摘要:
A thermal demand printer for printing on media is a novel system which includes a case structure including a hinged cover panel, easily removable guide structures and media hanger, and a single central support wall to which the various components are attached. The printer includes a power supply circuit for receiving power from an external source and conditioning it for operation of the printer. An input device is provided for receiving command signals related to the operation of the printer. A control circuit for processing the command signals and generating corresponding control signals for controlling the operation of the printer and a printhead assembly for processing the control signals and generating corresponding control signals for controlling the operation of the printer are mounted in the case structure and coupled to the input device and the power supply circuit. The printhead assembly includes a printhead support structure which controls the printhead. A ribbon take-up spindle, method of operating the take-up spindle using a PMDC motor, and a spring wrap clutch device help to control the tension in the transfer ribbon used in the printer. The printer also includes a medial sensor and a method of sensing media by way of detecting the opacity of the media passing through the sensor. The printer includes a method of printhead control using double data loading and a method of accelerating and decelerating media relative to the printhead using pulse width modulation.
摘要:
A thermal printer capable of performing multiple printing on a plurality of superposed recording paper sheets adapted for multiple printing. The thermal printer has a first printing mode for printing on heat-sensitive paper, a second printing mode for printing on plain paper by melting and transferring ink of an ink ribbon, and a third mode for multiple printing on multiple-printing sheets. Each of these printing modes is selected by a printing mode select switch. A control unit is provided which controls the traveling speed of a carriage and a unit time period for energizing a thermal head based on the selected printing mode.
摘要:
A thermal printer is equipped with apparatus for allowing the thermal printer to be quickly and easily adapted to the type of paper currently being used without the need for testing and adjusting to obtain an essentially optimum print quality. The printer can also be equipped with a temperature sensor, attached to the thermal print head and connected to the computer control to essentially also produce printed images of uniformly high quality regardless of temperature fluctuations of the thermal print head. The necessary information for providing the adjustment values for producing the high quality print can be stored in a read/write memory connected to the processor. Thus, for each thermal print head temperature, there can be a reference energy value which determines the amount of thermal energy to be generated by the heating elements, whereby the processor, after measuring the thermal print head temperature, selects a reference energy value corresponding to the temperature, and transmits it to the control circuit of the thermal print head.
摘要:
A thermal transfer recording and correction method, in which a thermal transfer ink layer is placed in contact with a transfer-receiving medium and is heated by heat generating elements of a thermal head in a pattern corresponding to a recording signal, is improved by preheating the ink layer. The ink layer, which is characterized by a transfer initiation temperature, is preheated by the thermal head which is heated by a preheating means. When a region of the ink layer is then further heated by the heat generating elements, the temperature of that region has a maximum and a minimum both within a range extending from the transfer initiation temperature to about 40.degree. C. higher than the transfer initiation temperature. Since the maximum and minimum temperatures are within a suppressed temperature range, an erroneous image can be more easily peeled off the transfer-receiving medium.
摘要:
A method for controlling binary thermal printers increases the effective output resolution of the thermal printer above the native resolution of a print head having a plurality of individual resistive heating elements arranged in a print line. An increase in the effective resolution of a binary output image is achieved by using an over-drive energy to control a relative position of a binary edge of a pixel image at a resolution that is less than the native resolution of the thermal printer. In a preferred embodiment, an under-drive energy may also be used with an adjacent over-drive energy to further control the relative position of the binary image of the pixel image. The over-drive energy is higher than a native pixel drive energy, but lower than a maximum drive energy. The native pixel drive energy produces a binary pixel image having a native area corresponding to the native resolution of the thermal printer. The binary pixel image on the print media corresponding to the heating elements to which the over-drive energy is applied are increased in area beyond the native area of the thermal printer, thereby enabling the thermal printer to realize an increase in an effective resolution of the binary image.
摘要:
A recording apparatus includes a plurality of recording elements a plurality of drive ICs, in which a plurality of drive signal lines containing a signal line for an image data signal and a signal line for a transfer clock which transfers the image data signal are connected in cascade. Each drive IC supplies a recording current selectively to the recording elements in correspondence to the image data signal. A transfer clock control circuit, which is located at an input part of the transfer clock in the recording apparatus, controls a duty of the transfer clock supplied to the drive ICs so that a duty ratio of the transfer clock at the final stage of the plurality of drive ICs is enough to transfer the image data signal.
摘要:
Disclosed is a thermal head comprising: plural heating elements, and a driving circuit element comprising plural switching elements connected individually to the heating elements, gate elements connected individually to the switching elements, and a shift register connected to the gate elements; wherein the plural heating elements are divided into plural blocks, and the gate elements of each block are connected to plural shift registers in the same number of bits as the number of heating elements of each block individually; strobe signals in the same number as the number of divisions of the block are fed into gate elements corresponding to each block; a clock gate element is provided in each block in order to obstruct clock input into the shift register corresponding to each block when printing of each block is active; and each block is further divided into plural small blocks, and the heating elements corresponding to each small block are disposed in every different block.
摘要:
A compatible thermal head includes multiple heat generating elements arranged in a row on a substrate, and multiple drive devices, selectively coupled to the heat generating elements, for driving a corresponding at least one of the heat generating elements. The quantity of drive devices is less than the quantity of heat generating elements. Also included in the thermal head are a strobe signal input device for receiving multiple external strobe signals as input, and a number-of-strobe-signals converting device, integral to the thermal head and coupled to the strobe signal input device, for converting the multiple external strobe signals received by the strobe signal input device into multiple internal strobe signals. The quantity of the internal strobe signals is greater than the quantity of the external strobe signals. The number-of-strobe-signals converting device supplies the internal strobe signals to corresponding ones of the drive devices to cause the drive devices to drive the corresponding at least one heat generating element in accordance with the internal strobe signal.
摘要:
There is disclosed a thermal printer system having a multiple channel laser print head which focuses closely spaced spots of laser light energy onto a dye donor element which moves at constant velocity relatively past the print head. These laser light spots respectively print multiple lines of an image a swath at a time by heat transfer of pixels or subpixels of dye from the dye donor element to a receiver element. A light source (such as an arc lamp) applies to the dye donor element one or more precisely positioned spots of light energy which elevate the temperature of the dye donor element substantially uniformly within a zone coincidently with and closely surrounding the laser light spots. The shape, the position and the power absorbed within the zone from the light source are carefully controlled. Thus the temperature within this zone is held to a substantially uniform value slightly below the vaporization temperature of the dye to be transferred from the dye donor element. In this way the linearity and fidelity of a printed image are substantially improved, and "printing artifacts" such as banding and streaking are reduced.
摘要:
A recording apparatus for performing recording on a recording medium includes a plurality of recording elements, and a control unit for selectively providing energy having a level lower than an actual recording level to adjacent ones of the plurality of recording elements and to successively apply the energy to the see recording element when the energy is applied to the recording elements within waiting time from an end of a recording operation to a start of the next recording operation.