JPH01294068A - Heat-sensitive recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent generation of shortening of the life-time and sticking of a heating element and so on, by judging whether respective surrounding dots around a printed dot are printed or not, and by heat-controlling the heating element corresponding to non-printed dots in such manner that said heating element is kept warm and heated within a temperature range where no ink is transferred to a recording medium. CONSTITUTION:When there are printed data of dots to be printed 2, 3 and non-printed dots 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a heating element corresponding to dots 1, 5, 6, 8, 9 being originally no printed data is kept warm and heated at a temperature within a range where no ink is transferred to a recording medium. Said dots to be printed 2, 3 is given an applied energy usually necessary for printing. Thus, unnecessary heat dissipation from a necessary printed dot heating element is decreased so that an excessive energy is not required to be supplied and neither shortening of the life-time nor sticking of said heating element are generated. Also, a single dot and vertical and horizontal one-dot lines can be printed with a high accuracy.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a thermal transfer recording device capable of high-definition and high-speed printing.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Conventionally, heat-sensitive recording devices have been thermally controlled using various methods so that printed dots always have a constant shape. For example, if there is print data on the previous line, we can use pre-history control to reduce the energy applied to the heating element in consideration of the influence of residual heat, or when printing one vertical line or one dot, we can prevent energy shortages due to heat dissipation in the horizontal direction. To compensate,
Adjacency control, etc., is generally performed in which the presence or absence of printing on several adjacent dots on both sides is checked, the energy applied to the heating element is controlled depending on the situation, and the necessary and sufficient applied energy is applied to the head.

However, the above adjacency control, as shown in FIG.
Dots ■ on both sides of the dot ■ that should be printed.

Determine whether [Yes] is printed or not printed, for example, dot ■.

If both [phase] are not printed, dots of a certain shape are reproduced by printing with a larger applied energy taking into consideration the heat dissipation in the lateral direction calculated in advance. However, by increasing the applied energy, the life of the head heating element is shortened and sticking occurs due to fusion between the back surface of the ink ribbon and the head heating element. In addition, both the antecedent control and the adjacent control are methods that increase or decrease the energy applied to the printed dot after determining the surrounding conditions of the printed dot, and there is also an upper limit to the energy, so perfect control cannot be achieved. .

Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the conventional configuration, after determining the surrounding situation of the printed dot,
Since energy was applied to the printing dots in proportion to the amount of heat dissipated to the surroundings, problems such as shortened heating element life and sticking occurred, and it was not sufficient to print points or single dot lines. Correction was not possible and blurring occurred.

The present invention solves these problems and provides a thermal recording device capable of high-definition printing.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to solve these problems, the present invention does not change only the energy amount of the printed dot, but also determines whether the dots surrounding the printed dot are printed or non-printed, and determines whether the dots surrounding the printed dot are printed or not. The heat is controlled so that the heating element corresponding to the dot is heated within a temperature range that does not transfer the ink to the recording medium.

Function: With this configuration, unnecessary heat radiation from the heating element of the necessary printed dots can be reduced, there is no need to supply excessive energy, there is no reduction in the life of the heating element, there is no sticking, and there is no fading. Furthermore, it is possible to print single dots, single dot lines vertically and horizontally, and the like with high precision without shortening the life of the heating element or causing sticking.

Example An embodiment of the present invention will be described using FIGS. 1 to 6.

As shown in Figure 1, when there is print data such as dots ■, ■ to be printed and non-print dots ■, ■, ■, ■, ■, ■, 0, there are print data such as ■, ■, ■, ■, which are not originally print data. Heat the heating element corresponding to the dot (2) at a temperature that does not transfer the ink to the recording medium. Dots to be printed■,
(2) Apply the applied energy necessary for normal printing. Comparing the temperature distribution pattern of the horizontal 3 dots in this case with the temperature distribution B in the case of conventional adjacent control, the result is as shown in Figure 2.The present invention is safe for sticks and the ink is sufficiently melted. can be done.

Next, the actual circuit configuration will be explained. For example, assume that the print data is data in which only the center of three dots is printed as shown in FIG. First, as shown in Fig. 4, print data 1 is a b
input into shift register 2 of it, adjacent 5 bits
The print information of t is supplied to the address input of the memory 3. Next, outputs corresponding to the inputs shown in Table 1 are input to the line type thermal head side. 4 is an adjacent control section.

(Margins below C) Table 1 If output data 1 and 7 are represented graphically, it will be as shown in Figure 5. Output data 1 is in the heat retention state, and output data 7 is in the print heating state. As a result, when printing point or one-dot lines, the heat-sensitive recording device is capable of high-definition printing without causing scratches or the like. Furthermore, since the energy applied to the printing dots can be reduced, it is also possible to increase the printing speed.

Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained.

(1) Since unnecessary heat radiation from the necessary printing dot heating element is reduced, there is no need to supply excess energy, eliminating shortening of the heating element life and occurrence of sticking.

(2) Individual dots and vertical and horizontal dot lines can be printed with high precision.

[Brief Description of the Drawings] Figures 1 and 3 are dot arrangement diagrams for explaining the thermal recording device of the present invention, Figure 2 is a characteristic diagram showing temperature distribution,
FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a characteristic diagram showing the relationship between pulse application state and head temperature, and FIG. 6 is a dot arrangement diagram for explaining the conventional example. be. 1... Print data, 2... Shift register, 3... Memory, 4... Adjacent control section. Name of agent: Patent attorney Toshio Nakao and one other person
1 Figure? Figure 2 Do Soto NO Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 To Ginma Hals Figure 6 11'・) /816 /1

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) According to the print data, the heating element of the line type thermal head is heated and the ink on the ribbon is transferred to the recording medium to form the print, and the print dots are centered on the print data. A thermal sensor that determines whether 1 or 2 dots in the front, rear, left, and right matrix is printing or non-printing, and heats the heating element corresponding to the non-printing dot to keep it warm within a temperature range that does not transfer ink to the recording medium. Recording device. (2) The thermal recording device according to claim 1, wherein the range of dots for determining printing or non-printing is set to the left and right of a printing dot, or to two dots.