Ink Ribbon Skew Correction via Feeding Count Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
The printing quality degrades due to skewing of the film-shaped medium during initialization and printing operations, caused by non-uniform winding and rewinding, leading to inaccuracies in aligning the ink ribbon and transfer film, especially in low-frequency usage scenarios.
Innovation Solution
A printing apparatus with a supply section, wind-up section, and detection system that monitors the number of feeding times to shift the unused region in the wind-up direction, correcting skew by increasing the winding distance and preventing the use of skewed portions during printing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the film-shaped medium is rewound and wound repeatedly during initialization operations, then the medium is fed and positioned for printing, but skewing occurs due to non-uniform winding causing printing quality degradation
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary feeding operations a predetermined number of times before actual printing to position the film-shaped medium accurately. This preliminary action allows the medium to be fed from a skewed state to a non-skewed state, ensuring printing quality is not degraded by the skewing that occurs during repeated winding and rewinding operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention skips using the portion of the film-shaped medium that has been skewed by repeated winding and rewinding operations. By discarding this skewed portion and using only the subsequently fed non-skewed portion for printing, the system maintains high printing quality while still allowing initialization operations to proceed.
2Loss of substance
If the ink ribbon is rewound to reuse unused portions for half-size printing, then material utilization is improved, but printing wrinkles occur due to winding fluctuations
Solution Approach 1:
The system skips using the rewound portion of the ink ribbon that has undergone winding fluctuations. Even though this would improve material utilization, the invention prioritizes printing quality by discarding the skewed portion and using only the subsequently fed non-skewed portion, thereby preventing printing wrinkles.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention treats the rewound portion of the ink ribbon as disposable material that is discarded rather than reused. This approach accepts some material waste to ensure that only high-quality, non-skewed portions are used for printing, maintaining consistent printing smoothness.
3Productivity
If the film-shaped medium is fed from the wind-up spool, then the medium is supplied to the printing position, but skewing occurs causing deviation from the travel direction
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary feeding operations to allow the film-shaped medium to naturally settle into a non-skewed state before actual printing begins. This preliminary action ensures that even though skewing occurs during supply, the medium is properly positioned for accurate printing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system detects the number of feeding times and uses this information to determine when the medium has been fed sufficiently to eliminate skewing. This feedback mechanism allows the system to automatically adjust the feeding process to ensure position accuracy before printing commences.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Ensures stable printing quality by preventing printing on skewed regions, maintaining accuracy and reducing errors from repeated winding and rewinding shifts during initialization and power-on operations.
Implementation Method 1
a surface of the film that is a substrate of the ink ribbon is coated with sublimation ink, and the printing apparatus pulls an unused portion of the ink on the film out of the supply spool to nip with a thermal head and a platen roller in a state of overlapping the transfer film, and thereby sublimates the ink to the surface of the transfer film to print the image
Data Source
AI summary
To provide a printing apparatus that does not degrade the printing quality even when reciprocating shifts of a film-shaped medium are continued, an ink ribbon 41 that is the film-shaped medium is laid between a supply spool 43 and a wind-up spool 44 with regions used in printing on a single printing medium formed continuously in the longitudinal direction. A counter counts the number of times an unused region in the ink ribbon 41 located in a predetermined position between the supply spool 43 and the wind-up spool 44 reciprocates and shifts between the supply spool 43 and the wind-up spool 44, and when the number of times reaches the predetermined number, the wind-up spool 44 is driven to shift the region in the wind-up direction from the printing position.