JP2001139350A - Method for printing glass by laser and device for printing glass - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To lessen the occurrence of cracking which arises when laser printing an article consisting of a glass material by using a laser. SOLUTION: The data indicating the patterns for printing is converted to dot data indicating the dots arrayed along a line constituting these patterns. Arcuate array data for printing and scanning each of the dots to an arcuate shape by a laser beam spot is formed. A laser head of a scan type is driven in accordance with the arcuate array data and printing is so executed as to constitute the printing patterns by the plural dots drawn by the arcs.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a printing method for printing an object to be printed made of glass or a material having a composition close to glass by using a laser beam, and a printing apparatus therefor.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a laser beam is irradiated on a glass or a similar material by using a laser printing apparatus having a laser light oscillator and a laser printing apparatus having a one-stroke writing (scanning) optical system. Printing characters and the like is performed by continuously changing the irradiation position of laser light.

As a printing apparatus for performing such printing, there is a scanner type CO ₂ laser printing apparatus. This printing device scans and prints characters, numbers, logos, and other characters to be printed from a personal computer or other input device, as well as data on their size and pitch, and data on printing conditions such as laser output and printing speed. Calculates coordinate data (position data) for performing.
Then, based on the coordinate data, an absolute movement amount or a relative movement amount of a laser beam irradiation position for scan printing and a laser ON / OFF timing are calculated, and based on the calculation result, an X direction and a X direction for oscillating a laser beam are calculated. Driving an XY galvanometer scanner with a Y-direction galvanometer mirror, turning on / off the laser while continuously changing the laser irradiation position
The desired printing is performed by performing the F control.

[0004]

The principle of printing in such a laser printing apparatus is based on heat. In other words, laser light is absorbed on the surface of the material to be printed, converted into heat energy, and the temperature of the material to be printed rapidly rises, and the printing is performed by melting and evaporating the material.

[0005] In the process of this rapid temperature rise and subsequent cooling, thermal stress is generated in the printing object, and in the case of a substance having an amorphous structure such as glass, a printing portion (laser is irradiated with laser light) particularly in the cooling process. And the surrounding area) have a problem of cracks. If the crack is severe, chipping may occur. This disadvantage is particularly remarkable in glasses having low heat resistance (blue plate glass, white plate glass, etc.).

FIG. 6 schematically shows how cracks occur when laser printing is performed on a glass substrate. In FIG. 6, (a) is a view of the printing unit viewed from above, that is, a direction perpendicular to the printing surface, and (b) is a cross-sectional view taken along line bb in (a). As shown in these figures, many fine cracks are generated around a printed portion of a glass material to be printed and melted and evaporated. This crack not only causes deterioration of print quality such as deterioration of visibility and aesthetic appearance itself, but also causes various troubles caused by the crack when the print target is further processed in the manufacturing process after printing. There were also problems. The present invention has been made in view of such a problem,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a laser printing method and a device therefor which do not cause cracks even when printing is performed on a printing object made of glass or a similar amorphous material.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a glass printing method of the present invention is a method for printing a pattern on a glass material using a laser beam. It is composed of dots, and printing is performed by scanning each dot in an arc shape with a laser beam spot.

More specifically, data representing a pattern to be printed is converted into dot data representing dots arranged along lines constituting the pattern, and each of the dots is converted using the dot data. The laser beam spot scans in an arc shape to generate arc array data for printing, and drives a scanning laser head based on the arc array data to perform the printing by a plurality of dots drawn by the arc. Laser printing is performed on a glass material so as to form a pattern to be formed.

Further, the glass printing apparatus of the present invention has a laser light oscillator capable of ON / OFF control of laser light emission at a desired timing, and can freely change a laser light spot irradiation position on a printing surface of an article. A scanning type laser head, dot data converting means for converting data representing a given pattern to be printed into dot data representing a plurality of dots arranged along lines constituting the pattern, and the dot data An arc array data generating unit for generating an arc array data for printing by scanning each of the dots in an arc shape with a laser beam spot, and a storage unit for storing the arc array data; The laser head is controlled on the basis of the arc array data stored in the printer to scan a pattern to be printed as a plurality of arc-shaped dots. And having a control means for.

As described above, in both the glass printing method and the glass printing apparatus of the present invention, a pattern to be printed is constituted by a plurality of dots arranged along the pattern, and each dot is scanned as an arc dot. It is to be printed. Here, "scan printing as an arc dot" means printing dots by performing a circumferential scan so as to draw an arc of a predetermined size. As a result, the drawn arc dot has a peripheral shape with the center omitted.

[0011] By drawing the pattern as a plurality of arc dots in this manner, even when laser printing is performed on a glass material using a laser, the occurrence of cracks can be suppressed as compared with the conventional example. In addition, although it is called an arc dot here, the shape does not need to be a perfect circle,
It may be an approximate circle or polygonal shape, or a shape in which a plurality of them are concentrically arranged. Therefore, in the present specification, the term “arc-shaped”, “arc-dot”, etc. has a broad meaning including the above shapes.

The glass printing method and apparatus of the present invention can be effectively applied to printing of a character or numeral pattern, a logo mark, a written symbol, and a bar code pattern. The glass printing method and apparatus of the present invention are particularly effective when applied to laser printing using a CO ₂ laser.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, a bar code printing laser printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically showing a configuration of a laser head 10 of the laser printing apparatus. The laser head 10 of this embodiment includes a CO ₂ laser oscillator 11 that oscillates a laser beam, a beam expander 12 that converts a laser beam into parallel light, and an X-axis galvanometer mirror that performs scanning in the X-axis direction with the laser beam. 13, a Y-axis galvanometer mirror 14 for performing scanning in the Y-axis direction, and an fθ lens 15 for converging the laser light to form a spot light.

This laser head operates as follows. The laser oscillator 11 is connected to a laser oscillator driver described later, and is turned on / off at a predetermined timing by the driver. The beam of laser light emitted from the laser oscillator 11 enters the beam expander 12 and is converted into parallel light. The laser beam emitted from the beam expander 12 is sequentially reflected by an X-axis galvanometer mirror 13 and a Y-axis galvanometer mirror 14 and is incident on an fθ lens 15. The laser beam that has entered the fθ lens 15 is converged by the fθ lens 15 and irradiates the print target 100 as spot light. The printing target 100 is placed on a printing stage (not shown), and the printing stage defines an XY plane including the X axis and the Y axis of the apparatus coordinate system.

The X-axis galvanomirror 13 is an X-axis mirror which will be described later.
The apparatus is connected to an axis scanner 18 (FIG. 1), and is driven by the X-axis scanner 18 to rotate with high accuracy around a predetermined axis parallel to the Y direction of the coordinate system of the apparatus. Similarly, the Y-axis galvanometer mirror 14 is connected to a Y-axis scanner 19 (FIG. 1), which will be described later, and is driven by the Y-axis scanner 19 to rotate with high precision around an axis parallel to the X direction of the apparatus coordinate system. Is done. By rotating the X-axis galvanometer mirror 13 by the X-axis scanner, the X-axis of the laser spot on the
The direction position can be changed, and the Y-direction position of the laser spot on the printing object 100 can be changed by rotating the Y-axis galvanometer mirror 14 with the Y-axis scanner. That is, the X-axis galvanometer mirror 13 and Y
By rotating the axial galvanomirror 14, the spot position of the laser beam on the printing object 100 can be arbitrarily scanned.

Next, referring to FIG. 1, which is a block diagram of a laser printing apparatus for printing bar codes, an overall configuration including a control system of the laser printing apparatus will be described. The laser printer 1 includes an input device 20, an output device 30, a controller 40, and the laser head 10 described above.

The input device 20 is a device for inputting various data and commands to the device from the outside to the printing device, and has a key input device such as a touch panel or a keyboard for an operator to input. The input device 20 may be separately constituted by a personal computer. The data input from the outside by the input device includes print input data indicating a character string such as alphanumeric characters and a logo mark to be printed by the laser printing device 1, a print speed, a laser output, a print size, a print start position, and the like. , Information on various settings, etc.

The apparatus further includes an output device 30 through which various information and signals can be output to external devices. For example, when a problem occurs in the laser printing apparatus, a signal for activating an external patrol light or buzzer or the like can be output through the output device 30 to issue a warning.
Further, when the laser printing device is incorporated in a part of the production line, it is possible to send information notifying the status of the laser printing device to other devices in the line. Specifically, it is also possible to transmit the malfunction of the apparatus described above, the start and end timings of printing on individual print objects by the laser printing apparatus, and the like to other devices.

The controller 40 is a part for controlling the entire apparatus. The controller 40 performs various arithmetic processing on various data input from the input device, and converts font data such as characters and marks to be printed. A storage unit 43 for storing the obtained data and a result of the arithmetic processing, and an arithmetic processing unit 4
The control unit 42 controls the driving of the X-axis and Y-axis scanners and the laser oscillator of the laser head based on the data calculated in step 1 and stored in the storage unit 43 to control the actual printing process. The arithmetic processing unit 41 and the control processing unit 42 are configured by a CPU. In this case, the same CPU may be provided with the respective functions, or the respective CPs may be provided separately.
U may be used. The storage unit 43 is configured by a nonvolatile memory such as a flash memory and a ROM.

Next, the operation of the laser printing apparatus will be described below. First, when a character to be printed, for example, the alphabet A, is input by the input device, the arithmetic processing unit 41 of the controller 40 reads the font data of the corresponding character from the font data stored in the storage unit 43 in advance.

FIG. 3A shows a font for the character "A" as an example of the font data. This is font data composed of continuous lines as shown in the figure. In the present invention, this is not drawn as a continuous line in a one-stroke writing method, but as a plurality of arc dots arranged along the continuous line. As will be described later, the arc dot is an arc which is arranged in a single or multiple concentric circles by scan printing.

Therefore, the laser printing apparatus of the present embodiment converts font data into dot data representing dots arranged along a continuous line forming a font to be printed. This dot data represents a set of dots as shown in FIG. 3B, and is data of dot positions and radii corresponding to characters to be printed.

In the present invention, each dot is an arc (double concentric circle in the illustrated example) as shown in FIG.
Is formed. Therefore, the arithmetic processing unit further converts the dot data into arc array data. The arc array data includes dot array data relating to the dot arrangement, how many arcs to be formed for each dot during printing (how many concentric circles), and what radius each arc should have. And arc scan data indicating whether to perform the scan.

The dot data is calculated by the arithmetic processing unit 41 in accordance with font data and various conditions such as device-specific conditions or printing conditions set from an input device, such as laser output, laser spot diameter, printing speed, and character printing size. Is determined by calculation. The dot arrangement indicating the arrangement of dots is uniquely determined for given font data if the distance between adjacent dots is determined, that is, if the dot pitch is determined, this dot pitch is set to an arbitrary value via an input device. It can be configured so that it can be set.

The radius of the dot (or the radius of the outermost arc of the multiple concentric circles) mainly depends on the size of the printed character. Naturally, when the print size is large, the dot radius should be increased accordingly, and when the print size is small, the dot radius should be reduced. How many arcs each dot is formed mainly depends on the dot radius and the laser beam spot diameter of the laser head that actually performs printing. The larger the dot radius, the more multiplexing is required, and the smaller the laser beam spot diameter, the multiplexing is required. This is because the visibility is better when the inside of the dot is printed in a form close to the filling.

The determination of these data is also a function of the desired print quality and print speed. That is, if the dot pitch is increased, the number of dots forming a character is reduced, so that the printing speed can be increased. However, the printing quality such as visibility is reduced. If the printing quality is important, if the dot diameter and the dot pitch are equal, the dots are arranged without gaps, so that excellent visibility can be obtained.

As described above, since various factors are involved in determining the arc array data, direct parameters such as dot pitch and arc diameter may be set from an external device through an input device. It is more preferable to provide a program for appropriately setting these parameters according to print quality and print speed. After calculating the arc array data, the arithmetic processing unit 41 causes the storage unit 43 to store the obtained arc array data.

Thereafter, when a print start signal is given from an external connection device or an input device such as a personal computer, the controller 1
The control processing unit 42 reads the arc array data from the storage unit 43, drives the laser head according to the read data, and performs printing. Specifically, the control processing unit 42 rotates the X-axis galvanometer mirror 13 via the X-axis scanner 18 to move the laser irradiation position (spot position) in the X-axis direction, and moves the Y-axis scanner 19 through the Y-axis scanner 19. The axis galvanometer mirror 14 is driven to move the laser irradiation position (spot position) in the Y-axis direction, and at the same time, the laser oscillator is turned ON / OFF.
By performing the OFF drive, printing is performed on the print target.

FIG. 4 shows a printing example of the arc dot system according to the present invention by the apparatus of the present embodiment. FIG. 4A schematically shows a printing result when an alphabetic character pattern is printed by a normal one-stroke writing method.
On the other hand, the printing according to the present invention is a dot-like printing in which the same character pattern is composed of a plurality of arc dots as shown in FIG. FIG. 4C shows one of the arc dots in an enlarged manner. Thus, each printed dot is printed in an arc shape (double concentric circles in the illustrated example). Fig. 4
First, as shown in (c), the outer arc is printed by scanning (), and then the inner arc is printed by scanning ().

By performing printing in this manner, thermal stress is concentrated only at the center of the arc and the quenching effect is suppressed, so that cracks are unlikely to occur even when printing is performed on glass or a similar printing material. The inventors have actually confirmed that the occurrence of cracks is small when printing in the form of arc dots according to the present invention, and this is schematically shown in FIG. 4 (d). As shown in this figure, by performing the printing in the form of arc dots in accordance with the present invention, the occurrence of cracks is greatly reduced as compared with the case of printing by the conventional single-stroke printing as shown in FIG. Can be reduced. On the other hand, when printing is performed in a continuous line along the line of the character pattern to be printed on the glass material to be printed as in the case of conventional one-stroke printing, FIG. 6A and FIG. As shown, it is difficult to suppress the occurrence of cracks in the laser irradiation part and its surroundings.

In the printing example shown in FIG. 4, the arc dots are formed as double concentric circles. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and as described above, how many arcs are formed is determined by various conditions. Is determined as appropriate.

The printing method of the present invention can be applied not only to printing of character patterns such as alphanumeric characters described above but also to printing of barcode patterns. FIG. 5 shows such an example. FIG. 5A shows QR, which is a kind of two-dimensional barcode.
4 shows an example of a code pattern. The QR code is configured by arranging a large number of small square cells in a substantially square area having cutout symbols serving as barcode reading references at three corners. With the laser printing apparatus of the above embodiment, this QR code pattern can be drawn by performing arc scan printing of one cell with one arc dot. FIG. 5B shows an example of a dot arrangement in which the cut-out symbol portion of the QR pattern is drawn by arc dots. Each of the arc dots is drawn by a double concentric arc as shown in FIG. In printing, as in the case of the character pattern printing described above, first, the outer arc is scanned and printed (), and then the inner arc is scanned and printed ().

In the above barcode printing, the diameter of the arc dot is appropriately determined according to the barcode cell size. In addition, the number of circular arcs constituting the dot is not limited to double, but can be changed. Further, the barcode pattern is not limited to the QR code shown in FIG. 5, but is applicable to printing of a two-dimensional barcode pattern such as the code 39 and other various standard barcode patterns.

By printing a barcode pattern by the arc scanning method of the present invention, cracks and accompanying glass chipping do not occur even when printing is performed on an object to be made of glass. Printing is possible, so that the reading accuracy of the printed barcode can be improved. Although the present invention has been described with reference to the apparatus of one embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the details of the above configuration.

In the above-described embodiment (character pattern and bar code pattern), the arc dots are formed by circles. However, the arc dots do not need to be strictly circles. The effect of the present invention, that is, prevention of the above, can be obtained. In short, in the present invention, a pattern is constituted by a set of a plurality of dots, and each dot is scanned in a single or multiple circumferential manner.

[0036]

The use of the printing method or printing apparatus of the present invention reduces the occurrence of cracks when a pattern such as a character is printed on glass or glass-like material using a laser. Printing can be performed, and the occurrence of glass chipping can be almost suppressed. In addition, since it is possible to perform printing with very few cracks on glass, it is possible to apply laser printing that requires reliability. In addition, even when there is an assembling step or a heat step after the printing step, laser printing can be applied, and many advantages of laser printing can be widely enjoyed.

Further, since glass printing can be performed using a relatively inexpensive CO ₂ scanning laser marker, there is an advantage in terms of cost. When a bar code pattern is printed on glass or a similar material using the printing method or the printing apparatus of the present invention, the occurrence of cracks and chipping of glass can be reduced, so that high-quality bar codes with high reading accuracy can be obtained. Patterns can be printed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an overall configuration of a CO ₂ laser printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view schematically showing a configuration of a laser head of the laser printing apparatus shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a state in which a character pattern is represented by an arc dot array according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of printing a character pattern according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example in which a barcode pattern is printed according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing how cracks occur when laser printing is performed on a glass material by a conventional method.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 laser printing device 10 laser head 11 laser oscillator 12 beam expander 13 X-axis galvanometer mirror 14 Y-axis galvanometer mirror 15 fθ lens 18 X-axis scanner 19 Y-axis scanner 20 input device 30 output device 40 controller 41 arithmetic processing unit 42 control Processing unit 43 Storage unit

[Procedure amendment]

[Submission date] February 15, 2001 (2001.2.1)
5)

[Procedure amendment 1]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0013

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, a bar code printing laser printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 2 is a perspective view schematically showing a configuration of the laser head 10 of the laser printing apparatus. The laser head 10 of this embodiment includes a CO ₂ laser oscillator 11 that oscillates a laser beam, a beam expander 12 that converts a laser beam into parallel light, and an X-axis galvanometer mirror that performs scanning in the X-axis direction with the laser beam. 13, a Y-axis galvanometer mirror 14 for performing scanning in the Y-axis direction, and an fθ lens 15 for converging the laser light to form a spot light.

[Procedure amendment 2]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] 0036

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

[0036]

The use of the printing method or printing apparatus of the present invention reduces the occurrence of cracks when a pattern such as a character is printed on glass or glass-like material using a laser. Printing can be performed, and the occurrence of glass chipping can be almost suppressed. In addition, since it is possible to perform printing with very few cracks on glass, laser printing can be applied to printing that requires reliability. In addition, even when there is an assembling step or a heat step after the printing step, laser printing can be applied, and many advantages of laser printing can be widely enjoyed.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) B41J 3/407 B41J 3/00 F H04N 1/113 H04N 1/04 104Z (72) Inventor Tomofumi Abe Tokyo 1-13-1, Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku F-term in TDK Corporation (reference) 2C062 RA01 2C362 BA17 CB67 CB78 4E068 AB01 CE02 DB13 4G059 AA01 AC08 5C072 AA03 BA20 HA04 HA09 HA14 HB06 HB15

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. A method of printing a pattern on an article made of glass using a laser beam, wherein a pattern to be printed is composed of a plurality of dots, and each dot is scanned in an arc shape by a laser beam spot. A glass printing method, wherein printing is performed by: 2. A method for printing a pattern on an article made of glass using a laser beam using a scanning laser head having a laser oscillator, wherein data representing a pattern to be printed is written along a line constituting the pattern. Converting the dots into dot data representing the arranged dots, and using the dot data, generating arc array data for printing by scanning each of the dots in an arc with a laser beam spot, Driving a scanning laser head based on the arc array data to perform laser printing on a glass material so as to form the pattern to be printed by a plurality of dots drawn by the arc. Glass printing method. 3. The glass printing method according to claim 1, wherein the arc shape includes a circle and a polygonal shape. 4. The glass printing method according to claim 1, wherein the arc shape includes multiple arcs arranged substantially concentrically. 5. The glass printing method according to claim 1, wherein the pattern to be printed is a character or a number. 6. The glass printing method according to claim 1, wherein the pattern to be printed is a barcode pattern. 7. A laser beam is emitted at a desired timing.
A scanning laser head having a laser light oscillator capable of N / OFF control and capable of freely changing a laser light spot irradiation position on a printing surface of an article; and data representing a given pattern to be printed. Dot data conversion means for converting into dot data representing a plurality of dots arranged along a line constituting a pattern; using the dot data, each of the dots is scanned in an arc shape by a laser light spot and printed. Arc array data generating means for generating arc array data for performing the operation, storage means for storing the arc array data, and a pattern for controlling the laser head based on the arc array data stored in the storage means for printing. Control means for scanning and printing as a plurality of arc-shaped dots. 8. The glass printing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the arc shape includes a circle and a polygon. 9. The glass printing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the arc shape includes multiple arcs arranged substantially concentrically. 10. The glass printing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the pattern to be printed is a character or a number. 11. The glass printing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the pattern to be printed is a barcode pattern.