JPS61152464A - Recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a high-resolution recorder which can be manufactured at low cost by constituting the titled device with plural electrodes allowing a recording voltage to be applied between them and an electrostatic recording sheet and a magnetic material sheet formed commonly on these individual electrodes and connected to a magnetic field generating source. CONSTITUTION:An insulative base 5 is composed of non-magnetic insulative material such as glass or magnetic and is plate-shaped. On the main surface of this insulative base 5, plural electrodes 11 are arranged so that their individual ends stand in row on an edge surface opposed to static recording sheet 1 on the base 5. In addition, a common thin insulative layer 12 is formed on these individual electrodes 11, and a magnetic material sheet or in this case, a magnetic material sheet 13 having electroconductivity such as Fe-Co, Fe-Ni alloy sheets is laminated on the insulative layer 12. Thus it is easy to manufacture this type of recording unit because only individual electrodes 12 among other constituent elements of a donor head 4 only to be patternized to met the requirements of recording dots.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to an apparatus for recording such as printing, and more particularly to a recording apparatus that performs recording on an electrostatic recording sheet using conductive magnetic toner.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

Conventionally, as this type of recording apparatus, one having a configuration as shown in FIG. 3 is known. The electrostatic recording sheet 1 is a sheet capable of accumulating electrostatic charge, and is constructed by forming an insulating layer 3 on a conductive sheet 2, and a toner head 4' for recording is placed on this sheet 1 relatively. Moving. Conventionally, the toner head 4' has individual band-shaped electrodes 6 arranged at regular intervals on a non-magnetic insulating substrate 5, as shown in FIG. 4, and one end of each of these individual electrodes 6 is electrically connected. A conductive magnetic material pattern 7 is formed. In addition, the individual electrode 6
A magnet 8 serving as a magnetic field generation source is arranged opposite to the magnet 8 .

During recording, the insulating layer 3 of the electrostatic recording sheet 1 is charged in advance, and the conductive magnetic toner 9 is uniformly adhered thereon by electrostatic force. In this state, while applying a pulsed recording voltage corresponding to the information to be recorded from the pulse voltage source 10 between the individual electrodes 6 and the conductive sheet 2, the electrostatic recording sheet 1 is moved to the toner head 4'. When the electrostatic recording sheet 1 is passed under, the static electricity is selectively removed from the electrostatic recording sheet 1 according to the applied voltage, and the conductive magnetic toner 9 on the area does not lose its adhesion and is detached by the magnetic force of the magnet 8. Therefore, by changing the pulse voltage source 10 (on or off) depending on the information to be recorded, recording can be performed on the electrostatic recording sheet 1 with the conductive magnetic toner 9.

To give a specific example of the design of the toner head 4' in such a recording device, for example, when printing is performed at a density of 8 toners per shoe, the width of the conductive magnetic material pattern 7 is about 50 μm. The thickness of the conductive magnetic pattern 7 is also 50 mm because it is necessary to sufficiently attract the toner 9.
A thickness of approximately μm is necessary. If the conductive magnetic material pattern 7 with such dimensions is processed by wet etching, its cross-sectional shape becomes extremely trapezoidal, which causes problems such as insufficient resolution and easy separation from the base 5. be.

On the other hand, considering that the density of the conductive magnetic patterns 7 is set to about 16 lines/MR in order to perform higher resolution recording, the pitch of the conductive magnetic patterns 7 is 62.5μ.
The width of the pattern must be kept to about 204 m in order to provide a sufficient distance between adjacent patterns. In that case, the thickness is still required to be about 50 μm for the reasons mentioned above. However, the thickness is 50 μm2 the width is 20 μm
It is extremely difficult to form such a conductive pattern by etching using current technology, and even if it could be done, the yield would be very low and it would hardly be of practical use.

Although the above-mentioned problems can be solved to some extent by using dry etching, the etching time takes about 24 hours, which significantly reduces mass productivity and increases costs.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of these conventional problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a recording device that is easy to manufacture, inexpensive, and capable of high-resolution recording.

[Summary of the invention]

The present invention relates to a recording apparatus that performs recording with conductive magnetic toner on an electrostatic recording sheet capable of accumulating electrostatic charges using a toner head that moves relatively on the sheet, in which the toner head is connected to an insulating substrate. , a plurality of individual electrodes arranged such that one end of each electrode is lined up on the end face side facing the electrostatic recording sheet of this insulating substrate, and a recording voltage is applied between them and the electrostatic recording sheet, and these individual electrodes. A magnetic sheet is commonly formed on the electrode and is coupled to a magnetic field generation source.

In the recording operation of the present invention, a voltage is applied between the electrostatic recording sheet and the individual electrodes of the toner head in accordance with the information to be recorded, thereby selectively increasing the adhesion force of the conductive magnetic toner to the electrostatic recording sheet. This is done by weakening the toner, and then attracting and separating the toner by the magnetic force of a magnetic pattern coupled to a magnetic field generating source.

Note that when the magnetic sheet has conductivity, the sheet is formed on the individual electrodes with a common insulating layer interposed therebetween.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, there is no need to pattern the magnetic sheet on the toner head, which is required to be thick in order to generate sufficient magnetic force, to correspond to the recording dots, and only the individual electrodes need be patterned. The individual electrodes are used to form an electric circuit to selectively remove static electricity from the electrostatic recording sheet when a recording voltage is applied, and unlike magnetic sheets, they do not need to be thick, so they are suitable for wet etching, etc. Technology can easily increase the density. Therefore, according to the present invention, a toner head can be manufactured easily and inexpensively, and recording with high resolution can be performed.

[Embodiments of the invention]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this apparatus, the structure of the toner head 4 is different from that of the conventional apparatus. The toner head 4 is constructed as shown in FIG.

In FIG. 2, the insulating substrate 5 is made of a non-magnetic insulating material such as glass or ceramic, and is formed into a plate shape. A plurality of individual electrodes 11 are arranged on the entire surface of the insulating substrate 5 such that one end of each electrode is aligned with the end surface of the substrate 5 facing the electrostatic recording sheet 1 . A thin common insulating layer 12 is formed on these individual electrodes 11, and a magnetic sheet, in this example Fe-09, is formed on this insulating layer 12.
A conductive magnetic sheet 13 such as a ゜1'' e-Ni alloy sheet is laminated.

The operation of the recording apparatus using the toner head 4 configured as shown in FIG. 1 will be explained with reference to FIG. Prior to recording
The insulating layer 3 of the electrostatic recording sheet 1 is charged in advance to a constant polarity, and a conductive magnetic toner 9 is adhered thereon. In this state, a pulse voltage source 1 is connected between the conductive sheet 2 of the electrostatic recording sheet 1 and the individual electrodes 11 of the toner head 4.
When the electrostatic recording sheet 1 is passed below the toner head 4 while applying a pulsed recording voltage according to the information to be recorded from 0, the insulating layer 3 of the electrostatic recording sheet 1 is exposed to the recording voltage. The charge is selectively removed (discharged) in response to the application of . As a result, the conductive magnetic toner 9 on the neutralized area loses its adhesion to the electrostatic recording sheet 1 and is separated by the magnetic force of the magnetic sheet 13 coupled to the magnet 8. The toner 9 on the area where static electricity is not removed is
Electrostatic force due to static charges on the insulating layer 3 and the magnetic sheet 13
The toner head 4 is fixed between the electrostatic recording sheet 1 and the toner head 4 in balance with the magnetic force. Recording is thus performed.

In the recording apparatus according to the present invention as described above, manufacturing is facilitated because only the individual electrodes 12 of the components of the toner head 4 need be patterned in correspondence with the recording dots.

That is, since the individual electrode 11 only needs to have a film thickness of about 1 μm considering the amount of current flowing through it, it can be easily buttered by a simple process such as wet etching. On the other hand, the magnetic sheet 13 needs to have a thickness of about 50 μm as described above in order to generate sufficient magnetic force, but it simply spreads the conductive magnetic toner 9 on the area where the static electricity has been removed. Since it is only necessary to attract them, it is not necessary to have a divided shape like the individual electrodes 11. Furthermore, since the individual electrodes 11 are thin, it is easy to form them at a high density of 16 electrodes/m. Therefore, according to the present invention, recording with higher resolution is possible.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments,
For example, in the embodiment, a conductive magnetic sheet 13 is used in the toner head 4, but an insulating magnetic sheet may be used, and in that case, the insulating layer 12 is not necessary. Furthermore, in the embodiment, a case has been described in which conductive magnetic toner is uniformly deposited on an electrostatic recording sheet, and then static electricity is selectively removed by a toner head to remove the toner for recording. The present invention is also effective in recording by selectively depositing toner with a head. In addition, various modifications can be made to the present invention without departing from the scope thereof.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing the configuration of a recording device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the configuration of a toner head in the same embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of a conventional recording device. FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the configuration of the toner head in FIG. 3. 1... Electrostatic recording sheet, 2... Conductive sheet, 3...
... Insulating layer, 4... Toner head, 5... Insulating substrate, 6... Individual electrode, 7... Conductive magnetic material pattern, 8... Magnet (magnetic field generation source), 9... ...Conductive magnetic toner, 10... Pulse voltage source, 11... Insulating substrate, 12... Individual electrode, 13... Magnetic sheet. Applicant's representative Patent attorney Takehiko Suzue Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a recording device that performs recording with conductive magnetic toner on an electrostatic recording sheet capable of accumulating electrostatic charge using a toner head that moves relatively over the sheet, the toner head is connected to an insulating substrate. , a plurality of individual electrodes arranged such that one end of each electrode is lined up on the end surface side facing the electrostatic recording sheet of the insulating substrate, and a recording voltage is applied between them and the electrostatic recording sheet; A recording device comprising: a magnetic sheet commonly formed on the individual electrodes and coupled to a magnetic field generation source. (2) The recording device according to claim 1, wherein the magnetic sheet has conductivity and is formed on the individual electrodes via a common insulating layer.