JPH079729A - Printer media spacing adjustment device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate the setting of the distance between a plinting head and printing medium when paper of different thickness is selected by a method wherein the distance between the printing head and the printing medium is made variable by providing a mechanism for shifting a slider and holding its shifted position on a carriage and rotating the carriage. CONSTITUTION:When a carriage 1 is shifted beyond the printing end of normal printing range to its operating position, firstly a pin wheel 4 engages with an actuator 5 and then is rotated by advancing the carriage 1 to its operating position. The pin wheel 4 and a cam 7 rotate integrally with each other, resulting in sliding a slider 3 downwards so as to rotate the carriage 1 about a guide shaft 8 in order to make the position between a head 6 and printing medium 2 variable. At the next position of the cam 7, by repeating the same action as described above, the distance between the head 6 and the printing medium 2 can be changed to the next intervallic position. Thus, by the scanning force of the carriage, the distance between the head 6 and the printing medium can be adjusted.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing medium interval adjusting device for a printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when adjusting the distance between the print head of a printer and a print medium such as paper,
A method of manually moving the position using an eccentric cam or the like has been adopted.

[0003]

However, it is necessary to manually set the distance between the print head and a print medium such as paper, and particularly when printing is performed using a network or the like, one printer is used. It is not only very inconvenient because it is used in a personal computer, but it is often in a remote place because there is no printer at hand, in addition to the fact that images mainly output data and characters mainly output data,
In this case, it is extremely inconvenient because it is necessary to set the optimum distance between the print media.

Further, in a printer or the like in which various kinds of papers are built in as a print medium, if the optimum distance between the head and the paper is manually set according to the thickness of the paper, another user selects another kind of paper. However, there was a defect that the best printing result could not be obtained.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is intended to solve the above problems, and its gist is a printer in which a print head is mounted on a carriage that travels in the width direction of a print medium such as paper. A print medium interval adjusting device for a printer, characterized in that a mechanism for holding the movement and moving position of a slider is provided on the carriage, and the distance between the print head and the print medium is made variable by rotating the carriage. .

The present invention will be described in more detail below.

1 to 7 show an embodiment of the present invention, 1 is a carriage, 2 is a printing medium such as printing paper, and 3 is a slider slidably attached to the carriage 1. A pin wheel 4 is mounted so as to rotate integrally with the cam 7. Reference numeral 5 is an actuator fixed to a side plate or the like, and 6 is a head. Reference numeral 7 denotes a cam which changes the position of the slider 3 by rotation and holds it at that position.

A guide shaft 8 of the lower carriage 1 guides the carriage 1, and a guide shaft 9 of the upper carriage guides the slider 3 on the carriage.

Numeral 10 is a tension spring which urges the latch arm 11 to move by the cam 7. A guide pin 12 guides the slider 3 to move linearly.

Next, in the above construction, when the carriage 1 moves beyond the printing end of the normal printing range to the operating position of FIG. 3, the actuator 5 is engaged with the pin wheel 4 first, and the carriage 1 further advances to the operating position. And rotate the pin wheel 4.

The pin wheel 4 and the cam 7 rotate integrally,
When the slider 3 slides downward from FIG. 2 as shown in FIG. 3, the carriage 1 is rotated around the guide shaft 8 as shown in FIG. 4 to change the positions of the head 6 and the print medium 1 such as paper. Become.

Depending on the position of the next cam 7, the same operation as described above is repeated to change to the next spacing position.

In this way, the distance between the head 1 and the print medium 2 can be adjusted by the scanning force of the carriage 1.

In the above example, the pin wheel 4 and the disk-shaped cam 7 are driven by the Y-shaped actuator 5, and the slider 3
Although the carriage 1 is moved around the axis by changing the position of, the mechanism for moving and holding the slider 3 may be configured by a three-dimensional cam, a flat plate cam, or the like.

The carriage may be moved linearly instead of rotationally. There may be two or more positions between sheets due to the movement of the slider 3, and in this case, the cam shape may be changed.

[0016]

As described above, according to the present invention, even when another type of paper having a different thickness is selected by the scanning force of the carriage, the distance can be set very easily without manual operation and the best printing result can be obtained.

Further, since the distance between the print head and the print medium can be made variable by the movement of the carriage in the traveling direction, the head gap suitable for the print medium can be selected from the host side of the printer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view of a carriage in a first position of a head gap.

FIG. 2 is a side view of the carriage in the first position of the head gap.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the carriage in the second position of the head gap.

FIG. 4 is a plan view of a print end at a second position of the head gap.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of a print end at a second position of the head gap.

FIG. 6 is a plan view showing a state in which the change from the second position to the first position is started.

FIG. 7 is a plan view showing a state in which the second position is changed to the first position.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Carriage 2 Paper 3 Slider 4 Pin Wheel 5 Actuator 6 Head 7 Cam 8 Lower Guide Shaft 9 Upper Guide Shaft 10 Tension Spring 11 Latch Arm 12 Guide Pin

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A printer in which a print head is mounted on a carriage that runs in the width direction of a print medium such as paper,
A device for adjusting the distance between the print medium and the print medium, wherein the carriage is provided with a mechanism for holding the movement and the moving position of the slider and the carriage is rotated to make the distance between the print head and the print medium variable. .