JPH0885245A - Ink ribbon cassette - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To prevent a wavy non-impact zone from being inserted between the elastic roller members of an endless ink ribbon cassette by positioning the elastic roller members to the position of an impact zone, and making the width of the elastic roller member smaller than that of the impact zone. CONSTITUTION: This ink ribbon cassette is provided with an endless ink ribbon where yellow, red, blue and black inks are applied in order from the lower side at regular intervals in a nylon fiber base cloth ribbon, and a roller assembly for transferring and fan-holding the ink ribbon. Elastic roller members 14 which form & the roller assembly are at & positions corresponding to the respective impact zones in the ink ribbon, and the relation between the width Rw of the elastic roller member 14 and the width Iw of the impact zone is Rw <=Iw . Therefore, the ribbon generates no snaking, and jamming and color mixing hardly occur.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ink ribbon cassette, and more particularly to a fan hold type cassette for an endless ink ribbon used in an impact printer.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An example of a fan-hold type cassette for an endless ink ribbon is shown in FIG. The cassette shown in the figure is in a state in which the lid 41 is removed from the case body 4, is filled with the endless ink ribbon 5 inside, and is installed internally while being lightly pressed by the leaf spring 6 at the opening side. With the driven roller assembly 1 and the driven roller assembly 2,
It is designed to be stored sequentially in the folded state.

This ribbon transfer mechanism is shown in FIG. The drive roller assembly 1 is composed of a shaft 11, a roller member 14 and the like, and the shaft 11 is incorporated with both ends thereof being pivotally supported by the bottom of the case body 4 and the shaft hole of the lid 41. That is, the shaft 11 has a cross hole 12 on the lower end side for engaging with the rotary shaft 9 on the printer device side, and a lid 41 on the upper end side.
It has a rotary knob 13 projecting from it, and four roller members 14 are integrally mounted on the peripheral wall of the shaft 11.
Each roller member 14 is made of polyurethane foam or an elastic material such as felt. And the case body 4
A fork-shaped separator 71 is provided between the roller members 14 inside. The driven roller assembly 2 includes a roller member 1 whose shaft 21 is similar to that described above.
4 is integrally mounted on the peripheral wall portion thereof, and both end portions thereof are axially supported and attached to the corresponding wall portions of the separator 72, while the separator 72 is provided with the bottom slit of the case body 4 and the upper and lower slits provided on the lid 41. It is incorporated in a state in which it is fitted in 42, 42 so as to be able to move back and forth. Further, the separator 72 is constantly biased toward the drive roller assembly 1 by the spring 3 guided by the guide wall 43, and presses the roller member 14 of the shaft 21 against the roller member 14 of the shaft 11.

As another ribbon transfer mechanism shown in FIG. 2, the driven roller assembly 2 is also axially supported by the shaft hole of the bottom of the case body 4 and the lid 41, and further the shafts 11 and 21. There is also a structure in which a pair of gears that mesh with each other are attached to transmit rotation of the driving side to the driven side.

The roller members 14 of the shafts 11 and 21 are
When the ink ribbon width is about 13 mm, two pieces are arranged in the axial direction, and when the width ribbon is about 25 mm, about four pieces are arranged in the axial direction as in FIG. In the case of a multicolor ink ribbon, the roller member 14 is arranged corresponding to each color band. The width of the roller member 14 is 5 mm
Something is common.

On the other hand, in the case of a monochrome ink ribbon, there is a printer having a structure in which two or more tracks are formed in the impact direction of the ink ribbon in order to effectively use the ribbon width. For example, in the case of a 13 mm width single color ink ribbon, the ribbon is fixed to the ink ribbon cassette so that an impact zone is formed on one side of the ribbon width, and the ribbon is inverted by Mobius so that the second side is moved to the opposite side of the ribbon width. The tracks are formed. A wide ribbon of about 25 mm has a structure in which the ink ribbon cassette is shifted by about four stages in the ribbon width direction. In the case of a multicolor ink ribbon, shift the ink ribbon cassette in the ribbon width direction as described above,
The impact zone corresponds to the specified color band.

[0007]

By the way, when an ink ribbon in which a woven cloth is impregnated with ink is impacted by the dot wire of the printer head, the fiber bundle at that portion becomes flat, and the woven cloth in the impact zone is formed. Contract.
The dimensional shrinkage is about 4%. Due to the dimensional shrinkage of the impact zone, the non-impacted portion is curved in a wavy shape, and the entire ribbon becomes wakame.

When the ribbon is transferred in such a wakame-like state, in the conventional ribbon cassette in which the position and width of the elastic roller member are not taken into consideration, the elastic roller member is flattened due to the shrinkage of the impact zone. Both the unprinted part and the unprinted wavy part are pinched and the ribbon is transferred. For this reason, the ink ribbon may be partially bent, meandered, and the fan-folded ribbon may have a non-uniform folded length, causing jamming, which may hinder ribbon running.
Further, if the ribbon feeding is inaccurate, the ribbon may be locally impacted, and there is a possibility that breakage may occur particularly at the ribbon joining portion. Moreover, since the ribbon width becomes shorter than before use and it becomes wakame, the ribbon runs away in the width direction during running, and in the case of a multicolor ink ribbon, the elastic roller member was in contact with the adjacent color band part or fan-held. There is a risk that color mixing may occur due to the rubbing of different color bands of the ink ribbon.

The present invention has been made under the above-mentioned background, and an object thereof is to have particularly good ribbon running property and eliminate the risk of color mixing. Other purposes will be clarified in the following content explanation.

[0010]

[Means for Solving the Problems] To achieve the above object,
The present invention provides an ink ribbon cassette which is loaded with an endless ink ribbon having impact zones formed in two or more tracks in the width direction of the ink ribbon and which is provided with a roller assembly for transferring and fanfolding the ink ribbon. in a position where the elastic roller member constituting a roller assembly corresponds to each of the impact zones of the ink ribbon, the relationship of the width of the elastic roller member (R _W) and the impact zone of the width (I _W) is R _W ≦ The main part is I _W. The width of the elastic roller member (R _W)
Is more preferably 2.5 to 3.5 mm.

[0011]

According to the present invention, since the impact zone is flat even if the dimension shrinks, the elastic roller member is made to correspond to the position of the impact zone, and the width R _W of the elastic roller member is made smaller than the width I _{W of the} impact zone. By forming it, the non-impact zone wavily wavy is prevented from being sandwiched by the elastic roller member as much as possible. From the test results, it was confirmed that the running of the ink ribbon and the fan hold were stable all the time, and the runaway of the ink ribbon and the jamming were unlikely to occur. Therefore, it was confirmed that the multi-color ink ribbon was less likely to cause color mixing.

The width I _W of the impact zone is usually about 3.5 mm. On the other hand, the width R _W of the elastic roller member is set to 2 to 3.5 mm, preferably 2.
It is set to 5 to 3 mm. If the elastic roller member is thinner than 2 mm, the frictional force for transferring the ribbon is less likely to occur, ribbon running failure is likely to occur, and the durability of the elastic roller itself is unfavorable. Also, if it is thicker than 3.5 mm, it will protrude from the width of the impact zone, and as described above, since the ribbon is transported by pinching both the impact zone and the non-printed portion, partial bending, It may cause meandering, non-uniform fan hold, jamming, and color mixing.

[0013]

The present invention will be described below with reference to examples. In this example, an endless ink ribbon in which a yellow, red, blue, and black ink of equal width is applied from the bottom to a nylon fiber base fabric ribbon having a width of 25.4 mm and a length of 20 m is used as a roller mechanism in FIG. The ink ribbon cassette having the structure shown in FIG.

That is, the ink ribbon cassette shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is common to the conventional one except for the width setting of the elastic roller member 14. The elastic roller member 14 is made of polyurethane foam, the width (R _W) is 2 mm, 2.5 m
A total of five types were set to m, 3 mm, 3.5 mm, and 5 mm. The elastic roller members 14 having the same width are grouped, and the elastic roller members 14 having the same width are formed as shown in FIG.
Was attached to the shafts 11 and 21 of the ink ribbon cassette so as to correspond to the initial impact zone of each color band of the ribbon, and five types of ink ribbon cassettes were prepared. Five types of ink ribbon cassettes were sequentially set in the same printer and a printing durability test was conducted. The height of the print head of the printer is 3.5 mm.

A summary of the test results is shown in Table 1. In the table, ◯ means that the condition is good, Δ means that an abnormality is recognized, and x means that the condition is defective.

[0016]

[Table 1]

After printing 500,000 characters of each color, the ribbon width was contracted by about 0.8 mm in any of the ink ribbon cassettes. The width R _{W according} to the present invention is 2, 2.5, 3,
In each of the ink ribbon cassettes using the roller member 14 of 3.5 mm, colors were mixed and jamming did not occur. On the other hand, in the case of using the conventional roller member having the width R _W = 5 mm, no color mixing was observed, but the non-uniform folding of the fan hold was noticeably observed.

Next, when the number of prints was 1 million, the ribbon width was shrunk by about 1.3 mm in any of the ink ribbon cassettes. In the case of using the conventional roller member having the width R _W = 5 mm, the ribbon running meandered, the fan hold was not evenly folded, and jamming was observed, and color mixing was also observed. On the other hand, in the case of using the roller member 14 having the width R _W = 3.5 mm, a part where the folding length of the ribbon was irregular was slightly observed, but there was no color mixing. Those using width R _W = 2.5 mm and R _W = 3 mm of the roller member 14, showed good condition. With the roller member 14 having the width R _W = 2 mm, jamming and color mixing due to the jamming are not recognized, but the roller member 14 is relatively worn and deformed, and the contact area with the ribbon is small. The damage was slightly observed.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, the ink ribbon feed roller members are provided corresponding to a plurality of tracks that are impacted by the printer head on the ink ribbon, and the widths of the roller members are impacted. This is an endless ink ribbon cassette that is formed to have the same width as the zone width or a narrow width.The roller member is in contact with the smooth surface of the ribbon to run the ribbon.Therefore, the ribbon does not meander and jamming and color mixing occur. Since it hardly occurs, the quality of the ink ribbon can be maintained for a long period of time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view showing an ink ribbon cassette with a lid removed.

FIG. 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view showing a ribbon feeding mechanism portion of the ink ribbon cassette.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Drive roller assembly 2 Driven roller assembly 4 Case body 5 Endless ink ribbon 14 Roller member

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An ink ribbon cassette comprising an endless ink ribbon having impact zones formed in two or more tracks in the width direction of the ink ribbon, and a roller assembly for transferring and fanfolding the ink ribbon. The elastic roller members forming the roller assembly are located at positions corresponding to the respective impact zones of the ink ribbon, and the width (R
An ink ribbon cassette characterized in that the relationship between _W ) and the width of the impact zone (I _W ) is R _W ≦ I _W. 2. The width (R _W ) of the elastic roller member is
The ink ribbon cassette according to claim 1, which has a thickness of 2.5 to 3.5 mm.