JPH1142840A - ink ribbon - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] The present invention relates to a black ink ribbon of a fabric used for an impact printer, and particularly to an iron-based dot wire printer in which the material of a dot wire attached to a printer head is relatively easily worn. It is an object of the present invention to provide an OCR ink ribbon which has good mechanical reading accuracy by infrared light and low abrasion. A black ink ribbon for an impact printer is formed by applying a black ink comprising at least a colorant and a vehicle, wherein the colorant comprises an organic pigment and carbon black in an amount of 1 to 2% by weight based on the total amount of the ink on a fabric base fabric. .

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a fabric ink ribbon used for an impact printer, and more particularly to an iron-based dot wire printer in which the material of a dot wire attached to a printer head is relatively easily worn. The present invention relates to an OCR ink ribbon which has good mechanical reading accuracy by infrared light and low abrasion.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, most black ink ribbons used in impact printers have been formed by applying an ink composed of carbon black, a dye, an oil component, and a dispersant to a fabric-like base cloth. It had been.

[0003] Among them, those using an organic pigment instead of carbon black to prevent abrasion of a dot wire as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 7-396, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 52-117200. As disclosed in the official gazette, carbon black is used in an amount of 10
About one percent by weight is used to improve near infrared absorption, that is, OCR readability.

[0004]

A black ink ribbon for a dot printer in which an organic pigment is substituted without using carbon black, and a dye-based ink ribbon for a dye-based dot printer which does not contain a pigment, which has been used before, are known. Although the dot wire is hardly worn by printing, the absorption of near-infrared rays is poor, and the printed matter is dark, but the reading accuracy is extremely poor in OCR using near-infrared rays, and it is not suitable as an OCR ink.

[0005] In addition, the ink ribbon containing a large amount of carbon black causes a lot of abrasion of the dot wire, thereby shortening the life of the printer head extremely.
It cannot be used for a printer head using a normal high speed wire or the like. If special materials such as tungsten carbide and carbide steel made of alloys such as cobalt and nickel are used, wear can be suppressed to some extent, but it becomes expensive in terms of cost, and there is no versatility because the ribbon selects the printer head, Not preferred.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to reduce the wear of the dot wire due to printing and to reduce the O2 of the printed matter even when a relatively inexpensive and soft iron-based dot wire is used.
An object of the present invention is to provide a black ink ribbon for an impact printer which has good CR readability.

[0007]

As described above, it is known that there is a relationship between the blending amount of carbon black in the ink and the abrasion of the dot wire and the OCR readability. In light of the problems, as a result of intensive research, it was clarified that these relationships are not merely proportional but relationships with inflection points, and at least colorants,
It has been found that the object of the present invention can be achieved by blending an organic pigment and a specific amount of carbon black as a colorant in an ink ribbon formed by applying an ink composed of a vehicle to a fabric-like base cloth. Based on the above, the present invention has been achieved. That is, the present invention provides: 1. An impact obtained by applying a black ink comprising at least a coloring agent and a vehicle, and a coloring agent comprising an organic pigment and carbon black in an amount of 1 to 2% by weight based on the total amount of the ink on a fabric base fabric. 2. A black ink ribbon for an impact printer according to item 1, wherein the vehicle contains an oil or fat component and a surfactant that are hardly volatile at room temperature 3. An organic pigment is black or 2 3. The black ink ribbon for an impact printer according to any one of the items 1 or 2, which is made of an organic pigment that produces a black color by mixing at least one kind of the organic pigment 4. Items 1 to 3 in which a dye is further compounded as a colorant. The black ink ribbon for an impact printer according to any one of the above.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail.
The colorant used in the present invention comprises an organic pigment and 1 to 2% by weight of carbon black based on the total amount of the ink. When the colorant is a dye-based material, the printed matter looks good visually but often cannot be read by OCR. Also, those containing only organic pigments have a large difference between the visual density and the OCR reading accuracy, and can be read by OCR at the beginning of printing. Can not be used because often.

[0009] Carbon black is preferred for OCR because it has an absorption wavelength also in the near infrared region. However, as described above, since the wear of the dot wire is promoted, it is necessary to use 1 to 2% by weight based on the total amount of the ink. If the compounding amount of the carbon black is out of the above range, a problem occurs as shown in FIGS.

When carbon black is not blended, O
Although the CR reading performance is poor, if it exceeds 1% by weight with respect to the total amount of ink, the OCR reading performance rapidly improves.
This can be clearly understood from FIG. That is, when the amount is 1% by weight or more with respect to the total amount of the ink, the OCR reading performance is sharply improved.

When the blending amount of carbon black with respect to the total amount of the ink is about 2% by weight, the amount of abrasion of the dot wire is not so large, but when it exceeds 2% by weight, as shown in FIG. Abrasion increases rapidly, and thereafter, up to about 10% by weight, increases in proportion to the amount of carbon black. In other words, if the blending amount of carbon black exceeds 2% by weight with respect to the total amount of the ink, the wear of the dot wire proceeds extremely, which is not preferable.
If it is 2% by weight or less, abrasion to the dot wire can be suppressed as much as possible.

Many organic pigments are relatively soft.
This is preferable since the influence on the abrasion on the dot wire is small. For example, cyanine blue, phthalocyanine blue, Victoria blue base, Hansa yellow, benzine yellow, lake red, permanent carmine,
Perin red, aniline black and the like can be mentioned. A black organic pigment may be used alone, or a combination of two or more kinds may be used to give a black color.

As a coloring agent, an oil-soluble dye such as a nigrosine base, methyl violet, oil blue or oil yellow may be blended with the organic pigment and carbon black. Inorganic pigments other than the required amount of carbon black are not preferred because they cause the dot wires to wear. The colorant may be a combination of a pigment and a dye,
A pigment alone may be used. The colorant is 5
~ 30% by weight is preferred.

The vehicle used in the present invention contains a fat and oil component which is hardly volatile at room temperature and a surfactant. Since many of the ink ribbons for impact printers are used as open cassette ribbons that directly come into contact with the outside air, the fat and oil component of the present invention needs to be volatile at room temperature. The oil component used as a vehicle for the ink is preferably a linear fatty acid having 17 to 19 carbon atoms and / or a derivative thereof. If the carbon number is smaller than this range, the volatility increases, and if the carbon number is larger, the viscosity becomes too high, and depending on the temperature conditions, it becomes a solid and is not suitable as a vehicle for the ink. As the linear fatty acid having 17 to 19 carbon atoms, oleic acid and stearic acid are preferably used, and oleic acid is most suitable. The amount is 1
0.0 to 50.0% by weight is preferred.

[0015] Further, a surfactant is blended for dispersing or dissolving the coloring agent and the like and stabilizing the same. The surfactant is
Examples thereof include nonionic surfactants such as fatty acid esters and polyoxyethylene alkyl ethers, and cationic surfactants such as alkylamine salts.
0% by weight is preferred.

In addition, if necessary, additives such as a rust preventive may be appropriately compounded.

[0017]

Next, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to Examples and Comparative Examples. Example 1 Carbon black 1% by weight Organic pigment (aniline black) 10% by weight Dye (nigrosine) 15% by weight Fatty acid (oleic acid) 24% by weight Fatty acid ester 30% by weight Surfactant 20% by weight Components of the above composition are mixed and dispersed. Then, after preparing an ink for a ribbon, the ink was applied to a 6,6-nylon fabric base fabric to obtain a black ink ribbon for an impact printer.

Examples 2 to 3 and Comparative Examples 1 to 3 Inks having the compositions shown in Table 1 were prepared and coated in the same manner as in Example 1 to obtain a black ink ribbon for an impact printer.

[0019]

[Table 1]

The eight types of ink ribbons produced in the above Examples and Comparative Examples were printed with an impact printer DPK24E manufactured by Fujitsu Ltd., and the results of measuring the amount of abrasion of the dot impact wire after printing 100 million dots were shown. 2 is shown.

After printing eight kinds of ink ribbons in a straight loop of 10 m with an impact printer PC-PR201-CL manufactured by NEC Corporation, the initial density was measured by PCM-2 manufactured by Macbeth. . At this time, the value of the filter A as a representative value of the print density in the visible light (400 to 700 nm) was changed to the value of the near infrared light (800 to 1000 nm).
nm), the value obtained with the filter D was obtained as a representative value of the print density.

Here, the following values were evaluated as characteristic values representing the reading performance in near infrared rays, and evaluation was made. (Value at filter A)-(Value at filter D) = O
CR reading performance evaluation value The higher the above value is, the worse the OCR reading performance is, even if the visual density is high, and the more inappropriate the machine reading is. Table 2 shows the evaluation values.

[0023]

[Table 2]

[0024]

According to the ink ribbon for an impact printer of the present invention, even when a relatively inexpensive and soft iron-based dot wire is used, the abrasion of the dot wire due to printing is small and the OCR readability of the printed matter is good. A black ink ribbon for an impact printer was obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a graph showing the relationship between the amount of carbon black and the OCR reading performance with respect to the total amount of ink used in the ink ribbon of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a graph showing the relationship between the amount of carbon black and the amount of abrasion of a dot wire after printing 100 million dots with respect to the total amount of ink used in the ink ribbon of the present invention.

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) at least a colorant and a vehicle,
A black ink ribbon for an impact printer, wherein a black ink composed of an organic pigment and carbon black of 1 to 2% by weight based on the total amount of the ink is applied to a fabric base fabric. 2. A fat or oil component which is hardly volatile at room temperature,
The black ink ribbon for an impact printer according to claim 1, further comprising a surfactant. 3. The black ink ribbon for an impact printer according to claim 1, wherein the organic pigment is black or an organic pigment that emits black color by mixing two or more kinds. 4. The black ink ribbon for an impact printer according to claim 1, further comprising a dye as a coloring agent.