JPS58158260A - Printing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To form a compact, high speed, serial type, multicolor printing device, by arranging printing element lines with respect to the colors of ink ribbon comprising four tracks of yellow, blue, red and black colors by a special method, respectively. CONSTITUTION:A carrier 2 is moved in the direction of an arrow (a) (direction of the line of printing). The ink ribbon 4 comprises the four tracks of the yellow 401, the blue 402, the red 403 and the black 404, and is moved in the direction (c). The ink ribbon 4 is enclosed in a ribbon cassette 16, which is mounted on the carrier 2. Three dot printing element lines 151, 152 and 153 can simultaneously print the yellow, blue and red colors on the same line, respectively, and a dot printing element line 154 prints the black color. Thus a printing head 1 is arranged. When the element of each printing element line is selectively driven with the carrier 2 being slidden in the direction of an arrow (a), the four colors are printed by the printing operation of the carrier 2 for one line. When the pseudo black printing by mixed color of three colors of the tracks 401, 402 and 403 is performed together with the printing by the track 404, black printing can be simultaneously performed on two lines.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Object of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing device, and more particularly, to a printing device suitable for multicolor printing in a serial printing device.

Prior Art As a serial printing device, a print head such as a wire matrix print head, a thermal head, or an ink head is conventionally mounted on a carrier, and while the carrier is moved in a predetermined direction, printing elements are actuated to print on the print medium. A technique for printing characters, symbols, etc. consisting of a collection of dots on the surface is known. In particular, a wire dot printer using a wire matrix print head also has the function of an impact printing device, so it is possible to obtain images at the same time rather than printing on multiple sheets of printing paper stacked one on top of the other. The advantage is that you can! have. For this reason, wire dot printers are used.

On the other hand, recently there has been a demand for printing figures, graphs, etc. in multiple colors. Since wire dot printers can basically meet these demands easily by using multicolor ink ribbons, several wire dot type color printers are currently in use.

FIG. 1 shows a known wire dot type color printer. This will be explained below.

A wire matrix print head (hereinafter simply referred to as a print head) 1 has a plurality of wires 15, for example seven wires, arranged in a predetermined manner, and each wire 15 is selectively connected by a magnet (not shown) in the print head 1. It is configured to be driven. This print head 1 is mounted on a carrier 2. The carrier 2 is supported by the support rail 5 and is driven by a lead screen (not shown) to move on the support rail 5 in the direction of the arrow a71i.

An ink ribbon 4 is guided to the tip of the print head 1.

A platen 7 is arranged on the vJ surface of the ink ribbon 4 in parallel to the moving direction of the print head 1. A printing paper 14 is placed on the platen 7, and the paper 14 is successively guided in the direction indicated by the arrow, for example, by a tin plate 7.

Such a configuration is well known as a typical wire matrix type serial printer.

In the known color printer shown here, as shown in detail in FIG. 2, the ink ribbon 4 has a black track 404, a red track aOS, and a blue track 402.
, yellow track 4010 consists of four tracks. The ink ribbon 4 is then guided by a guide roller 5 and wound onto a take-up wheel 6. The track width of each color is slightly longer than the array length of the wires 15, and a track of one color is selected by a known ink ribbon switching mechanism and moved to the front of the wire 15 row of the print head 1.

This ink ribbon switching Im bridge has a pair of guide rollers 5.
It is constituted by K moving in the vertical direction. That is,
A shift lever 8 is disposed at the lower end of the guide roller 5, and this shift lever 6 is guided by a lever guide 8 and is normally pulled and pushed downward by a suspension ring 10. A row 211 is rotatably attached to the lower end of the shift lever 8. On the other hand, an eccentric cam 12 is provided opposite the roller 11, and the rotation shaft of this cam 120 is connected to a motor 15, such as a step motor.

Since the shift lever 8 is constantly pulled downward by the spring 10, the roller 11 is in contact with the eccentric cam 12.

Therefore, by rotating the motor 154' by a constant amount, ribbon switching is performed so that the track of the selected color is placed in front of the wire row.

However, a serial color printer with this configuration is
It has the advantage that it can be achieved by a known relatively simple mechanism, but the print line (direction of travel of the print head 1)
If there are a plurality of characters, figures, etc. to be printed in multiple colors in one line, there is a drawback that the printing speed of the printer as a whole decreases accordingly.

That is, when there are parts to be printed in four colors in one line, first, the print head 1 is run by switching to the black track 404 of the ink ribbon 4, and then the red, blue, and yellow tracks are printed. Since printing must be performed by switching sequentially, printing in four colors in one line takes four times as long as printing in only one color. In other words,
This type of serial color printer has high speed printing51
It is slightly unsuitable for 1' search.

On the other hand, some serial color printers capable of high-speed printing have also been put into practical use. That is, as shown in Box 5 and Figure 4, four print heads 101, 102, 10.5, 104 are mounted on the same carrier 2, and each print head 101, 102, 103, 104 K is ,yellow,
Stomach, red and black ink ribbon JO1,402°405.
404 are guided by independent ink ribbon cassettes 16. According to a color printer with such a configuration,
Since each print head and ink ribbon operate independently, if the carrier 2 moves once from the left end to the right, one
Information consisting of four colors can be printed simultaneously in a line (same line).

Therefore, @drug distribution 1 diagram and #! This means that it can print at up to four times faster than the known color printer shown in Figure 2.

However, according to known color printers, since a plurality of print heads are arranged side by side on the same carrier 2, the amount of movement of the carrier 2 is considerably wider than the width of the print paper 14. The disadvantage is that the size of the printer fIt4I! becomes large, the amount of printer material and installation space increases, and the demand for miniaturization of the device cannot be met.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a small-sized printing device W capable of printing at high speed in order to solve the above-mentioned problems in the multicolor printing device I.

In order to perform multicolor printing at high speed, the simplest method is to print by using a plurality of dot printing element arrays, each using a different coloring means.

Generally, non-printing is often used, but even in this case, the same printing speed as in the case of other colors can be obtained. If black printing and pseudo-black printing by mixing red, blue, and yellow are used together, the speed of black printing will be quadrupled, making it possible to create a small, high-speed multicolor printing device. The present invention includes a carrier that is slidable in a predetermined direction, and a carrier that is mounted on the carrier,
By providing a print head consisting of a plurality of print elements and an ink ribbon guided in front of the print head, and selectively driving these print elements.

In a serial type printing device that prints information on a print medium via an ink ribbon, a plurality of the printing elements are arranged,
And an ink ribbon consisting of tracks of a plurality of colors is guided.

The angle l between the guiding direction of the ink ribbon and the moving direction of the print head is set at a certain angle, and the ink ribbon is guided so that one trunk is arranged for each arrangement of printing elements. Ru.

Alternatively, the print head may be an on-demand type inkjet head that ejects ink droplets by changing each of the 9 elements, and by selectively driving a plurality of printing elements, the ink droplets are ejected and information is transferred to the print medium. It is printed. In a preferred configuration example, there are five printing element columns in the same row and one column in another row, and the fifth element column prints in red, blue, and yellow, and the other column does not print. This is what we do.

Further Embodiments of the Invention Hereinafter, further embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Figure 17g5 is a perspective view of a serial type cup printer. In this case, the mechanism for guiding the printing paper 14 by the platen 7 and the means for moving the carrier 2 can be achieved by conventional techniques. That is, the printing paper 14 is placed on the platen 7.
0 surface, and is fed in the direction indicated by the arrow in print line units by, for example, a known sprocket feeding mechanism. The carrier 2 is guided on support rails 3 arranged parallel to the platen 7 and is supported by conventional glue or wire (
(not shown) by a pulse motor or the like, and is slid in the direction of the arrow α.

The print head 1 is constructed as a known wire matrix print head. A plurality of wires, for example, seven wires, are arranged in a predetermined direction at the tip of the EfJ character, forming wire rows 151, 152, 155, and 154.

The ink ribbon 4 has four tracks 4 of yellow, blue, red, and black.
This is an endless ink ribbon composed of 01, 402, 405, and 404. This is a known ribbon cassette 16
A part of it is stored in the east interior 1 of the ribbon cassette.
Through 61, an apology is given on the front part. The ink ribbon 4 is fed in the direction of arrow C by a known ribbon feeding means, and is sequentially stored in the ribbon cassette 16.

In the above-described configuration, when the carrier 2 is slid and the wires in the respective wire rows 151, 152, 155, and 154 are selectively driven, an impact is applied to the printing paper 14 via the ink ribbon 4. 4-color characters, symbols, projections, etc. consisting of combinations of dots are printed. In this example, the carrier 2 is moved once from left to right. Multi-color printing of four colors is possible with just one line printing operation. Of course, if a known reciprocating printing technique is used, two lines of printing can be performed by one reciprocating movement of the carrier 2.

Note that during the above printing operation, the ink ribbon 4 is sequentially fed in the direction of arrow C.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the print head has a number of wires wb and each track of the ink ribbon consisting of trunks of a plurality of colors is printed by each wire row, so it is possible to achieve a high speed and small serial type color printer. can be obtained.

Further, the printing device fkVci6 usually prints in black in many cases. In this case, if printing is performed using a combination of printing using the black track 404K of the ink ribbon 4 and pseudo-black printing using a mixture of five colors: the yellow track 401, the blue track 402, and the red track 405. ,
It is possible to print black on two lines at the same time, making it possible to print black at high speed.

Generally, yellow truck 401, blue truck 40
2. The pseudo-black printing due to the color mixture of the red track 4056 and the printing using the black track 404 are different in color tone, but this is enough to cause a problem unless the no printing due to the color mixture and the printing using the black track are continuous in the vertical direction. isn't it.

Also, according to the present invention, by making the color tone of the black track 404 the same as the pseudo black color tone obtained by mixing the colors of the yellow track 401, the blue track 402, and the red track 40605, the completely identical With different colors, you can get twice the printing speed.

The present invention can be modified and implemented as shown in FIG. In this example, four wire columns are arranged in the same row. That is, black, yellow, blue, and red are printed simultaneously on the same line.

With the structure M, it is possible to print in four colors with - times of carrier movement, and printing can be performed at a speed of 1Iil+. Sara K
When printing only the M color, the black track 404 and the other five color tracks 4o1, 4o2, 4o5 are used in conjunction with pseudo black printing, so the wire rows 151, 1
52, 155 and the wire row 154 each have an operation l receiver for printing one line, so even if the moving speed of the carrier 2 is doubled, each wire row will only be able to move once every 1/2 hour.
It is only necessary to move the actuator once at a time, and the printing speed is substantially doubled.

Although the present invention has been described above in a case where it is applied to a wire matrix printer, the present invention is not limited to this. For example, the gist of the present invention can also be applied to a transfer type serial type thermal printer.

That is, it is easier to implement the above-mentioned print head V as a thermal print head and configure it as an ink ribbon of a thermal transfer type ink ribbon.

It can also be applied to inkjet serial printers.

That is, it can be easily implemented by using an ink jet type print head similar to the above-described print head, and configuring the print head to eject color ink instead of the ink ribbon.

Effects of the Invention According to the present invention, four-color printing of yellow, blue, red, and black can be performed by one movement of the carrier, so that color printing can be performed four times faster. Additionally, in the case of printing only black, a pseudo black color created by mixing black, yellow, blue, and red can be used together, resulting in twice the printing speed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a known color printer. Figure 2 shows the relationship between the ink ribbon and print head in Figure 1.
3 is a perspective view showing another known color printer, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the relationship between the ink ribbon and print head in FIG. 5, and FIG. 5 is a color printer according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing the relationship between the ink ribbon and the print head in the WIS diagram, and Fig. 7 shows the relationship between the ink ribbon and the print head to explain other modified examples. FIG. 1...Print head 2...Carrier 4...Ink ribbon Figure. 4y 3 Illustration Now Illustration ((1”) r#)) (C
) (Men 2 5 Figure 7 Books 2 6 Figure

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A printing device that prints information on a print medium in a dot matrix by selectively driving a print head having a plurality of print elements while moving the print head in the row direction, and printing information on regular rows simultaneously. A print head having at least 6 dot printing element rows and at least one dot printing element row capable of simultaneously printing on the same row or different printing rows, and a print head having at least 6 dot printing element rows arranged in the same row (both 5 One row of dot printing elements has dot coloring means that enables printing in red, blue and yellow, and another row of dot printing elements has dot coloring means that enables printing in black.When printing in four colors, each dot printing element is When printing is controlled independently and only black is used, it should be used in conjunction with printing using black dot printing lfL element and printing using pseudo-black printing using a mixture of five colors of red, blue, and yellow.Y
% mold printing device.