JPH0250870A - Thermal transfer recording device - 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 a thermal recording device used in a facsimile machine and the like, and particularly to an improvement in a conveyance system suitable for good ink and film conveyance.

[Conventional technology]

The devices commonly used as thermal transfer recording devices are:
Mainly, a group of heating resistor elements lined up in a row, an ink film made of a band-shaped film coated with thermal ink, a recording paper to which the recording ink is transferred, and a transport mechanism for winding up the used ink film. a platen roller for pressing the ink film and recording paper against the heating resistor;
It consists of a conveyance mechanism to rotate a platen roller, etc., and the recording method generates Joule heat by energizing a predetermined heating resistor element, and this heat melts the thermal ink to print one line on the recording paper. minutes are transferred. Next, after the platen roller is rotated by a predetermined amount by a stepping motor or the like, the next line is transferred. By repeating this operation, an image is recorded on the recording paper.

The ink film used in this device is often a polyester film with a thickness of about 6 μm for the strip film, and even if the thickness of the heat-sensitive ink layer is added, the thickness is about 10 μm.
An ink film that is extremely thin, on the order of micrometers, and has low rigidity is used.

For this reason, as a means to improve the adhesion between the ink film and the recording paper near the heating resistor element, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 61-1.
As described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 20782, applying a tensile force to the roll on the winding side of the ink film,
As described in Japanese Patent No. 116562, in addition to applying a tensile force to the ink film take-up roll, the separator roller is placed near the platen roller, and the separator roller is moved through a lever. The occurrence of sagging and wrinkles in the ink film has been suppressed by methods such as bringing the ink film and platen roller into close contact with the outer periphery of the platen roller after recording by applying pressure to the platen roller. .

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Among the above-mentioned conventional techniques, methods such as applying a tensile force to the ink film take-up roll and methods of bringing separator rolls close together may cause wrinkles in the ink film depending on recording conditions. That is, during transfer, the ink film is instantaneously heated to 200 to 300°C by the heat generated by the heating resistor element, but the ink film may be locally stretched due to the amount of heat and the winding force of the ink film. be. This phenomenon occurs more noticeably as the printing rate increases, and in particular, if the printing rate on one side of the recording paper is high in the width direction, one side of the ink film will be stretched significantly, resulting in an imbalance in the winding force. Ink by
Wrinkles appear on the film. Depending on the conditions, these wrinkles could propagate to the ink film before reaching the heating resistor elements, leading to printing defects such as blurring.

Also, the separator roller can be connected to the platen via the lever.
In the method of pressing the ink sheet against the roller, wrinkles may occur in the ink sheet if the pressing force in the axial direction of the platen roller is uneven. For this reason, it is necessary to have a mechanism for making the pressure contact force uniform and to improve the mounting precision of the lever, which has the disadvantage that the device for this purpose is large-scale and expensive.

In addition, with conventional methods, the parallelism of the axes of the platen roller, ink film supply roll, and guide rollers that are sometimes installed to apply tension to the ink film may not be accurate. Depending on the conditions, wrinkles may occur in the ink film, leading to poor printing.

Furthermore, the rotation of the platen roller is generally transmitted to the platen roller by decelerating the rotation of the stepping motor using a gear, etc., but the tensile force applied to the ink film is a load on the stepping motor. In order to carry out accurate conveyance, it was necessary to use a high-precision, high-torque stepping motor.

The present invention is aimed at improving the problems of the conventional apparatus described above, and in particular, it is an object of the present invention to prevent wrinkles that occur on an ink sheet and to prevent printing defects caused by these wrinkles. The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording device.

[Means to solve problems]

In order to achieve the above objective, by reducing the effect of tension applied to the ink film during recording and applying it uniformly, we aim to prevent the occurrence of wrinkles in the ink film and the resulting printing defects. It is something that

That is, the thermal transfer recording device according to the present invention includes a thermal recording head having a group of heating resistor elements arranged in a row, and an ink film formed by applying thermal ink to a band-shaped filter. The ink/film transport mechanism transports the ink/film in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the ink/film is lined up, and the heating resistor element of the thermal head generates heat by passing an electric current through it, melting the thermal ink on the ink/film and printing it onto the recording paper. A current control circuit for transfer, a platen roller for bringing the heating resistor elements of the thermal head into pressure contact with the ink film and recording paper, and a guide groove for guiding and engaging the thermal recording head with the platen roller shaft. A platen roller rotation mechanism for conveying the ink film and recording paper a predetermined length, and a kite for stacking the ink film and recording paper and transporting them to the thermal recording head. In a thermal transfer recording device equipped with a roller and a separator roller for separating the ink film and recording paper after recording, a platen and a separator roller are used.
The guide roller and separator are placed in pressure contact with the rollers.
It is characterized in that the roller is movably attached to the heat-sensitive recording head support fitting.

[Effect]

In other words, by pressing the guide roller, separator roller, or guide roller and separator roller against the platen roller, the influence of uneven tension applied to the ink film located near the heating resistor element is reduced. And, the guide roller and separator
By wrapping the ink film and recording paper around the outer periphery of the platen roller for a predetermined length, it is possible to prevent wrinkles from occurring between the rollers and the prints caused by wrinkles in the ink film. Defects can be prevented.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, one embodiment of the invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.

As shown in FIG. 1, a thermal recording head support fitting 2 is connected to a thermal recording head support fitting fixing hole 1a provided in an operating lever 1 with a predetermined degree of freedom via a screw 2b attached to a screw hole 2a. Furthermore, by connecting the pin guide groove 2c on the left side of the thermal recording head support fitting 2 to the thermal recording head rotation prevention pin 3 provided on the operating lever 1, the heating resistor element attached to the thermal recording head support fitting 2 is connected. This is intended to prevent the thermal recording head 5 having the group 4 from rotating. The ink film 6 includes an ink film supply roll 6a and an ink film take-up roll 6b.
These rolls are rotatably attached to a part (not shown) of the actuating lever 1. moreover,
A tensile force is applied to the ink film supply roll 6a in the direction opposite to the conveying direction of the ink film 6, and an ink film is applied to the roll 6a on the ink film supply side.
The film take-up roll 6b is provided with a mechanism in which a certain amount of tension is applied in the winding direction by using a slip clutch or the like, and the film is wound onto the ink/film take-up roller.

The recording paper 7 is supplied from a recording paper roll 7a, and the recording paper roll 7a is placed on the bottom of a thermal transfer recording device (not shown), or a core frame 7b is placed in the center of the recording paper roll 7a in a part (not shown) on the side of the device. By attaching the recording paper roll 7a to the recording paper roll 7a and reducing the transport resistance of the recording paper roll 7a, the transport mechanism for the recording paper or the like can be made low-torque and inexpensive.

The platen roller 8 is rotatably attached to the side surface of the device (not shown), engages with the platen roller guide groove 2d on the lower side of the thermal recording head support fitting 2, and is placed between the operating lever 1 and the thermal recording head support fitting 2. The heating resistor element group 4 is pressed into contact with the heating resistor element group 4 by a compression coil spring 9 provided therein. 8a is a platen roller shaft.

Guide/roller guide groove 2e of thermal recording head support fitting 2
The guide roller 10 is connected to the platen roller 8 by the spring 11.
The separator roller guide groove 2
At f, the separator roller 12 and the platen roller 12 are pressed against the platen roller 8 by a spring 13.

In this embodiment, the heat-sensitive recording head support fitting 2 is made of aluminum alloy, and the guide roller 10 and separator roller 12 are made of aluminum alloy.
Alloy steel is used for the rollers, and plastic bearings are used in the portions where these rollers come into rotational contact with the heat-sensitive recording head support fitting 2, although not shown in this figure.

Further, the operating lever 1 is engaged with the main body of the thermal transfer recording device via a fixing pin provided on the left side (not shown) in FIG. This is done by rotating the operating lever 1 counterclockwise around the pin, thereby separating the thermal recording head 5 and the platen roller 8.

The operation of the thermal transfer recording device configured as described above will be described first.
The explanation will be given based on the figure and FIG.

Note that the symbols used in FIG. 2 are the same as those in FIG. 1, and explanations other than those used in the following text have been omitted.

When the actuating lever 1 is rotated counterclockwise about the fixing pin provided on the left side of the actuating lever 1, the ink film 6 becomes an ink film, as schematically shown in FIG. The supply side roll 6a and the ink film winding side roll 6b are set in a state without sagging or wrinkles by a tensile force applied to each of them.

Also, a guide roller 10 and a separator roller 1
2 is a spring 11 and a spring 1 that fix each roller.
3, it is in a state of being pressed inside the guide roller guide groove 2e and the separator roller guide groove 2f.

When the operating lever 1 is rotated clockwise from this state,
The recording paper 7 located above the platen roller 8 comes into contact with the ink film 6.

When the operating lever 1 is further rotated, the ink film 6 and recording paper 7 are moved between the guide roller 10 and the separator.
These rollers contact the roller 12 and press the ink film 6 and the recording paper 7 against the platen roller 8 while being pushed outward by the platen roller 8.

In the state shown in FIG. 1 in which the heat generating resistor element group 4 provided in the thermal recording head 5 is pressed against the platen roller 8 by the compression coil spring 9, the separator is connected from the guide roller 10 via the heat generating resistor element group 4. - The ink film 6 and the recording paper 7 located between the rollers 12 and 7 are in close contact with the outer periphery of the platen roller 8. In this state, printing is performed by the heat generation of the heating resistor element group 4 and the rotation of the platen roller 8, but the ink film 6 near the heating resistor element group 4 is generated as the platen roller 8 rotates. It is not subjected to any force other than the frictional force with the heating resistor element group 4. Therefore, even if the temperature of the first heating resistor element group 4 rises to 200 to 300 DEG C., the ink film 6 is not stretched and can be transported normally. This relationship is unrelated to recording conditions, such as changes in printing rate and unevenness of printing, and therefore, printing defects due to elongation of the ink film 6 after heating do not occur.

Furthermore, since the ink film 6 and the recording paper 7 are introduced into the heating resistor element group 4 by the guide roller 1 which is provided in pressure contact with the platen roller 8, the ink film 6 is wrinkled between them. It is also possible to prevent printing defects due to

Furthermore, the platen roller 8. which is closely related to the occurrence of wrinkles in the ink film 6. Thermosensitive recording head5. guide·
Since the roller 10 and the separator roller 12 are all attached to the heat-sensitive recording head support fitting, it is easy to assemble these parts with high precision, and the operability is also good.

Next, another embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.

FIG. 3 shows an example in which only the separator roller 12 is provided in pressure contact with the platen roller 8 in the embodiment shown in FIG.・Although it is rotatably attached via the roller engagement hole 15, the guide roller 1
0 can also be attached to the actuating lever 1.

In this embodiment, the separator roller 12 functions similarly to the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 and has the same effects.

The guide roller 10 is provided 4-J at a position where the ink film 6 and the recording paper 7 come into contact with the outer periphery of the platen roller 8 and reach the heating resistor element group 4. The amount of contact varies depending on the outer diameter of the platen roller 8 and the materials of the ink film 6 and recording paper 7, but in this embodiment, the outer diameter is 2.
6 in contact angle for platen roller 8 of 5ml11
It was set to 0 degrees. As a result, since the ink film 6 is conveyed so as to be wrapped around the platen roller 8, wrinkles can be prevented from occurring.

Furthermore, FIG. 4 shows the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, in which only the guide roller 10 is provided so as to be in pressure contact with the platen roller 8, and the separator roller 12 is the thermal recording head support fitting 2 in this embodiment. Although the separator roller 12 is rotatably attached to the actuating lever 1 via the separator roller engagement hole 14, the separator roller 12 can also be attached to the actuating lever 1.

The separator roller 12 is provided at a position where the ink film 6 and the recording paper 7 come into contact with the outer periphery of the platen roller 8.

In this embodiment, the ink carried out from the heating resistor element group 4
Since the film 6 is wrapped around the platen roller at an angle of about 70 degrees, the frictional force between the recording paper 7 and the ink film 6 causes the ink film 6 near the heating resistor element group 4 to
The structure is such that tensile force is not easily applied to it.

In this example as well, the occurrence of wrinkles in the ink film 6 could be prevented.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, the guide roller, the separator roller, or the guide roller and the separator roller can be brought into pressure contact with the platen roller with a simple mechanism, and the ink and the separator roller can be pressed against the platen roller.
By increasing the amount of contact between the film and the like, it is possible to prevent wrinkles in the ink film and obtain good prints.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing the main parts of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing the embodiment of FIG. 1 in a state where the operating lever is rotated counterclockwise, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing another embodiment of the present invention. 1. Operating lever, 2. Thermal recording head support fitting, 4.
... Heat generating resistor element group, 5 ... Thermal recording head, 6.
... Ink film, 7... Recording paper, 8... Platen roller, 10... Guide roller, J2...
Separator roller.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A thermal recording head having a group of heating resistor elements arranged in a row, and an ink film formed by applying thermal ink to a band-shaped film in the direction in which the heating resistor element groups of the thermal recording head are arranged. The thermal ink on the ink/film is melted and transferred to the recording paper by passing current through the ink/film transport mechanism that transports the ink/film in a direction perpendicular to the ink/film transport mechanism and a predetermined heating resistor element of the thermal head to generate heat. a current control circuit, a platen roller for bringing the heating resistor elements of the thermal head into pressure contact with the ink film and the recording paper;
A thermal recording head support fitting having a guide groove that guides and engages the thermal recording head with the platen roller shaft, a platen roller rotation mechanism for conveying the ink film and the recording paper a predetermined length, and the ink film and the recording paper. In a thermal transfer recording device that is equipped with a guide roller for stacking recording sheets and transporting them into the thermal recording head, and a separator roller for separating the ink film and the recording paper after recording, the platen roller is pressed against the platen roller. A thermal transfer recording device characterized in that a guide roller and a separator roller are movably attached to a thermal recording head support fitting. 2. The thermal transfer recording device according to claim 1, characterized in that the separator roller is movably attached to the thermal recording head support fitting so as to press against the platen roller. Device. 3. The thermal transfer recording device according to claim 1, wherein the guide roller is movably attached to the thermal recording head support fitting so as to press against the platen roller. .