JPS6282068A - Ribbon cartridge - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To dispense with work for pulling around a ribbon at the time of mounting and to facilitate the mounting work of the ribbon, by initially setting a part of the ribbon to a path different from a ribbon path defined by an internal ribbon guide member and engaging the initially set part with a ribbon feed mechanism. CONSTITUTION:In order to set a ribbon cartridge C wherein a film 52 is initially set in a loop form to a main body part A, one end 17a of the lever 17 of the main body part A is at first pushed in the downward direction to be engaged with the step part 19a2 of the slit 19 of an outer case 19. As a result, a pin 20 rises and a head 4 retracts in the upward direction and the leading end thereof is separated from a recording window 3 in the depth direction while a ribbon press roller 26 is also separated from a ribbon feed roller 25 to retract in the upward direction and a microswitch 22 is turned OFF. After the front plate 39 of the main body part A is detached from an upper plate 60, the locat ing holes 41a, 42a of the ribbon cartridge C receive the locating pins 36, 35 of the main body part A to locate the cartridge C and, further, the loop part of the film 52 is located between the feed roller 25 and the press roller 26.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a ribbon cartridge loaded into a recording device.

C. Prior Art] In full-scale printing devices such as serial printers, the ribbon is made into a cartridge in order to make it easier to load and remove the ribbon. The path corresponding to the recording head is crawled.

By the way, if the ribbon feeding mechanism part on the recording apparatus main body side is formed of a ribbon feeding roller and a ribbon presser row, and it is necessary to crawl the ribbon between the two, then on the cartridge side, the feeding mechanism part is Therefore, it is difficult to form a ribbon path using a ribbon guide member such as a roller or pin so that the ribbon is accurately placed in the ribbon feeding mechanism.

That is, conventionally, a ribbon path is formed by a ribbon guide member, and a special member is used to ensure that the ribbon enters between both rollers of the ribbon feeding mechanism when loading the ribbon cartridge into the main body of the recording apparatus. Therefore, it was necessary to route the ribbon around.

[Object of the Invention] An object of the present invention is to provide a ribbon cartridge that does not require special work to route the ribbon when loading it into the main body of a recording apparatus, and which facilitates the loading work.

[Structure of the invention]

For this purpose, in the ribbon cartridge of the present invention, a part of the ribbon is initially set to a path Q different from the ribbon path by the internal ribbon chamber member, and the initially set part is fitted into the ribbon feeding mechanism.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, an embodiment will be described in which the present invention is applied to a portable simple recording device (printer) that is moved and scanned by pushing it by hand.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the main body of the simple recording device.

This main body part A includes a running reference roller 1 and a running auxiliary roller 2.
A thermal head 4 as a recording head is formed from the recording window 3 between the running reference roller 1 and the running auxiliary roller 2. (It has an elongated shape in a direction perpendicular to the running direction of the roller 1.2, and is main scanned in this direction by a clock.

) is facing, and this head 4 is located above the upper plate 60? 1t1
By being driven by a signal such as an image signal sent from part B, line recording of a dot configuration is performed on the recording paper placed on the reference plane a every fixed amount of movement of the entire apparatus. There is.

The thermal head 4 has a plurality of heating elements arranged in the longitudinal direction of its tip, and can move up and down while receiving downward elastic force from the recording window 3. That is, 1,
The second head 4 is fixed to a head holding plate 5, and this head holding plate 5 can be moved up and down with respect to a head regulating plate 6 fixed to a back plate 38 by a guide mechanism.

As shown in FIGS. 3 to 5, this guide mechanism includes a U-shaped positioning block fixed to the head holding plate 5 on a shaft 9 between head regulating blocks 7 and 8 fixed to the head regulating plate 6. 10, and the positioning block 13 fixed to the head holding plate 5 is inserted into the shaft 12 of the head regulating block II fixed to the head regulating plate 6, thereby assembling. In addition, FIG. 3 shows the head regulating plate 6.
FIG. 1 is a diagram seen from the right side of FIG. 1.

A tension spring 16 is suspended between a bottle 14 installed on the lower side of the head regulating plate 6 and a bottle 15 placed on the upper side of the head holding plate 5.

Further, a lever 17 is rotatably supported on the head regulating plate 6 by a shaft 18, and one end 17 of the lever 17 is rotatably supported by a shaft 18.
, 11 protrude from a ring 19a formed on the outer case 19, and the other end 17b is in contact with the lower surface of a pin 20 implanted in the head holding plate 5.

Further, a release plate 21 is attached to the shaft 18 of the lever 17 on the side of the head regulating plate 6 opposite to the head holding plate 5 side, and is rotatable in accordance with the rotation of the lever 17.

Further, a microswitch 22 is arranged below the lever 17, and when the end 17a of the lever 17 is pushed downward, the switch 22 is turned off. This switch 22 is inserted in series with the main power switch and functions as an auxiliary power switch.

From the above, the head 4 is guided in vertical movement by the guide mechanism made of the above blocks, etc., and the spring 1
6 will increase the downward elastic force,
When the pin 2o of the head holding plate 5 comes into contact with the end 17b of the lever 17, the other end 17a of the lever 17
However, as shown in Figure 3, the clay figurine 1 of Surin l-19a
The lowest position of the head 4 is determined when it comes into contact with 9a1, and this position is set to be slightly below the reference plane a.

Therefore, when the head 4 is lowered, the head 4 is pressed against the reference surface a by a predetermined pressure by the spring 16.

On the other hand, 23 and 24 are gears that receive the rotation of the traveling reference roller I, and are designed to apply the rotational force to the north ribbon feed roller 25, which will be described later. Reference numeral 26 denotes a presser row, which constitutes a ribbon feeding mechanism together with the ribbon feeding roller 25, and uses this mechanism to forcibly move the ribbon to the traveling reference roller 1.
According to the rotation of the main body, that is, according to the amount of travel to the main body, an amount approximately equal to the distance of travel to the main body is sent.

Note that the ribbon presser roller 26 is attached to the presser roller support pin 2.
A pressing force against the ribbon feed roller 25 is obtained by a spring 29 attached to the tip of a lever 28 which is pivoted and suspended from the bin 27. The protrusion 28a of the lever 28 is engaged with the release plate 21, which rotates with the rotation of the lever 26 described above.

When the lever 17 (one end of the lever 17) is pushed downward and is engaged with the intermediate step 19a2 of the slit 19a, the head 4 rises against the tensile force of the spring 16. Yes, as mentioned above, micro switch 22
is turned off. This rotation of the lever 17 rotates the release plate 21, pushes the lever 28 upward against the spring 29, and releases the pressure applied to the ribbon, which will be described later.

In this state, even if the running reference roller 1 is rotated and the ribbon feed roller 25 is rotated, the ribbon will not be forcibly fed.

Reference numeral 37 denotes a ribbon winding drive shaft, and a square heald 31 fixed to this shaft and suspended between a coaxial pulley 30 and a pulley of the traveling auxiliary roller 1 rotates the auxiliary traveling roller 1 to wind the ribbon. It's supposed to work. Note that tension is applied to the square heald 31 by a tension pulley 32.

Reference numeral 33 denotes an encoder for detecting the traveling amount and traveling speed of the main body portion A, and is configured to rotate by receiving the rotation of the pulley la of the traveling reference roller 1 via the square belt 34.

Reference numerals 35 and 36 are positioning bins for loading a ribbon cartridge B, which will be described later, and are fixed to the back plate 38.

Note that the upper plate 60 at the top of the head regulating plate 6 has a front plate 39
(See Fig. 3) is removable by screwing on the upper part, and the presser roller support bin 27 and the ribbon feed roller 25 can be supported by shafts on this front plate 39, and the pins 35 and 36 are opposite to the positioning pins 35 and 36. Similar positioning pins are provided.

Reference numeral 61 denotes a spring for the ribbon cartridge C holder, which is supported in a cantilever manner by a fixture 62, and has a protrusion 61a formed at its tip. A spacer 63 is provided around the protrusion 61a so as to surround the protrusion 61a.

The ribbon cartridge C has a configuration as shown in FIGS. 6 to 8. Reference numeral 40 denotes an upper plate made of a transparent material, and a former winding ribbon accommodating portion 41 and a take-up reel 45 side 42 are separated from each other with respect to the upper plate 40, and a space 43 for head insertion is left in between. installed.

40a is a hole continuous to the space 43, which is covered with the front plate 39 when set in the main body, so that the shaft of the presser roller support pin 27 and the shaft of the ribbon feed roller 25 located in the space 43 are connected to the main body. It is designed to be pivotally supported by the front plate 39.

The internal winding ribbon 44 and take-up reel 45 of each of the above-mentioned double volume portions 41 and 42 are accommodated, and their shafts 44a (play shafts) and shafts 45a are pivotally supported by the upper plate 40. The outer diameter of the original winding ribbon 44 and the outer diameter of the take-up reel 45 are the same, but the outer diameter of the winding body 45b of the winding reel 45 is smaller than the outer diameter of the winding body 44b of the original winding ribbon 44. As a result, the ribbon storage capacity of the 45 take-up reels is increased. Broken line 44C145 in Figure 6
C shows the state when each ribbon is wound to the maximum.

Note that this increase in the ribbon storage capacity on the winding reel 45 side is due to the fact that the maximum windable outer diameter on the winding side is the original winding ribbon 4.
This can also be achieved by securing a space so that the outer diameter of the winding body 45 is larger than the initial outer diameter of the winding body 45.
If used together with the reduction in the diameter of b, the above-mentioned accommodation volume can be further increased. Further, as shown by the imaginary line in FIG. 6, the diameter (r2) of the winding body 45b on the take-up reel side 45 is set to be the same as that of the winding body 44b (r+) on the source winding side (r+=rz), and the winding By increasing the diameter of the reel on the pick-up side, the capacity for storing the bong can also be increased.

46 to 50 are guide rollers (or pins) as ribbon guide members, and a wide (for example, width 60B) glue ribbon (thermal transfer ribbon, also known as ink ribbon) 51 pulled out from the original winding ribbon 44 is attached to these guide rollers 46 to 50. The ribbon is wound onto the take-up reel drive shaft through the ribbon path formed by the ribbon.

A stiff film (leader) 52 of the same width is attached to the tip of the ribbon 51 as a part of the ribbon, and when the ribbon path is initially set, this film 52 is normally Unlike the ribbon path P shown in FIG. 1, the ribbon forms a loop in a portion corresponding to the hole 40a in the space 43 to be passed around the ribbon feed roller 25, and then is wound up on the take-up reel 45.

That is, by the ribbon holder 53 inserted into the slit 42C formed in the upper plate 40, the film 52 is initially set in a loop shape that wraps around the feed roller 25 as shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 9, this ribbon holder 53 consists of a grip portion 53a and two pieces of plate 53c extending from the grip portion 53a through a slit 53b, and the film 52 is sandwiched between the slits 53b. Then, the guide roller 49
The loop described above is formed between the two.

That is, as shown in FIGS. 10(a) and (bl), the sixth
Slightly loosen the film, which has a path like P in the figure, at the window 40a, and insert it into the slit 53C of the ribbon holder 53.
The ribbon holder 53 is lowered from above so that the film 52 is inserted into the ribbon holder 53, and then the ribbon holder 53 is inserted into the slit 42C from the window 403 side. After this, loops are formed as necessary.

Holes 41a formed on the upper and lower surfaces of the original winding ribbon storage section 41
, 41b are positioning holes through which the positioning pins 36 of the back plate 38 and the positioning pins of the front plate 39 are inserted into the main body, and holes 42a formed on the upper and lower surfaces of the take-up reel accommodating part 42.
, 42b are also positioning holes into which the positioning pins 35 of the back plate 38 and the positioning pins of the front plate 39 of the main body A are inserted, respectively.

Further, another hole 42d formed on the lower surface of the take-up reel housing section 42 is a hole into which a drive shaft 37 for winding the ribbon into the main body is inserted, and this reel drive shaft 37 is connected to the shaft 45a of the take-up reel 45. It can be combined with

The above-mentioned original winding ribbon storage section 41 and take-up reel storage section 42
are connected to each other by a transparent upper plate 40 on the upper surface, but are separated from each other by a space 43 on the lower surface, and since the ribbon 5I is wide, both volume portions 41 and 42
becomes taller, and its lower surface is unstable in terms of strength. Therefore, the vicinity of the positioning holes 41a and 42a are interconnected with a reinforcing plate 54 to reinforce that portion.

Now, in order to set the ribbon cartridge 7C configured as described above and in which the film 52 is initially set in a loop shape to the main body A, first, move one end 17a of the lever 17 of the main body A downward. , and locks one end 17a with the stepped portion 19a2 of the slit L9a of the outer case 19. As a result, the pin 20 in contact with the tip 17b of the lever 17 rises, causing the head 4 to retreat upward and its tip to move away from the recording window 3 in the back direction, and the ribbon holding roller 26 also moves away from the ribbon feeding roller 25. They will move away and retreat upwards. At this time, the microswitch 22 is also switched off.

Therefore, after removing the front plate 39 of the main body part A from the upper plate 60, the ribbon cartridge C is inserted into the positioning pin 36 of the main body part A so that the positioning hole 41a of the original winding ribbon accommodating part 41 is inserted into the positioning pin 36 of the main body part A. The ribbon cartridge C is positioned so that the positioning hole 42a of the take-up reel accommodating section 42 is inserted into the positioning pin 35 of the main body, and the loop portion of the film 52 is positioned between the feed roller 25 and the presser roller 26. is now set in the main body part A.

As a result, the head 4 is located within the space 43 of the cartridge B, and the tip of the head 4 faces the inside of the portion of the film 52 that spans between the guide rollers 48 and 49, and the take-up reel 45 The shaft 45a is connected to the ribbon winding drive shaft 37, and rotation can be transmitted between the two.

Further, since the shaft 44a on the side of the pre-wound ribbon 44 is pressed against the protrusion 61a of the spring 61 of the main body portion A, appropriate resistance is applied to the rotation thereof, and a braking action is performed on the shaft 41.

Therefore, after removing the ribbon holder 53, the shaft 45a of the take-up reel 45 is rotated in the winding direction with a driver or the like, and the film 52 is moved from the tip of the head 4, and the original ribbon 51 is attached to the tip of the head 4. Power → See.

Next, attach one end 17a of the lever 17 to the step 1 of the slit 19a.
When the ribbon is moved from 9a2 to i9a+, the head 4 descends and pushes the ribbon 51 downward from the recording window 3, and the ribbon pressing roller 26 presses the ribbon 51 against the ribbon feeding roller 25. Further, the contact of the microswitch 22 is also turned on.

Finally, the front plate 39 is fixed to the upper plate 60 with screws or the like. At this time, the presser roller support bin 2 is attached to the front plate 39.
7 and the feed roller 25 are supported, and the positioning pin of the front plate 39 is connected to the hole 41b of the cartridge C.
42b.

With the above steps, the centing of the ribbon cartridge C is completed. At this time, the ribbon feeding roller 25 and the ribbon pressing roller 2
6 becomes stably supported.

FIG. 11 shows the state in which the ribbon cartridge C is inserted into the main body A in this manner.

In addition, in FIG. 11, the external appearance of the ribbon cartridge and the like are omitted to avoid complexity.

Next, place main body A with cartridge C set on top of the recording paper and move it in the direction of the arrow.
Built-in memory according to movement amount detection in step 3 (not shown)
The heating element of the head 4 is selectively driven to generate heat according to the stored content, and the ribbon 51 on the front side is transferred to the recording paper.
Images and characters are recorded on recording paper.

To replace the cartridge B when the ribbon 51 is worn out, use the front plate 3.
9 and operate the lever 17 to remove the head 4.
Retraction of the ribbon and ribbon feeding roller 2 of the ribbon holding roller 26
After isolation from step 5, remove it.

In the above embodiments, the head 4 has been described as a thermal head, but it can also be changed to an impact type recording head. In this case, the ribbon 51 needs to be a cloth ribbon soaked with ink. Further, the above-described recording device can also be used as a copying device by combining it with a reading device, memory, etc. of a separate configuration (not shown).

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, a part of the ribbon is initially set in the ribbon cartridge in advance without using the ribbon guide member, so that when loading the ribbon into the main body of the recording apparatus, it is difficult to fit the ribbon into the ribbon feeding mechanism in the main body. No special ribbon routing work is required, and the cartridge can be easily loaded.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the main body of the simple recording device, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of the spring 61 as a brake part for the original winding side of the ribbon cartridge C, and FIG. 3 is a diagram of the main body A.
An explanatory diagram showing the head regulating plate 6 part of the lever 1.
FIG. 5 is an exploded perspective view of the head holding plate and head regulating plate. FIG. 6 is a plan view of the ribbon cartridge C. FIG. 7 is a top perspective view of the cartridge C. The figure is a bottom perspective view of the ribbon cartridge C, FIG. 9 is a perspective view of the ribbon holder 53, FIGS. 10(a) and (b) are explanatory diagrams of loop formation by the ribbon holder, and FIG. 11 is the main body. FIG. 3 is a schematic explanatory diagram of a state in which a ribbon cartridge C is installed in A. [Explanation of symbols] A...Main unit, B...Control unit, 1...Travel store quasi roller, 2...Travel auxiliary roller, 3...Record window, 4...
... Recording head, 5... Head holding plate, 6... Head regulating plate, 7.8... Head regulating block, 9...
Shaft, 10... Positioning block, 11... Head regulation block, 12... Shaft, 13... Positioning block, 14.15... Bin, 16... Tension spring, 17... Lever , 18... Axis, 19... Outer case, 20... Bin, 21... Release plate, 22... Micro switch, 23. 24... Gear, 25... Ribbon feed roller, 26... Ribbon holding roller, 27...
... Presser roller support pin, 28... Lever, 29...
・Spring, 30...Pulley 1.31...Square belt, 32...Tension pulley, 33...Encoder, 34...Square belt, 35.36...Positioning pin, 37... Remove the ribbon, drive shaft, 38... back plate,
39...Front plate, 60...Top plate, 61...Spring, 6
2...Fixing tool, 63...Spacer. C...Ribbon cartridge, 40...Top (reverse, 41
... Main winding ribbon storage section, 42 ... Winding reel storage section, 43 ... Space, 44 ... Main winding ribbon, 45
...Take-up reel, 46-50 = guide roller, 5
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Ribbon, 52... Film, 53... Ribbon holder, 54... Reinforcement plate.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In a ribbon cartridge that is set in the recording apparatus main body so that the ribbon passes over the front surface of the recording head of the recording apparatus main body, and the ribbon is fed by the feeding mechanism of the recording apparatus main body, the ribbon inside the cartridge is A ribbon cartridge characterized in that a part of the ribbon is initially set to a path different from the ribbon path by the guide member, and the initially set part is fitted into the feeding mechanism. (2) The ribbon cartridge according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the initial setting is performed by a detachable ribbon holder.