JPS60255475A - Ink ribbon cassette - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To dispense with a head mask by providing a flexible ribbon guide to divide the printing range of the platen and an ink ribbon with the movement of a print head and forming a head pin hole at a part facing the print head. CONSTITUTION:A pair of shafts 25 extending vertically are fixed on a carrier 24 and ribbon guide slide sections 27 are supported with the shaft 25 in such a manner as to movable vertically. A ribbon guide 29 is linked to each of the ribbon guide slide sections 27 and an ink ribbon 28 is pressed with a print head 22 through a head pin hole 38 of the ribbon guide 29. The ink ribbon cassette 23 is shifted depending on the engaged position of a shift cam 40 with a cam face.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a wire dot type printing system that reciprocates along a platen, and a printing method that passes between the end surface of the printing section of the print head and the platen, and prints on the platen. This invention relates to a printer equipped with an ink ribbon cassette that stores an endless ink ribbon that can travel along a range, and particularly to a structure of an ink ribbon cassette that enables shifting of the ink ribbon cassette when using multicolor ribbons.

[Conventional technology]

A conventional printer of this type is shown in FIG. In the figure, 1 is a platen, 2 is a print head, and 3 is a fixed ink ribbon cassette. The print head 2 is fixed to a carrier 4, and the carrier 4 is guided by a guide bar 5 and is movable along the platen 1 in the left-right direction in the figure. This KiY rear 4 has
A ribbon guide shaft 6.7 and a head mask 8 are provided. The head mask 8 covers the end surface of the print section 9 of the print head 2, and has a hole formed in the portion facing the print section 9 to enable printing with a wire. The ink ribbon cassette 6 accommodates the endless ink ribbon 10 in a manner that it can be fed out and is fixed in the state shown in the figure. The ink ribbon 10 is given a transporting force by a drive roller 11 that rotates in the direction of the arrow and a pinch roller 12 that is in pressure contact with the drive roller 11, and is moved to the feeding section 1.
After being fed out from 3 and renormalized into the renormalization part 14,
It is folded and stored in the storage section 15 in the shape shown in the figure, and this operation is performed continuously. The fed-out ink ribbon 10 runs along the printing range of the platen 1, but is bent by the ribbon guide sets 6 and 7 on both sides of the printing section 9 and runs between the end surface of the printing section 9 and the head mask 8. It is now passable. The purpose of bending the ink ribbon in the vicinity of the printing section 9 in this way is to facilitate the curing of the printing paper 16. prevent it from becoming contaminated. Printing on the printing paper 16 is as follows:
This is done by running the ink ribbon 10, moving the four carriers from their initial positions to the right in the figure (space operation), and activating the print head to cause the head to protrude in a predetermined position at a predetermined time. - When the printing of the line is completed, the printing paper 16 is line-feeded by rotating the platen 1 by a predetermined amount, and the carrier 4 moves to the left in the figure and returns to its original position (carrier return).

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

By the way, when performing multicolor printing with this type of printer, the ink ribbons are color-coded in the width direction, and the ink 9-pon cassette that stores the ink ribbons is shifted perpendicularly to the paper surface of the figure according to the printing color (this When the ink ribbon is shifted, the part of the desired color of the ink ribbon faces the printing part), but in the conventional structure where the ink ribbon is fed out as described above and is bent near the printing part, even if the ink ribbon cassette is shifted, the part of the ink ribbon of the desired color faces the printing part. Since each ribbon guide shaft of
The portion guided by the ribbon guide shaft) did not follow the shift of the ink ribbon cassette, making it difficult to shift the ink ribbon cassette. Further, bending and setting the ink ribbon in this way is troublesome and requires a lot of man-hours.

[Means for solving problems]

The present invention provides a structure of an ink ribbon cassette that can solve the above-mentioned problems, and as means for that purpose, it includes a print head that reciprocates along a platen, and a path that runs along the platen between the print head and the platen. - an ink ribbon cassette that stores an endless ink ribbon that can run in a printing range; the ink ribbon cassette includes a flexible ink ribbon that moves together with the print head and partitions the printing range of the platen from the ink ribbon; The ribbon guide supports a flexible ribbon guide, and a head pin hole is formed in a portion of the ribbon guide facing the print head to enable printing by the print head.

[Operation] The ribbon guide supported by the ink ribbon cassette moves together with the carrier on the outside (on the platen side) of the ink ribbon being fed out, and the ink ribbon being fed out runs along the platen without bending. Therefore, when a multicolor ink ribbon is stored in an ink ribbon cassette and shifted in accordance with the print color, the shifting operation is performed smoothly without resistance. Further, as described above, since the ribbon guide exists outside the ink ribbon, the ink ribbon does not interfere with setting the printing paper.

〔Example〕

The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 1-5.

Figure 1 is a plan view of the main parts of a printer to which the present invention is applied;
The figure is a side view, and FIG. 6 is a front view. In the figures, 21 is a platen, 22 is a print head, and 26 is an ink ribbon cassette.

The print head 22 is fixed to a carrier 24, and the carrier 24 is movable along the platen 21 in the left-right direction in FIG. A pair of shafts 25 extending vertically are fixed to the carrier 24. The shaft 25 is located on both ends of the printing section 26 of the printing head 22, and supports the ribbon guide slide section 271 so that it can move up and down.

The ink ribbon cassette 23 accommodates two days of ink ribbons that are color-coded into two colors, black and red, in the width direction, and is also provided with a band-shaped ribbon guide 29 made of a flexible material.

The ink rib/28 has a super moving roller 30 and a pinch roller 6.
1, the paper is fed out from the feeding section 62, travels linearly along the platen 21 at a position close to the platen 21, and fed into the feeding section 63. 34 is a spring that applies tension to the ink ribbon 28. The ribbon guide 29 is the ink ribbon cassette 2
Tension springs 6 are provided at each of the four corners of 3 and wind around idle rollers 65, and connect both ends of the idle rollers 65.
Tension is applied by 6. This ribbon guide 29
The ink ribbons 28 are fed out along the platen 21 (on the platen 21 side), and are connected to each ribbon guide slide section 27 as shown in detail in FIG. 4. .

The ink ribbon 28 passes through the notch 57 of the ribbon guide slide section 27 and is held movably by the ribbon guide slide section 27 and the ribbon guide 29. 38 is a hole for a head pin formed in the ribbon guide 29. Furthermore, support shafts 69 are integrally provided at both ends of the ink ribbon cassette 25 away from the platen 21.
The support shaft 39 is supported by a fixed part (not shown) of the printer.

Therefore, the ink ribbon cassette 23 is attached to this support shaft 39.
It can be rotated around the center.

In this way, the ink ribbon 28. The ink ribbon cassette 26 equipped with the ribbon guide 29 can be selectively placed in two positions depending on the print color (a first position where the black part of the ink ribbon faces the print surface, and a second position where the red part faces the print surface). The positioning procedure will be explained next.

When performing black printing, the ink ribbon cassette 23 is positioned in the first position shown in FIG. 2 by engaging with the lower cam surface of the shift cam 40. In this state, the black part of the ink ribbon (the shaded part in FIG. 2) faces the printing surface. Black printing is performed in this state.

Next, when printing in red, the shift cam 40 is rotated 180 degrees counterclockwise as shown by the arrow from the state shown in Figure 2.

As a result, the ink ribbon cassette 23 is rotated by a predetermined amount in the counterclockwise direction in FIG. 2 and positioned at the second position shown in FIG. In this state, the red part of the ink ribbon (
The shaded area in FIG. 5) faces the printing surface. Red printing is performed in this state.

Incidentally, the shifting operation of the ink lipo/cassette 26 is performed smoothly by fitting the ink ribbon guide section 27 to the shaft 25 with an appropriate gap therebetween.

Also, since the head pin hole 68 provided in the ribbon guide 29 is sized to accommodate this shift operation, printing at each of the first and second positions is done through the hole 58.
This can be done without any problem using .

41 (see FIG. 2) is a paper guide.

〔Effect of the invention〕

Since the present invention is configured as described above, it is possible to achieve the following various excellent effects.

(Because the ribbon guide acts as a head mask,
A conventional head mask is no longer required.

(2) Since there is no need to bend the ink ribbon at the print head, the ribbon runs stably and ribbon setting is facilitated. In particular, ribbon shifting can be performed stably when using multicolor ink ribbons.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a plan view of the main part showing an embodiment of the structure of the ink ribbon cassette according to the present invention, Fig. 2 is a side view of the main part, Fig. 6 is a front view of the main part, and Fig. 4 is a vicinity of the printing part. FIG. 5 is a perspective view of the ribbon holding structure of the printer, FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram of the shifting procedure, and FIG. 6 is a plan view showing the main parts of the conventional printer. In the figure, 16 is printing paper, 21 is a platen, 22 is a print head, 23 is an ink ribbon cassette, 24 is a carrier,
25 is a shaft, 26 is a printing section, 27 is a ribbon guide slide section, 28 is an ink ribbon, 29 is a ribbon guide,
35 is a guide roller, 66 is a tension spring, 6
Reference numeral 8 is a hole for a helad bin, and 40 is a shift cam. Patent applicant Fujitsu Ltd. agent Patent attorney Gobe Tamamushi (1 other person) Figure 2 Tei 3 Figure 60 Doy

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a printer equipped with a print head that reciprocates along a platen, and an ink ribbon cassette that stores an endless ink ribbon that can run between the print head and the platen and run in a printing range along the platen, The ink ribbon cassette supports a flexible ribbon guide that moves together with the print head and guides the ink ribbon in the print range, and a portion of the ribbon guide facing the print head is provided with a flexible ribbon guide that moves with the print head and guides the ink ribbon in the print range. An ink ribbon cassette characterized by having a head pin hole formed therein to enable printing. (2) The ink ribbon cassette according to claim 1, wherein the ribbon guide is housed in the same cassette as the ink ribbon.