JPS6249880B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a serial impact printer, in particular, a printer in which a plurality of glyph elements mounted on a carriage that moves forward for each print collides with printing paper via an ink ribbon, and the ink layer of the ink ribbon is peeled off. The present invention relates to an improvement of a so-called type type serial impact printer that prints.

In conventional printers of this type, a carbon material is usually coated on a base film as an ink ribbon, and the carbon material is applied to printing paper by collision of character elements to print. However, simply applying carbon material to the printing paper may cause the printing surface of the printing paper to be rubbed or rubbed, causing the carbon material to flow and stain the printing surface, making the printed character shape difficult to read, etc. In particular, when OCR characters are printed using a printer, the printed characters must be sharp, and conventional devices have not been able to meet this requirement.

The present invention aims to provide a novel serial impact printer capable of eliminating the drawbacks of the conventional apparatus, and is characterized in that an ink layer containing an ultraviolet curing desiccant is coated on a base film as an ink ribbon. In addition to using the ink ribbon produced by the printer, the carriage is provided with an ultraviolet irradiation unit that irradiates the printing surface of the printing paper with ultraviolet rays supplied from an ultraviolet generator.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 is a case body, 2 is a manually or automatically rotated platen disposed inside the case body, 3 is printing paper wrapped around the platen 2, and 4 is a platen. The carriage 4 is guided by two guide rods 5 and 6 and moved in the left-right direction by a drive mechanism (not shown) such as a motor. will be moved to

8 is attached to the carriage 4, for example at the tip.
A type wheel in which flexible spokes forming an OCR shape are arranged radially; 9 is a print hammer that hits the tip of the spoke in the type hole 8; 10 is a ribbon car removably mounted on the carriage 4; Cartridge 10
An ink ribbon 11 housed in the ink ribbon 11 is interposed between the type wheel 8 and the printing paper 3, and is fed by one character each time a printing operation is performed. In this case, the ink ribbon 11 is a removable ultraviolet curable film made by mixing and solidifying a carbon photosensitive resin monomer as a pigment, a vehicle having a composition such as a prepolymer and a sensitizer, a binder, etc. on a base film such as a polyester film. It is formed by applying a dry ink layer.

14 is a flexible light as an ultraviolet irradiation unit disposed in the carriage 4 so as to be on the same horizontal plane as the ink ribbon 11 and facing the printing paper 3 at a position behind the printing position (that is, the print hammer position). A fiber 15 is an ultraviolet generator connected to the optical fiber 14 and disposed at the bottom of the case body 1.

As shown in FIG. 3, an example of the ultraviolet generator 15 includes a mercury lamp 16 serving as a source of ultraviolet rays, a reflecting mirror 17 disposed behind it, and a condenser lens 18 for condensing the ultraviolet rays of the mercury lamp 16. and shutter 1 that blocks the ultraviolet rays focused by this lens.
9, a pinhole 20, a collimator lens 21 that converts into parallel light, and an infrared cut filter 22.The ultraviolet rays obtained by passing through the filter 22 are introduced into the core c of the optical fiber 14, and this light is The light passes through the fiber 14 and is irradiated onto the printing surface of the printing paper 3.

In addition, the carriage 4 is a keyboard (not shown).
or by external input signal, rotate the print wheel to select the desired character shape, operate the print hammer 9 to print, and step sequentially to the right. In order to advance the optical fiber 14 up to this point, the optical fiber 14 advances to the right at a required speed beyond the distance between the printing position and the optical fiber 14, and then automatically returns to the left margin position.

Further, the shutter 19 of the ultraviolet ray generator 15 is normally closed and is configured to open after the carriage 4 starts printing, and the ultraviolet irradiation is controlled not by turning on and off the mercury lamp 16 but by opening and closing the shutter 19.

The above is an example of the configuration of the present invention, and the operation thereof will be explained next. First, the printing paper 3 is set on the platen 2, and then printing is started in the same way as a normal printer.The carriage 4 sequentially steps to the right for each print or space, and the optical fiber 14 reaches the first printing position. Before that, shutter 19
is opened and the printing surface of the printing paper 3 is irradiated with ultraviolet light. Therefore, since the ink layer applied to the printing paper 3 by the carriage 4 is irradiated with ultraviolet rays,
The sensitizer in the ink layer absorbs ultraviolet energy and becomes free radicals that trigger the reaction, which causes photosensitive monomers, prepolymers, etc. to undergo radical polymerization, resulting in photopolymerization and complete letter shape. Forms a solidified film.

When the printing continues and the line feed position is reached, the carriage 4 advances to the right until the optical fiber 14 reaches the final printing position, then returns to the left margin position, and at the same time, the platen 2 rotates. The printing paper 3 is fed by one line, and the above operation is repeated. When printing is completed, the carriage is moved until the optical fiber 14 reaches the final printing position in the same way as before. After the required time has elapsed, the shutter 19 is moved. It closes and UV irradiation is stopped.

As described above, according to the present invention, the ink ribbon is formed by coating a base film with an ink layer mixed with an ultraviolet curing drying agent, and the carriage is provided with an ultraviolet irradiation unit that irradiates the printing surface of printing paper. Therefore, the characters printed on the printing paper by the carriage are sequentially cured and dried by ultraviolet rays.
Therefore, it is comparable to the shape of characters produced by ordinary offset printing, and the shape of the printed characters does not deteriorate even if rubbed or rubbed, so it has a great feature that is especially suitable for printing characters for OCR.

Furthermore, since the ultraviolet ray irradiation unit is installed in the carriage, the printed characters are sequentially irradiated with ultraviolet rays as the carriage moves, so there is no need to provide a separate ultraviolet irradiation device, and the entire device can be simplified and miniaturized. The height of the printing shape (approx. 5 to 10 mm)
The ultraviolet ray generator can be simply and miniaturized because it is only needed, and by using a flexible optical fiber as the ultraviolet irradiator, there is no need to place the ultraviolet ray generator on the carriage, so there is no need to place a load on the carriage. This has the effect that a conventional serial impact printer can be easily improved to the device of the present invention without making large-scale improvements.

Furthermore, since the printed shapes are cured and dried using ultraviolet rays, unlike other heat drying methods, the method uses cold energy to cure, so it has the advantage that there is no risk of deformation or deterioration of the printing paper.

In the above example, the case where the printing mechanism is a type wheel type in which the type wheel 8 and the type hammer 9 are used in the carriage was explained, but the printing mechanism is not limited to this, and other types such as type bar type, type pallet type, type cylinder type, type Of course, the present invention can also be applied to a printing mechanism such as a ball type printing mechanism.

Further, the ultraviolet irradiation unit may be arranged at a position behind the printing position of the carriage, or may be arranged above the printing position with a line space separated therebetween.
In this case, after printing is completed, the platen may be rotated one additional line to move the carriage to the printing end position.

Furthermore, the ultraviolet ray generator 15 is not limited to the above example, and the positions of the shutter 19 and the filter 22 can be changed as desired, as long as they are configured so that ultraviolet rays are introduced into the optical fiber. .

Furthermore, in order to change the ultraviolet irradiation area on the printing surface, an enlargement or reduction mechanism such as a lens with an appropriate magnification may be provided at the end of the optical fiber 14.

Furthermore, in the above example, a case was explained in which the ultraviolet rays obtained from the ultraviolet generator 15 are irradiated onto the printing surface through an optical fiber, but when linear ultraviolet rays are obtained like laser light, As shown in FIG. 4, an ultraviolet ray generator 15 may be disposed on the left or right side of the carriage 4, and a reflecting mirror 25 may be provided on the carriage 4 to reflect the ultraviolet rays and irradiate them onto the printing surface.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an example of the device of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a sectional view along the line, FIG. 3 is an optical system diagram showing one example of the ultraviolet ray generator, and FIG. 4 is a plan view showing another example of the device of the present invention. 3 is printing paper, 4 is a carriage, 11 is an ink ribbon, 14 is an optical fiber, and 15 is an ultraviolet generator.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A serial impact printer that prints by colliding a plurality of glyph elements attached to a carriage that moves forward each time with each printing onto printing paper via an ink ribbon, and peeling off the ink layer of the ink ribbon. The ink ribbon is formed by coating a base film with an ink layer mixed with an ultraviolet curable drying agent, and the cartridge is supplied with ultraviolet rays supplied from an ultraviolet generator to irradiate the printing surface of the printing paper with ultraviolet rays. A serial impact characterized in that an irradiation section is provided, and the ink layer of the ink ribbon is peeled off by the character shape element, and the character shape painted on the printing paper is irradiated with ultraviolet rays to cure and dry. printer. 2. The serial impact printer according to claim 1, wherein the ultraviolet irradiation section is an optical fiber connected to an ultraviolet generator. 3. The serial impact printer according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the character shape for OCR is expressed in the character shape element.