JPH0939278A - Cleaning sheet - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a cleaning sheet for cleaning an intermediate medium contaminated by silicone oil, dust, sheet chips in a thermal transfer recorder that a dyed layer and a layer containing a plurality of coloring materials are sequentially superposed to be recorded on the medium to form a color image and the color image is transferred to an image receiver. SOLUTION: A cleaning sheet formed of a sticky layer 1, a nonwoven fabric layer 2 and a resin layer 3 is fed into an apparatus, and impurities stuck to the surface of the medium are removed. At this time, silicone oil is removed by the layer 2, and the dusts are removed by the layer 1 of the surface.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording apparatus for transferring a plurality of color material layers to a plain paper, an OHP film or the like via an intermediate medium to form a full-color image on the surface of the intermediate medium. The present invention relates to a cleaning sheet for removing impurities.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the spread of personal computers, the market for output devices has expanded significantly,
There is an increasing need for full-color printing that enables halftone reproduction. Among them, the thermal transfer recording apparatus using a recording intermediate is excellent in that it can record with high resolution, can record on plain paper, and has good storability of recorded images.

A thermal transfer recording apparatus using a conventional intermediate medium will be described below. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram thereof, and FIG. 3 is an enlarged sectional view of the transfer body 6 used in the apparatus of FIG. As shown in FIG. 3, the transfer body 6 has a dye-like layer 17 with a release layer 21 interposed therebetween and a yellow color material layer 18 which is a sublimable dye, at different positions on a film-shaped substrate 22.
A magenta color material layer 19 and a cyan color material layer 20 are formed respectively.

During recording, the thermal head 4 is moved to the platen 5
Then, the transfer body 6 and the intermediate medium 7 are pressed against each other. While the transfer body 6 and the intermediate medium 7 are running in the same direction, the thermal head 4 is heated to first transfer the dyeing layer 17 onto the intermediate medium 7. And the thermal head 4 and platen 5
Then, the intermediate medium 7 is rotated, and the dyeing layer 17 transferred and the yellow color material layer 18 of the transfer body 6 are aligned so as to face each other. Then, the thermal head 4 is driven again, and the yellow image is superposed and transferred onto the dyeing layer 17 according to the image information. Similarly, a magenta image and a cyan image are superposed on the dyeing layer 17 to form a color image.

Next, the dyeing layer 17, the paper feed roll 15,
The silicone rubber roll 9 is placed in contact with the image receiving body 8 such as plain paper or OHP supplied by the heating roller 16 and the heating roll 10
By pressing to, the dyeing layer 17 is transferred onto the image receptor 8 and a color image can be obtained.

[0006]

In the above-mentioned conventional apparatus, a color image is formed on the dyeing layer transferred to the intermediate medium and then transferred to the image receptor, but as the number of recorded sheets increases, The silicone oil contained in the dyeing layer gradually transfers to the surface of the intermediate medium, and the releasability of the surface of the intermediate medium changes. Therefore, when the dyeing layer is transferred from the transfer body, or when the dyeing layer on which a color image is formed is transferred to the image receiving body, there is a problem that a transfer failure occurs and a poor recorded image occurs. Further, since dust, dust, paper dust of the image receptor, etc. adhere to the surface of the intermediate medium during non-recording, the transfer of the dyeing layer is not performed well, resulting in deterioration of image quality.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a cleaning sheet which can easily remove the silicone oil, dust and the like transferred to the surface of the intermediate medium simply by passing it through the inside of the recording apparatus.

[0008]

In order to solve the above problems, the cleaning sheet of the present invention is characterized in that a non-woven fabric layer is provided on a resin layer and an adhesive layer is formed on the surface thereof.

[0009]

The cleaning sheet having the above structure is pressed against the intermediate medium by activating the image receiving member conveying mechanism of the recording apparatus, so that the silicone oil adhering to the surface of the intermediate medium is absorbed by the non-woven fabric layer through the adhesive layer. Moreover, dust, dust, paper dust, etc. can be absorbed by the adhesive layer on the surface.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows the structure of a cleaning sheet according to an embodiment of the present invention. Cleaning sheet is
A non-woven fabric layer 2 is used as a base to form a three-layer structure having a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer 1 in a surface layer portion and a resin layer 3 in a back layer portion, and at least the areas of the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer 1 and the non-woven fabric layer 2 are formed on an intermediate medium. The area is slightly larger than the area of the dyeing layer.

The adhesive layer 1 is formed by pattern-coating an adhesive material on the non-woven fabric layer 2 to a thickness of 50 μm. In this adhesive layer 1, a silicone-based adhesive material is diluted with a solvent to reduce the solid content and a filler is added in order to obtain a weak adhesive strength.

The non-woven fabric layer 2 comprises a base fabric made of polyester fibers and 0.1 denier acrylic ultrafine fibers entwined with the base fabric. Since the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer is formed on the unwoven cloth layer 2 having a coarse mesh, the silicone, which is a component of the dyeing layer, can pass through the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer 1 to be absorbed. Further, since the nonwoven fabric has coarse meshes, the adhesive force of the adhesive layer 1 does not become too strong, and an appropriate adhesive force can be obtained for an intermediate medium made of polyimide or the like.

The resin layer 3 is made of a polyethylene terephthalate film having a high stiffness and a thickness of 150 μm in order to make the cleaning sheet elastic. Besides, polymer films of polyacetal, polybutylene terephthalate, polyphenylene sulfide, etc. can be used.

In the cleaning operation using the cleaning sheet, the image receiving member 8 of the thermal transfer recording apparatus shown in FIG. 2 is replaced with the adhesive layer 1 facing the intermediate medium 7 contaminated with silicone oil or dust, and the cleaning is performed. Transport the sheet. Silicone rubber roll 9 and heating roll 10
Therefore, the cleaning sheet is pressed against the intermediate medium 7, but the difference from the above recording operation is that the heating roll 1
The heating of 0 is not performed, but it is wiped off by pressurization at normal temperature.

[0015]

As described above, according to the cleaning sheet of the present invention, the silicone oil transferred to the surface of the intermediate medium can be removed by the non-woven fabric layer, and the dust, dust, paper dust, etc. can be removed by the adhesive layer, thus degrading the image quality. Can be prevented.

Further, the cleaning operation can be performed via the image receiving member transporting mechanism, and it is not necessary to provide a special cleaning mechanism in the apparatus, and the cleaning can be performed at low cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a cleaning sheet according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a thermal transfer recording apparatus to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged sectional view of a transfer body of the apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Adhesive layer 2 Nonwoven fabric layer 3 Resin layer layer 4 Thermal head 5 Platen 6 Transfer body 7 Intermediate medium 8 Image receptor 9 Silicone rubber roll 10 Heating roll 13,14 Paper discharge roll 15,16 Paper feed roll 17 Dyeing layer 18 Yellow color material Layer 19 Magenta Coloring Material Layer 20 Cyan Coloring Material Layer 21 Release Layer

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A dyeing layer and a color material layer of a plurality of colors are successively superposed and recorded on an intermediate medium to form a color image,
A cleaning sheet which is used in a thermal transfer recording apparatus adapted to transfer the color image to an image receptor and has an adhesive layer formed on a resin layer via a non-woven fabric layer.