JPH0592637A - Unifying mechanism for spacing and line feed motors of thermal transfer serial printer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To unify a spacing motor and a line feed motor of a thermal transfer printer. CONSTITUTION:When a carrier 4 is moved to a home position (in the direction B), SP.LF motor 9 is driven, and time carrier 4 is moved to the home position (in the direction B) via a bevel SP.LF gear 11, a bevel clutch gear 8, a bevel SP stepped gear 7, and a timing belt 5. Further, the torque of a bevel clutch gear 16 rotates a platen 1 clockwise via a bevel LF stepped gear 17, an idle gear 18, and a platen gear 19. When a spacing and line feed are individually driven, the operation is performed by exciting an LF solenoid 13 and an SP solenoid 21.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a thermal transfer serial printer, and more particularly to a uniform spacing / line feed motor mechanism.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the conventional spacing and line feed mechanism of a thermal transfer serial printer, as shown in FIG. 4, during printing by the thermal head 3, the spacing motor 30 on the base 6 rotates counterclockwise, and SP The stepped gear 28 is rotated clockwise and the carrier 4 is slid in the direction A in parallel with the platen 1 by the timing belt 5.

When the carrier 4 is moved toward the home position B, the spacing motor 30 is used.
Rotates clockwise, the SP stepped gear 28 rotates counterclockwise, and the carrier 4 is slid to the home position (direction B) by the timing belt 5.

Next, at the time of sheet feeding, line feed, and ejection, the line feed motor 25 rotates clockwise, and the platen gear 19 is rotated clockwise through the interlocked LF stepped gear 24, so that the platen 1 is rotated. The paper 2 wrapped around the paper was fed, fed, and discharged.

At the time of reverse line feed, the line feed motor 25 rotates counterclockwise, and the platen gear 19 rotates clockwise through the interlocked LF stepped gear 24 to be wound around the platen 1. Also, the above-mentioned paper 2 was reversely fed.

As described above, the conventional technique has the spacing motor 30 and the line feed motor 25 and drives the spacing and line feed by independent mechanisms. Further, 20 and 23 are side frames, 26 is an LF motor gear, 27 is an idler pulley,
Reference numeral 29 is an SP motor gear.

[0007]

In the above-described conventional spacing / line-feed mechanism, the spacing motor and the line-feed motor are driven during printing, so that the motor overheats and the temperature inside the apparatus is raised to perform printing. I had to suspend it.

Further, since the line feed motor is arranged vertically, it has been an obstacle to making the apparatus thinner.

An object of the present invention is to unify the spacing and line feed motors of a thermal transfer serial printer in which the spacing and line feeds are driven by a unified motor to prevent the temperature inside the apparatus from rising and to make the apparatus thinner. To provide a mechanism.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, the uniform mechanism of spacing and line feed motor of a thermal transfer serial printer according to the present invention has a thermal head slidable in parallel with a platen, A thermal transfer serial printer that presses an ink ribbon with the thermal head onto the paper wound around the platen, transfers the ink of the ink ribbon onto the paper while sequentially rewinding the ink ribbon, and prints the platen.・ A line feed mechanism that rotates counterclockwise,
It has a spacing mechanism for sliding the carrier and a switching mechanism for selectively switching and transmitting the rotational force of one motor to the line feed mechanism and the spacing mechanism.

Further, the switching mechanism has a solenoid for switching the line feed and a solenoid for switching the spacing.

[0012]

Operation: The drive of the line feed motor and the drive of the spacing are unified by the drive mechanism of the SP / LF motor.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing sheet feeding / discharging / line feed in one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a printing operation, and FIG. 3 is spacing (carrier to home position). It is a top view which shows the movement) and a line feed state.

In the figure, the spacing / line-feed motor unified mechanism of the present invention has a bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 rotated by an SP / LF motor 9 installed on a base 6 for spacing and line feed. These are the mechanisms that are transmitted to the two types of drive mechanisms, and will be described separately for each.

In the spacing function, bevel teeth SP
Bevel gear clutch gear 8 whose rotation is transmitted from the LF gear 11
And SP for vertically moving the beveled clutch gear 8
A solenoid 21, an SP solenoid pin 22 that connects the bevel tooth clutch gear 8 and the SP solenoid 21, a clutch spring 10 that moves the bevel tooth clutch gear 8 downward when the SP solenoid 21 is not excited, and a bevel tooth clutch. A bevel toothed SP stepped gear 7 that transmits rotation from a gear 8 to a timing belt 5, a carrier 4 that slides in parallel with the platen 1 by the timing belt 5, and a platen 1.
And a thermal head 3 for printing on the paper 2 wound around.

In the line feed function, the bevel-tooth clutch gear 16 whose rotation is transmitted from the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11, the LF solenoid 13 for moving the bevel-tooth clutch gear 16 in the left-right direction, and the bevel-tooth clutch. LF solenoid pin 1 for connecting the gear 16 and the LF solenoid 13
4, a clutch spring 15 that moves the bevel gear clutch gear 16 to the left and right when the LF solenoid 13 is not excited, and a bevel gear LF stepped gear 1 that transmits rotation from the bevel gear clutch spring 15 to the platen gear 19.
7. The platen 1 has an idle gear 18 and a platen gear 19, which rotates with the rotation of the platen gear 19.

At the time of feeding, discharging, and line feed of the paper 2 shown in FIG. 1, the bevel gear clutch gear 8 which is excited by the SP solenoid 21 and is connected by the SP solenoid pin 22,
The spacing function of the carrier 4 is stopped by separating from the bevel-tooth SP stepped gear 7 and the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11.

At this time, the SP / LF motor 9 is driven to rotate the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 clockwise, and the clutch spring 15 causes the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 and the bevel-tooth LF stepped gear 17 to move. The bevel gear clutch gear 16 in pressure contact is rotated counterclockwise. This rotational force is
The platen gear 19 is rotated clockwise through the F step gear 17 and the idle gear 18.

Since the platen gear 19 is directly connected to the platen 1, the platen gear 19 rotates in the clockwise direction to feed / discharge / feed the paper 2.

At the time of reverse line feed, the SP / LF motor 9 is driven to rotate the beveled SP / LF gear 11 counterclockwise,
The platen gear 19 is rotated counterclockwise through the bevel tooth clutch gear 16, the bevel tooth LF stepped gear 17, and the idle gear 18. Since the platen gear 19 is directly connected to the platen 1, the platen gear 19 rotates counterclockwise to feed the paper 2 backward.

During the printing operation shown in FIG. 2, the LF solenoid 13 installed on the LF solenoid bracket 12 is used.
Is excited, and the bevel tooth clutch gear 16 connected by the LF solenoid pin 14 becomes the bevel tooth LF stepped gear 17,
It separates from the beveled tooth SP / LF gear 11 to stop the feeding, discharging, line feed, and reverse line feed functions of the paper 2.

At this time, the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 is rotated counterclockwise, and the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 and the bevel-tooth SP stepped gear 7 are pressed against each other by the clutch spring 10. Rotate 8 clockwise. This rotational force rotates the timing belt 5 counterclockwise via the beveled SP stepped gear 7.

The caliph 4 adhered to the timing belt 5 slides in parallel with the platen 1 (→ A direction), and the thermal head 3 mounted on the carrier 4 is pressed against the paper 2 to perform printing.

When the carrier 4 is moved to the home position (← B direction), the SP / LF motor 9 is driven to rotate the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 in the clockwise direction, and the movement is carried out via the transmission route. (At this time, the thermal head 3 separates from the paper 2.)

In FIG. 3, the thermal head 3 separates from the paper 2 when the carrier 4 moves to the home position (← B direction). At this time, the SP / LF motor 9 is driven to rotate the bevel SP / LF gear 11 in the clockwise direction. Since the SP solenoid 21 and the LF solenoid 13 of the bevel clutch gear 8 and the bevel clutch gear 16 are not electromagnetic,
The clutch spring 10 and the clutch spring 15 are in pressure contact with the beveled SP / LF gear 11.

The bevel clutch gear 8 is a bevel SP stepped gear 7.
The timing belt 5 is rotated in the clockwise direction via to move the carrier 4 to the home position (← B direction).

The rotating force of the bevel clutch gear 16 is
The platen gear 19 is rotated clockwise through the bevel tooth LF stepped gear 17 and the idle gear 18,
The platen 1 directly connected to also rotates clockwise. Further, the paper 2 wound around the platen 1 is directed upward (↑
Move in the C direction).

When the paper 2 is discharged, the SP solenoid 21 is energized to prevent the SP / LF motor 9 from stepping out when the carrier 4 has finished moving to the home position. The bevel clutch gear 8 is separated. Further, when the sheet 2 is ejected, the SP / LF motor 9 stops and the excitation of the SP solenoid 21 also stops.

Next, when the sheet 2 is line-feeded, the LF solenoid 13 is excited when the sheet 2 is moved by the line-feed width and the bevel-tooth SP / LF gear 11 causes the bevel-tooth clutch gear 16 to move.
Move away. The carrier 4 goes to the home position and prints again.

[0031]

As described above, according to the present invention, the line feed motor is driven and the spacing is driven by the drive mechanism of the SP / LF motor. There is an effect that the temperature rise can be prevented and the time until the apparatus is temporarily stopped due to overheating of the thermal head can be lengthened.

By eliminating the line feed motor, the device can be made smaller (thinner).

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing sheet feeding / discharging / line feeding in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a printing operation.

FIG. 3 is a plan view showing spacing (carrier movement to a home position) and line feeding.

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Platen 2 Paper 3 Thermal Head 4 Carrier 5 Timing Belt 6 Base 7 Bevel SP Stepped Gear 8 Bevel Clutch Gear 9 SP / LF Motor 10 Clutch Spring 11 Bevel SP / LF Gear 12 LF Solenoid Bracket 13 LF Solenoid 14 LF Solenoid pin 15 Clutch spring 16 Bevel tooth clutch gear 17 Bevel tooth LF stepped gear 18 Idle gear 19 Platen gear 20 Side frame 21 SP solenoid 22 SP solenoid pin 23 Side frame 24 LF stepped gear 25 Line feed motor 26 LF motor gear 27 Idler pulley 28 SP Stepped Gear 29 SP Motor Gear 30 Spacing Motor

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A thermal head that is slidable in parallel with a platen, presses an ink ribbon against the paper wound around the platen with the thermal head, and rewinds the ink ribbon sequentially to transfer the ink from the ink ribbon. A thermal transfer serial printer for transferring onto a sheet for printing, comprising: a line feed mechanism for rotating the platen in a clockwise / counterclockwise direction; a spacing mechanism for sliding the carrier; and a rotational force of one motor. A uniform mechanism for spacing and line feed motors of a thermal transfer serial printer, which has a switching mechanism for selectively switching and transmitting the line feed mechanism and the spacing mechanism. 2. The spacing / line-feed motor of a thermal transfer serial printer according to claim 1, wherein the switching mechanism has a solenoid for switching line feed and a solenoid for switching spacing. Unification mechanism.