JPS61158477A - Thermal transfer recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable to record with high printing quality even on a recording paper having a highly rugged surface, by providing a vibrating means for vibrating a molten ink to be transferred and a recording paper. CONSTITUTION:A thermal head 10 comprises a heating element 12 on one side of a substrate 11 and a vibrator 13 on the other side. With a voltage impressed on the vibrator 13, the vibrator 13 is vibrated, and the vibration is transmitted to the inside part of an ink 4 through the substrate 11 and the heating element 12. The molten ink 4 is vibrated between the recording paper 6 and a base 3, resulting in that the ink 4 penetrates into the inside part of the paper 6 under the vibrational pressure. By operating the vibrator under the driving conditions of a frequency of 30KHz and an impressed voltage of 3V, it was possible to print with high quality even on a bond paper and a xerographic paper.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording device, and particularly to a recording device that can perform good transfer even on recording paper whose surface is not sufficiently smooth.

[Conventional technology]

Conventional thermal transfer recording devices perform printing by melting the base ink using a heating means such as a thermal head and transferring it onto recording paper.

However, in such devices, the transfer characteristics depend significantly on the smoothness of the surface of the recording paper, and recording paper with large surface irregularities such as commonly used bod paper and zero-grain paper has the disadvantage that only poor quality prints can be obtained. Figure 2 is a plan view of the main parts of such a conventional thermal transfer recording apparatus. The thermal head 1 having this equipped rjtrt heating element 2 is pressed against the platen 7 via the ink sheet 5 consisting of the base material 8 and the hot melt ink layer 4 and the recording paper 6, and the heating element 2'f: heated. Accordingly, the ink layer 4
The structure is such that the image is melted and transferred onto the recording paper 6.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

Incidentally, the transfer characteristics of the ink melted by heating and transferred to the recording paper depend on the contact state between the ink layer of the transfer portion and the recording paper. For this reason, recording paper with poor surface smoothness and large irregularities has a disadvantage in that, as shown in the figure, there are few contact areas between the ink and the recording paper, and the ink is not transferred uniformly, resulting in poor print quality.

[Failure to solve the problem]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus capable of recording poor print quality even on recording paper having a surface with poor smoothness and large irregularities. Thermal transfer f is provided with a vibration means that applies vibration to the thermal head or to the differential gear facing this head.
This is done by a recording device.

[Effect]

The above device applies vibration to the molten ink and the recording paper at least during transfer, thereby making it easier for the ink to penetrate into non-contact areas, thereby enabling high-quality recording.

[51! Embodiments] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a plan view of essential parts of an embodiment of the present invention, and the thermal head 10 of the present invention has a heating element 12 on one side of a substrate 11 and a vibrator 13 on the other side. There is.

Note that the same parts as in FIG. 2 are designated by the same reference numerals.

By passing an electric current through the heating element 12 of the substrate 11J: provided in the thermal head 1O, the heating element 12 generates heat, and this heat melts the IC 4 of the base 1t8J: and transfers it to the recording paper 6. At this time, when voltage is applied to the vibrator 18, the vibrator 18 vibrates, and this vibration is caused by the substrate 11 and the heating element 12.
and is transmitted to the inside of the ink 4. The molten ink 4 vibrates between the recording paper 6 and the base 8, and penetrates into the interior of the recording paper 6 by the vibration pressure.

As the vibrator 18, a diμco/tita/acid lead piezo vibrator (thickness: 2 fl, 10 mm) was used.

The ink sheet had a base material of 6 μm and a layer thickness of 6 μm.

The recording device prints 80 characters per second x1fUF! A thermal transfer printer with a dot configuration of 9×9 was used. As a result of adding S#I with a frequency of 30 KE (Z and an applied voltage of 30 V as the driving conditions of the vibrator), the printing quality of paper (plane roughness RZ =
85μm) or zero-guffy paper (plane roughness R2=2G
um), high quality printing was also possible.

In this embodiment, a method of applying vibration from the heating element side has been described, but a similar effect was obtained by a method of attaching a piezo vibrator to the platen and applying vibration from the recording paper side.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, vibrations are applied to the transferred molten ink and recording paper at least during transfer. Therefore, even if the contact conditions between the ink sheet and the recording paper are poor, homogeneous ink transfer can be performed, and high-quality printing can be achieved even on recording paper with large irregularities on the plane. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a main part showing an embodiment of a thermal transfer recording apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a plan view of a main part of a conventional transfer recording apparatus. In the drawing, 5 is an ink sheet, 6 is a recording paper, 7 is a platen, 10 is a thermal head, 12 is a heating element, and 18 is a vibrator.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] An ink sheet consisting of a base material and a hot-melt ink that is solid at room temperature provided on the base material is heated by a heating means to melt the ink and transfer it to recording paper, A thermal transfer recording device for recording, characterized in that the thermal transfer recording device is provided with a vibration means for applying vibration to the molten ink and the recording paper to be transferred.