JPH03180375A - 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 [Industrial Application Field 1] The present invention relates to a recording apparatus, and more particularly to a recording apparatus having a bail roller moving mechanism that moves a bail roller that presses a recording sheet against a platen to perform the press contact or release the press contact. It is related to the device.

[Prior Art] Recording devices such as printers and facsimiles print characters, symbols, images, etc. on recording sheets such as paper by moving a carrier equipped with a recording head and driving the recording head in accordance with recording data. Serial type recording devices that record patterns are widely used.

Such a recording apparatus is provided with a sheet feeding mechanism for pitch-feeding a recording sheet for line feed during recording, and feeding, ejecting, etc. the recording sheet before and after recording.

Some sheet feeding mechanisms include a bail roller that presses the recording sheet against the outer peripheral surface of the platen on the downstream side of the sheet feeding side from the recording head, which also serves as a sheet feeding roller, to assist in sheet feeding. In such a sheet feeding mechanism, when setting the recording sheet in the recording position, the leading edge of the recording sheet may get caught on the bail roller, causing the recording sheet to be bent or, in extreme cases, torn. There is. Therefore, when setting the recording sheet, it is necessary to separate the bail roller from the platen to prevent the leading edge of the recording sheet from getting caught.

Conventionally, a configuration has generally been adopted in which the bail roller is moved away from and into pressure contact with the platen manually. With this configuration, when setting a recording sheet, first manually move the bail roller away from the platen, then use a key to automatically feed the recording sheet to the recording position, then manually return the bail roller to the platen side again, and then move the recording sheet to the platen. They were pressed together.

However, with such a configuration, three steps of operations are required when setting a recording sheet, resulting in a problem that the operations become complicated.

Therefore, in order to simplify the operation, for example, in a mechanism that pulls a lever to separate the bail roller from the platen,
When the lever is pulled a certain amount, the bail roller is separated from the platen and locked in a fixed position, and when the lever is pulled further, the sheet feed switch is turned on and the recording sheet is automatically fed to the recording position. has been done. In this case, after the recording sheet is fed, the bail roller is returned to the platen side by operating the lever again, and the recording sheet is brought into pressure contact with the bail roller.

[Problem to be solved by the invention] However, even with this configuration, the user only operates one
Even if it is just a book lever, three steps of operation are required, and even after the recording sheet is fed to the recording position, there is still an operation to press the bail roller against the platen, and until the keyboard operation for recording is started. The problem was that it took a long time.

Furthermore, a problem common to the above two types of configurations is that manual operation is always required when setting a recording sheet. For this reason, when recording is performed continuously by feeding recording sheets one after another from a tray like a cut sheet feeder, 6.
There was an inconvenience in that the user had to be present with the recording device at all times.

Therefore, there is a need for an inexpensive configuration that automatically performs the above-described series of sheet setting operations using only key operations. In response to these demands, configurations that somehow satisfy the automatic setting function have been proposed in the past, but conventional configurations use a drive source such as a dedicated motor or solenoid to separate the bail roller from the platen. However, this method has the drawback of increasing the size, complexity, and cost of the recording device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a recording apparatus of this type that can be easily and inexpensively implemented and can automatically set recording sheets using a configuration that does not take up much space.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above problems, according to the recording device of the present invention,
a sheet feeding mechanism that feeds the recording sheet in contact with the platen;
a bail roller moving mechanism that moves a bail roller that presses the recording sheet against the platen to perform or release the pressure contact; and a head moving mechanism that moves the recording head so as to press the recording head against or away from the platen; The moving mechanism is configured to be driven by the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism, and transmission and interruption of the driving force is controlled by the driving of the head moving mechanism.

[Function] According to such a configuration, the driving force of the drive source of the sheet feeding mechanism is transmitted to the bail roller moving mechanism by driving the head moving mechanism to drive the bail roller moving mechanism, and the bail roller is moved to move the sheet to the platen. Pressure contact and release of the recording sheet are automatically performed.

[Example] DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIG.

Here, a serial type thermal transfer recording device (printer) is exemplified.

1 to 9 illustrate a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

First, the schematic configuration of the main parts of the recording mechanism section will be explained with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 7, reference numeral 1 denotes a platen which serves both as a recording table and a sheet feeding roller. Recording sheet 2 is placed on the outer periphery of platen L.
is wound and held in pressure contact with the platen 1 by a bail roller, which will be described later. The recording sheet 2 is fed as shown by an arrow A by rotating the platen 1 by driving a sheet feeding mechanism, which will be described later.

A carriage 10 on which a thermal head 23, which is a recording head, is mounted is provided near the platen i, and is slidably supported on a guide shaft 61 installed parallel to the platen l. Further, a ribbon cassette 11 containing an ink ribbon lla is removably mounted on the carriage 10. A belt 65 stretched by pulleys 63 and 64 is connected to the carriage 10, and when the pulley 63 is driven by the carriage motor 62 and the belt 65 runs, the carriage IO is moved along the platen l. It is designed to travel in the direction of arrow B or B'.

On the other hand, the thermal head 23 is moved on the carriage 10 so as to be pressed against or separated from the platen l by driving a head moving mechanism to be described later.

When not recording, the thermal head 23 is placed on the platen l.
Although it is separated from the ink ribbon lla during recording,
and the recording sheet 2 is pressed against the platen l. Then, a heating element (not shown) of the thermal head 23 generates heat in accordance with the recording data, and the ink on the heated portion of the ink ribbon lla is melted and transferred onto the recording sheet 2. The thermal head 23 records dots for one vertical column of the dot matrix at a time, and by moving the carriage 10 by a predetermined pitch and repeating the recording for the one column, characters etc. are recorded in a dot matrix pattern. .

Although not shown in FIG. 7, the recording mechanism section described above is provided with a bail roller moving mechanism that moves the bail roller that presses the recording sheet 2 against the platen 1 to bring the recording sheet 2 into or out of pressure contact.

In this embodiment, the bail roller moving mechanism is driven by being transmitted with the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism, and switching between transmission and interruption of this driving force is performed by driving the head moving mechanism. The details of the sequential sheet feeding mechanism, bail roller moving mechanism, and head moving mechanism will be described below.

First, details of the sheet feeding mechanism and bail roller moving mechanism will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3. Note that FIG. 1 shows a state in which the bail roller 3 is in pressure contact with the platen l in a normal use state other than during the automatic recording sheet setting operation, and FIG.
Figure 3 shows the state when the lock of the sheet feeding mechanism is released and the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism is switched from being cut off to the bail roller moving mechanism to being transmitted to the bail roller moving mechanism. It shows a state separated from l. In FIG. 1, the broken line 2a indicates the feeding path of the recording sheet 2. In FIG.

In these figures, the reference numeral 3o is a sheet feeding motor that is a driving source of the sheet feeding mechanism. Sheet feed motor 30
A pinion gear 30a is fixed to the rotating shaft of the platen 1, and the pinion gear 30a meshes with an idler gear 31. The idler gear 31 further meshes with a platen gear 32 directly connected to the platen 1. In addition, here the platen gear 32
is directly connected to the left end of the platen 1 as shown in the middle of FIG. 7, and the idler gear 31 and sheet feed motor 30 are provided near the left end of the platen 1.

With this configuration, when a recording sheet is fed, the pinion gear 30a is rotated counterclockwise as shown by the arrow in FIG. The platen gears 32 are rotated in the directions of the arrows, the platen l is rotated counterclockwise, and the recording sheet 2 is fed in the six directions of the arrows.

Next, regarding the structure of the bail roller moving mechanism, first, reference numeral 3 is a bail roller that presses the recording sheet 2 against the platen 1, and is rotatably supported by the tip of the bail arm 4. The pail arm 4 is pivotally supported so as to be rotatable clockwise and counterclockwise in the figure with a shaft 4a as a fulcrum, and is biased counterclockwise by a pail spring 5. This biasing force causes the bail roller 3 to come into pressure contact with the platen l as shown in FIG.

Furthermore, the pail arm 4 is connected to the pail gear 7 via a pail link 8. That is, the right end of the pale link 8 in the figure is slidably and rotatably connected to the bin 6 provided at the lower part of the pale arm 4 through an elongated hole 8a, and the left end of the pale link 8 in the figure is connected to a pale gear. It is rotatably coupled to a bin 7a provided at 7.

The pale gear 7 has a toothless portion 7b on a part of its outer periphery, and is rotatably provided near the idler gear 31 of the sheet feeding mechanism. However, when the toothed portion on the outer periphery meshes with the idler gear 31 due to the rotation angle, the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism is transmitted and the sheet feeding motor 30 rotates. It has become.

Further, a spring 33 is stretched between the bin 7a of the pale gear 7 and a frame (hereinafter simply referred to as a frame) of a recording device (not shown), and pulls the bin 7a downward. Further, the pale gear 7 is provided with a protrusion 34 which is engaged with a trigger lever 35, which will be described below.

An L-shaped trigger lever 35 is rotatably supported on a shaft 36 near the pale gear 7, and is biased clockwise in the figure by a spring 37 stretched between the trigger lever 35 and the frame. has been done. trigger lever 35
When the trigger lever 35 comes into contact with a stopper 38 projecting from the frame, the clockwise rotational limit of the trigger lever 35 is restricted to the position shown in FIG. The trigger lever 35 is driven by a head moving mechanism (described later) to move the protrusion 25 of the helad arm 21 of the same mechanism (see FIGS. 4 to 6).
is pressed and rotated counterclockwise.

However, since the head moving mechanism is provided on the carriage IO shown in FIG. 7, in order to engage the protrusion 25 with the trigger lever 35 as shown in FIGS. It is necessary to move the camera to a predetermined position opposite to the left end (not shown) of the camera.

Next, the operation of the bail roller moving mechanism having the above configuration will be explained. In the normal use state shown in FIG. 1, the bail roller 3 is in pressure contact with the platen 1.

Further, the trigger lever 35 is engaged with the protrusion 34 of the pale gear 7, and the pale gear 7 is stopped at a rotation angle position where the toothless portion 7b faces the idler gear 31 (
(hereinafter referred to as locked) Therefore, the pale gear 7 does not mesh with the idler gear 31, and even if the idler gear 31 rotates due to the drive of the sheet feed motor 30, its rotational driving force is not transmitted to the pale gear 7.

In this state, the protrusion 25 of the helad arm 21 of the mechanism is moved to the trigger lever 35 by driving the head moving mechanism described later.
When pressed and rotated counterclockwise as shown in FIG. The toothed portion of the pale gear 7 meshes with the idler gear 31 as shown by the arrow.

Here, the sheet feeding mechanism is driven and the idler gear 3
1 is rotating clockwise, its rotational driving force is transmitted to the pale gear 7, and the pale gear 7 further rotates counterclockwise as shown in FIG. This allows pale link 8
The bail arm 4 is pressed to the right in the figure and rotated clockwise, and the bail roller 3 is separated from the platen 1. During this time, the protrusion 25 of the head arm 21 is returned to the initial position shown in FIG. 1, and the trigger lever 35 is rotated clockwise by the bias of the spring 37 and returns to the initial position where it contacts the stopper 38.

Further, when the pale gear 7 rotates from the state shown in FIG. 3 to the rotation angle shown in FIG. 1, the pale link 8 moves to the left in the diagram.
The bail arm 4 rotates counterclockwise due to the bias of the spring 5, and the bail roller 3 comes into pressure contact with the platen l. At this time, the toothless portion 7b of the pale gear 7 faces the idler gear 31, and the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism is no longer transmitted to the pale gear 7. The pale gear 7 tries to rotate further counterclockwise due to the bias of the spring 33, but the protrusion 34 prevents the trigger lever 3 from rotating.
5 and is stopped at the rotation angle shown in the figure, and then locked again.

Next, the head moving mechanism will be explained with reference to FIGS. 4 to 6. Note that FIG. 4 shows the head moving mechanism in its initial state when the aforementioned pale gear 7 is unlocked, FIG. 5 shows the head moving mechanism in its standby state, and FIG. 6 shows its state during recording. . Regarding the position of the protrusion 25 of the helad arm 21 in these figures, FIG. 4 corresponds to FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 corresponds to FIGS. 1 and 3.

In FIGS. 4 to 6, reference numeral 21 indicates a thermal head 23.
The head arm supports the carriage 1 in Figure 7.
It is rotatably supported on the front side of 0 with a shaft 14 as a fulcrum. The head arm 21 is provided with a protrusion 25 that presses the trigger lever 35 as described above.

Further, a head pressure arm 13 is rotatably supported on the shaft 14, and a protrusion 1 formed on the head pressure arm 13 is rotatably supported on the shaft 14.
A spring 20 is stretched between the protrusion 22 formed on the head arm 21 and the head arm 21.
is biased counterclockwise in the figure. A spring 24, which is considerably weaker than the spring 20, is stretched between the projection 22 and the carriage 10, and biases the head arm 21 clockwise with a weak force. Here, the spring 20 generates pressure for pressing the thermal head 23 fixed on the head arm 21 against the platen l, and the spring 24 is a spring for returning the helad arm 21 to the initial position.

Next, a bottle 15 is provided protruding from the tip of the head pressure arm 13, and this bottle 15 is connected to a hole 17 formed on a cam 16 that is rotatably provided on a shaft 16a facing the head pressure arm 13. Slidably fitted. The outer periphery of the cam 16 is formed as a gear, and meshes with a gear 18a that is directly connected to the rotating shaft of a head motor 18 that is a drive source of the head moving mechanism.

Next, the operation of the head moving mechanism will be explained. When the cam 16 is rotated counterclockwise in the drawing as shown in FIG. 5 by driving the head motor I8 from the initial state shown in FIG. The head arm 21 also rotates counterclockwise due to the tension of the spring 20. When the recording apparatus is on standby, the head arm 21 is rotated to the position shown in FIG. 5 as described above. In the state shown in FIG. 5, the thermal head 23 is separated from the platen l.

Next, when the cam 16 is further rotated counterclockwise from the state shown in FIG. 5 by driving the head motor 18 as shown in FIG. 6, the head arm 21 is further rotated counterclockwise, and the thermal head 23 is Ink ribbon lla (not shown)
The recording sheet 2 is brought into pressure contact with the platen 1 through the recording sheet 2, and a recordable state is achieved.

On the other hand, when the aforementioned pale gear 7 is to be unlocked, the cam 16 is rotated clockwise as shown in FIG. 4 by driving the head motor 18 from the standby state shown in FIG. 5. As a result, the head pressure arm 13 rotates clockwise in an operation opposite to the above, and the head arm 21 similarly rotates clockwise under the bias of the spring 24, causing the protrusion 25 to move from the position shown in FIG. 1 to the second position.
The lock is released by moving to the position shown in the figure and pressing the trigger lever 35.

Next, the configuration of the entire control system of the recording apparatus of this embodiment will be explained with reference to FIG.

In FIG. 8, the reference numeral lOO is a control unit that controls the entire device, including a CPU (central processing unit) 43 consisting of a microprocessor element that is the main body of control, and a ROM ( Read-only memory) 44, RAM (random access memory) used as a work area for the CPU 43, etc.
It is composed of a microcomputer such as 45.

A keyboard 103 as an input means is connected to the control unit 100 via an input interface unit 101 that interfaces input signals, and a keyboard 103 as an input means is connected to the control unit 100 via an output interface unit 102 that interfaces output signals and various drivers 110 to 113. The thermal head 23 of the section 10B is connected to the driving sources of each mechanism.

This drive source includes the aforementioned sheet feed motor 30, hemostatic motor 18, and carriage motor 62, and further includes a ribbon motor (not shown) for feeding the ink ribbon lla. Each motor 18.30.62 consists of a stepper motor and the driver l1l-113
controlled via. The driver 1it-113 rotates the motor 18.30.6 in the rotational direction and step number instructed by the control unit 100 via the output interface unit 102.
Drive 2.

Under such a configuration, the CPU 43 of the control unit 100 performs control processing according to the control program. Print data and various commands are input to the control unit 100 from the keyboard 103, and the control unit 100 responds to the thermal control of the recording mechanism unit 108. Head 23. motor 18.3
0.62 and other drive sources (not shown) are driven to record (
Print) operation. Further, in this embodiment, an automatic set key 104 is provided on the keyboard 103 to perform a key manual operation to instruct an automatic setting operation to automatically set the recording sheet 2 on the platen l. The motor 18.30.62 is driven to perform an automatic setting operation. The automatic setting operation will be explained below.

FIG. 9 explains the automatic recording sheet setting operation, and is a flowchart of a control processing procedure for causing the control section 100 of FIG. 8 to perform the automatic setting operation.

Assume that in the initial state at the start of the automatic setting operation, the sheet feeding mechanism is stopped, the bail roller moving mechanism is in the state shown in FIG. 1, and the head moving mechanism is in the state shown in FIG. 4. In this state, the process shown in FIG. 9 is started in response to the manual input of the automatic set key 104, but before that, it is assumed that the operator manually inserts the recording sheet 2 into the back side of the platen l. Alternatively, if a cut sheet feeder (not shown) is attached to the recording device, the feeder is driven in accordance with the manual input of the automatic set key 104.
It is assumed that the recording sheet 2 is fed to the back side of the platen l.

In this state, the process shown in FIG. 9 is started, and the control unit 100
First, in step Sl, the head motor 18 is driven to rotate the head arm 21 to the standby position shown in FIG.

Next, proceeding to step S2, the protrusion 25 of the head arm 21
In order to engage the trigger lever 35, the carriage motor 62 is driven to move the carriage 10 to a predetermined position facing the left end (not shown) of the platen l in FIG.

Next, the process proceeds to step S3, in which the head motor 18 is driven to rotate the head arm 21 to the initial position shown in FIG. As a result, the protrusion 25 rotates the trigger lever 35 to unlock the pale gear 7 as shown in FIG.
The driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism is switched from a state in which it is not transmitted to the bail roller moving mechanism to a state in which it is transmitted.

Next, in step S4, the head arm 21 is rotated to the standby position shown in FIG. 5, and then the process proceeds to step S5, where the sheet feed motor 30 is driven counterclockwise (direction for forwarding the recording sheet). As a result, the platen 1 rotates counterclockwise as shown in FIG. sent to. At the same time, as shown in FIG. 3, the pail gear 7 rotates counterclockwise, the pail arm 4 rotates clockwise, and the bail roller 3 separates from the platen 1.

When the pail gear 7 further rotates counterclockwise from the position shown in FIG. approaches, but bail roller 3
The leading edge of the recording sheet 2 passes between the bail roller 3 and the platen L before it comes into pressure contact with the platen L, and the tip of the recording sheet 2 passes between the bail roller 3 and the platen L.
When the recording sheet 2 comes into pressure contact with the platen 1, the leading end of the recording sheet 2 is held therebetween.

At the time of this pressure contact, the pale gear 7 returns to the position shown in FIG. 1, and the pail gear 7 returns to the position shown in FIG. and is locked by the trigger lever 35. It is assumed that the sheet feed motor 30 is driven at least until this state is reached. Then, the driving of the sheet feed motor 30 is stopped, the automatic setting process is completed, and the printer enters a standby state waiting for an instruction to perform a recording operation.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the sheet feeding mechanism and the bail roller moving mechanism are automatically driven in accordance with the manual input of the automatic setting key 104, and the recording sheet 2 can be automatically set. In this embodiment, the sheet feed motor 30, which is the drive source of the existing sheet feed mechanism, is used in common as the drive source of the bail roller moving mechanism without providing a dedicated drive source, and the drive force is transmitted and cut off by the existing head. Since the control is performed by driving the moving mechanism, the cost of the recording apparatus does not increase and the size of the recording apparatus does not increase.

In the above configuration, the trigger lever 35 is pressed by the protrusion 25 of the helad arm 21 of the head moving mechanism, but as shown in FIG. 1O as another embodiment, the cam 16 of the head moving mechanism is It is also possible to provide a protrusion 40 and use this protrusion 40 to press the trigger lever 35 to operate it. That is, in this case, the cam 16 is set to 0 in the figure.
By rotating in three directions, the protrusion 40 presses the trigger lever 35 and rotates it counterclockwise.

Further, the configuration related to the bail roller moving mechanism as described above is not limited to the case where the platen is a round platen that also serves as a sheet feeding roller, but the platen 50 is a fixed flat platen as shown in FIG. 11 as another embodiment. The same applies to other cases as well. In the configuration shown in FIG. 11, sheet feed rollers 51 and 52 for feeding the recording sheet 2 are provided above and below the platen 50, respectively. The bail roller 3 is pressed against or separated from an upper sheet feed roller 51 used as a discharge roller, and presses the recording sheet 2 against the platen 50 and releases the pressure. In this case, similarly to the above, the bail roller moving mechanism is driven by the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism, and the transmission and interruption of the driving force is controlled by the driving of the head moving mechanism, so that recording sheets can be automatically set in the same way. I can do it.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above description, according to the recording apparatus of the present invention, the sheet feeding mechanism that feeds the recording sheet in contact with the platen, and the bail roller that presses the recording sheet against the platen by 1 g are moved. It has a bail roller moving mechanism that releases pressure contact or false pressure contact, and a head movement mechanism that moves the recording head so that it comes into pressure contact with or separates from the platen,
The bail roller moving mechanism is driven by being transmitted with the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism, and also transmits the driving force,
Since the shutoff is controlled by driving the head moving mechanism, the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism is transmitted to the bail roller moving mechanism by driving the head moving mechanism, thereby driving the bail roller moving mechanism and automatically moving the recording sheet. The excellent effect of automatically setting recording sheets can be obtained by using a configuration that is simple, inexpensive, and does not increase the size of the apparatus.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 to 3 are schematic side views showing the configuration and operation of a sheet feeding mechanism and a bail roller moving mechanism of a recording apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIGS. 4 to 6 are respectively schematic side views showing the head of the same apparatus. A schematic plan view showing the configuration and operation of the moving mechanism, FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the control processing procedure during automatic setting, and FIG. 10 is a diagram showing the procedure for operating the trigger lever in FIGS. FIG. 1+ is a perspective view showing another structural example, and FIG. 1+ is a side view showing a schematic structure of a sheet feeding system in the case of a flat platen. l...Platen 2-...Recording sheet 3...
Bail roller 4... Pail arm 7... Pail gear 8-... Pail link 16... Cam 18-... Head motor 21... Head arm 23
--Thermal head 30...Sheet feed motor 35...Trigger lever lOO--Control unit 103...Keyboard 108
...-Recording mechanism section sheet feed Isokoma 1 Otsu Illov not Tanaka machine 1 b
Haji (sugar's secret / j transfer world Fig. 1 Bay 2 x 10,...) Negative sign rne 9 size A91j side 40 Fig. 2 5 Hail roller finished opening page 4911 (2 ) Fig. 3 - Plan view of 1,7 Dotakai Isoyoko ~ O Early Natsume I Shakake, Mouth 1.7 Rizushi r Yuki Fig. 4 Takeiso 2 θ plane *6rjA

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1) A sheet feeding mechanism that feeds a recording sheet in contact with a platen, a bail roller moving mechanism that moves a bail roller that presses the recording sheet against the platen to perform or release the pressure contact, and a recording head. the bail roller moving mechanism is driven by the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism, and the bail roller moving mechanism is driven by the driving force of the sheet feeding mechanism, and
A recording apparatus characterized in that the cut-off is controlled by driving the head moving mechanism.