JPS62249138A - Laser recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To reduce the size and thickness of a device and to obtain high quality and high performance by forming a longitudinally long film run passage and arranging a heat developing part above the device, and bringing the reverse side of the emulsion surface of a film into contact with the lower outer peripheral surface of a heat roller. CONSTITUTION:The run passage for the film F is made longitudinally long and the heat roller 16 of the heat developing part is arranged above the device to make the device longitudinally long and thin on the whole and also reduce its installation area. Namely, the film F is drawn out of an unexposed film cassette 1 below a laser recorder, passed through the longitudinally long film run passage, and taken up above, thereby reaching the heat developing part of the heat roller 16 after being exposed by a laser optical system. Here, the reverse surface of the emulsion surface of the film F abuts on the lower outer peripheral surface of the heat roller 16. Therefore, even if the film F moves to its stand-by position, a heat source is above the film F, so there is almost no influence of heat.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a laser recording device that uses a laser as a light source and performs heat development treatment after recording image 1 information on a roll of dry silver salt film. The laser recording device of the present invention can be used as a computer output microfilm production device M (hereinafter simply referred to as COM).

[Prior Art] In recent years, as the performance of various information processing devices including computers has progressed, 3+i
? It is desired to improve the performance and expand the functions of i, and in particular, devices that use lasers as light sources such as laser printers are attracting attention, and CO
Regarding M, there is an increasing need to further promote the miniaturization and thinning of devices, ease of operation, and higher performance.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) The present invention is capable of high-quality, high-density image information recording processing, and is easy to handle due to its small size and thinness, and further reduces CO2.
An object of the present invention is to provide a laser recording device suitable for use as M'8.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) A laser recording device of the present invention includes a housing, a film feeding section for a roll of heat-developable film disposed at a lower portion within the housing, and the feeding section. a film winding section disposed in the -F section in the housing to form a vertically elongated film running path between the film feeding section and the film winding section formed between the film feeding section and the film winding section; d is placed in the middle part of the housing.
By driving the film at a constant speed, the g of the recorded image is
The information recording section 111 consists of a main drive device that performs one scan, a laser optical system, and irradiates a laser beam that main scans the recorded image in the width direction of the film held and driven by the main drive device; The film is disposed facing the film running path between the drive device and the film winding section, and travels along the film running path in order to thermally develop the image information recorded on the film in the image information recording section. It is characterized by comprising a heat developing section including a heating roller that comes into contact with the back side of the emulsion side of the film from above.

That is, the laser recording device of the present invention includes a main drive device that performs sub-scanning of a recorded image by driving the film at a constant speed;
Image information is recorded on a roll of dry silver halide film by a laser optical system that main scans the recorded image in the width direction of the film held and driven by the main drive device and irradiates it with laser light, and then undergoes heat development in a heat development section. This is a device that creates microfilm in roll or fish form. In particular, we arranged the components that make up the film travel path to make the device long and thin, and special consideration was given to the placement of the thermal development section, which is directly related to the temperature rise of the device and the film, which is the recording medium. , the thermal development section is installed at the top of the housing, and is arranged so as to be in contact with the lower outer peripheral surface of the heating roller on the back side of the emulsion surface of the film.

(Detailed Description of the Structure of the Invention) Here, the housing refers to a vertically elongated box-shaped container that houses the laser recording device according to the present invention and is made of gold m1 material.

Roll heat developable film is 8mm, 16mm, 3mm
35mm, 148mm, etc. dry-processed silver halide film, such as Dakomatic (registered trademark) film stored in Kodak's 170m capacity maximum capacity 1~, and roll-form film with equivalent specifications. .

The film feeding section refers to a cassette attached to the lower part of the housing and a section that pulls out the leading end of the unexposed film from the cassette and sequentially sends it out toward the image information recording section.

The film running path is a path along which the film is moved, which is predetermined in the housing of the device so that the film drawn out from the above-mentioned film feeding section passes through.

The film winding section is a section that is disposed at the upper part of the housing and includes a member for winding and storing the exposed and developed film in a jacket shape or roll shape.

The main drive device records i! by driving the film at a constant speed. This device performs scanning of an image in the Y-axis direction, that is, sub-scanning, and has a main drive roller that is driven at a constant speed of 2.5 mm/sec by a stepping motor, for example, in order to feed the film at a low speed with high precision.

The image information recording unit is a laser optical system that uses a helium/neon laser as a light source and includes an optical modulator that modulates the beam to form an image, a rotating polygon mirror that scans the modulated beam in line, an f/θ lens, etc. It consists of The recorded image is scanned in the X-axis direction, that is, the main scan, in the width direction of the film held and driven by the main drive device mentioned above, and the laser beam is irradiated with a finely focused laser beam onto the film! (III
This is the part that records information as a latent image.

The thermal TJA image section is a section that uses heat to develop the image information recorded on the film by the image information recording section described above, and is located above the housing between the main drive device and the film winding section. It includes a heated roller that the film contacts. This heating roller has a rotating shaft arranged horizontally and is arranged so as to come into contact with the back side of the emulsion surface of the film from above.

The timing roller is a roller that is disposed between the above-mentioned main drive device and the thermal development section and has the function of guiding the film and controlling the heating time of the film by the heating roller.

The image density detection member detects the density of an image that has been developed, and controls the amount of exposure from the helium/neon laser that is the light source in accordance with the binding of (A). It is configured as a sensor that combines a light emitting diode and a photodiode.

The term "film winder" refers to a film cutter, which cuts the film to a desired length when it is desired to store the finished microfilm in the form of a jacket.

[Embodiment of the Invention] A schematic diagram of an embodiment of a laser recording apparatus according to the present invention is shown in FIG.

Dacomatic (registered trademark) film, which is a 161111 dry silver salt film, was used as the recording medium.

The film F is stored in the unexposed film cassette 1 in the form of a roll, and the capacity of the film F is +1170 m. The cassette 1 was configured to be attached to a film feeding section provided at the bottom of the housing 100 of the recording device.

The travel path of the film F fed out from the unexposed film cassette 1 includes a lower guide roller 2, a film feed roller 3, a presser roller 4 that presses the film F against this roller, a lower film loop forming section 5, and a lower loop detection section. Member 6, loading roller 7 and presser roller 8, main drive roller 9 and upper guide roller 10 that constitute the main drive device
and presser roller 11, upper film loop forming section 12
, -h section loop detection member 13, timing roller 14 and presser roller 15 on the inlet side of the heating roller (described later), heating roller 16 constituting the thermal developing section, drive roller 17 and presser roller 18 on the exit side of the heating roller 16. , image density detection units 119a and 19b.

Drive roller 20, press roller 21, film cutter 11
Cutter 22 and take-out roller 23.2 which are Fi members
4, a film take-up reel 25, and a film tray 26. Note that the main drive roller 9 holds Ali! so that when the film F passes the main drive roller 9, image information is recorded on the film F as a latent image. i! The light source is a helium-neon laser 27 that irradiates laser light for main scanning of the recorded image in the width direction of the film to be scanned.
A laser optical system consisting of a lens part 29 including lenses and the like is arranged opposite to the main drive roller 9.

With the above configuration, the film F is pulled out from the bottom of the laser recording device, passes through the vertical film running path, and passes through the WAl
It was made to be wound up on the top of F.

A film feeding roller 3 for drawing out the film F from the unexposed film cassette 1 is driven by a nervo motor.

The film loop formed on the film running path is designed to prevent torque from other drive systems from being transmitted to the main drive roller 9 through the film F, and to increase the accuracy of constant speed rotation of the main drive roller 9. It has the function of absorbing speed differences in the drive system. The loop detecting member 6.13 for keeping the size or quantity of the film loop constant can take various configurations, provided that it does not damage the image recording edge surface of the film. In this embodiment, as an example, a sensor 2 that combines an infrared light emitting diode and a photodiode is used.
It is shown that it is composed of groups.

Since the main drive roller 9 rotates at a constant speed of 2.5 mm/sec, the size of the film loop detected by the lower loop detection member 6 is fed back to the servo motor (not shown) that drives the film feed roller 3. and the feeding roller 3
Let the rotational speed of IIJ be all.

When the film loop is large and the film F blocks both of the two sets of infrared sensors of the loop detection member 6, the film feeding roller 3 stops. Next, as the main drive roller 9 rotating at a constant speed gradually feeds the film, the loop decreases until it no longer blocks both of the above-mentioned two sets of infrared sensors, and the film that had been stopped is fed out. Roller 3 is driven again. By repeating the above operations, the size or amount of the film loop can be maintained within a certain range.

The main drive 0-59 has the function of performing scanning in the Y-axis direction, that is, sub-scanning, when recording image information on the film F. For this reason, it is necessary to feed the film at low speed with high precision. Specifically, in order to form an image of 9600 DPr on a film, sub-scanning must be performed at a line pitch of 2.6 μm. Also, since 15 frames are written per minute, each frame is written in 4 seconds.

Since the length of one frame is 10i-, as described above, <
It is necessary to feed the film at an extremely low speed of 2.5 mm/sec. For this purpose, the main drive roller 9 performs microstep feeding using a stepping motor. The current between each step of the stepping motor is controlled to ensure highly accurate feeding.

By driving the film at a constant speed with drive vJ [1-ra 9, the recorded image is sub-scanned, and the film F, which has been exposed to the laser beam that performs main scanning in the width direction of the film, is exposed to the upper loop. The detection member 13 controls the size or amount of the loop to be maintained constant, thereby controlling the drive of the timing roller 14 that controls the development time.

After passing through the timing roller 14, the film F comes into contact with the lower outer circumferential surface of a heating roller 16 having a horizontally arranged rotating shaft. That is, the back side of the emulsion side of the film F contacts the heating roller 16 from below.

The heating row 516 was maintained at 115°C. The development time was set to 5 seconds in accordance with the characteristics of the film F used in this example.

When thermal development is performed, if the rotating shaft of the heating roller 16 is arranged vertically and the film F is brought into contact with the outer circumferential surface of the heating roller 16 from the side, a temperature difference will occur above and below the position of the film F. As a result of experiments, it was found that when the difference exceeded the range of ±1.5°C, uneven development occurred. In addition, the rotation axis of the heating roller 16 is arranged horizontally, and the heating roller 516 is placed from below the film F.
It was found that in the case where the film E is in contact with the film E, there is a high possibility that the shape of the film will change due to heat because there is a heat source underneath even if the film E is retracted when not being developed.

Therefore, in an embodiment according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, the heating roller 16 is arranged with its rotating shaft horizontally, and the back side of the emulsion side of the film is brought into contact with the lower surface of the heating roller 16 from below. This avoids the problems mentioned above. That is, since the heat source is above the film, there is almost no effect of heat when the film moves to the retracted position. The developed film F is pulled by the film take-out rollers 23 and 24 and guided to the film winding section 25 or 26, and a density detection member 19a11 is placed between the film travel paths.
9b and the film cutting member 22 were arranged. The image density detection units $419a and 19b detect the density of the image after development, and depending on the result, the helium neon laser exposure layer is
II m. Further, the film cutting member 22 is activated when it is desired to cut the microfilm into a predetermined length and store it in a jacket shape. After being cut, the film F is sent by take-out rollers 23 and 24 and stored in the film tray 26. On the other hand, when storing the film in roll form, the film F is not used and the film F is placed on the take-up reel 25. Let it wind up.

[Effects of the Invention] The laser recording device of the present invention has a configuration in which the film running path is vertically elongated and the thermal development section is disposed above the device, so that the entire device is vertically long and thin, and the installation area is small. In the present invention, as described above, the heat source is located above the housing, and the back side of the emulsion side of the film is brought into contact with the lower outer circumferential surface of the heating roller of the thermal development section. There is no danger of being directly affected by this, and the possibility of uneven printing can be almost eliminated.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an embodiment of the laser recording apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the operational relationship between the heat developing roller and the film in the laser recording apparatus of the present invention. F...Film (roll-shaped heat-developable film) 1...
・Unexposed film cassette (film feeding section) 3...
Film feeding roller (film feeding section) 9... Main drive roller (main driving device) 14... Timing [1-ra 16... Heating [1-ra (thermal development section) 19a, 19b... Image S degree detection member 22... Film cutting member 25... Take-up reel (film winding section) 26... Film tray (film winding section) 27... Helium...
Neon laser (laser optical system) 28...Rotating polygon mirror (
Lehde optical system) 29... Lens group (Lehde optical system) 100... Housing

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) A housing, a film feeding section for a roll of heat-developable film disposed at a lower portion within the housing, and a film feeding section disposed at an upper portion within the housing to form a vertically elongated film running path between the feeding section. a film winding section, which is disposed at a middle section in the housing on the film running path formed between the film feeding section and the film winding section, and drives the film at a constant speed to record images. a main drive device that performs sub-scanning of the image; Disposed facing the film running path between the drive device and the film winding section, and traveling along the film running path in order to thermally develop the image information recorded on the film in the image information recording section. 1. A laser recording device comprising a heat developing section including a heating roller that contacts the back side of the emulsion surface of the film from above. (2) The laser recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the heating roller has a rotating shaft arranged horizontally, and the film is arranged to abut a lower outer circumferential surface of the heating roller. (3) A timing roller is disposed between the heat developing section and the main drive device to regulate the film running path therebetween and to control the heating time of the film by the heating roller. Laser recording device. (4) The laser recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein an image density detection member and a film cutting member are sequentially disposed along the film running path between the thermal development section and the film winding section.