JPH0441286A - Thermal transfer recording method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a transfer of a high quality by a method wherein a thermal head is arranged on the side of a transfer paper and a heat transfer recording paper is heated from the side of the transfer paper to print characters and pictures on the transfer paper so that the quality of transfer is made hard to degrade regardless of an increase in frequency of transferring. CONSTITUTION:Thermal head 1 is made to generate heat to heat and melt the surface of an ink layer 3 through a transfer paper 2. The ink layer 3 melted is transferred onto the transfer paper 2 by a pressure of a platen 5 and the thermal head 1 to from characters and pictures printed. The transfer paper 2 is so arranged preferably that heat of the thermal head 1 is easy to transmit efficiently. It should be noted that the ink layer 3 of the heat transfer recording material employs a coagulation breaking type ink rotatable a plurality of times. The coagulation breakage is controlled by heating the ink layer 3 from the side of the transfer paper 2 thereby producing a stable transfer.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field 1] The present invention relates to a recording method for a thermal transfer recording material used in facsimile printers, etc., which obtains prints and prints by thermal transfer using a cylindrical or line type head. Regarding.

[Conventional technology 1] In recent years, thermal transfer recording has been used in many fields such as facsimiles, computer terminals, and recorders because it has excellent characteristics such as non-impact, noiseless, maintenance-free, low cost, can be made smaller and lighter, and can be made into glass. It is used.

The recording method of such a thermal transfer recording material is to heat the recording material with a thermal head to melt and transfer the ink onto the transfer paper to provide a print or image.The structure of the thermal transfer recording material used is as follows. , is mainly composed of a base material and a heat-melting ink. FIG. 2 shows a conventional recording method for a thermal transfer recording material.

However, with general thermal transfer recording materials, once the ink layer is transferred, the entire ink layer in that area is transferred onto the transfer paper, making it impossible to transfer the same area multiple times. Therefore, such one-time type thermal transfer recording materials are extremely uneconomical.

Therefore, JP-A-56-89984 and JP-A-57-366
In order to strengthen the adhesion with the ink layer, an intermediate layer mainly composed of resin is provided on the base material as seen in Publication No. 98 and others, and a heat-melting ink layer with low cohesive force is provided on the intermediate layer. , a technique has been devised that allows the ink layer to be used multiple times by causing cohesive failure of the ink layer sequentially from the surface.

Also, JP-A-61-10490, JP-A-62-7399
As shown in Publication No. 4 and others, by impregnating porous powder with heat-melting ink or providing a porous membrane on the heat-melting ink layer, the ink oozes out and transfer is possible multiple times. technology has been devised.

Further, when obtaining a color print on transfer paper, a common technique is to sequentially transfer yellow magenta, cyan, and, if necessary, black ink onto the same transfer paper to obtain color transfer. In this case, by controlling the energy from the thermal head, the size of the ink dots can be controlled and the density gradation can be obtained. When performing transfer, it is difficult to control the ink transferred onto the transfer paper, and as the number of transfers increases, the transfer density decreases and quality deteriorates.

Furthermore, when transferring using the latter color thermal transfer recording material, it is difficult to control energy to obtain halftone density, and it is difficult to obtain transfer of good quality.

Therefore, the present invention was developed to solve these problems, and the purpose is that when a thermal transfer recording material that can be transferred multiple times is used, the transfer quality will not deteriorate easily even if the number of transfers increases, and the color An object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer recording method that provides good density gradation control even when using a thermal transfer recording material.

1 Means for Solving the Problems 1 In order to solve the above problems, the thermal transfer recording method of the present invention uses a thermal head and a thermal transfer recording material to transfer data onto a transfer paper, in which the thermal head is disposed on the transfer paper side. It is characterized by heating the thermal transfer recording material from the transfer paper side and printing and printing on the transfer paper.

Furthermore, the thermal transfer recording material is characterized in that a thermal transfer recording material that can be transferred multiple times is used.

Furthermore, the thermal transfer recording material is characterized in that a color thermal transfer recording material is used.

[Example 1 Examples of the present invention will be described below in detail based on the drawings, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the recording method of the present invention.

Due to the heat generated by the thermal head 1, the ink layer 3 is heated and melted from the surface via the transfer paper 2. The melted ink layer 3 is transferred, printed, and forms a printed image on the transfer paper 2 by the pressure of the platen 5 and the thermal head 1. At this time, it is preferable that the transfer paper 2 has a structure that facilitates efficient transfer of heat from the thermal head 1. Incidentally, for the ink layer 3 of the thermal transfer recording material, ink that can be transferred multiple times or color ink can be used.

(Example 1) A cohesive failure type ink that can be transferred multiple times is used for the ink layer 3 of the thermal transfer recording material, and the thermal head 1 is applied from the transfer paper 2 side.
Transfer was performed by heating. Furthermore, transfer was repeated four times at the same location on the thermal transfer recording material. The transfer paper 2 used has a thickness of about 50 μm and a Beck smoothness of about 200 seconds. The base material 4 of the thermal transfer recording material should mainly hold the ink layer 3, and in this embodiment, a polyethylene terephthalate film having a thickness of about 4 microns is used.

(Example 2) The ink layer 3 of the thermal transfer recording material was made by sequentially coating yellow magenta and cyan inks on the base material 4,
As in Example 1, the thermal head 1 is heated from the transfer paper 2 side, and three colors are transferred onto the same transfer paper by repeating the process.
I got a print. The transfer paper 2 used has a thickness of about 50 μm and a Beck smoothness of about 800 seconds. Here, the base material 4 of the thermal transfer recording material should mainly hold the ink layer 3, and in this embodiment, a polyethylene terephthalate film having a thickness of about 4 μm is used.

(Comparative Example 1) The same cohesive failure type ink as in Example 1 was used for the ink layer 3 of the thermal transfer recording material, and the thermal head 1 was used as shown in FIG.
was heated and transferred from the base material 4 side of the thermal transfer recording material. Furthermore, transfer was repeated four times at the same location on the thermal transfer recording material. The transfer paper 2 has a thickness of about 50 μm and a Bekk smoothness of about 200 seconds as in Example 1. In addition, a polyethylene terephthalate film with a thickness of 6 μm is used as the base material 4 of the thermal transfer recording material, and an anti-sticking layer 6 mainly composed of silicon is further provided on the surface that contacts the thermal head 1 for the purpose of improving heat resistance. It's killing me.

(Comparative Example 2) The ink layer 3 of the thermal transfer recording material was made by sequentially coating yellow magenta and cyan inks on the substrate 4, and as in Comparative Example 1, the thermal head 1 was placed on the substrate 4 side of the thermal transfer recording material. By further heating and repeating, three colors were transferred onto the same transfer paper and a print was obtained. The transfer paper 2 used has a thickness of about 50 μm and a Beck smoothness of about 800 seconds. In addition, a polyethylene terephthalate film with a thickness of 6 μm is used as the base material 4 of the thermal transfer recording material, and an anti-sticking layer 6 mainly composed of silicon is further provided on the surface that contacts the thermal head 1 for the purpose of improving heat resistance. It is set up.

The transfer densities obtained in Example 1 and Comparative Example 1 were measured using a Macbeth densitometer, and the results are shown in FIG. In Example 1, cohesive failure is controlled by heating the ink layer 3 from the transfer paper 2 side, and stable transfer is obtained.

Further, FIG. 4 shows the results of transfer density versus transfer energy of transfer obtained in Example 2 and Comparative Example 2. Although Example 2 requires a little more transfer energy than Comparative Example 2, the density control with respect to energy is stable and the transfer is excellent in gradation.

Furthermore, since the heat resistance of the base material 4 is not a problem, there is no need for an anti-sticking layer, and there is an effect on the degree of clarity of the structure of the base material 4.

[Effect of the invention 1 As described above, according to the present invention, the thermal head is placed on the transfer paper side, the thermal transfer recording material is heated from the transfer paper side, and the printing is performed on the transfer paper, thereby making it possible to perform multiple transfers. When a thermal transfer recording material is used, the transfer quality is less likely to deteriorate even if the number of transfers is increased, and even when a color thermal transfer recording material is used, a thermal transfer recording method with good density gradation control can be obtained.

thermal head transfer paper ink layer Base material platen Anti-sticking layer that's all Applicant: Seiko Epson Corporation Representative Patent Attorney Kisanbe Meiki and 1 other person

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the thermal transfer recording method of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a conventional thermal transfer recording method. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing density changes when transfer is performed using a thermal transfer recording material that can be transferred multiple times based on Example 1 and Comparative Example 1. Further, FIG. 4 is a diagram showing density changes with respect to energy when transfer is performed using color thermal transfer recording materials based on Example 2 and Comparative Example 2.

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) In a thermal transfer recording method that uses a thermal head and a thermal transfer recording material to transfer onto a transfer paper, the thermal head is placed on the transfer paper side, the thermal transfer recording material is heated from the transfer paper side, and printing is performed on the transfer paper. A thermal transfer recording method characterized by: (2) The thermal transfer recording method according to claim 1, wherein the thermal transfer recording material is a thermal transfer recording material that can be transferred multiple times. (3) The thermal transfer recording method according to claim 1, wherein the thermal transfer recording material is a color thermal transfer recording material.