JPS6292958A - Image recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To permit uniform coating of an image forming solvent at an adequate amt. only to the required part by feeding the solvent into a solvent guide cylinder, projecting the solvent by surface tension from the guide cylinder and coating the solvent on image receiving paper. CONSTITUTION:The solvent guide cylinder 54 for conducting water 64 which is the image forming solvent is provided under the image receiving paper 32 and a cylinder 58 is communicated with the top end thereof. A stop valve 70 is closed and a valve 56 is opened, then the water 64 is fed at a low speed by a piston 60 into the guide cylinder 54 in the stage of coating. The projecting part 64A of the solvent is formed by the surface tension at the top end of the guide cylinder 54 and is coated by contacting the image receiving paper 32. The adequate amt. of the solvent is thus uniformly coated on the required part.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to an image recording device that obtains an image on an image-receiving material by transferring an image recorded on a heat-developable photosensitive material to the image-receiving material in the presence of an image-forming solvent. .

(Prior Art) As an image recording device for obtaining a color image using a heat-developable photosensitive material, as shown in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-75247 (in which an image is exposed on the heat-developable photosensitive material in an exposure section and then transferred to a heat development section), There is a known method in which an image receiving paper is brought into close contact with a photosensitive material after heat development, and an image is transferred to the image receiving paper through a transfer process.

Before being sent to the transfer section, this image-receiving paper is applied with a transfer aid such as bleaching water, that is, an image-forming solvent, in order to improve transfer efficiency.

For this reason, in the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-75247, water is applied using a roller impregnated with water, but the water application tends to be uneven, causing uneven transfer.

Also, before the image receiving paper is sent to the transfer section, the iJ! A device has been proposed that applies water to the image receiving paper, but when passing the image receiving paper into a water tank, water is also applied to the back side of the image receiving paper, which may cause curling of the image receiving paper or the amount of water required during heat transfer. The amount of heat increases. Furthermore, in this device, water is applied over the entire area of the image receiving paper, so when it is in close contact with the photosensitive material during transfer, excess water oozes out along with the emulsion in the image area, causing stains on the conveyance roller, developing roller, etc. becomes.

The present invention has been made in consideration of the above facts, and an object of the present invention is to provide an image recording device that can uniformly apply an appropriate amount of an image-forming solvent to only necessary portions of a photothermographic material or image-receiving paper.

[Summary and operation of the invention]

The present invention provides an image recording device that obtains an image by transferring an image recorded on a heat-developable photosensitive material to an image-receiving material in the presence of an image-forming solvent. An image-forming solvent guide cylinder with an open end, and an image-forming solvent is fed into this guide cylinder, and the solvent is projected from the opening at the tip by the surface tension of the solvent, and this projecting part is brought into contact with a heat-developable photosensitive material or an image-receiving material for application. The invention is characterized in that it has a solvent supply means.

Therefore, in the present invention, the supply means appropriately controls the amount of image forming solvent supplied to the guide tube, adjusts the height of the protrusion formed at the tip opening of the guide tube due to surface tension, and A state in which the solvent is applied to the material or image-receiving material and a state in which it is not applied are formed, thereby making it possible to apply the solvent to any desired position. This guide tube may be brought into contact with and separated from the photothermographic material or the image-receiving material to precisely control the coating area and coating amount. The application width of the image-forming solvent is controlled by the width dimension of the guide cylinder, but the guide cylinder may be moved in the width direction of the photothermographic material or the image-receiving material.

Furthermore, since the amount of image forming solvent supplied to the guide tube is controlled by the supply means, uniform coating is possible without applying excess solvent in addition to coating at desired positions.

In the present invention, the image-forming solvent refers to a solvent required for image formation, such as water, a low-boiling organic solvent (alcohol, ketones, amides, etc.), or an interface to these solvents. These include those containing various additives such as activators, development accelerators, and development stoppers.

[Embodiments of the invention]

FIG. 2 shows an image recording apparatus 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In this image recording apparatus 10, a magazine 14 is mounted on a machine stand 12 and stores a photothermographic material 16. This heat-developable photosensitive material 16 is pulled out from the magazine 14, cut into a required length by a cutter 18, and then transported in the direction of arrow A to the outer periphery of an exposure drum 20 installed in the machine base 12 and wound around the exposure head. After being exposed at 22, the reverse direction (
The film is transported in the direction of arrow B), peeled off by a scraper 24, and sent to a stacking section 26.

Further, the image receiving paper 32 accommodated in layers in the cassette 30 is supplied via the water coating section 34, and is superimposed on the heat-developable photosensitive material 16 in the overlapping section 26.
It is now being sent to. A #J4 section 36 is provided downstream of the heat development/transfer section 28, and downstream of the peeling section 36, the photothermographic material 16 is sent to a stacking device 38, and the image receiving paper 32 is sent to a take-out section 40. It is now possible to

The image-receiving paper 32 is stored in the cassette (cassette) 30 and then
It receives a driving force from a conveyance roller 42 which is supported by a shaft, and is sent from the lowest layer to the water application section 34 .

The water application section 34 will be explained in detail with reference to FIG.

In the water coating section 34, a pair of transport rollers 44, 46 that sandwich the transported image receiving paper 32 are arranged close to the cassette 30, and a pair of transport rollers 48. 50 are arranged to sandwich and convey the image receiving paper 32.

These rollers are configured to receive the driving force of a motor (not shown) and send out the image receiving paper 32 to the overlapping section 26. Furthermore, a pair of guide plates 51 are provided between these conveying rollers so as to sandwich the image receiving paper 32 being conveyed between the upper and lower surfaces thereof.
is provided.

A guide tube 54 corresponds to the surface (emulsion surface) side of the image receiving paper 32 that is conveyed between the guide plates 51 . The guide tube 54 passes through a notch 51A formed in a portion of the guide plate 51 so that its upper end faces the surface of the image receiving paper 32.

An on-off valve 56 is interposed in the middle of the guide cylinder 54, and its tip communicates with a cylinder 58. This cylinder 58 constitutes the main part of the supply means, and a piston 60 disposed inside is reciprocated by the rotation of the mokuro 2 to forcefully feed water 64 to the guide tube 54.

A pipe 68 from a tank 66 is communicated with the cylinder 58, and an on-off valve 70 is interposed in the intermediate portion.

These on-off valves 70 and 56 are communicated with a control device (not shown), and water 64 is passed through the guide cylinder 5 by the piston 60.
4, the on-off valve 56 is opened and the on-off valve 70 is closed, and when the piston 60 is moved in the direction of enlarging the liquid chamber in the cylinder 58 (rightward in Figure 1), the on-off valve 56 is opened and the on-off valve 70 is closed. The valve 56 is closed and the on-off valve 70 is opened.

Note that the opening at the tip of the guide tube 54 is arranged extremely close to the surface (emulsion surface) of the image receiving paper 32 passing over the guide plate 51, and when the water 64 is forced into the guide tube 54 at a low speed, the guide tube 54 A protrusion 64A is formed at the tip of the image receiving paper 32 due to surface tension, and when the protrusion 64A is formed, the image forming solvent 64 comes into contact with the surface of the image receiving paper 32.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained.

Heat-developable photothermographic material 16 taken out from magazine 14
is wound around the exposure drum 20, exposed to light by the first hand 22, and then sent to the overlapping section 26.

On the other hand, among the image-receiving papers 32 housed in the cassette 30, the lowest layer of the image-receiving paper 32 is sent to the water application section 34 by a conveying roller 42. In the water application section 34, water 64 is applied in synchronization with the conveyance of the image receiving paper 32.
is rotationally driven to move the motor 62 in the direction of reducing the liquid chamber (in the first direction).
left direction).

At this stage, the on-off valve 70 is closed and the on-off valve 56 is open. Therefore, the image forming solvent 64 forms a protrusion 64A at the tip of the guide tube 54 due to surface tension. Therefore, the protrusion 64A comes into contact with the back surface of the image-receiving paper 32, and the image forming solvent 64 is applied thereto.

Uniform application is possible by driving the motor 62 at such a speed that the protrusion 64A is always formed and does not overflow from the tip of the guide tube 54.

As the receiving paper 32 is transported by transport rollers 44.46 and 48.50, the imaging solvent 64 gradually coats the water 64 along the length of the receiving paper 32. Therefore, by making the formation time of the protrusion 64A correspond to the conveyance state of the image-receiving paper 32, the image-forming solvent 64 can be applied only to the image-forming portion of the image-receiving paper 32.

Also, the application width dimension of water 64 (dimension in the direction perpendicular to the paper surface in Figure 1)
is determined by the width dimension of the guide tube 54, but if necessary, the guide tube 54 may be made to be able to be driven in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the paper in FIG.

When the required amount of water 64 has been applied, the drive of the motor 62 is stopped and the motor is slightly reversed to prevent the water from coming into contact with the image receiving paper. This eliminates the application of water 64. At the rear end of the applied water 64, excess water is not supplied to the coated rear end of the image receiving paper 32, compared to the case where water is applied using a porous coating member such as a sponge.

By forming the guide plate 50 with a small diameter notch in the axially intermediate portion, it is possible to prevent the image forming solvent 64 after being applied from being adversely affected by the conveying roller 50.

The image receiving paper 32 coated with water in the water coating section 34 is sent to the overlapping section 26 where it is superimposed on the image surface of the arc development photosensitive material 16, and then sent to the thermal development/transfer section 28. Here, heat development is performed in the presence of water, and at the same time the formed dye image is heat-transferred to the emulsion surface of the image-receiving paper 32.

This transcript! In the virtual state, the necessary amount of water has already been properly applied to the image receiving paper 32, so that an extremely good transfer operation can be performed.

After transfer, the heat-developable photosensitive material 16 and the image-receiving paper 32 that remain in close contact are sent from the heat development/transfer section 28 to the peeling section 36, the heat-developable photo-sensitive material 16 is stored in a stacking device 38, and the image-receiving paper 32 is It is sent to the take-out section 40 and taken out.

As shown in FIG. 3, before the next receiving sheet 32 arrives at the water applicator 34, the motor 62 rotates in the opposite direction to move the piston 60 in the direction of expanding the liquid chamber. In this case, the on-off valve 5G is closed and the on-off valve 7° is opened. Therefore, the image forming solvent 64 in the tank 66 is filled into the liquid chamber, preparing for the next water coating □. The water in the tank 66 may be sucked into the cylinder 58 in an amount equivalent to one application on the image receiving paper 32.
Also, it may be multiple times.

When the next receiving paper 32 arrives, the motor 62 is again reversed to the state shown in FIG. 1, and the above operation is repeated.

In the above-mentioned embodiments, the present invention has been described with reference to the case where the image receiving paper 32 is coated with water, but the present invention is similarly applicable to the case where the photothermographic material 16 is coated with water.

Further, in the above embodiment, the guide cylinder 54 is stopped and the image forming solvent 64 is applied to the image receiving paper 32 at the protruding portion 64A while the image receiving paper 32 is being fed. However, when the image receiving paper 32 is stopped, The image forming solvent 64 may be applied by moving the guide cylinder 54 relative to the image receiving paper 32.

Furthermore, the present invention can be applied to cases where an image forming solvent is applied outside of a water plate.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above (in the present invention, in an image recording apparatus that obtains an image by transferring an image recorded on a heat-developable photosensitive material to an image-receiving material in the presence of an image-forming solvent, the photothermographic material or image-receiving material An image-forming solvent guide cylinder whose tip is open near the surface of the image-forming solvent, and an image-forming solvent is fed into this guide cylinder, and the solvent is made to protrude from the tip opening by the surface tension of the solvent, and this protruding part is used as a heat-developable photosensitive material or an image-receiving material. It is characterized by having a solvent supply means for contacting and applying the solvent to the image forming apparatus, so that there is no need to apply excess image forming solvent (
It has the excellent effect of being able to uniformly apply the appropriate amount only to the required areas.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an enlarged sectional view showing a water application section according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing an image recording apparatus to which the invention is applied, and FIG. 3 is an operational diagram of FIG. 1. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10... Image recording device, 16... Photothermographic material, 32... Receiving paper, 34... Water application part, 54... Guide cylinder, 56... Opening/closing valve, 58... Cylinder, 62...Motor, 64...Solvent for image formation, 64A...Protrusion part, 70...Opening/closing valve.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) In an image recording device that obtains an image by transferring an image recorded on a heat-developable photosensitive material to an image-receiving material in the presence of an image-forming solvent, a tip portion near the surface of the heat-developable photosensitive material or image-receiving material is used. An image-forming solvent guide cylinder with an opening is provided, and an image-forming solvent is fed into this guide cylinder, and the solvent is projected from the opening at the tip by the surface tension of the solvent, and this projecting portion is brought into contact with a photothermographic material or an image-receiving material to apply it. An image recording device comprising: a solvent supply means.