JPH0696323B2 - Printer - Google Patents

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printer, and more particularly to a printer such as a typewriter that prints on a printing paper on a platen by a hammer impacting operation.

[Summary of Disclosure] The present specification and drawings are provided with an ink ribbon movably stretched along a printing sheet, and the ink ribbon is moved in the stretched direction each time the marking is performed by a hammer during printing. In such a printer, by providing a heater for heating in contact with the stretched ink ribbon, by moving the heating portion of the ribbon heated by the heater to the position where marking is performed by a hammer during printing, The part of the ink ribbon that is used for printing is heated and the ink easily peels from the base film of the ink ribbon, eliminating the need to output a strong impact force from the print hammer as in the past. Disclosed is a technique capable of suppressing noise generated due to a hitting operation.

[Prior Art] Among printers that perform printing by hammer impact operation, a daisy-wheel typewriter is widely used in recent years because it can obtain particularly high-quality printing. However, while this type of printer has the characteristics as described above, noise generated during printing is extremely annoying in a quiet office or the like, which hinders business, so there is a strong demand for noise reduction. Various improvements have been made.

FIG. 5 shows an example of this type of daisy-wheel typewriter to which the present invention can be applied, in which 1 is a rotatable platen holding a printing paper 2 and is a paper feed motor (not shown). Is rotated by. A printing hammer 3 is disposed at a position facing the printing paper 2 held by the platen 1 and is movable along the axial direction of the platen 1. The printing hammer 3 and a daisy wheel 4 provided on the front surface of the hammer 3 are provided. The ribbon cassette 5 for the ink ribbon and the ribbon cassette 5 for the ink ribbon are both mounted on a carriage (not shown), and are moved together with the carriage so that printing can be sequentially performed on the paper 2. Reference numeral 6 is a keyboard for input.

So, conventionally, in such a typewriter.
Although not shown in the figure in order to suppress the generation of the noise, it is necessary to prevent the noise at the time of hitting by the hammer 3 from leaking to the outside by the exterior, or to use a material that does not easily resonate with parts related to the noise generation source. Measures such as using and devising the shape have been taken.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the conventional printer having the above-described countermeasures, the noise generated by the impact energy of the hammer 3 is suppressed by shielding or damping. The impact energy itself of the hammer 3 may not be reduced, and the impact force may be weakened so as to reduce the impact energy. However, merely weakening the impact force lowers the print quality. ,
In any case, it is not a fundamental solution.

From such a point of view, it has been proposed to reduce the impact force of the printing hammer by providing a heater such as a heater and heating the ink ribbon before printing with the printing hammer to reduce the viscosity of the ink. ing.

However, if the heater for heating the ink ribbon is constantly operated, a temperature difference occurs between the portion of the ink ribbon that was always heated by the heater and the other portion, and the ink ribbon was always heated. There is a risk that print density unevenness may occur between a portion printed by stamping a portion and a portion printed by stamping another portion of the ink ribbon, resulting in deterioration of printing quality. Further, if the heater is always operated, electric power is wasted.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to effectively reduce noise generated due to the impact of a print hammer without deteriorating print quality and suppressing unnecessary power consumption. It is to provide a printer that can be suppressed.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve such an object, the invention described in the claims is provided with an ink ribbon, and the ink ribbon is stretched every time the marking is performed by a hammer during printing. In the printer that is moved in the specified direction, a heater for heating the stretched ink ribbon is provided, and the heating portion of the ink ribbon heated by the heater is stamped with a hammer. The heating operation of the ink ribbon by the heater is started in response to the generation of the print command, and the heating operation is stopped when there is no subsequent printing.

Further, the present invention is characterized in that the heating portion of the ink ribbon is moved by inputting a print key during printing.

[Operation] According to the present invention, the heater for heating the ink ribbon is provided, the heating operation of the heater for heating the ink ribbon is started by the generation of the print command, and there is no subsequent printing. As a result, it is possible to prevent the ink ribbon from being excessively heated and wasteful power consumption.

In addition, the viscosity of the ink is lowered by heating the ink ribbon immediately before it is guided to the printing position, and it is possible to print at a sufficient density even if the impact force of the hammer is weakened.

Embodiments Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail and specifically below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a main part of a printing mechanism of the printer as an embodiment of the present invention. Here, the printing hammer 3, the daisy wheel 4, and the ribbon cassette 5 are all mounted on the carriage 7, and the carriage 7 is moved along the guide shaft 8. However, in this example, the ink ribbon 9 is removed from the ribbon cassette 5. A heater 10 is disposed near the ink outlet 9 so as to be in contact with the ink ribbon 9 so that the heater 10 can be electrically connected to the ink ribbon 9. Allow the minutes to heat up.

FIG. 2A shows the ink ribbon 9 thus unwound.
In contrast, the one character 9A is shown heated by the heater 10. Thus, in this example, the unwinding and winding of the ink ribbon 9 are controlled so that one heated character is always guided to the printing position.

That is, if one character 9A of the ribbon is heated in the state shown in FIG. 2A, this character 9A will be
As shown in FIG. 2B, the ink ribbon 9 is unwound until the printing position is reached, and printing is performed there. At the same time as the printing is completed, the ink ribbon 9 is rewound, so that it is wound up by one character from the position shown in FIG. 2A as shown in FIG. 2C. Therefore, the feeding operation of the ink ribbon 9 is repeated each time the printing operation is performed, so that the heating portion of the ribbon 9 is efficiently suppressed to the minimum and the hammer 3 is operated.
It is possible to continuously maintain high-quality printing with a small impact force.

FIG. 3 shows a circuit configuration for carrying out such a control operation. Here, the keyboard 21 and the central processing unit are shown.
The configuration of the 22 and the printing unit 23 is the same as that of a normal electronic typewriter, etc., but in the present invention, in addition to these, when a print command is input from the keyboard 21 to the central processing unit 22, the central processing unit 22 first heats up. An energizing signal is output to the section 24 to start the heating operation, and then the printing section 23 is made to perform a series of printing control operations including ribbon feeding.

The operation will be described with reference to FIG.
After the printer is set to the initial state in step 32, it is determined in step 32 whether there is a key input. If there is a key input, it is further determined in step 33 whether it is a print command. If it is a print command, step 34
Proceeding to step 3, an energizing signal is supplied to the heating section 24 to start heating the ink ribbon.

After that, the printing unit 23
Character selection, ribbon winding, embossing, and then ribbon rewinding and carriage movement operations are performed.In step 40, the presence or absence of the next print is determined, and if there is print, return to step 35,
The print ribbon feeding operation and the moving operation of steps 35 to 39 are repeated while the heating state is maintained.

If it is determined in step 40 that there is no subsequent printing, the process proceeds to step 41, in which a heating signal is supplied to the heating unit 24 to stop the heating of the ink ribbon and prepare for the next key input.

In the above example, as a suitable example for efficiently heating the ink ribbon 9, the ink ribbon 9 is unwound and rewound for each character, but the application of the present invention is not limited to the above example. However, it is also possible to heat a plurality of characters before printing, and the feeding operation of the ink ribbon 9 should be such that each character is printed so as to advance one character at a time. It goes without saying that you can The gist of the present invention is to provide a heater 10 in association with the ribbon feeding operation so that the ink is heated to a state where it is easily separated from the ribbon 9 before printing.

[Effect] As described above, according to the present invention, the heating operation of the heater for heating the ink ribbon is started by the generation of the print command, and stopped when the subsequent printing is not performed. Therefore, it is possible to prevent a part of the ink ribbon from being excessively heated, and thus it is possible to prevent uneven printing density due to the temperature difference.

Moreover, since the ink ribbon is heated only immediately before the start of printing to the end of printing, it is possible to suppress wasteful power consumption.

Therefore, the noise generated due to the impact of the printing hammer can be effectively suppressed.

Further, since the heating portion of the ink ribbon is moved by inputting a print key at the time of printing, it is possible to efficiently and effectively denature the ink ribbon and obtain good printing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of the configuration of the main printing portion of the printer of the present invention, and FIGS. 2A, 2B and 2C show a state in which the ink ribbon is heated immediately before printing, and the heating portion is transferred during printing. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of the circuit configuration of the printer of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is the present invention. FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the procedure of printing and ink ribbon heating operations in the printer, and FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing an example of a conventional typewriter to which the present invention can be applied. 1 ... Platen, 2 ... Printing paper, 3 ... Printing hammer, 4 ... Dizzy wheel, 5 ... Ribbon cassette, 5A, 5B ... Arm, 6 ... Keyboard, 7 ... Carriage, 8 ... Guidance Axis, 9 ... Ink ribbon, 9A ... 1 character, 10 ... Heater, 21 ... Keyboard, 22 ... Central processing unit, 23 ... Printing section, 24 ... Heating section.

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A printer comprising an ink ribbon, wherein the ink ribbon is moved in a stretched direction each time a hammer is used for printing, the heating is performed on the stretched ink ribbon. A heater is provided to move the heating portion of the ink ribbon heated by the heater to a position where the hammer is used for engraving, and the heating operation of the ink ribbon by the heater is used to generate a print command. A printer characterized in that the heating operation is stopped in response to the start of the printing operation and the subsequent printing is not performed. 2. The printer according to claim 1, wherein the heating portion of the ink ribbon is moved by inputting a print key during the printing.