JPS63212584A - Printing head for thermal transfer printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To print a printing sheet having low smoothness at a high speed by additionally providing a preheater at the forward position of the same level as that of a printing element of a printing head. CONSTITUTION:A printing head 1 is provided with a preheater 2 and a printing element 3 disposed at a predetermined interval in parallel at the same level. Since an ink ribbon 6 is heated by the preheater 2 to pass under the element 3, the element 3 melts the ink of the ribbon 6 preheated by the low heat to print to preferably provide cooling efficiency of the element 3, thereby printing at a high speed. Since the preheater 2 may heat the lateral width of the printing element row of the ribbon 6, the number and the size of the heating elements which construct the preheater 2 can be arbitrarily selected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to thermal transfer printers, and more particularly to printheads for thermal transfer printers.

Conventional technology Conventionally, the print head of this type of thermal transfer printer has a plurality of printing elements arranged in a row at right angles to the printing direction, and the printing paper and ink ribbon are sandwiched and pressed on a platen. , the printing element generates high heat to melt the ink and transfer it to the printing paper.

However, if the surface of the printing paper is not smooth, the printing element needs to generate more heat.
If the heat generation increases, it becomes difficult to cool the printing element, so there is a drawback that the cycle of heat generation and cooling cannot be increased and the printing speed cannot be increased.

As a countermeasure against this problem, a structure has been used in which a plurality of printing elements are arranged in two parallel rows in the print head and the printing elements in these two rows are alternately heated. In this case, even if the same printing speed is used, each printing element only needs to be heated and cooled twice as often, increasing the printing speed.90 However, since the printing elements in the two rows are separated, they can be In order to perform accurate printing, a complicated control circuit is required to strictly match the relationship between the heat generation period of the printing element and the moving distance of the print head in the printing direction. The drawback was that the dot arrays had to match.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention The purpose of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, namely, in the case of a single row of printing elements, the printing speed cannot be increased due to the cycle of heating and cooling, and in the case of two rows of printing elements, the printing speed cannot be increased. However, the problem is that a control circuit is required to strictly match the relationship between the heat generation timing of the printing elements and the movement of the print head, which is complicated, and the dot arrangement between the two rows of printing elements must be precisely matched. Our objective is to provide a print head for thermal transfer printers that solves this problem.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention melts the ink on the ink ribbon by generating heat and arranges the ink in a line perpendicular to the printing direction for transferring it to printing paper. A preheating element having a printing element width for preheating the ink ribbon is installed on the head at the same level in front of the printing element as each of these printing elements. Operation Since the present invention is configured as described above, the preheating element of the print head preheats the ink ribbon, and then, when the preheated ink ribbon passes the position of the printing element, it is further heated by the printing element to print. The ink is transferred to the paper.

Example Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, which shows a perspective view of a first embodiment of the present invention, the print head 1 of the present invention has a preheating element 2 and a print element 3 arranged on the same level in parallel and spaced apart from each other at regular intervals.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the state of use of the thermal transfer printer using the print head 1 shown in FIG. being sent.

Further, the print head 1 having the heat dissipation plate 9 facing backwards presses the ink ribbon 6 onto the printing paper 4 and moves in the printing direction 8.

Next, the operation of the first embodiment will be explained using FIGS. 1 and 2. Since the ink ribbon 6 is heated by the preheating cord 2 and passes under the printing element 3, the printing element 3
This enables printing by melting the ink on the preheated ink ribbon 6 with lower heat generation than in the past, improves the cooling efficiency of the printing element 3, and enables high-speed printing. Moreover, since the preheating element 2 only needs to heat the width of the printing element row of the ink ribbon 6, the number and size of the heating elements constituting the preheating element 2 can be arbitrarily selected.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a second embodiment of the invention. In contrast to the first embodiment in which the preheating element 2 and the printing element 3 are arranged in parallel on the same print head 1, in this embodiment,
A preheating head 10 dedicated to the preheating element 2 is provided,
After the preheating head 10 is manufactured in a separate process from the print head 1, the print head 1 and the preheat head 10 are assembled together on the heat sink 9 to form a print head in a broad sense. This is similar to the first embodiment.

Effects of the Invention As explained above, according to the present invention, by additionally providing a preheating element at the same level and forward position as the printing element of the print head, the preheating element preheats the ink ribbon. The amount of heat generated by the printing element can be reduced.

Therefore, the cooling efficiency of the printing element is improved, and high-speed printing is possible even on printing paper with low smoothness. In addition, since the preheating element only needs to heat the width of the printing element row, the number of heating elements constituting the preheating element,
There is no need to be particular about size, etc., and there is no need for a control circuit for strict synchronization as in the case of conventional two-row printing elements.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of the thermal transfer printer according to the present invention for printing, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the state of use of the first embodiment. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a second embodiment of the present invention in use. 1...Print head, 2...Preheating element,
3... Printing element, 4... Printing paper, 5
...Platen, 6...Ink ribbon,
7... Ink ribbon feeding direction, 8...
Printing direction, 9... Heat sink, 10... Preheating head. #I Leap etc. 27fl

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plurality of printing elements are arranged in a line perpendicular to the printing direction, and the printing paper and ink ribbon are sandwiched and pressed onto the platen.
In a print head of a thermal transfer printer in which the printing element generates high heat to melt the ink of the ink ribbon and transfer it to the printing paper, on the head at the front position at the same level as each of the printing elements arranged in one row. A print head for a thermal transfer printer, characterized in that a preheating element for preheating the ink ribbon is provided.