JP2010280472A - Media conveying mechanism and printer device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a media conveying mechanism for applying tension corresponding to various conditions to correct the balance of right and left tensions of media and correct a skew so as to reduce raise of the media and occurrence of wrinkles. <P>SOLUTION: The conveying mechanism is used in a device using long belt-like media and includes a tension roller for applying tension to the conveyed media. The tension roller has a tension bar that applies tension to the media by bending a convey passage for conveying the media, and arms that are provided on both ends of the tension bar to support the tensions bar. The arms are made of elastic bodies. The elastic bodies are elongated and contracted separately, so that the tension bar is swingable on a surface orthogonal to a media conveying direction. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&amp;INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a media transport mechanism for transporting a belt-like long medium in a printer apparatus such as an ink jet printer, and a printer apparatus including the mechanism. Here, the medium means a substrate such as paper or vinyl chloride resin.

  2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, as a printer device that prints on a thin medium (medium) such as a film, an ink jet printer that uses a medium wound up in a roll shape is known (for example, see Non-Patent Document 1). In such an ink jet printer, when printing is performed by operating an ink jet head, the medium is fed out and wound up to convey the medium.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically illustrating a conventional inkjet printer. In the ink jet printer 100, ink is ejected from nozzles arranged on an ink jet head 130 that moves relatively above the platen 120 in the X-Y direction (the left-right direction and the front and back direction in the drawing) substantially parallel to the surface of the platen 120. Then, by causing the ink to land in the form of dots on the surface of the medium 110 such as a sheet mounted on the platen 120, it is possible to print characters, images, and the like composed of a plurality of ink dot arrays on the surface of the medium 110.

  In this printer apparatus, the inkjet head 130 is repeatedly reciprocated in the Y direction over the platen 120 with a certain movement stop time. On the other hand, the medium 110 is fed from the feeding roller 141 and is fed forward on the platen 120 in the forward (forward) X direction. Then, the inkjet head 130 is moved relatively in the XY direction over the medium 110. Further, the medium 110 on which an image or the like is printed is taken up by a take-up roller 147.

  In addition, some printer apparatuses of this type have a configuration in which tension is applied to the medium 110 by bending the conveyance path of the medium 110 (see, for example, Patent Document 1). In order to apply tension to the medium 110, generally, means for pressing a tension roller 143 extending in the width direction of the medium 110 on one side of the medium 110 is employed.

  By the way, in such a printer device, when the medium 110 being conveyed is wound around the winding roller 141, the weight and diameter of the roller increase as the medium 110 is wound around the periphery. The moment of inertia of the roller increases. Then, the tension applied to the medium 110 being wound up by the winding roller 141 changes greatly.

In the conventional method of applying tension by the self-weight of the tension roller 143 or the take-up roller 147, when the slack occurs in the medium 110 due to skew, a portion to which tension is added and a portion to which no tension is added are inevitably generated.
If the tension applied to the medium 110 varies from part to part, the transport amount varies, and the medium 110 is likely to skew or wrinkle during transport. In addition, when wrinkles or media floating occurs in the medium 110 in a portion where no tension is applied, a printing defect such as distortion or displacement occurs in an image printed in the portion.

  In the conventional media winding means, even if the media 110 is skewed or a difference in right and left tension occurs, the media winding means simply continues winding in the same direction and does not have a function that can improve the problem.

Japanese Patent Publication No. 2002-80152

Internet (URL: http://www.mimaki.co.jp/)

The present invention has been devised in view of such a conventional situation, and can add a tension corresponding to various conditions, correct the right / left tension balance of the medium, and correct the skew. An object of the present invention is to provide a media transport mechanism that reduces the occurrence of floating and wrinkles.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a printer device that can stably run a medium without printing defects by providing the media transport mechanism.

The transport mechanism according to claim 1 of the present invention is a transport mechanism that is used in an apparatus that uses a long belt-like medium, and includes a tension roller that applies tension to the transported medium, and the tension roller is a transport mechanism. A tension bar that applies tension to the medium by bending the transport path of the medium, and arm portions that are disposed at both ends of the tension bar and support the tension bar. It is constituted by an elastic body, and the tension bar can be swung in a plane perpendicular to the media transport direction by individually expanding and contracting the elastic bodies.
The transport mechanism according to claim 2 of the present invention is characterized in that, in claim 1, the elastic body is a coil spring.
A printer apparatus according to a second aspect of the present invention includes the transport mechanism according to the first or second aspect.

In the present invention, by configuring the arm part supporting both ends of the tension bar in the transport mechanism with an elastic body, even if slack occurs on the left and right sides of the media, the slack is absorbed by the expansion and contraction of the elastic body and further differs on the left and right. Tension can be added. As a result, the right / left tension balance of the medium can be corrected, and the occurrence of problems such as skew and wrinkles during the conveyance of the medium can be reduced. As a result, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a media transport mechanism that can reduce the occurrence of media floating and wrinkles and can stably run the media.
In addition, since the printer device of the present invention includes the media transport mechanism of the present invention, it is possible to correct the left and right tension balance during media transport, and to reduce the occurrence of problems such as skew and wrinkles. it can. As a result, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a printer device that can stably run a medium and that can print stably with no printing failure.

1 is a diagram illustrating a schematic configuration of a printer device according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram schematically showing a tension roller portion extracted from FIG. 1. In a tension roller, it is a figure showing typically the state where one coil spring (arm member) was extended. It is a figure which shows schematic structure of the conventional printer apparatus.

Hereinafter, a media transport mechanism and a printer device of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a printer apparatus according to the present invention. Here, an inkjet printer will be described as an example of the printer apparatus, but the present invention is not limited to this.
The ink jet printer (printer device) 1 uses ink from nozzles aligned with an ink jet head 30 that moves relative to the platen 20 in the X and Y directions (the horizontal direction and the front and back direction in FIG. 1). Is ejected and the ink is made to land on the surface of the medium 10 such as a sheet mounted on the platen 20 in the form of dots, whereby characters, images, etc. composed of a plurality of ink dot arrays are formed on the surface of the medium 10. Print.

  In this inkjet printer 1, the inkjet head 30 is repeatedly reciprocated in the Y direction over the platen 20 with a certain movement stop time. On the other hand, the medium 10 is fed forward on the platen 20 in the forward (forward) X direction. Then, the inkjet head 30 is moved relatively in the XY direction above the medium 10.

  In such an ink jet printer 1, a medium 10 such as a long belt-like sheet is fed forward by a predetermined distance in the X direction on the platen by a medium transport mechanism 40 described later, and the medium 10 on which an image or the like has been printed is rolled. Rolled up into a shape.

  Since the printer apparatus 1 of the present invention includes the media transport mechanism 40 specifically described later, even if the left and right sides of the medium 10 sag, the sag is caused by the expansion and contraction of the elastic body constituting the arm member. Can be absorbed, and different tensions can be applied to the left and right. As a result, it is possible to correct the left and right tension balance during the conveyance of the media, and to reduce the occurrence of problems such as skew and wrinkles. As a result, the printer device 1 of the present invention can stably run the medium 10 and can stably print without any printing failure.

Hereinafter, the transport mechanism of the present invention will be described.
The transport mechanism 40 is a device for transporting the medium 10 and transports the medium 10 while repeating transport and transport stop. In this example, the transport mechanism 40 includes a feeding roller 41, a motor 42, a tension roller 43, driven rollers 44, 45, 46, a table (platen 20), a take-up roller 47, and a motor 46.

  The feeding roller 41 is a roller that holds the media roll 10a, and rotatably holds the media roll 10a so that the media 10 is sequentially fed out from the media roll 10a according to the force with which the media 10 is pulled out. The motor 42 urges the feeding roller 41 in a direction opposite to the direction in which the medium 10 is fed out. Accordingly, the motor 42 adjusts the tension applied to the medium 10 by applying reverse tension.

The tension roller 43 presses and extends the medium 10 by bending the conveyance path of the medium 10 to be conveyed, and applies tension to the medium 10.
2 and 3 are diagrams schematically showing the tension roller 43 extracted from the transport mechanism 40 of the present invention.
The tension roller 43 is provided at each of the tension bar 50 for applying tension to the medium 10 to be conveyed, the arm bars 51a and 51b for supporting the tension bar 50, and the arm part 51a. , 51b, and an arm fixing portion 52 for fixing.

In particular, in the present invention, the arm portions 51a and 51b are made of an elastic body, and the elastic bodies are separately expanded and contracted, so that the tension bar 50 can swing in a plane perpendicular to the conveyance direction of the medium 10. It is characterized by being.
Examples of the elastic body include, but are not limited to, coil springs. In this embodiment, a case where a coil spring is used as an elastic body will be described as an example.
As shown in FIG. 3, the extension of the coil spring can be adjusted by moving the fixing portions of the arm portions 51 a and 51 b (coil springs) up and down, thereby adjusting the strength of tension for each medium used. Can do. Instead of changing the spring length (spring tension) manually, the spring length (spring tension) naturally changes by creating a slack side and a tension side on the left and right sides of the media.

By adjusting the extension of the coil spring in the arm portions 51a and 51b, the strength of the tension applied to the medium 10 can be adjusted. That is, when the coil spring is a tension spring in FIG. 3, the tension (spring elastic force) is increased by the extension of the spring in the arm portion 51 a (the tension side), and the tension applied to the medium 10 is growing. On the other hand, in the arm portion 51b (slack side), the tension (elastic force of the spring) is reduced by reducing the extension of the spring, and the tension applied to the medium 10 is reduced. Thus, even if slack occurs on the left and right sides of the media, the slack can be absorbed by the expansion and contraction of the coil spring, and further tension can be applied. Furthermore, skew can be corrected by applying different tensions on the left and right sides of the medium.
Here, the case where a tension spring is used as the coil spring has been described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be similarly applied even when a pressing spring is used.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the driven rollers 44, 45 and 46 are rollers for guiding the conveyance of the medium 10. The driven rollers 44, 45, 46 are respectively provided downstream of the feeding roller 41 in the transport direction of the medium 10, and rotate according to the movement of the transported medium 10.

  The table (platen 20) is a suction fixing stage that supports the lower surface of the medium 10 to be conveyed, and is provided between the driven roller 45 and the driven roller 46 so as to face the inkjet head 30 with the medium 10 interposed therebetween. ing. The platen 20 sucks the medium 10 at a predetermined degree of vacuum. Then, the medium 10 is fixed by suction at the timing when the conveyance is temporarily stopped. Note that after the medium 10 is fixed by suction, the inkjet head 30 performs printing on the fixed medium 10.

  The take-up roller 47 is a roller that takes up the medium 10 printed by the inkjet head 30, and is provided downstream of the driven roller 46 in the transport direction. The motor 48 rotates the take-up roller 47 in the direction in which the medium 10 is taken up. Accordingly, the take-up roller 47 sequentially feeds the media 10 from the media roll 10a held by the feed roller 41 and transports the media 10 in the transport direction.

  In such a transport mechanism 40 of the present invention, in the tension roller 43, the arm portions 51a and 51b that support both ends of the tension bar 50 are configured by coil springs (elastic bodies), so that slack is produced on the left and right sides of the medium 10. Even if it occurs, the slack can be absorbed by the expansion and contraction of the coil spring, and different tensions can be applied to the left and right. In addition, by adding tension corresponding to various conditions, it is possible to correct the left-right tension balance of the medium 10, and thereby reduce the occurrence of problems such as skew and wrinkles during conveyance of the medium. As a result, in the transport mechanism 40 of the present invention, it is possible to reduce the occurrence of media floating and wrinkles, and to make the media 10 run stably.

  As described above, the media transport mechanism and the printer apparatus using the same according to the present invention have been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and can be appropriately changed without departing from the spirit of the invention.

The media transport mechanism of the present invention and the printer apparatus using the same are, of course, ink jet printers, media of various belts for sheet printing, media for winding up strip-shaped media that are fed in order from belt-shaped fabric manufacturing equipment, etc. It can be widely used for a transport mechanism and a printer device.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Inkjet printer (printer apparatus), 10 media, 10a Media roll, 20 Platen, 30 Inkjet head, 40 Media conveyance mechanism, 41 Feeding roller, 42 Motor, 43 Tension roller, 44, 45, 46 Drive roller, 47 Winding roller 48 motor, 50 tension bar, 51a, 51b arm part, 52 arm fixing part

Claims (3)

A transport mechanism that is used in an apparatus that uses a long belt-like medium and includes a tension roller that applies tension to the transported medium,
The tension roller is
A tension bar that applies tension to the medium by bending the conveyance path of the medium to be conveyed;
It is arranged at both ends of the tension bar, and comprises an arm part that supports the tension bar,
The transport mechanism characterized in that the arm portion is formed of an elastic body, and the elastic body is separately expanded and contracted so that the tension bar can swing in a plane perpendicular to the medium transport direction. .   The transport mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the elastic body is a coil spring.   A printer apparatus comprising the transport mechanism according to claim 1.

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