JPS59225969A - Recording system of thermal transfer printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To perform recording while keeping printing density constant, by delivering a ribbon or sheet like ink film, which is made lap-transferrable plural times, corresponding to recording data. CONSTITUTION:An ink film 8 is prepared so as to be made lap-transferrable plural times by forming a thick ink layer. As the ink film 8, one having an ink layer comprising usual thermal transfer ink or thermally reactive color forming ink is used. By controlling the application energy of a recording head corresponding to the number of transfer, printing density can be kept uniform. By utilizing these characteristics, control is performed so that the application energy of a recording head 1 increase at a constant rate as the ink film 8 is repeatedly transferred to the same lace and the printing density due to plural times of lap- transfer is kept constant. The control of an electromagnetic brake 9 is performed on the basis of the driving number of the recording head corresponding to the predetermined number of transfer and the electromagnetic brake 9 is energized during lap-transfer to prevent the delivery of the ink film 8.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention Technical Field The invention relates to a recording method of a thermal transfer printer.Prior Art Conventionally, in thermal transfer printers, serial printers using a ribbon-shaped ink film have been used regardless of the recorded data. In this case, the ink film is conveyed according to the movement of the carriage that feeds the recording head in the main scanning direction, or in response to the rotation of the platen that feeds the recording paper in the sub-scanning direction in a line printer using a sheet-shaped ink film.j5
As a result, the ink film is wasted even in spaces where no printing is performed, resulting in a large amount of ink film being consumed.

Purpose The present invention has been made in consideration of the above points, and provides a method for eliminating wasteful feeding of an ink film by conveying a ribbon-like or sheet-like ink film according to recorded data regardless of the feed of a carriage or a platen. In addition, the present invention provides a recording method for a thermal transfer printer that is capable of printing and recording while keeping the seismic intensity constant using an ink film that can be repeatedly transferred multiple times. Configuration Examples of the present invention will be described in detail below.

In the recording method of the thermal transfer printer according to the present invention,
means for conveying the ink film independently of the relative movement between the recording paper and the recording head; means for counting and storing the number of times each heating element in the n-bit recording head is driven; an ink film feeding control means that prohibits feeding of the ink film if the maximum value of the above is within a specified number of times, and allows feeding of the ink film when the maximum value reaches a specified number of times; A head drive control means that varies the applied energy of each head is adopted.
It is composed of

FIG. 1 shows the structure of the carriage part in a thermal transfer serial printer according to the present invention.
(not shown) side includes a recording head 1 and a head driver 2. A ribbon-shaped ink film 8 is mounted on one reel 4 or the other reel 5 using a step motor 3 as a driving source and being wound up by guide rollers 6 and 7 through a portion of a recording head. Further, one reel 4 is provided with an electromagnetic brake 9, and the other reel 5μ friction member 10 is provided, and when the electromagnetic brake 9 is energized, the friction surface 1
0 slipped and the ink film 8 could not be wound. A pinion 11 is provided as an i-drive source, and the pinion 11 meshes with a rack 12 provided along the platen 13 to move the carriage. Note that 14 in the figure indicates recording paper.

In such a configuration, particularly in the present invention, an ink film 8 is used in which a thick ink layer is formed so that multiple transfers can be carried out.

The ink film 8 may be made of ordinary thermal transfer ink or heat-reactive coloring ink.

Figure 2 shows the state of change of 9 degrees of printing when the recording head is driven with the same applied energy and the same location on the ink film is transferred 5 times, using a heat-reactive ink film, and shows its characteristics. It can be seen that the print density decreases as the number of transfers increases. Therefore, in step 5 shown in FIG. 3, it is possible to maintain uniform print density by controlling the energy applied to the recording head according to the number of transfers. The present invention utilizes such characteristics. Then, as the number of transfers at the same location on the ink film 8 increases, the energy applied to the recording head 1 is increased at a constant rate, thereby making the print density uniform by multiple transfers. Further, in the present invention, the electromagnetic brake 9 is controlled according to the number of scheduled transfers f, : the number of times the recording head is driven, and the electromagnetic brake 9 is energized during overlapping transfer. This prevents the ink film 8 from being fed.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the configuration of a control system according to the present invention, in which the micro CPU 15 controls the recording head 1. Each drive control of the step motor 3 and the electromagnetic brake 9 can be performed. 1 in the diagram
6 is a control RAM, 17 is a program ROM, and 18 is an input port for recording data.

Reference numeral 19 designates an output port that provides a drive command to the driver 2 of the recording head 1, and 20 represents an output port that provides drive commands to the driver 21 of the step motor 3 and the driver 22 of the electromagnetic brake 9, respectively. Further, the recording head 1 includes N heating elements H1, H2, . . . , Hn.

With this configuration, the control procedure for carrying out the present invention will be explained below with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. After clearing the contents of the drive layer memory provided in the drive layer memory, the recording data is taken in in the second step.Then, in the third step, m (m = l to n) bits are sequentially read from the first bit. The specification is made, and in the fourth step it is determined whether or not there is 1ibi information of the m-th bit, and if it is present, in the fifth step the number of transfers is counted up and driven) (2) The contents of the memory are sequentially rewritten. Note that the counting is performed by an internal counter of the CPU 15. Next, in the sixth and seventh steps, the energy applied to the recording head 1 is set. The applied energy can be varied by recording head 1.
AI drive pulse width! For example, the timer ITI sets the energy conditions to keep the print density constant according to the number of transfers as shown in the characteristics in Figure 3.
Make sure to set it to .

In the eighth step, the m-th bit in the recording head IVC is driven. This driving of the m-th bit continues until timer m overflows. Detection of the overflow is performed, for example, within the periodic interwoven flow shown in FIG. 6, and upon detection of the overflow, the drive of the m-th bit is released. Next, if the driving of the n1th bit is canceled or if it is determined that there is no image information at the fourth step, the process moves to the next bit in the ninth step, and the process from the fourth step to the next bit is performed in the 10th step. The processing up to 9 steps is repeated for N bits, and in the 11th step, the process waits until the driving of all bits in the recording head 1 is completed. Next, in the twelfth step, it is determined whether or not the planned M number of overlapping transfers have been performed at the same location on the ink film 8 according to the contents of the driving layer memory, and when the M number of overlapping transfers have been performed, the process proceeds to the 13th step. The electromagnetic brake 9 is released, the contents of the drive layer memory are cleared in the 14th step, and the step motor 3 is set to 1 in the 15th step.
Only the steps are driven. The processing carriage is then moved in the main scanning direction by one bit, and the ink film 8 is fed by a predetermined amount. If it is determined in the 12th step that the number of overlapping transfers has not yet reached M times, the electromagnetic brake 9 is applied in the 16th step, and then the step motor 3 is driven by one step. With the ink film 8 being restrained in place,
Only the carriage is moved in the main scanning direction by one bit.

After the composition was dispersed for U time using a ball mill, it was coated on the surface of high-quality paper (35 g/m2) using a wire bar and dried to prepare a receiving film with a coating weight of 5 g/m2.

In addition, the composition was dispersed for a while using a ball mill, and then coated and dried on the surface of 15 μm thick Co7densa paper using a wire knife to form a receiving film with a coating weight of 3 g/m2. Let it be created.

A high-density, clear black image was obtained by bringing the surface of the transfer sheet into contact with each of the receiving films obtained in this manner, and applying thermal energy with an area of 1.2 mjO to the recording head from the back surface of the transfer sheet. When we tested the stability of the transferred image, we found the following!
Sea urchin heat sensitivity and light resistance.

Excellent results were obtained in both cases in terms of heat resistance.

Transfer image density results -115 Light fastness test results -LIO Heat resistance test results -L22 Here, as a transfer image density measurement, the reflection density was measured using a Macbeth densitometer, and as a light fastness test, the reflection density was measured at a temperature of 60'.
C. Humidity is 80%? The density of the transferred image was measured after being irradiated with ultraviolet rays for 3 hours under the same conditions as described above, and the density of the transferred image was measured after the receiving film was left at a temperature of 60°C for U hours as a heat resistance test. It's set.

As described above, in the recording method of the thermal transfer printer according to the present invention, in particular, an ink film capable of multiple transfers is used to control the feeding of the ink film while monitoring the recording state, and also to This system controls the drive of the recording head to vary the transfer energy, which eliminates the needless feeding of ink film in space areas, which is the case with conventional methods, and also improves printing density by overlapping transfer. O

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a simplified diagram showing an example of the structure of the carriage part of a thermal transfer printer according to the present invention, FIG. Fig. 3 is a characteristic diagram when thermal energy is changed according to the number of transfers to keep the print density constant; Fig. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of a control system of a thermal transfer printer according to the present invention; FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a control procedure for implementing the present invention in the same configuration example, and FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a control procedure for detecting a timer count-up in the same embodiment. 1°゛・Recording head 2...Head driver 3...
・Stayj-E-Kazuya 8...Ink film 9・
...Electromagnetic 7'L/-key 10...Friction surface 11...
Pinion 12... Rack 13... Platen 1
4... Recording paper 15... CPU16... RAM
17...ROM 18...Input port 19゜20...Output port) 21...Motor driver applicant's agent Kiyoshi Torii Figure 1' 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] A means for conveying the ink film independently of the relative movement between the recording paper and the recording head, a means for counting and storing the number of times the heating element in the recording head is driven, and a means for counting and storing the number of times the heating element is driven in the recording head, and if the number of times the recorded number of times of driving is within a specified number of times. an ink film feed control means for prohibiting the ink film from being fed and for allowing the ink film to be fed when the number of ink film feeds reaches a predetermined number; and a head drive control means for varying the applied energy according to the number of times the heating element is driven. A recording method for thermal transfer printers that takes