit, a marker for controlling conveyance of the intermediate recording medium is used as the image. Separately, the retransfer printing apparatus is characterized in that the printing unit prints on the intermediate recording medium and a printing position detection sensor for detecting the marker is provided in the vicinity of the printing unit.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows a printing section of an embodiment of the retransfer printing apparatus of the present invention. The same parts as those in the conventional example are designated by the same reference numerals, and a detailed description of those parts will be omitted (the same applies to FIG. 4).

The major difference from the conventional example is that a marker is printed on the intermediate recording medium by a thermal head, and that a print position sensor (print position detection sensor) for detecting the marker is provided near the printing portion. .

Printing on the intermediate recording medium 1a will be described with reference to FIG. Thermal head 4a (first heating means)
The platen roller 3 and the platen roller 3 form a printing unit. As shown in FIG. 3A, in the printing of the first color, the thermal head 4a is pressure-bonded to the platen roller 3 at the position where the print position sensor 26 detects the marker 27a (the marker printed by the thermal head 4a). To print the image. FIG. 7B shows a state where the first color is being printed. When the printing of the image of the first color is completed, the intermediate recording medium 1a is conveyed in the direction opposite to that at the time of printing, as shown in FIG. The printing of the next color is performed from the position where the printing position sensor 26 detects the marker 27a (the same state as in FIG. 7A). When printing of all colors is completed, as shown in FIG.
7b is printed on the intermediate recording medium 1a. Markers are printed in black (K).

However, when there is no marker immediately before the position on the intermediate recording medium 1a where the image is to be printed (for example,
In the case of printing the image of the first screen on a new intermediate recording medium immediately after replacement, it is necessary to print the marker before printing the image of the first screen as shown in the flowchart of FIG. is there. On the second and subsequent screens, marker printing is performed after image printing as in the flowchart shown in FIG.

As described above, in this embodiment, since the control for the print position alignment of each color of Y, M, C and K of the intermediate recording medium 1a can be performed by the detection of the marker, the conventional stepping motor for driving the platen roller is used. The control can be performed easily and the cost can be reduced as compared with the control by counting the operation pulse of. Further, since it is not necessary to print the marker on the intermediate recording medium in advance, the cost of the intermediate recording medium can be reduced. Further, since the marker is not printed in advance on the intermediate recording medium, one intermediate recording medium can be commonly used for a plurality of types of recording mediums having different lengths, and the device is improved in usability.

Although the marker is printed in black here, the color of the marker does not matter as long as it can be detected by the sensor.

For printing the marker, the intermediate recording medium 1 is used.
The ink on the transfer paper used for printing the image on a may be used (the transfer paper in this case is the same as that shown in FIG. 3A), and the image may be printed on the intermediate recording medium 1a. Printing may be performed using a dedicated ink other than the ink used for printing. (The transfer paper in this case is shown in FIG.
The one provided with the ink dedicated to the marker printing as shown in). The former case is more cost effective than the latter. In the latter case, ink more suitable for marker printing and ink more suitable for detection by a sensor can be used as compared with the former, and the flexibility of ink for marker printing is expanded.

The interval between the marker to be printed and the marker in the conveying direction of the intermediate recording medium may be a constant interval according to the length of the recording medium as shown in FIG. 5A, but partial printing is possible. When the portion (a in FIG. 5A) is performed, a useless portion (the portion b in FIG. 5A) is generated on the intermediate recording medium. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 5B, the marker interval may be changed and the markers may be printed in accordance with the length of the image to be printed in the sub-scanning direction. In this case, the useless portion b is eliminated, the intermediate recording medium can be used efficiently, and the running cost can be reduced.

The retransfer operation is the same as in the prior art. FIG. 4A shows the positional relationship among the marker 27a, the print image 43, the intermediate recording medium 1a, and the recording medium 7 at the start of printing when printing (retransferring) the entire surface of the recording medium 7. FIG. 2B is a diagram in the case of partially printing on the recording medium 7. After the recording medium alignment sensor 8 detects the rear end of the recording medium 7, the recording medium 7 is moved to the print start position by a distance ( x), and the retransfer operation is started from that position. An intermediate recording medium 1a is formed by the retransfer unit including the heating roller 5 (second heating unit) and the recording medium conveying roller 6.
The upper print image 43 is retransferred to the recording medium 7.

When the retransfer to the recording medium 7 is completed, FIG.
The intermediate recording medium 1a is conveyed in the direction opposite to that during printing until the print position sensor 26 shown in (1) detects the marker 27b (until the state shown in FIG. 1C is reached). After that, processing regarding the next image is performed.

Information other than information indicating the position of the intermediate recording medium at the time of conveyance may be encoded in the marker. Also, when printing multiple sheets in succession,
A code representing an image data number or the like may be printed in addition to the marker.

[0022]

As described above, the retransfer printing apparatus of the present invention has the following effects. (A) In the retransfer printing apparatus according to the first aspect, since the control for the print position alignment of each color of the intermediate recording medium can be performed by detecting the marker, the operation pulse of the conventional platen roller driving stepping motor is counted. Compared with the control, the control can be performed easily and the cost can be reduced. Further, since this retransfer printing apparatus can use the intermediate recording medium on which the marker is not printed, the cost of the intermediate recording medium can be reduced. Further, since the marker is not printed in advance on the intermediate recording medium, one intermediate recording medium can be commonly used for a plurality of types of recording mediums having different lengths, and the device is improved in usability.

(B) The retransfer printing apparatus according to claim 2 is
Since ink on the transfer paper used for printing an image on the intermediate recording medium is used as the ink for printing the marker, there is no need to provide an ink dedicated to printing the marker, which is cost effective.

(C) The retransfer printing apparatus according to claim 3 is
Since the ink dedicated to the marker printing is used, the ink more suitable for the marker printing, the ink more suitable for the detection by the sensor and the like can be used in addition to the ink for the image printing, and the flexibility of the ink for the marker printing is expanded.

(D) The retransfer printing apparatus according to claim 4 is
By making the interval between the markers in the conveyance direction of the intermediate recording medium variable according to the length of the image printed on the intermediate recording medium in the sub-scanning direction, the area that is not used for printing on the intermediate recording medium is significantly increased. The intermediate recording medium can be efficiently used, and the running cost of the intermediate recording medium can be reduced.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a vicinity of a printing unit according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of image and marker printing.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a transfer sheet.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a positional relationship between an intermediate recording medium and a recording medium at the time of retransfer.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing positions of markers on an intermediate recording medium.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a configuration of a conventional retransfer printing apparatus.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of print position adjustment pulse count control when printing on an intermediate recording medium.

FIG. 8 is an enlarged view of the vicinity of a retransfer portion.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an intermediate recording medium.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1a Intermediate Recording Medium 2 Transfer Paper 3 Platen Roller 4a Thermal Head 5 Heating Roller 6 Recording Medium Conveying Roller 7 Recording Medium 8 Recording Medium Alignment Sensor 9 Intermediate Recording Medium Position Sensor 26 Printing Position Detection Sensor (Printing Position Detection Sensor) 27a, 27b Marker 43 print image

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Internal reference number FI technical display location B41J 25/20 35/16 B

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A printing section for obtaining an image by transferring ink of a transfer paper onto an intermediate recording medium by a first heating means, and the image on the intermediate recording medium on a recording medium by a second heating means. In a retransfer printing apparatus having a retransfer unit for transferring, a marker for carrying the conveyance of the intermediate recording medium,
A retransfer printing apparatus, characterized in that a printing position detection sensor for printing the intermediate recording medium by the printing unit separately from the image and detecting the marker is provided in the vicinity of the printing unit. 2. The retransfer printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein
The retransfer printing apparatus, wherein the marker printed on the intermediate recording medium by the printing unit is printed using ink on a transfer paper used for printing an image on the intermediate recording medium. 3. The retransfer printing apparatus according to claim 1,
The marker printed on the intermediate recording medium by the printing unit is printed using a dedicated ink provided on the transfer paper in addition to the ink on the transfer paper used for printing an image on the intermediate recording medium. Retransfer printing device. 4. The retransfer printing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the interval between the markers printed on the intermediate recording medium in the printing unit in the conveyance direction of the intermediate recording medium is the intermediate recording. A retransfer printing device characterized in that it is variable according to the length of an image printed on a medium in the sub-scanning direction.