JPH0678014B2 - Booklet printing device - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a printing device capable of printing on a booklet such as a passbook in which a plurality of sheets of paper are bound, and as a printing method, a contact type printing such as a thermal transfer printing method. The present invention relates to a booklet printing apparatus effective for a passbook printing apparatus using a non-impact printing method.

[Conventional technology]

A wire dot printing method is currently mainly used as a printing method for printing a booklet in which a plurality of sheets are bound, such as a passbook. For example, as shown in Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 59-15833, a passbook having a different thickness depending on the page to be printed is pressed against the reference guide by the platen,
It is known that the printing surface is always fixed and printing is performed by a wire dot printing type printing means.
This printing method is characterized in that it is possible to easily provide an apparatus capable of clear printing even on a printing medium whose thickness changes.

As another printing method, the thermal transfer method is known,
This system is characterized by low printing noise as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 56-34465. This method is 1
Printing is performed by moving the thermal print head that prints a line in the row direction, but when performing the line feed operation of the passbook after the printing operation, it is necessary to release the pressing of the thermal print head.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In the conventional method described above, in the case of the wire dot printing method, it is necessary to release the pressed state of the passbook that is being pressed when the passbook is line-fed, and the operation time increases accordingly, and the thermal transfer method is When performing the line feed operation of the passbook after the printing operation, it is necessary to release the pressing of the thermal print head, and there is a problem that it is difficult to improve the processing performance as in the case of the wire dot printing method.

As a printing method in which the pressing state of the thermal print head does not need to be released at the time of the line feed operation of the paper, as shown in FIG. A line dot type thermal printer that constitutes a printing mechanism that presses the print head 1 and performs printing is known as a well-known technique.

This printing operation is performed by a thermal print head (hereinafter, thermal head 1
The printing paper 8 is pressed against the platen roller 9 by the spring 10 or the like through the thermal ink film 7 coated with ink that melts the above heating resistor portion by heat, and printing is performed. Platen roller 9
Is rotated to feed the printing paper 8 and the thermal ink film 7 simultaneously and continuously. That is, the printing method has a feature that a high-speed printing operation can be performed because it is not necessary to release the pressed state of the thermal head 1 during the paper feeding operation.

However, this printing method has the following problems when it is applied to a printing apparatus such as a passbook 11 that needs to print a booklet made by binding a plurality of sheets as shown in FIG. is there.

As is well known, in order to obtain clear printing in a thermal printer, it is necessary to improve the adhesion between the printing paper and the thermal ink film and the thermal head. Therefore, when printing on multiple sheets of paper, such as a passbook, the thermal head 1 must be pressed against the passbook with a large pressing force.
The portion of the heating resistor 2 of the thermal head 1 does not adhere to the thermal ink film 7 and the passbook 11. When the passbook and the thermal ink film are pressed with such a large pressing force and the platen roller 9 is rotated to send the passbook, the middle paper 17 which is the printing paper of the passbook 11 is normally used.
Since is made up of a relatively thin paper, a phenomenon occurs in which the inner paper 17 is displaced during the feeding operation to cause a bulge as shown in FIG. For this reason, misregistration, passbook, and jam of the thermal ink film are caused.

In order to solve such a problem, it is conceivable that the pressing force of the thermal head is lowered to some extent for printing, but in this case, the contact between the passbook and the thermal carbon paper and the thermal head are poorly adhered to each other, so that the printing is not performed. It becomes unclear. In order to solve this problem, it is conceivable to increase the energizing pulse application time applied to the heating resistor of the thermal head to print with large printing energy.
Naturally, the printing speed will be slow, and the expected high-speed printing will not be possible.

Incidentally, the problem that the inside paper of the passbook is displaced and bulges during the printing operation is not a problem limited to the thermal printing system, but a problem that occurs also in other contact type printing systems.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a printing apparatus that prints on booklets such as passbooks having a plurality of sheets covered with each other by using a closely contacting printing element that can operate at high speed. A specific example is to provide a low-cost printing apparatus that can print on passbooks by using a relatively low-cost printing element such as a thermal head.

[Means for solving problems]

In order to eliminate the above-mentioned problems, the present invention, when printing a print sheet in which a plurality of sheets are folded together like a passbook, means for sandwiching the print sheet at the portion opposite to the print element and the seam. Is provided.

[Action]

By sandwiching a booklet with multiple sheets of paper before starting printing with the contact printing method, during printing, the relative speed between the printing element and the booklet causes the middle paper, which is the printing paper for the booklet, to shift and bulge. Prevent it from happening. As a result, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of misalignment of printing and jam, to ensure good adhesion between the printing element and the inner paper which is the printing paper of the booklet, and it is possible to perform clear printing.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. First, the configuration will be described. In FIG. 1, the thermal head 1 uses an end surface type thermal head in which the heating resistor 2 is on the end surface of the thermal head 1. A pressing spring 21 is attached to the thermal head 1 to activate the pressing state,
The pressing ON-OFF mechanism 22 for releasing is operable in conjunction with each other (the pressing ON-OFF mechanism can be constituted by a solenoid or the like and is not shown). The platen roller 9 is composed of a low hardness elastic body and is rotatably supported. The thermal ink film 7 is arranged between the thermal head 1 and the platen roller 9, and is wound up from a paper feeding side roll (not shown) to a winding side roll (not shown) according to printing, and proceeds in the direction of arrow 7a. (A motor or the like is used as the drive means for the roll on the take-up side, but the illustration is omitted.) The passbook 11 includes a platen roller 9 and a thermal ink film 7.
It is inserted in the direction of arrow 11a between and. The holding body 2 is provided on the opposite side of the thermal head 1 and the platen roller 9 from which the passbook is inserted.
3,24 are placed. The positions where the sandwiching bodies 23 and 24 are arranged are positions where the ends of the passbook can be sandwiched when the first line printing position of the passbook is at the position of the heating resistor on the thermal head 1. Generally, in the case of a top-bottom open passbook, the printing position of the first line is about 20 mm from the end of the passbook, and this 20 mm is placed so that it can be pinched. A holding spring 26 is attached to the holding body 24, and a holding ON-OFF mechanism 25 for activating and releasing the holding state 25
Is operable in conjunction with each other (the holding ON-OFF mechanism can be configured by a solenoid or the like like the thermal head pressing ON-OFF mechanism 22 and is not shown).

As shown in FIG. 2, the holding mechanism is mounted on a carrier 30 composed of holding bodies 23, 24, holding springs 26, and holding ON-OFF mechanism 25, and is movable on support rails 27a, 27b. It is configured like. The carrier 30 is configured to be movable in the direction of arrow 29 by driving means (not shown) such as a motor.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. The pressing of the pressing ON-OFF mechanism 22 is released, and the thermal head 1 and the platen roller 9 are released.
With a gap between the gripping ON-OFF mechanism 25 and the gripping bodies 23, 24 with a gap between them.
Is fed to the initial print position. The means of transporting the passbook is
Normally, a roller mechanism or the like is used, but the illustration is omitted. The initial print position is a position where a predetermined line can be printed when the thermal head 1 is pressed against the passbook 11 as it is. At this time, the leading end of the passbook 11 is located between the sandwiching bodies 23 and 24, and the sandwiching ON-OFF mechanism 25 is operated to sandwich and clamp the passbook 11 by the sandwiching bodies 23 and 24. Then, press ON-OFF mechanism 22
Is activated, and the thermal head 1 is pressed against the passbook 11. Then, the heating resistor 2 of the thermal head 1 is driven while moving the carrier 30 equipped with the holding mechanism in the direction of arrow 29 to melt transfer the hot melt ink of the thermal ink film 7 and print on the passbook 11. . This printing process is the same as the known thermal transfer type thermal printing system. The platen roller 9 is idle while being pressed along the cover 16 of the passbook 11 by the passbook 11 being clamped by the sandwiching bodies 23 and 24 and pulled.

As described above, the front cover 16 and the middle paper 17 of the passbook 11 are held between the holding members 23, 24.
Since the inner paper 17 is clamped by, the inner paper 17 will not be displaced or bulged during the printing operation, and good printing can be secured. In addition, the passbook 11 has a fold 12 and a middle paper 17 and a cover 16
Is bound. Therefore, when printing is performed on the subsequent page beyond the fold line 12, the binding part of the fold line 12 prevents the inner cover sheet 17 and the cover sheet 16 from being displaced, so that the inner cover sheet 17 does not bulge.

Regarding the speed of the printing operation, that is, the printing processing performance, the number of characters printed per line of the passbook is 60 characters, and the line spacing of the passbook is 5 mm. The print speeds are compared as follows. In the case of wire dot printing method,
If the print speed of the print head is 120 characters / sec, the line print time is about 0.5 sec.

In the case of the thermal printing method of this embodiment, the operating speed of the thermal head can be usually about 5 ms / line. Assuming that 36 lines are printed per line (this is equivalent to printing dots at intervals of about 1/180 inch), the printing time per line in the thermal printing method is shortened to 5 x 36 = 180 ms or 0.18 seconds High-speed printing that is approximately 2.8 times faster than the dot printing method is possible. In addition, since the operation of releasing the platen pressing force at each line feed operation like the passbook printing by the conventional wire dot printing method is not necessary in the case of the thermal printing method such as the present embodiment, the wire dot printing method and the printing method can be used. When the processing performances are compared, it is clear that the processing capacity is even higher.

As described above, the present embodiment has a great feature that a thermal head which can be obtained at a relatively low cost is used, and high-speed printing can be ensured with good printing quality for a passbook.

Next, another embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of the present embodiment. The difference from the above embodiment in the structure is the following point. The platen roller 9, the thermal head 1, the pressing ON-OFF mechanism 22, and the printing mechanism of the thermal ink film 7 shown in FIG. 1 are mounted on the carrier 32 and are configured to be movable on the support rails 33a and 33b. There is. The carrier 32 is driven by a drive means (not shown) such as a motor,
It is movable in the direction of arrow 31.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. The carrier 32 is placed at the initial print position, and in this state, the passbook 11 is sent to the print position in the same manner as in the above-mentioned embodiment, the holding ON-OFF mechanism is operated, and the passbook is clamped between the holding bodies 23 and 24. Next, the pressing ON-OFF mechanism 22 mounted on the carrier 32 is operated to press the thermal head 1 against the passbook 11, and the printing operation is performed while moving the carrier 32 to the arrow 31.

This embodiment can also obtain the same effect as the previous embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a view of still another embodiment of the present invention, in which a pair of rollers 35 and 36 are used instead of the sandwiching body 23, the sandwiching body 24, the sandwiching ON-OFF mechanism 25 and the sandwiching spring 26 of FIG. 11 is to be transported. Here, the roller 36 is driven and the roller
A pressure contact spring 34 holds and holds the passbook 11 in between. At this time,
The point to be noted is that the carrying force of the passbook 11 is set to the F ₂
However, it is necessary to set it so that it is larger than F ₁ of the platen and the head part.F ₁ also determines the conveyance accuracy of the passbook 11 of F ₂ , and F ₁ is the pressing force and friction coefficient of the head and platen. It depends on the print quality because it affects the print quality.
It must be decided after carefully examining the relationship between transport accuracy and print quality.

By making F ₁ and F ₂ have the above relationship,
The same effect as that of FIG. 1 can be obtained, and it can be realized with a simpler structure than that of FIG. 1 (the driving force is small because only the roller B36 is driven).

Although the above-described embodiments have described the printing elements using the printing principle of the thermal printing method, the present invention is not limited to this printing method, and printing is performed by closely contacting the printing element and the printing paper. Effective effects can also be achieved in the method. Examples of these different printing methods include an electrostatic printing method using electrostatic recording paper as a printing paper, an electric discharge destruction printing method using electric discharge destruction paper, and a printing method such as an electrophotographic method. The main feature is that it is configurable and can provide a high-speed and high-quality passbook printer.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, according to the present invention, a so-called non-impact printing method in which printing is performed in close contact with a printing sheet as a printing element is used, and a printing mechanism can be configured without impeding the characteristics of high-speed printing at all. To obtain a printing device that can maintain good adhesion between the printing element and printing paper even in a booklet with multiple sheets of paper, ensures good printing quality without printing deviation, and can be configured with a low-cost printing mechanism There is a great effect that can be.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view of a printing portion showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG.
1 is a perspective view of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a printing unit showing another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a sectional view of a printing unit showing a further embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5 is a sectional view of a printing portion when printing a single-cut sheet in the conventional embodiment, FIG. 6 is a sectional view of a printing portion when printing a passbook in the conventional embodiment, and FIG. 7 is a conventional embodiment. FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view of a printing unit when a problem occurs during passbook printing. 1 ... Thermal head, 2 ... Heating resistor 7 ... Thermal ink film 9 ... Platen roller, 11 ... Passbook 12 ... Crease, 16 ... Passbook cover 17 ... Middle paper, 21 ... Pressing spring 22 ...... Pressing ON-OFF mechanism, 23 and 24 …… Clamping body 25 …… Clamping ON-OFF mechanism, 26 …… Clamping spring 27a and 27b …… Support rail 30 …… Carrier, 32 …… Carrier 33a and 33b …… … Support rail 34 …… Pressure contact spring, 35 …… Roller 36 …… Roller

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A booklet in which a plurality of sheets are bound at a substantially central portion is conveyed in a direction substantially perpendicular to the binding direction, and the booklet is sandwiched between a printing element and a platen, and the printing element and the booklet are brought into close contact with each other. In a booklet printing apparatus that performs printing by performing the printing, a means for holding the front end in the transport direction of the booklet at a position where the front end in the transport direction of the booklet is transported beyond the printing element is provided. A booklet printing apparatus, wherein the booklet conveyed over the printing element is sandwiched by the sandwiching means, and printing is performed while maintaining the sandwiched state.