JPS62148282A - Ink ribbon cassette - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To delay the timing for releasing of an ink ribbon part just heated from a recording material, thereby prolonging the period of time from heating to releasing and completely transfer a desired part of an ink layer, by providing a pressing member for pressing the ribbon part just heated against the recording material so that the position thereof can be adjusted in the moving direction of the ribbon. CONSTITUTION:In printing, a printing head 15 presses an ink ribbon 2 against a recording material 16, and while being moved in a printing direction of an arrow P together with a cassette 1 by driving a carriage, it is driven to generate heat according to printing data. The ink ribbon 2 is fed in a direction reverse to the printing direction, and is heated by the head 15, whereby an ink at the heated part is melted, and is transferred onto the recording material 16, whereby printing is performed. A roller 3 can be pressed against the part of the ink ribbon 2 just heated, thereby delaying the timing for releasing of the ink ribbon 2, so that the cohesive force of the transferred ink can be enhanced, and satisfactory transfer of the ink can be achieved.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an ink ribbon cassette, and more specifically, the present invention relates to an ink ribbon cassette, which is attached to a thermal transfer recording device, is pressed against a recording medium by a thermal head, and is heated to apply ink to the recording medium. This invention relates to an ink ribbon cassette containing an ink ribbon to be transferred.

[Background Art] In recent years, with the rapid development of the information industry, various information processing systems have been developed, and recording methods and devices suitable for each information processing system have also been developed and adopted. One such recording method is the thermal recording method.
The equipment used is lightweight, compact, noiseless, and has excellent operability and maintainability, and has recently been widely used.

However, among the recording papers used in thermal recording methods, ordinary thermal recording paper is a color-forming processed paper containing a color former and a color developer, so it is expensive, and records can be tampered with. The paper has disadvantages in that it has poor storage stability, such as the paper easily developing color due to heat or organic solvents, and the recorded image fading over a relatively short period of time.

Thermal transfer recording method has recently attracted particular attention as a method that maintains the advantages of the above-mentioned thermal recording method and overcomes the drawbacks associated with the use of thermal recording paper.

This thermal transfer recording method generally uses a thermal transfer ink ribbon formed by melt-coating a thermal transfer ink made of a heat-melting binder with a colorant dispersed on a ribbon-shaped support. The ink layer is pressed against the recording medium with a thermal head so that it is in contact with the recording medium, and the ink layer is heated by the thermal head from the support side of the ink ribbon to transfer the melted ink layer to the recording medium. A transfer ink image is formed according to the shape of heat supply. A thermal transfer ink ribbon is usually used by attaching an ink ribbon cassette containing the thermal transfer ink ribbon to a recording device.

According to this method, it is possible to maintain the above-mentioned advantages of the heat-sensitive recording method, use plain paper as a recording medium, and eliminate the above-described disadvantages associated with the use of heat-sensitive recording paper.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, conventional thermal transfer recording methods are not without drawbacks. This is because in conventional thermal transfer recording methods, the transfer recording performance, that is, the print quality, is greatly affected by the surface smoothness. Good printing is performed on highly smooth recording media, but good printing is performed on recording media with low smoothness. In some cases, the print quality deteriorates significantly. However, even when using paper, which is the most typical recording medium, highly smooth paper is rather special, and ordinary paper has various degrees of unevenness due to entangled fibers. Therefore, in the case of paper with large surface irregularities, the hot melted ink cannot penetrate into the fibers of the paper during printing and only adheres to the convexities on the surface or the vicinity thereof, resulting in sharp edges of the printed image. Otherwise, part of the image may be missing, resulting in a decrease in print quality. In addition, to improve printing quality,
It is possible to use a heat-melting binder with a low melting point, but in this case, the heat-transferable ink layer becomes sticky even at relatively low temperatures, resulting in decreased shelf life and the possibility of problems with non-printing areas of the recording medium. This may cause inconveniences such as staining.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, the ink is attached to a thermal transfer recording device, is pressed against a recording medium by a thermal head, is heated, and ink is applied to the recording medium. In an ink ribbon cassette containing an ink ribbon to be transferred, a pressure contact member that presses a heated portion of the ribbon against a recording medium is provided whose position can be adjusted along the moving direction of the ribbon.

[Function] When such an ink ribbon cassette is used, the portion of the ink ribbon that has just been heated is pressed against the recording medium by the pressure contact member during recording, so that the timing at which the portion that has just been heated is peeled off from the medium is delayed. This increases the time from heating to peeling. The longer this time, the greater the cohesive force of the transferred ink layer, and the more the ink layer is completely transferred.

Moreover, according to the above structure, the timing can be adjusted by adjusting the position of the pressing member, and the timing can be optimally adjusted depending on the cohesive force of the ink layer and the smoothness of the recording medium.

Therefore, the transfer can be performed well even on a recording medium with poor smoothness, and by making the above adjustment according to the smoothness and the cohesive force of the ink, the transfer can be performed optimally.

[Embodiments] Hereinafter, details of embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the attached drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the appearance of an ink ribbon cassette (hereinafter abbreviated as cassette) according to this embodiment.

The cassette 1 is detachably mounted on a carriage (not shown) that transports a print head (thermal head) not shown in the thermal transfer recording apparatus. Inside the cassette 1 is the aforementioned thermal transfer ink ribbon (hereinafter abbreviated as ink ribbon) 2 on a supply reel (not shown).

It is stored by being wound on a take-up reel.

An outlet 1a for the ink ribbon 2 is formed in the center of the front surface of the cassette 1 facing a recording medium (not shown), and a recess 1b into which the print head M fits when the cassette 1 is installed is formed adjacent to this. There is. Further, an inlet IC for the ink ribbon 2 is formed on the front side of one side of the cassette 1.

The part of the ink ribbon 2 used for printing is exposed to the outside through the output roller la and the inlet IC, and is stretched with a predetermined tension, and is moved by an arrow P by a ribbon drive mechanism (not shown) during printing.
The paper is sent in the opposite direction to the printing direction (direction of movement of the main cartridge during printing) shown by . By this feeding, the unused portion of the ink ribbon 2 is pulled out from the outlet 1a, heated by the print head, used for printing, and drawn into the cassette 1 from the inlet IC.

In addition to such a conventionally known structure, the cassette 1 of this embodiment is provided with a roller 3 as a member that presses the heated portion of the ink ribbon 2 against the recording medium, and prints on the front surface of the cassette 1. Recess 1b into which the head fits
It is rotatably provided in contact with the ink ribbon 2 at a portion adjacent to the downstream side of the ink ribbon feeding direction. The roller 3 is supported by a roller support mechanism (not shown) built into a roller support part 1d provided at the front corner of the cassette 1, and the ink ribbon 3 is supported by a roller movement screw 4 of the same mechanism. is supported so that its position can be adjusted along the feeding direction.

The structure of the roller support mechanism is shown in FIG.

In FIG. 2, the reference numeral 5 is a fixed member that supports the entire mechanism, and has an inverted trapezoidal shape with a cross section of 1 m.
It is fixed within the cassette 1. A U-shaped plate-shaped gear support member 6 is integrally provided at the end of the fixing member 5 on the near side in the drawing. A pinion gear 7 is supported between the U-shaped portions of the gear support member 6 with the aforementioned roller moving screw 4 as a shaft, and can be rotated by turning the moving screw 4 with a screwdriver or the like. It has become.

On the other hand, the movable member indicated by the reference numeral 8 in FIG. It is fitted into the member 5 so as to be slidable in the directions of arrows A and B. A rank 9 is provided on the side of the movable member 8 facing the pinion gear 7, and is meshed with the pinion gear 7. Therefore, by rotating the pinion gear 7 via the roller moving screw 4, the movable member 8 is moved as indicated by the arrow A.
, can move in direction B. This mechanism is arranged so that the directions of arrows A and B are along the feeding direction of the ink ribbon 2.

Furthermore, a rotating plate 10 is mounted on the movable member 8 via a pin 11 implanted on the movable member 8 so as to be rotatable in the directions of arrows C and D. The rotary plate 10 has an arc-shaped elongated hole 10.
a is formed, and a second pin 12 implanted on the movable member 8 is loosely fitted into this elongated hole 10a, thereby regulating the rotational limit of the rotating plate 10. . Further, a spring 13 is provided on the rotating plate 10 so as to be wound around a pin 11, and one end of the spring 13 is attached to the rotating plate 10, and the other end is hooked onto the pin 12. The rotating plate 10 is biased in the direction of arrow C by the elastic force of the spring 13.

Further, an arm 1ob is formed at the left end in the figure at the front edge of the rotary plate 10, and the aforementioned roller 3 is rotatably supported by a sleeve 14 supported by this arm 10b. Although there is no particular restriction on the diameter of the roller 3, the length of the roller 3 is made larger than the width of the ink ribbon 2 so that the entire width of the ink ribbon 2 can be brought into pressure contact with the recording medium.

In the structure of such a support mechanism, the cola 3 is connected to the spring 1
3 presses the ink ribbon 2 onto the recording medium with a biasing force that biases the rotary plate 10 in the C direction, and positions the ink ribbon 2 along the feeding direction via the moving screw 4: Section A possible.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b).

During printing, as shown in FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b), the print head 15 presses the ink ribbon 2 against the recording medium 16, and prints while moving together with the cassette 1 in the direction of arrow P in the printing direction by driving the carriage. It is driven to generate heat according to the data. The ink pen 2 is sent in the opposite direction to the printing direction and heated by the print head 15, and the ink in the heated portion is melted and transferred to the recording medium 16, thereby performing printing.

By the way, in the past, members such as the unused roller 3 were not provided, so the printing head of the ink ribbon 2,
The portion immediately after being heated by the printing head 15 was peeled off from the recording medium 16 at the outer end of the print head 15 in both figures. However, in this case, the time from heating to peeling is very short, and the ink melted by heating is peeled off while it is still in a molten state. For this reason! +1 Since the cohesive force of the ink layer at the time of separation is low l/X, the ink to be transferred is not completely transferred,
It was not possible to print with high quality on a recording medium with a low surface smoothness.

On the other hand, in this embodiment, FIG. 3(a).

As shown in (b), the roller 3 presses the heated portion of the ink ribbon 2 against the recording medium 16 to delay the timing of peeling, thereby increasing the cohesive force.
Transfer can be performed completely.

Furthermore, according to this embodiment, the position of the roller 3 can be adjusted along the feeding direction of the ink ribbon 2, so that the timing of peeling can be adjusted according to the difference in the cohesive force of the ink and the difference in the smoothness of the recording medium 16. can be adjusted optimally.

For example, if the cohesive force of the ink is large or if the medium is highly smooth, the roller 3 may be moved closer to the print head 15 as shown in FIG. 3(a) to speed up the separation. On the other hand, if the cohesive force of the ink is small or the medium is low in smoothness, the roller 3 may be moved away from the print head 15 to delay separation, as shown in FIG. 3(b).

As described above, according to this embodiment, high-quality printing can be performed even on a recording medium with low smoothness using an extremely simple and inexpensive structure. Note that other suitable pressing members may be used in place of the roller 3. The support structure in which the position of the pressure contact member can be adjusted is not limited to that shown in FIG.

[Effects] As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, an ink ribbon that is attached to a thermal transfer recording device, is pressed against a recording medium by a thermal head, and is heated to transfer ink to the recording medium is housed. In this ink ribbon cassette, a pressure member that presses the heated portion of the ribbon against the recording medium is provided so that its position can be adjusted in accordance with the moving force and direction of the ribbon, so that recording of a thermal transfer recording device using this is possible. In some cases, the timing at which the part of the ink ribbon that has just been heated can be peeled off from the recording medium can be delayed, and high-quality recording can be performed even on recording media with low smoothness, and the above timing can be delayed by adjusting the position. The excellent effect of high-quality recording can be obtained by making adjustments according to the smoothness of the medium and the cohesive force of the ink. Furthermore, the structure of the present invention is extremely simple and can be implemented at low cost.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The figures explain the present invention in detail, and FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the appearance of an ink ribbon cassette according to the present embodiment, and FIG.
The figure is a perspective view showing the structure of the roller support mechanism in Figure 1;
FIGS. 3(a) and 3(b) are respectively explanatory diagrams of the operation of this embodiment. 1... Ink ribbon force cent 2... Ink ribbon 3... Roller 4... Roller moving screw 5... Fixing member 7... Pinion gear 8...
・Movable member 9...U・NK1O...Rotating plate 13...Spring 15...Print head 16
...Recording medium i>Fribon-77t! ”/T’s Xu 4 report port Figure 1

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) In an ink ribbon cassette that is installed in a thermal transfer recording device and houses an ink ribbon that is pressed against a recording medium by a thermal head and heated to transfer ink to the recording medium, immediately after the ribbon is heated. An ink ribbon cassette characterized in that a pressure contact member that presses a portion of the ink ribbon against a recording medium is provided whose position can be adjusted along the moving direction of the ribbon. 2) The ink ribbon cassette according to claim 1, wherein the pressing member is a rotatable roller.