JPH0867019A - Thermal transfer printing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide a re-transfer type thermal transfer printing machine which can obtain a high quality printed matter. CONSTITUTION: The ink of an ink film 1 is transferred on an intermediate transfer film 7 by a thermal head 3. An ink image which is transferred on the intermediate transfer film 7 and a recording paper sheet 2 are overlapped by being transferred between a heating roller 11 and a re transfer roller 17 so that the ink image is re-transferred on the recording paper sheet 2 by the heat of the heating roller 11. By making the maximum printing area to be transferred on the intermediate transfer film 7 larger than the size of the recording paper sheet 2, the recording paper sheet is made a high grade printed matter since no blank part is formed in the entire marginal part even when the whole surface of the recording paper sheet 2 is 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 printing apparatus for transferring a meltable or sublimable ink to a recording medium (image receiving body), and in particular, an ink image is first formed on an intermediate transfer film and then an intermediate image is formed. The present invention relates to a retransfer thermal transfer printing apparatus that transfers an ink image formed on a transfer film onto a recording medium.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A fusible or sublimable ink applied to an ink film is transferred to an intermediate transfer film to form an ink image on the intermediate transfer film, and then the ink image formed on the intermediate transfer film is transferred. A retransfer type thermal transfer printing apparatus for transferring onto a recording medium has been considered and various proposals have been made. An example of this type of thermal transfer printing apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 6-26904. FIG. 3 shows a thermal transfer printing apparatus described in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 6-26904, and the basic configuration and operation of the retransfer thermal transfer printing apparatus will be described below with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 3, the ink film 1 is stretched between a supply reel 5 and a take-up reel 6 with the ink application surface facing the platen roller 4 side. The intermediate transfer film 7 is stretched between the supply reel 8 and the take-up reel 9 with its conveying path guided by the guide roller 10 and the heating roller 11. A thermal head 3, which is a first heating unit, is arranged outside the ink film 1 (on the side of the base film), and the ink film 1 and the intermediate transfer film 7 are brought into close contact with each other between the thermal head 3 and the platen roller 4. . The recording paper 2 which is an image receiver is wound around the winding roller 12, and the recording paper 2 is wound between the heating roller 11 which is the second heating unit and the winding roller 12.
And the intermediate transfer film 7 are brought into close contact with each other.

The recording operation on the recording paper 2 is performed as follows. The platen roller 4 is rotated in the direction of the arrow while pressing the thermal head 3 against the platen roller 4, and the ink film 1 and the intermediate transfer film 7 are conveyed in the direction of the arrow. At this time, the ink of the ink film 1 is melted or sublimated by applying a predetermined current to the thermal head 3 and transferred to the intermediate transfer film 7. Next, the intermediate transfer film 7 is conveyed in the direction of the arrow to convey the ink image 1a to the heating roller 11. The ink image 1a formed on the intermediate transfer film 7 and the recording paper 2 are superposed, the heating roller 11 and the winding roller 12 are rotated in the direction of the arrow, and the heating roller 11 is heated, whereby the recording paper 2 is formed. The ink image 1a on the intermediate transfer film 7 is transferred.

[0005]

Conventionally, when the transfer printing is performed on the recording paper 2 using such a retransfer type thermal transfer printing apparatus, the maximum print area A transferred to the intermediate transfer film 7 and the recording paper 2 are transferred. As for the relationship with the size B, as shown in FIG. 4, the maximum print area A is smaller than the size B of the recording paper 2, or the maximum print area A and the size B of the recording paper 2 are the same. Was doing. However, when the ink image 1a on the intermediate transfer film 7 is recorded on the recording paper 2
Since the intermediate transfer film 7 is expanded and contracted and deformed because heat is applied in the second heating portion when the image is transferred to, it is difficult to accurately align the printing area A of the intermediate transfer film 7 and the recording paper 2. Therefore, conventionally, when the entire surface of the recording paper 2 is printed, a non-printed portion is formed at one of the upper, lower, left, and right ends, and the quality of the printed recording paper 2, which is a printed matter, is significantly deteriorated. there were.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer printing apparatus of a retransfer type capable of obtaining a printed matter of high quality.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, the present invention transfers the ink applied to the ink film to the intermediate transfer film by the first heating unit to form an ink image. A thermal transfer printing apparatus adapted to re-transfer the ink image transferred to the intermediate transfer film to an image receiver by a second heating unit, the intermediate transfer film having a maximum print area and a size larger than the size of the image receiver. And a maximum transfer area transferred to the intermediate transfer film is made larger than the size of the image receiving body.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A thermal transfer printing apparatus of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the thermal transfer printing apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the thermal transfer printing apparatus of the present invention. 1 and 2, the same parts as those in FIGS. 3 and 4 are designated by the same reference numerals.

First, the construction and operation of an embodiment of the thermal transfer printing apparatus of the present invention will be described. In FIG.
The ink film 1 is stretched between the supply reel 5 and the take-up reel 6 with its ink application surface facing the platen roller 4 and its transport path being guided by the guide shafts 15a to 15c. The supply reel 5 and the take-up reel 6 are controlled and driven by a drive source (not shown), and back tension is applied to the supply reel 5 by a friction clutch (not shown). Ink film 1
Is, for example, three colors of meltable yellow (Y), magenta (M) and cyan (C) or four colors of yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C) and black (K) on the strip-shaped base film. The color ink is applied periodically. The intermediate transfer film 7 includes guide shafts 16a to 1a.
The conveying path is guided by 6 g and is stretched between the supply reel 8 and the take-up reel 9. Supply reel 8
The take-up reel 9 is controlled and driven by a drive source (not shown).

A thermal head 3, which is a first heating unit, is arranged on the lower side (base film side) of the ink film 1 in the figure, and the ink film 1 and the intermediate transfer film are arranged between the thermal head 3 and the platen roller 4. And 7 are in close contact. A heating roller 11 and a retransfer roller 17, which are second heating units, are provided downstream of the first heating unit in the transport direction of the intermediate transfer film 7. Passing between the transfer roller 17,
It is steeply pulled upward by the guide shaft 16g and wound on the take-up reel 9. A thermal head, a ceramic heater, or the like can be used instead of the heating roller 11.

A hopper 20 for accommodating, for example, cards as recording paper 2 is provided at the left end in the figure, and the recording paper 2 in the hopper 20 is fed by a paper feed roller 21. The recording paper 2 taken out of the hopper 20 is sequentially conveyed by the conveying rollers 22a to 22d and sent between the heating roller 11 and the retransfer roller 17.
When an ink image is transferred from the intermediate transfer film 7 to the recording paper 2 by a series of recording operations described later in detail, the recording paper 2 is always pressed against each other by a spring or the like at a set pressure. The conveying rollers 19a, 19b. Is discharged by. By the way, the recording paper 2 taken out of the hopper 20 is heated by the conveying rollers 22a to 22d.
And the re-transfer roller 17 and further guided to the sheet discharge port by the transport rollers 19a and 19b, the series of transport paths for transporting the recording paper 2 in a substantially straight line. Are arranged in a plane so as to be substantially straight.

Next, the recording operation on the recording medium 2 will be described. First, in the initial state, the thermal head 3 is sufficiently separated from the platen roller 4, and the ink film 1 is cued by the ink film mark sensor 23. The first color Y ink is cueed, and a print instruction from a host computer (not shown) is waited for. When an instruction is given from the host computer, the thermal head 3 presses the platen roller 4 by a pressing mechanism (not shown), and the Y ink is transferred to the intermediate transfer film 7 while rotating the platen roller 4. After the transfer of Y ink is completed, the thermal head 3 is moved to the platen roller 4
With further separation, M ink, which is the second color of the ink film 1, is cued. In addition, the intermediate transfer film 7 is accurately wound by counting pulses of an encoder (not shown) provided in the drive system of the platen roller 4 or by using a stepping motor as a drive source and using the number of steps. return.

At this time, the guide shafts 16b and 16c of the intermediate transfer film 7 are set so that the winding angle of the intermediate transfer film 7 with respect to the platen roller 4 is 120 ° or more. By the frictional force between the outer peripheral surface and the intermediate transfer film 7, the intermediate transfer film 7
Is rewound without slipping on the platen roller 4. As described above, the intermediate transfer film 7 is reciprocated three times or four times and the inks of three colors or four colors are superposed and transferred, whereby the intermediate transfer film 7 is transferred.
An image (ink image) such as a full-color picture or character is formed on the top.

Then, the take-up reel 9 for the intermediate transfer film 7 is rotated to convey the ink image to the heating roller 11 as follows. When the intermediate transfer film 7 is conveyed to the heating roller 11, the heating roller 11 is separated from the retransfer roller 17. By detecting the head position of the ink image by the intermediate transfer film sensor 24 and counting the moving distance of the intermediate transfer film 7 by the encoder of the drive system of the platen roller 4, the full-color image transferred on the intermediate transfer film 7 is counted. The ink image is moved to just below the heating roller 11. Simultaneously with this operation, the recording sheet 2 such as a card stored in the hopper 20 is taken out by the sheet feeding roller 21 driven by a drive system (not shown) and the separating mechanism (not shown). The transfer rollers 22a to 22d are moved to directly below the heating roller 11. Reference numeral 25 is a recording paper sensor.

When the front end of the ink image on the intermediate transfer film 7 and the front end of the recording paper 2 are aligned and stopped, the heating roller 11 is pressed against the retransfer roller 17 by a pressing mechanism (not shown). The drive system 18 is driven to rotate the retransfer roller 17 at a constant speed, and the intermediate transfer film 7 and the recording paper 2 are brought into close contact with each other and conveyed. At this time, the ink image formed on the intermediate transfer film 7 is melted by the heat of the heating roller 11 and re-transferred onto the recording paper 2. Ink image portion of intermediate transfer film 7 and recording paper 2
When the ink passes through the heating roller 11, the ink image retransferred onto the recording paper 2 is cooled after a predetermined time has passed. The intermediate transfer film 7 is sharply pulled upward with the guide shaft 16g as a boundary, and the transport direction is rapidly changed. As a result, the intermediate transfer film 7 is reliably separated from the recording paper 2. The separated recording paper 2 is conveyed by the transport roller 19
It is pinched by a and 19b and guided to the paper exit.

By the way, in the thermal transfer printing apparatus of the present invention,
The intermediate transfer film 7, the maximum print area A transferred to the intermediate transfer film 7, and the size B of the recording paper 2 are set as follows. That is, as shown in FIG. 2, the intermediate transfer film 7 is sufficiently larger than the maximum print area A and the size B of the recording paper 2, and the maximum print area A is larger than the size B of the recording paper 2. . Of course, the thermal transfer printing apparatus shown in FIG.
Preparations such as a memory for image data (not shown) have been made. Thus, in the present invention, the intermediate transfer film 7
Since the maximum print area A transferred onto the recording paper 2 is slightly larger than the size B of the recording paper 2, when the entire surface of the recording paper 2 is printed, the maximum print area A of the intermediate transfer film 7 and the recording paper 2 are Since no unprinted portion is formed on any one of the upper, lower, left, and right ends of the recording sheet 2 without performing proper alignment, the quality of the recording sheet 2 after printing, which is a printed matter, is not degraded.

[0017]

As described in detail above, the thermal transfer printing apparatus of the present invention uses an intermediate transfer film having a size larger than the maximum printing area and the size of the image receiver (recording paper) and transferring the intermediate transfer film. Since the maximum print area is larger than the size of the image receptor, there is no unprinted area on either the top, bottom, left, or right edges even if the image is printed on the entire surface of the image receptor, and therefore a good quality printed matter can be obtained. It has the feature that it can.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a conventional example.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Ink film 2 Recording paper (image receiving body) 3 Thermal head (1st heating part) 4 Platen roller 5 Supply reel 6 Take-up reel 7 Intermediate transfer film 8 Supply reel 9 Take-up reel 11 Heating roller (Second heating part) 17 Retransfer Roller 18 Drive System 19a, 19b, 22a to 22d Conveying Roller A Maximum Printing Area B Size of Recording Paper 2

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A first ink applied to an ink film.
In the thermal transfer printing apparatus, an ink image is formed by transferring the ink image onto the intermediate transfer film by the heating unit, and the ink image transferred onto the intermediate transfer film is retransferred to an image receiver by the second heating unit. A thermal transfer printing apparatus, wherein a transfer film having a maximum print area and a size larger than that of the image receiver is used, and the maximum print area transferred to the intermediate transfer film is made larger than the size of the image receiver.