JPH01114476A - ink medium - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to an ink medium used in a printing device that forms a visible image using at least both thermal energy supply means and magnetic attraction force generation means.

(Prior Art) Many small-sized, low-cost non-impact printing methods using magnetic ink have been proposed.

For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 52-98541, one method uses a magnetic attraction means provided separately from the heat supply means to apply a magnetic attraction force to the ink corresponding to the thermal image, thereby causing the ink to be transferred.

The ink medium used in this method is
There is 1983-36598. This ink medium consists of a base material and a thermomagnetic ink held on the base material, and the magnetic particles contained in the magnetic ink include black iron oxide powder, carbonyl iron powder, nickel powder, etc. They were magnetic particles.

That is, as shown in FIG. 3, it had a structure in which a thermoplastic magnetic ink layer 32 was uniformly provided on one side of a base material 31.

33 is a magnetic particle.

A printing method using this ink medium will be described below.

That is, as shown in figure m4, the thermal head 41, ink medium 42, transfer paper 45, and magnet 4G are installed in this order,
The thermoplastic magnetic ink 44 of the ink medium is brought into contact with the transfer paper when heat is applied from the base film surface 43 by the thermal head (directly below the head), and after the molten ink is adhered to the transfer paper, the ink is After adhering the medium to the receiving paper, pull the ink medium from the receiving paper? Rigashi,
This is for ink transfer. Furthermore, the magnetic attraction force increases the probability of molten ink contacting the transfer paper, and the ink medium is pulled. It was devised to add the effect of increasing the transfer rate to the paper when it is removed, and to enable high-quality printing of characters and images even on rough paper, which has poor surface smoothness.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technology, when the ink medium is removed by the ink medium puller 911, the ink in the recording area to be transferred is in contact with the base film and the ink in the non-recording area. A force is exerted to peel off the ink in the recording section that is adhered to the paper together with the base film from the transfer paper, causing transfer defects.

That is, in general thermal transfer recording ink media including the above-mentioned prior art, the ink medium pull in FIG.
FA (ink-transfer paper indirect force), which acts as a promoting force to transfer the ink in the recording section to the transfer paper during peeling;
and F, (ink cohesive force) and force that prevents transfer, FC (
ii 4 between interbase films? force), and F.

When the relationship p, , pA>>Fc+'' always holds between (inter-recording-inter-non-recording-area ink bonding force), the transfer is completed perfectly.

In addition, in the figure, 51 is a base film, 52 is a recording part ink,
53 is non-recording ink, and 54 is a transfer paper.

Furthermore, in the printing method using the conventional ink medium described above, when the ink melts, the ink in the recording section is attracted toward the transfer paper by magnetic attraction, so the probability of contact with the transfer paper increases. That is, increasing FA in FIG. 5 had the effect of increasing the transfer efficiency to some extent. However, as usual, the ink medium is closed! ? During rinsing, the base film-inter transfer paper is t1t.
ff city, FC and Fo exist in FIG.

Therefore, especially when transferring to a transfer paper having a particularly poor surface smoothness, a problem arises in that FA<FC or FA<FI) occurs, resulting in poor transfer.

Furthermore, in conventional technology, in order to increase the magnetic attraction force acting on the thermal image forming part of the ink, the amount of ferromagnetic fine particles contained in the ink is increased (this increases the melt viscosity of the ink and worsens the transfer efficiency. Furthermore, when using the ink medium of the prior art, the transferred ink has a high melt viscosity and has no fluidity.The magnetic attraction force is
l! Since the transfer efficiency is not improved because the ink is cooled rapidly, the transfer dots rise up and when rubbed by hand, the dots may peel off or the transfer medium becomes dirty. .

The present invention has been made to solve these problems, and its purpose is to increase the transfer efficiency of the ink in an ink medium having a thermoplastic magnetic ink layer, or to An object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic ink medium that can solve the problem of ink peeling off or staining on a transfer medium.

[Means for solving problems]

The ink medium of the present invention uses a heat application means and a magnetic attraction means, and transfers the recording paper and the ink medium without contact! This is an ink medium used in a printing device having a JA structure, and is composed of at least a heat-resistant support F9B and a thermoplastic magnetic ink layer containing fine ferromagnetic particles. It is characterized in that it contains solvent microcapsules.

[Effect]

The effect of the ink medium of the present invention that enables printing with excellent transfer efficiency or Kaisan property of the ink on the transfer medium will be explained.

FIG. 1 shows a cross-sectional view of the ink medium of the present invention. 11 is a heat-resistant support, 12 is a thermoplastic magnetic ink layer 13
14 is a ferromagnetic fine particle, and 14 is a microcapsule particle of a substance that is liquid at room temperature.

(Hereinafter referred to as solvent microcapsules.) According to the configuration of the present invention, since the thermoplastic magnetic ink of the ink medium contains solvent capsules, the solvent microcapsules are destroyed at the same time as heat is applied, and the solvent microcapsules are destroyed. The solvent in the capsule oozes out. As a result, the solvent particles act as a lubricant, reducing the melt viscosity of the ink.

For this reason, Figure 5 in the figure, 1? The forces of o and F o weaken,
The relationship Fn + FA >> PCj Fo holds true and transcription is completed. The ink medium according to the present invention comprises:
As shown in FIG. 2, this apparatus has a heat application means 21 and a magnetic attraction means 22, and is used in an apparatus in which an ink medium 24 and a transfer medium 23 according to the present invention are not in contact with each other on a transfer surface. Unlike the transfer dots 71 according to the conventional example shown in FIG. 7, the ink is not transferred only to the uneven ridges of the paper with very poor surface smoothness, but due to the above-mentioned reason, the melt viscosity is low. Since the ink medium and the transfer medium are not in contact, the ink also spreads into the valleys 74 of the transfer paper. In other words, the transferability to the transfer medium is improved. (When the ink medium and the transfer medium are in contact with each other on the transfer surface, the molten ink is easily transferred to the contact area, that is, the convex part.) 73 is the ink medium, 72 is the transfer paper, and 75 is a magnetic attraction means. It is. Furthermore, when the ink medium according to the present invention is used, it is possible to use not only transfer media with poor surface smoothness but also high-density, especially small-area at! Dot reproducibility is also good for recorded dots. Needless to say, the solvent microcapsules according to the present invention are destroyed at high temperatures by the heat application means of printing L8iv1, so there is no fear of spontaneous destruction at room temperature.

〔Example〕

In the figure, the experiment was carried out using an apparatus L1 having the configuration shown in FIG.

The heat application means 21 used a thermal head with a resolution of 1f and 300 dpl. As the transfer paper 23, Southworth paper with a Peck smoothness of 10 seconds was used. The magnetic attraction force generating means has a maximum energy product (hereinafter abbreviated as 11 II MA X)20.
A permanent magnet of MGOe was used. In the figure, 24 is an ink medium.

A cross-sectional view of the ink medium according to this embodiment is shown in FIG.

11 is a heat-resistant support such as capacitor paper, PET, P
Heat-resistant polymer films such as E51 PEEK, PPS, polyimide, polyamideimide, polycarbonate, etc. can be used. The thickness of the film is 0.5 μm or more to provide thermal and mechanical strength as a medium, and to increase heat transfer efficiency, the thickness of the film is 0.5 μm or more. In order to reduce the loss of energy required to thermally activate the cord, the thickness is preferably 20 μm or less.8 In this example, the 4 μm PU
T was used.

12 is a thermoplastic magnetic ink, which is composed of a binder, ferromagnetic particles 13, and solvent microcapsules 14.

Table 1 shows the composition of the thermoplastic magnetic ink layer in this example.
．． Shown in 2. Although wax binders are shown in Table 1, the materials include paraffin wax, microcrystalline wax, carnauba wax, oxidized wax,
Beeswax, polyethylene wax, α-olefin/
Maleic anhydride copolymer, fatty acid amide, fatty acid ester, distearyl keto 7, etc. were used alone or in combination as wax emulsion lenses. Ferromagnetic particles are
Although it is possible to use iron oxide, ferrite such as manganese, nickel, cobalt, zinc, etc., and gold scraps and alloy fine particles singly or in a mixture, in this example, magnetite (
Iron oxide) was used.

Table 1 Ink components nm% of each component on dry surface Table 2 Solvent microcapsule composition The ink layer of the ink medium according to the present invention is made by mixing a wax emulsion, a solvent microcapsule emulsion, and magnetite according to the table above. The ink layer was coated onto a PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film as a support layer so that the thickness of the ink layer was 7 μm in a dry state.

In addition to the coating materials used in the above examples, gelatin, gum arabic starch, polyvinylpyrrolidone, carboxymethyl cellulose,
Hydroxyethyl cellulose, methyl cellulose, ethyl cellulose, cellulose acetate, methyl methacrylate, styrene, nylon, polyethylene, nitrocellulose, silicate:+no, paraffin wax, 1 oz. Possible examples include cellar phthalate and cellulose acetate butyrate.

The ink medium of this comparative example has the structure shown in FIG. As the heat-resistant support 31, 1) ET with a thickness of 4 μm was used. The ink composition of an ink medium of a comparative example is shown.

The ink layer of the comparative example was produced in the same manner as the example. Further, thermal recording transfer was performed by the method shown in FIG.

In addition, 61 is a heat application means, and this comparative example has a resolution of 300 d.
P i thermal head, 62 is an ink medium, 63 is a transfer paper, 64 is a magnetic head electromagnet which is a magnetic attraction means, and the magnetomotive force is 100 QAT (ampere turns), 65
is a 4μm I'ET film which is a heat-resistant support FJiH,
66 is a thermoplastic ink layer.

The transfer results of Examples and Comparative Examples according to the present invention are shown below.

・Dot reproducibility: The size of the dots transferred to the transfer paper is not ○. Δ Some variation × Barack. ・Transfer efficiency: The area percentage of the transferred dots relative to the area of the heating element of the thermal head.・Kaisan property: No problems with ink dots peeling off on the transfer paper or stains when rubbed.O Some problems.O Problems. Transfer a (M
The ink medium according to the present invention, which is used in printing devices with has also reached a very high standard. In addition, it has become possible to print very high-quality characters and images on paper with very poor surface smoothness, or on films that do not have a high affinity with ink. It has also improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of the ink medium of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a transfer vA structure using an ink medium according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a sectional view of a conventional ink medium. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a transfer mechanism using a conventional ink medium. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the transfer principle of a conventional writing medium. FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a thermal recording transfer mechanism of a comparative example. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing problems when FA nQ recording is transferred to rough paper in the conventional example. Applicant: Seiko Epun/J Co., Ltd. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Claims (1)

[Claims] An ink medium for use in a printing device, which has a transfer mechanism that uses heat application means and magnetic attraction means to make recording paper and ink medium non-contact, and is a thermoplastic magnetic ink containing at least a heat-resistant support layer and ferromagnetic fine particles. 1. An ink medium comprising a layer and a solvent microcapsule that is broken down by thermal means in the ink layer.