JPS63276565A - Thermal transfer color printer - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a thermal transfer color printer, and particularly to a thermal transfer color printer suitable for improving the quality of color printing of graphics, anis, etc.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a main part of a printing mechanism of a thermal transfer serial color printer to which the present invention can be applied. In the figure, 5 is a thermal head, 6 is an ink ribbon, 7 is a platen roller, and the thermal head 5 is an ink ribbon 6.
The recording paper 8 is pressed onto the platen roller 7 through the ink ribbon 6, and in this state, the solid ink coated on the surface of the ink ribbon 6 is melted by heating by the heating resistor element of the ink ribbon 6 and transferred onto the recording paper 8, forming one line. When the transfer is completed, the recording paper 8 is sent in the direction of arrow A by rotation of the platen roller 7. ink ribbon 6
are wound up and housed in the ribbon cassette 9, and are unwound one after another from one reel and wound onto the other reel. The thermal head 5, ribbon cassette 9 and traction solenoid 10 are mounted on a carriage 11, and a drive belt 1 driven by a pulse motor 12
3, the platen roller 7 is moved in the direction of the arrow LR. The timing belt 14 is fixedly stretched parallel to the longitudinal axis of the platen roller 7, and is attached to the carriage 1.
1, a rotational force is applied to a gear (not shown) that engages with a timing belt in the carriage, thereby rotating a winding shaft (not shown) of the ink ribbon 6, and winding up the ink ribbon 6 after recording. At the same time, a new ribbon surface is rolled out.

The amount that the ink ribbon 6 is fed out is equal to the amount of movement of the carriage 11, so that no slipping occurs between the ink ribbon 6 and the recording paper 8. In this printer, the operation of the thermal head 5 to compress the ink ribbon 6 onto the recording paper 8 and the movement of the ink ribbon 6 are performed only when the carriage 11 moves in the direction of the arrow R, and are not performed when the carriage 11 moves in the direction of the arrow L. This switching operation is performed by a traction solenoid 1o. The flexible wiring board 15 is used for supplying recording data and power to the thermal radar 5. A home position sensor 16 detects that the carriage 11 has returned to the reference position. The pulse motor 17 rotates the platen roller 7 via a timing belt 18 to feed the recording paper 8 in the direction of arrow A.

In the ink ribbon used in such a color printer, each color band of the ink ribbon coated with a plurality of primary colors is divided by a black marker that identifies the boundary, and is arranged in a predetermined length and order. The ribbon sensor is configured to detect the color to be printed based on a printing command, and wind up the ribbon while skipping unnecessary color bands.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

When printing graphics, anis, etc. using such a thermal transfer type serial color printer, there is a problem in printing at line feed portions. That is, in the prior art, methods have been adopted such as printing with zero line spacing or negative line spacing, that is, printing one line and the next line overlapping each other. When printing using the former method, as shown in Figure 5, a blank Q occurs between the nth line of printing 27 and the n+1th line of printing 28 due to a line feed error when feeding the paper. There is a problem in that the larger Q is, and the longer the blank length in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the paper in FIG.

In addition, in the latter case, as shown in Figure 6, if one or more dots overlap, the density of the overlapped part will become darker, and as in the former case, if the overlapped part continues in the direction perpendicular to the paper surface, the print quality will be poor. A problem arose in that the

In the latter case, an example in which the three primary colors are yellow (hereinafter referred to as Y), magenta (hereinafter referred to as M), and cyan (hereinafter referred to as C) is used. As shown in FIG. 6, the nth row is Y.

When the n+1st line is printed in black by three-color polymerization of M and C, and the n+1st line is printed in one color among Y, M, and C, the difference in level at the overlap between the nth line and the n+1st line is In some cases, the number of prints may reach the maximum, and in this case, there will be a portion that is not printed as shown in the figure. To prevent this, there is a method of increasing the energy applied to the print head, but there are problems such as the overall color tone becomes dark and the print dots are crushed, leading to a decrease in quality.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer color printer with excellent print quality at the line feed portion, which is essential for printing graphics, anis, etc.

[Means for solving problems]

The purpose of the above is to print so that the three colors are shifted in stages at the boundary between the printing on the nth line and the printing on the n+1st line, and to print so that the subtracted part on the nth line overlaps with the n+1th line. This is achieved by

[Function] As described above, it is possible to reduce overlapping at the seams between lines, and no blank space or color tone problems occur.

〔Example〕

FIG. 1 is an enlarged sectional view of the line feed printing portion of printing by the thermal transfer color printer according to the present invention, and shows print data 29,
30.31 shows the state of the line feed part on the nth line and the n+1th line. As shown in the figure, print data 29, 30.3 on the nth line
1 is superimposed and printed with a stepwise shift of 1 dot at a time, and n+
The colors in the first row are shifted in stages so that they overlap with each color in the n-th row, and the same colors are printed by overlapping each other. Y data 29 as shown
2M data 30. The C data 31 includes a 7-overlap section 32, an M-overlap section 33. It is preferable that one dot is polymerized in each of the C overlapping portions 34.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the arrangement of print data (dots) according to the present invention. In the horizontal direction, the columns of each color of Y, M, and C are shown as dots, and in the vertical direction, the nth row, the n+1st row, The printing on the n+2th line is shown as a dot. The print head has 24 elements, 1/180 inch pitch, and the minimum line feed amount is 1/120.
Line feed pitch is 14/1 using inch pitch printer
This shows the state printed in 2Q. In the figure, the data is created so that the upper two dots of Y data 35 are not printed, the upper and lower two dots of M data 36 are not printed, and the lower two dots of C data are not printed. By printing such 24-dot data with a line break width of 14/12Q inches as described above, data of the same color can be printed with one dot overlap and shifted to a different position from other colors. can.

FIG. 4 is an electrical block diagram of an embodiment of a thermal transfer color printer according to the present invention. The control circuit section 21 includes a microprocessor and performs overall control of the thermal transfer color printer. The drive circuit section 22 drives the thermal head 5, the carriage pulse motor 12, the platen pulse motor 17, and the traction solenoid 10 in accordance with the control signal from the control circuit section 21. The detection circuit section 23 receives analog signals inputted from the home position sensor 16, a ribbon out sensor 19 that detects the presence or absence of the remaining amount of ink ribbon 6 in the ribbon cassette 9, and a paper out sensor 20 that detects the presence or absence of the recording paper 8. is identified, converted into a digital signal, and transmitted to the control circuit section 21. Communication with an external data processing device is performed via an interface circuit section 24, 25 is an operation panel, and 26 is a power supply section.

〔Effect of the invention〕

By implementing the present invention, the level difference in the printed overlapping part due to line breaks is reduced, and it is possible to eliminate the occurrence of blank spaces and color tone defects without increasing the applied energy, and it is possible to noticeably improve the printing quality of graphics, anis, etc. It is effective.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an enlarged cross-sectional view of a printing part showing one embodiment of a thermal transfer color printer according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an enlarged view showing an arrangement of print data by the thermal transfer color printer of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a perspective view of the main parts of the thermal transfer color printer of the present invention.
The figure is an electrical block diagram of an embodiment of the thermal transfer color printer of the present invention, and FIGS. 5 and 6 are enlarged cross-sectional views of the printing section of the prior art. 8...Recording paper, 32...7 overlapped part, 33...M overlapped part, 34...0 overlapped part, 35...yellow (
Y) data, 36...magenta (M) data, 37.
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Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a thermal transfer color printer equipped with a mechanism for printing by pressing and heating an ink ribbon using a thermal head, multi-color print data on the nth line and multi-color print data on the n+1 line of the line feed printing section. A thermal transfer color printer characterized in that the ink ribbon and the ink ribbon are shifted in stages in the running direction of the ink ribbon and are overlapped with each other to print. 2. The thermal transfer color printer according to claim 1, wherein the line feed printing section is configured to overlap print data of the same color. 3. The thermal transfer color printer according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the overlapping width of the print data in the line feed printing section is configured not to exceed one dot.