JP3139038B2 - Card print processing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for performing thermal printing with a thermal head on a card having a printing area formed of a thermoreversible material capable of obtaining a transparent state and a cloudy state at different heating temperatures. And a card print processing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the case of a card having a print area formed of the above-mentioned thermoreversible material, the print area of the printed area can be rewritten. A rewriting method in which the print is heated and erased with a heater or a thermal head, and a new print is printed again in the same print area with the thermal head. The card is scanned twice for one thermal head, and the old print is used in the first scan. Is erased, and a new print is performed at the time of the second scan.

However, in these rewriting methods, in the former case, two mechanisms, an erasing mechanism for erasing old prints and a thermal head mechanism for new printing, are required, which complicates the structure of the apparatus and reduces the size of the apparatus. In the latter case, the card scanning control becomes complicated, and the total card transport distance becomes longer, so that the processing time becomes longer.

[0004]

Therefore, the present invention solves the above-mentioned problems, and sets a plurality of printing areas on a card, scans the card with one thermal head once, and prints the old printing. It is an object of the present invention to provide a card print processing device capable of simultaneously executing erasure and new printing.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a card print processing apparatus for printing a print area of a thermoreversible material of a card to be scanned by a single thermal head, wherein the print area is moved in the card conveyance direction. This is a card print processing apparatus provided with control means for setting a plurality of areas in a serial direction with respect to the area, performing a printing process on the unprinted areas of the plurality of areas and erasing an old print area when scanning the card. It is characterized by the following.

[0006]

According to the card printing processing apparatus of the present invention, the control means simultaneously executes the erasing process and the printing process for the old print area and the unprinted print area by one scanning of the card.

[0007]

As a result of the above, according to the present invention, printing can be rewritten by scanning one card with one thermal head, so that the structure of the apparatus is simplified, and the apparatus is reduced in size and weight. And the print rewriting processing time is shortened. In addition, multiple printing areas can be
The thermal head
The printing width only needs to be the width of one printing area, and it is inexpensive. In addition, since a plurality of print areas are set, the number of rewrites per print area is reduced, and the life of the card is extended.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

The drawing shows an automatic ticket gate apparatus. In FIG. 1, this automatic ticket gate apparatus 10 is used to put a ticket such as a commuter pass, a card (prepaid card), an ordinary ticket, a coupon ticket, etc. into one of the apparatus main bodies 11. A ticket slot 12 is formed, and a ticket outlet 13 is formed on the other side of the apparatus main body 11,
Opening and closing doors 14 before and after closing the passenger aisle at the time of throwing an unauthorized ticket,
15 are provided.

The internal structure of the above automatic ticket gate 10 is shown in FIG.
It is as shown in FIG. That is, the ticket input port 12 and the ticket release port 1 that are open on one and the other sides of the above-described apparatus main body 11.
3, a transfer line b that branches off from an intermediate portion of the transfer line a and returns to the transfer line a, and a transfer line that branches off near the rear end of the transfer line a. c, and these transfer lines a,
b and c are constituted by appropriate conveyance belts, conveyance rollers, guide plates and the like.

At the start end of the above-mentioned transport line a, an aligning section 16 for aligning the inserted ticket by aligning it with one side of the frame is provided. A write magnetic head 18 and a read-after-write check magnetic head 19 are provided, and an indirect data processing unit 20 for reading, writing, and checking face information is provided.
On the basis of the output of the above, a direct data processing unit 22 for driving a solenoid 21 and performing punching with a punch is provided for a regular ticket other than a commuter pass, a ticket such as a coupon,
A thermal print processing unit 25 that includes a reversing unit 23 for reversing the front and back of a card (prepaid card) and a thermal head 24 and prints a fee on the card is disposed on the branched transport line b. Further, the final stage is provided with a discharge unit 26 for discharging tickets and cards, and the above-mentioned branched transport line c is provided with a tag collection unit 27 for collecting used tickets. It is arranged so that the inserted ticket or card is automatically processed for ticket inspection and ticket collection.

In the figure, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33
Is a photoelectric sensor that detects each ticket and outputs a detection signal.

FIG. 3 shows a control circuit of the automatic ticket gate 10 described above. A CPU 35 drives and controls each circuit device in accordance with a program stored in a ROM 36, and a RAM 37 stores indirect data, direct (print) data, and sensors. The necessary data such as the detected data is stored and read out, and the interface 38 connects each circuit device to the CPU 35.

The solenoid 21 is a solenoid driver 39
And the motor 40 for driving the transport lines a, b and c is driven and controlled via a motor driver 41,
The thermal head 24 is driven and controlled via a thermal head driver 42, the magnetic head groups 17, 18 and 19 are driven and controlled via a magnetic data read / write unit 43, and the sensor groups 28 to 33 are driven via a sensor driver 44. Control.

The card (prepaid card) used in the automatic ticket gate 10 constructed as described above is formed of a thermoreversible material whose fee can be rewritten and printed. That is,
The print areas A and B of the card 45 shown in FIG. 6A are formed as shown in FIG. A recording layer 47 is formed on a medium substrate 46, and an overcoat layer 48 made of a transparent resin is formed for the purpose of protecting the recording layer 47. The recording layer 48 is made of a resin and an organic low-molecular compound in a solvent. Uses a thermoreversible material in which a substance is dissolved. The above-mentioned thermoreversible material can be changed between a transparent state and a cloudy state depending on the size of crystals in the particles of the organic low-molecular substance.

FIG. 5 shows the thermoreversible characteristics of the thermoreversible material constituting the recording layer 47. If the thermoreversible material is initially in a cloudy state at room temperature, it is heated to a temperature T.
Transparency starts from 1 and becomes maximum transparent at temperature T2,
Even if it is cooled to room temperature, the transparent state is maintained. When heated to a temperature equal to or higher than the temperature T3, the state becomes an intermediate state between the maximum transparent state and the maximum white turbid state, and returns to the original maximum white turbid state when cooled to room temperature. Therefore, when the recording layer 47 of the thermoreversible material is in a cloudy state, this is used as print information, and by making the cloudy state transparent, print information is erased.
However, the print setting can be reversed.

In order to obtain the temperature T2 at which the above-mentioned thermoreversible material is made transparent, it is sufficient to drive each dot constituting the thermal head 24 for a time t1. Each dot may be driven for a time t2 longer than the time t1.

6A, 6B, and 6C show the rewriting printing state of the card 45. When the card 45 is conveyed along the conveying line b in the X direction, the printing areas A and B are in the conveying direction X. Is set in series. Therefore, one thermal head 24 prints one print area A or B by one scan and erases the other print area B or A by one scan.

For example, in FIG. 6A, the charge information is heated and printed in the printing area A in a cloudy state, and then in the printing area B, all the areas (all the dots of the thermal head 24) are heated and erased in a transparent state.

FIG. 6B shows a case where the card 45 of FIG. 6A is rewritten and printed. In this case, the entire area of the print area A is heated and erased in a transparent state. Then, the fee information is printed by heating.

6C shows a case where the card 45 of FIG. 6B is further rewritten and printed. In this case, the charge information is heated and printed in the printing area A in a cloudy state. In B, the entire area is heated and erased in a transparent state.

Referring to FIG. 7, the control operation of the CPU 35 for the print rewriting process of the card 45 in the ticket inspection process will be described. When the card 45 is inserted into the ticket slot 12, the photoelectric sensor 28 detects this and the motor 40 is driven, and the transport lines a, b, and c are driven and controlled in the taking-in and discharging directions, and the card 45 is inserted inside. (Step n
1).

In the magnetic recording portion of the card 45, in addition to the value data, print area data indicating the print area A or B on which the fee information has been printed is recorded. The data is read (step n2).

It is determined whether the read print area data is the print area A or B (step n3). If the print area used last time is A based on the determination result, printing is performed on B of the current print area. Rewrite the area data (step n
4) Check this (step n5). If the print area used last time is B, rewrite the print area data to A of the current print area (step n7) and check this (step n7). n8), the card 45 is on the transport line b
When the front and back sides of the card 45 are corrected by the reversing unit 23 when necessary, the card 45 is conveyed to the thermal head 24 side. When the photoelectric sensor 31 detects the arrival, the drive of the thermal head 24 is controlled.

As shown in FIG. 6A, the previous print area is
In the case of the print area A, the entire area of the print area A (all the dots of the thermal head 24) is heated and erased in a transparent state, and the charge information is heated and printed in the print area B in a cloudy state.
Printing is performed as shown in FIG. 6B (step n6).

If the previous print area is the print area B as shown in FIG. 6B, the charge information is heated and printed in the print area B in a cloudy state, and the entire print area A (thermal area) is printed. All the dots of the head 24 are erased by heating to a transparent state, and printing is performed as shown in FIG. 6C (step n9).

When the fee information is printed on the card 45 in this manner, the card 45 is sent out to the transport line a and released to the ticket release port 13 of the release section 26, and the photoelectric sensor 32 is connected to the card 45. The drive of the motor 40 is stopped by detecting the removal (step n10).

As described above, according to the above-described embodiment, a single scan of the card 45 allows the print area A or B of the old print to be displayed.
Since the unprinted print area B or A is simultaneously subjected to erasing processing and printing processing, and one thermal head 24 can perform rewriting of printing by scanning the card 45 once.
The configuration of the apparatus is simplified, the size and weight of the apparatus can be reduced, and the time required for the print rewriting process can be reduced. in addition,
Since a plurality of print areas A and B are set, the number of rewrites per print area is reduced, and the life of the card 45 is extended.

Further , in the case of FIG.
Although it is set at the location, three or more locations can be set.

In correspondence between the configuration of the present invention and the configuration of the above-described embodiment, the control means of the present invention
Although it corresponds to the processing of steps n3 to n9 by U35,
The present invention is not limited to the configuration of the above embodiment.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an automatic ticket gate.

FIG. 2 is an internal configuration diagram of the automatic ticket gate.

FIG. 3 is a control circuit block diagram of the automatic ticket gate.

FIG. 4 is a partial cross-sectional view of the card.

FIG. 5 is a characteristic diagram of a thermoreversible material.

FIGS. 6A , 6B and 6C are plan views showing rewriting printing of a card.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a rewrite printing process.

[Description of Signs] 24: Thermal head 45: Card 47: Recording layer A, B: Printing area

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields investigated (Int.Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G07B 11/00-17/04 B41J 29/00-29/70 B41J 17/00-17/42 B41J 27 / 00-27/22 B41J 31/00-35/38 B41J 3/20

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A card print processing apparatus for printing a print area of a card to be scanned made of a thermoreversible material with a single thermal head, wherein the print area is copied in a serial direction with respect to a card transport direction. A card print processing apparatus which is provided with control means for setting a number of areas, printing a plurality of unprinted areas when scanning the card, and erasing an old print area.