MXPA01007985A - Method for making scratchable blocks and support comprising same - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention concerns a method for producing scratchable blocks on a support, comprising the use of an ink jet printing technique. The ink used is of the type with phase change. The invention also concerns a support containing an information or a graphic design on surface and a scratchable block masking said information or graphic design. The scratchable block consists of juxtaposed and/or superposed dots of material. The invention is applicable to chip cards.

Description

METHOD FOR FABRI CAR SCRAPS AND SUPPORT COMPRISING THE PLANS The invention relates to a method for producing planile scrapers on a support and a support incorporating the plans.

Scrapeable forms refers to any design printed on a support with the purpose of being removed simply by scraping with the nail or any object of sufficient hardness, the objective being usually to discover an inscription or a design under the spreadsheet So far, use has been made of screen printing technologies or heat transfer printing to produce planile scrap.

In both cases, for printing it has good covering capacity and sufficient adhesion with respect to the support so that it does not detach itself, but insufficient adhesion to have the ability to resist being scratched.

However, these technologies are not particularly suitable for mass production by its low deposit speed and / or complexity of use.

However, there are more and more motions towards the massive use of these raspable forms, naturally in the already known field, which is that of games such as lotteries and disposable cards. I I I The applicant is also going to other uses, for example, all I applications involving portable media such as smart cards (bank smart cards and / or electronic wallets and / or smart phone cards).

In these applications, the forms could be used to cover, for example, a useful number for the user.

Existing printing technologies to deposit scrap layers or scratch sheets and materials on substrates made of paper pulp, such as paper or cardboard that exist now, that is, I heat transfer printing or printing methods. screens, are not fully adapted to productivity problems, as established, due to their low deposit speed and / or complexity of use.

In addition, the production of more elaborate scrap pads, that is, for example, multi-colored or multi-shaped, is also a restrictive element here with the technologies that are currently being used.

The object of the invention is a method for solving the problems of velocity and dynamic change in size, shape and color of scratch pads in the context of industrial use or other use.

The object of the invention is, consequently, more especially a method for producing raspable sheets on a support, mainly characterized in that it includes the use of an inkjet printing technique.

According to another feature of the invention, the ink used is an ink of the changing phase type (in English terminology, hot melt).

According to another characteristic, the inks used contain oligomers and polyamides. j i According to another characteristic of the invention, the support on which scratch-off sheet deposits can be made can be a plastic support, such as a card with integrated circuits (smart card), whatever the type of card or whatever the type of card. application. I The ink used contains the ester of a hydrogenated abietic acid (element to increase the viscosity) and a plasticizer. In the case of printing on a plastic carrier, the amount of hydrogenated abiotic ester in the ink composition is equal to 16.5% up to 27% and that of the plasticizer will be respectively 15% up to 4.5% According to another characteristic of the invention, the support can be made of rigid paper pulp (cardboard) or flexible paper pulp (paper).

According to another characteristic of the invention, ink-jet printing is obtained by means of one or more printheads controlled according to the shape, size and / or color of the form that is going to produce According to another feature, the print heads used are of the piezoelectric type.

Another object of the invention is a support containing information or a graphic on a face and a raspable spreadsheet that masks the information or the graphic I. It is characterized in that the raspable spreadsheet is composed of points of juxtaposed and / or overlapping material.

Other features and advantages of the invention will arise from reading the description immediately which is given by way of illustrative and non-limiting examples with respect to the drawings, in which: Figures la and lb illustrate a piece of equipment for implementing the method according to the invention, and Figure 2 illustrates the results obtained on a support such as a smart card for the ISO format.

The method of the invention can be implemented in a different way by the use of one or more ink jet print heads according to the use. Thus, one or more heads will be used according to the shape that you want to obtain for the scrapbook, possibly sized with respect to the size of the head and also according to the fact that you want to obtain forms with a single color or with several colors.

An advantage of the present invention is that the print heads can be positioned in the existing production lines to manufacture scrap pads, replacing the current solutions.

It is therefore possible to have one or more print heads to cover, by means of its design or | its mechanical positioning, the width of the useful surface to be printed. One or more inks in the same or several colors will be ejected by the ink jet heads when the object to be processed passes, which can be consequently, paper, plastic or other type.

The inks that can be used for these uses can be, for example, of the changing phase type (in English terminology, hot melt), which have the advantage of solidifying on contact with the printed surface and which are compatible with a wide variety of supports without any special processing. These are waxes.

The main material which is most frequently used for ink-jet uses of the changing phase is wax.

This is because the characteristics of this material lend themselves very well to lifting cycles and Wax base to support fibers.

However, in the context of this invention, the wax has the main defect of not being sufficiently adhesive to the plastics materials, which gives rise to an insufficient resistance to abrasion in the context of this use. i! For this purpose, the method described in the invention uses phase changing inks which include oligomers and polyamides. This formulation, used by some ink manufacturers, improves the adhesion to plastic supports and facilitates the obtaining of specific colors necessary for this use.

At present, products based on this technology are available from companies such as Data Product, Brother, Polaroid, Mar em and Tektronic. It's 1st products are generally thought for the printing of supports of the paper or cardboard type.

The ink formulations used by the different manufacturers are very similar and it is possible to quote as reference, for example, the Tektronic Color Stix inks which can be summarized as follows: -monoamide 47% -tetramide 21.5% -adhesive sticking agent "Viscosante "plasticizing agent" Plasticizer " The sticky product is an adhesion agent for ink (in English viscosante, I that corresponds to an ester of hydrogenated abiotic acid) The changing phase inks generally have a softening temperature of around 90aC and physical characteristics with piezoelectric inkjet technology from 130aC.

In the context of the invention, the use of inks generally used for paper uses does not make it possible to have sufficient adhesion on a plastic support for the use in question. For better ink adhesion, changes in the formulations are necessary.

In order not to increase the viscosities in the inks too much, the applicant has preferred to reduce the plasticizers, which are generally of the polymer type, more suitable for plastics uses.

An example of a plasticizer used in the context of this invention is di-isonomyl phthalate.

The proportions of viscosity and plasticizer in the composition of the ink can be: -viscosante: 16.5% up to 27% -plasticizer: 4.5% (with 27% viscosity) up to 15% (with 16.5% viscosity).

The thickness of the deposited ink varies according to the resolution of the printing, the formulation of the ink and the temperature, and the nature of the substrate when the drop reaches the support.

In the context of the invention, the deposited thickness varies between 8 and 20 μm according to the aforementioned parameters.

An equipment element E which allows inkjet printing of scrap pads according to the method of the invention, has been shown schematically in Figures la and lb.

This equipment will include, for example, an ln head of printing controlled by an electronic control 2! which will include a PG control program adapted to the shape and size of the pattern that you want to produce.

There is nothing original per se in the electronic control 2, and the existing controls for printing machines used in paper printers can be used, for example, to control this print head. Naturally, the parameters concerning the linear velocity of the movement of the head, the output d of the ink that flows in the nozzles in the head and the program referring to the pattern to be produced in a pass or in several passes of the head on the support, are recorded in the memory of the control program of the print head.

The print head is supplied with ink by a heated reservoir 3, due to the use of changing phase ink based on temperature variation, in a manner that is also conventional. The deposit has numeral 3 reference in the figures.

Injection ink heads, and more particularly heads based on piezoelectric technology, make it possible to achieve linear printing speeds of about 1 to 2 meters per second, which far exceeds, in terms of proportion, what the technologies current are able to achieve. ! Another very important advantage of the present invention is that the method makes it possible to produce personalized raspable sheet prints due to the directional capabilities of the ink jet heads.

This is due to the fact that, according to the required luso and the resolution, it is possible to use several inkjet heads. Each head will have a specific color to produce different graphic effects at high speed and that can also be different from one support to another by means of parameter change during printing. This change of parameter can be effected by means of an input / output peripheral, connected to the electronic control 2, referenced as 4 in the diagram in figure lb.

Figure 2 illustrates a support 1 on which a rastable P sheet has been printed according to the method of the invention. This template P has been placed in a printing area Z which is defined, for example with respect to the edges of the card. In the program that controls the print head.

The shape of the sheet produced and the output of ink to obtain the required thickness of the ink ST deposits, are also defined in this program.

Figure 2 illustrates an exemplary representation of a plastic support S such as a smart card for the ISO format. As stated earlier, this support it can be a paper or cardboard carrier produced according to the method of the invention. Naturally, the ink can be replaced with a material and then a stream of material will be spoken in the broad sense.

The invention relates in particular to the use of material injection or ink jet techniques in which it is possible to drive or unitarily control each jet of a drop or blocks of n simultaneous jets each of a drop.

More precisely, the support contains information or a graphic on a face and a scrapbook! that masks such information or graph. The raspable spreadsheet is composed of points of material juxtaposed j and / or superimposed. These points result from the impact of drops of material, notably drops of ink sprayed by means of jets of material in general or ink jets on the support.

The points have a higher resolution than | 100 i dots per inch (dpi). Preferably, the resolution is between 100 and 600 dpi.

When ST uses the color effect offered by the technology of the invention, it is possible to obtain a spreadsheet containing points of different colors. ! Advantageously, the color dots can form a decorative pattern or information or a security element such as guilloche to increase the interference with or camouflage the framed information.

The security pattern can be regular or random, visible or not from the outside. It may be in the same color as the information or graphic located in the support to merge with it. The employer may be directly in contact with the information or chart or be substantially at the same level. It may comprise at least one layer of dots of material or ink on it with a uniform color or otherwise.

Claims (8)

1. Method for producing scratch pads, characterized in that the inkjet printing is obtained by means of one or more printheads controlled according to the shape, size and / or color of the sheet to be produced.

2. Method for producing scrap pads I according to claim 1, characterized in that the ink jet print heads are piezoelectric type.

3. Support having a scratchable head produced according to any of claims 1 to 8.!

4. Support that contains an information or graphic on one side and a raspable spreadsheet that masks the information or the graphic, characterized in that the raspable spreadsheet is composed of points of material juxtaposed and / or superimposed obtained by the use of a technique of printing, inkjet.

5. Support according to claim 4, characterized in that the points have a resolution greater than 100 points per inch (dpi). | I 6.- Support according to claims 4 to 5, characterized in that the points They have different colors. 7.- Support according to the claim 6, characterized in that the points of different colors form a pattern. 8.- Support according to the claim 7, characterized in that the different colored dots form a regular or random security pattern, visible or not from the outside.