JPH02157736A - Head device for side print - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate color unevenness from the light used for irradiating a photosensitive surface by supplying the light of a light source to a light guide through reflecting holes and shaping the light emitting surface of the light guide to an arbitrary shape. CONSTITUTION:A fiber bundle 10 is formed of numerous optical fibers and the light emitting surface 32 of the bundle 10 is shaped to a rectangular shape. On the other hand, the plane of incidence of the bundle 10 is fixed in a state where the optical fibers of the bundle 10 are fixed after respectively passing through fixing holes 36 provided in a fixing plate 34 and a guide plate 40 provided with reflecting holes 38 at positions corresponding to the holes 36 is provided closely to the fixing plate 34 in a state where the holes 38 are respectively faced to the holes 36. Accordingly, the light emitting surface 32 can be shaped to an arbitrary shape and, at the same time, occurrence of such a case that the light emitted from a light source is diffused before the light is made incident on the light guide and a certain quantity of light loss is produced can be prevented and the light of the light source can be led efficiently to the light guide. Therefore, excellent exposure light which has a sufficient light quantity and is free from color unevenness is obtained.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a side print head device for printing characters, symbols, etc. on the side of a color film, and particularly to a light guide that supplies multiple color lights to the exposure surface. It's about structure.

[Conventional technology]

Side printing devices are well known that pre-expose characters, symbols, etc. on photosensitive materials for identification and other purposes. A latent image is formed by exposing a code or the like.

A conventional device of this type is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-46409.
As shown in the publication, a light emitting diode in which a plurality of light emitting diode chips are arranged is used, and this light emitting diode is arranged on the light input end side of one light guide, and the mixed light is sent to the light output end. There is a configuration that can be taken out from. Under such a configuration, if the plurality of light emitting diode chips have different emission wavelengths and are driven independently, the light of each wavelength will be mixed within the light guide, and light of any color will be emitted from the exit end. It can be removed and the film exposed to the desired color. -The light from the light guide of the book is converted into a single dot pixel on the film, and if the light guide is selected appropriately according to the direction of film travel and emitted, any character or symbol can be printed in any color. Can be exposed.

However, when such a device is used, since the cross-sectional shape of the optical fiber is generally circular, the shape of the dots exposed on the film will also be circular, making it difficult to form characters by combining dots. is not noticeable, but
When forming a symbol such as a bar code, gaps between dots are noticeable, resulting in lower print quality and uneven density of the symbol itself.

In order to solve this problem, a bundle formed by bundling together a large number of small-diameter optical fibers has been devised to use as a light guide, and the light exit end face is made close to a rectangular shape. Since no color mixing takes place between the individual optical fibers, the color unevenness on the light incident surface side directly reaches the light exit surface, resulting in color unevenness in the dots formed on the film.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 4, it is conceivable to increase the distance between the bundle 10 and the light emitting diode 12 so that the colors can be mixed sufficiently between them.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, when the distance between the light source and the light guide is increased in this way, although the light is mixed in color before entering the light guide, it is diffused before entering the light guide and the amount of light is equal to the square of the distance. It decreases in inverse proportion. Therefore, the problem remained that the quality of side prints deteriorated due to insufficient exposure.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention has been made in view of these points, and enables the shape of the light exit surface of the light guide to be arbitrarily formed without causing inconveniences such as color unevenness and insufficient light quantity, thereby making it possible to form the shape of the light exit surface of the light guide as desired. The purpose is to improve quality.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention comprises a light guide made up of a bundle of a plurality of small-diameter optical fibers; one aperture facing the light source and the other facing the light incident surface of the light guide. A plate with a through hole formed therein is disposed closely between the light source and the light incident surface of the light guide.

[Effect]

Since the present invention is configured as described above, the light exit surface of the light guide can be shaped into an arbitrary shape such as a rectangle, and the light emitted from the light source is diffused before entering the light guide to reduce the amount of light. It becomes possible to efficiently guide light from the light source to the light guide without any loss of light.

Furthermore, the light emitted from the light source is not significantly lost even within the through hole, and the colors are sufficiently mixed.

This makes it possible to obtain good exposure light with a sufficient amount of light and no color unevenness.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

First, the overall configuration of the side print device according to this embodiment shown in FIG. 3 will be described.

In the figure, 12 is the light emitting diode (L) of the light source mentioned above.
ED), and is composed of four LED chips (not shown) with different emission wavelengths. this house,
Two LED chips are used for blue, and the other two are used for green and red. In this case, the number of LED chips can be determined arbitrarily, and the configuration may be two or three LED chips, and the number of emission wavelengths may be two instead of three.

Note that the light source is not limited to an LED, and a laser diode (LD) may be used for part or all of the light source.

14 is an LED drive circuit that controls the drive of the LED 12, and includes a transistor (
(not shown) and a resistor (not shown) for controlling the luminance, which is controlled by blue, green, and red pattern signals 300 to 302 from the print pattern generator [16]. Based on each of the input pattern signals 300 to 302, the transistors are driven to control the lighting of the LED chips of the LED 12. Therefore, each LED chip emits light at the luminance determined by the resistor, and by controlling the light emission times of blue, green, and red, it is possible to emit light of any mixed color.

In addition, 16 is a print pattern generator that creates a print pattern as described above, 1 is a print information setting machine that inputs print information, 20 is a print roll,
22 is a pulse motor connected to the print roll 20; 24 is a pulse motor drive circuit that drives the pulse motor 22 according to a signal from the print pattern generator 16;
6 is a film cutting machine, 28 is its drive shaft, and 30 is an angle detector (rotary encoder) for detecting the rotation angle of the drive shaft 28.

FIG. 1 shows the structure around the light guide, which is a feature of the present invention.

The fiber bundle 10 in the figure has a small diameter (for example, Φ0
．． It is formed by bundling a large number of optical fibers with diameters of Φ0.01 to Φ0.05), and its light exit surface 32 is shaped into a square. On the other hand, as shown in FIG.
It is fixed in a state where it passes through a fixing hole 36 provided in the.

A guide plate 40 in which a reflection hole 38 is formed at a position facing the light incidence surface (fixation hole 36) of the fixed plate 34 on the light incidence surface side of the fiber bundle 10 is closely provided. Further, this guide plate 40 is provided in close contact with the LED 12 so that the other opening of the reflection hole 38 faces the LED 12.

The diameter of the reflection hole a8 is set at L to minimize the loss of light (to minimize the loss of light).
The reflective hole 38 is formed almost identically to the ED 12 and the fiber bundle 10, and the inner surface of the reflective hole 38 is coated with, for example, barium sulfate, which has a high reflectance, in order to suppress loss of light and increase color mixing efficiency. Note that the means for increasing the light reflectance of the inner surface of the reflection hole 38 is not limited to applying barium sulfate, and other treatments may be used to improve the reflectance.

Further, the inner surface 46 of the stem 44 that holds the LED chip 42 of the LED 12 is also subjected to the same treatment.

With this configuration, light whose colors have been sufficiently mixed by the reflection holes 38 of the guide plate 40 is guided by the fiber bundle 10 to the light exit surface 32, and the light emitted from here passes through the projection lens 48 and thoroughly covers the film F. The amount of light will be irradiated. Note that when projecting the film F with the light emitted from the fiber bundle 10, the projection lens 4
The light exit surface 32 of the fiber bundle 10 may be brought directly close to the film F without using a sun.

And on film F, one fiber bundle 1
One pixel is formed by light from 0, and a desired pattern is formed by connecting a large number of these fiber bundles 10.

Next, the overall operation and effect of the embodiment configured as above will be explained.

First, when the necessary print information is input to the print information setting device 18 through communication from a host computer or manual input, print data lOO, such as nine characters and two character colors, is sent to the print pattern generator 16.

The print pattern generator 16 receives a print start signal 400 synchronized with the movement of the cutting machine 26, and sends print pattern signals 300 to 302 for lighting the LEDs to the LED drive circuit 14, and a film transport signal 201 for transporting the film.
are sent to the pulse motor drive circuit 24, respectively.

The print start signal 400 is output from the angle detector 30 attached to the drive shaft 28, which rotates once every time the film cutting Ja26 performs the cutting operation. 0N-O of angle detector 30
The FF timing is set at the cutting position. Further, the print pattern generator 16 simultaneously outputs the film transport signal 201 and print pattern signals 300 to 302. These two synchronized signals make it possible to perform side printing synchronized with the film feed position.

That is, the film transport signal 201 is sent to the pulse motor drive circuit 24, and the pulse motor 22 rotates the print roll 20 through an angle proportional to the number of pulses of the film transport signal 201. On the other hand, the printed pattern signals 300 to 302 input to the L-stripe drive circuit 14 are amplified to the current value flowing through each LED chip.
The light is supplied to the chip, which emits light at the required location, for the required time, and in the required color.

Note that although the light emission from one LED 12 has been described here, it goes without saying that an actual printed pattern can be formed using a plurality of such LEDs 12.

The color of the latent image formed on the film F is controlled by the drive time ratio of each chip of the LED 12, and the color density is determined by the light emission time.

That is, the LE emitted under the control of the drive circuit 14
At that point, the monochromatic or multi-colored light of Dl 2 is mixed to some extent and enters the reflection hole 38 of the guide plate 40, and the fiber bundle fixed to the fixing plate 34 is sufficiently reflected and mixed in the reflection hole 38. The light enters the light incident surface of 10.

Then, the light passes through the fiber bundle 10 to the light exit surface 32.
The light emitted from the light emitting surface is uniformly mixed without color unevenness, and has a rectangular shape that is the same as the light exit surface 32. In this way, the light emitted from the light exit surface 32 is projected onto the film exposure section A, and a latent image is formed on the film F, thereby forming a side print pattern and color 1m degree that match the type and size of the film. exposure becomes possible.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, the light guide is configured with a fiber bundle made up of small-diameter optical fibers, and light from the light source is supplied to the light guide through the reflection hole. Therefore, the light exit surface of the light guide can be shaped into any desired shape, and the light irradiated onto the photosensitive surface has a sufficient field of view, making it good with no color unevenness, which has the effect of improving the quality of side prints. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the main parts of an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the main parts of the embodiment. FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing the overall configuration of the embodiment. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the configuration of the prior art. Film, fiber bundle, light emitting diode (LED), reflective hole, guide plate (plate), LED chip. Procedural amendment

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a side printing head device comprising a light source composed of a plurality of light emitting diode chips having different emission wavelengths and a light guide that guides the light emitted from the light source to the surface of a color photosensitive material, the light guide has a small diameter. A plate is formed of a bundle of a plurality of optical fibers, and has internally reflective through holes with one opening facing the light source and the other facing the light incident surface of the light guide,
A side print head device characterized in that a light source and a light guide are provided closely between the light incident surfaces of the light guide.