JPH06320856A - Recording medium for printing - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Abstract] [Object] The present invention, in a printing apparatus as an information processing apparatus, reliably transports printing media one by one from a medium transport mechanism to improve the positional accuracy of the medium in the printing apparatus. By doing so, it is an object to provide a recording medium for obtaining a printed matter with high printing quality. According to the present invention, a portion having a rough surface is provided on a printing medium, and a roller of a medium feeding mechanism of the apparatus is pressed against the portion so that the printing medium can be reliably fed sheet by sheet. It is a thing.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording medium for printing devices such as ink jet printers, thermal transfer printers, laser printers and the like. Due to the widespread use of personal computers, word processors, and the like, demands for the above-described printing devices have increased as output devices for these. with this,
The recording media are also diversified, and the surface states of the recording media greatly differ. Further, from the viewpoint of improving recording quality, it is often the case that a recording medium suitable for each printing device is selected. On the other hand, in order to improve the recording quality, it has become important to reliably convey the recording medium to a predetermined position in the printer. In particular, in the case of full-color recording in which three colors of yellow, magenta, and cyan, or four colors of black added thereto are superposed and recorded, the conveyance accuracy of the recording medium is further improved so that there is no color misregistration between the colors. Strict things are required.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, plain paper of a predetermined size is simply used as a recording medium in which individual sheets, which are called single-cut sheets, are disjointed and there are no special guide holes for feeding the paper. Just cut into pieces, coated paper with the surface coated to obtain high quality recording, special paper or synthetic paper that has been subjected to calendering, which is a mechanical treatment to improve smoothness. There are also cases. In addition, a transparent film made of a high molecular compound such as polyester, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, polypropylene, etc. cut into a predetermined size has been used as an OHP film used as a recording medium in the same manner as paper. Such a recording medium called a single-cut sheet is picked up one by one at the time of printing from a sheet feeding cassette for storing the recording medium or an object called a cut sheet feeder (CSF), and is conveyed in the printing apparatus during the printing. It is necessary to reliably convey the sheets one by one until printing is performed and the sheets are discharged to the outside of the printing apparatus.

In the printing apparatus currently used, as a method of picking up a recording medium from a paper feed cassette or CSF, a roller such as rubber or the like is brought into contact and the roller In many cases, a friction feed, which is a method of picking up the recording medium and feeding it into the printing apparatus by the frictional force between the recording medium and the like, is used. However, as described above, recording media are diversified, and their surface states are also diversified. The surface of coated paper for high-quality printing has a high smoothness, and especially for paper that has been mechanically processed to improve smoothness and synthetic paper, there is a difference in smoothness between the front and back. It has disappeared, and in many cases both sides are in a very smooth state. Further, since the film is used for the OHP film, both the front and the back are very smooth as compared with the paper. When such a recording medium is used, in the above-mentioned pickup mechanism, the frictional force generated between the roller and the recording medium greatly varies depending on the surface condition of the recording medium. In a recording medium having high smoothness, the frictional force becomes small, a sufficient force for conveying the recording medium cannot be obtained, and slippage occurs, which may make it impossible to secure an appropriate medium conveyance amount. Further, as an example partially similar to the embodiment of the present invention described below, an opaque paper or the like is used for the OHP film as a sensor marker for detecting the paper feed timing and the like. Although an invention of pasting (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-90647) has also been made, since it is intended to be used as a marker of a sensor, the opacity of paper to be pasted on a film is mentioned, but it is smooth. There is no description about the property, and when using paper with both high smoothness and high opacity, the problem that the friction force between the medium and the roller is insufficient and the transport amount of the medium remains unstable still remains. However, it cannot be a measure for realizing reliable medium conveyance. The present invention has been made in view of such conventional problems, in a printing device to which a medium transport mechanism that has been conventionally used is applied, reliably transports one medium at a time, An object of the present invention is to provide a recording medium for realizing a printed matter with high print quality by improving the positional accuracy of the medium in the printing apparatus.

FIG. 1 illustrates the principle of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 10 is a recording medium, and 11 is a portion in which the surface state of the printing surface of the recording medium is rough. The present invention is characterized in that the recording medium is provided with a portion having a rough surface state, that is, a portion having a large frictional force with the medium conveying roller.
Further, the rough surface portion of the recording medium (the surface-roughened portion) may be provided at least at the portion where the roller contacts the recording medium.

The roller, which is the medium conveying mechanism of the printing apparatus, comes into contact with the recording medium 10 from the front side of the recording medium, which is the printing surface, and picks up one of the stacked media and conveys it to the printing unit. At this time, the state of the portion 11 where the surface state of the recording medium has been changed (however, the same side as the printing surface of the recording medium) has a poorer surface smoothness than the other portions, so the printed portion of the recording medium is Even if the surface state of (1) is smooth like a film, the frictional force with the roller is secured and the medium is reliably transported.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. First, FIG. 2 shows a structure of a main part of a color electrophotographic apparatus which is a typical example of an apparatus in which the recording medium of the present invention is used. In the figure, four developing devices 4 (4Y, 4M, 4C,
4B) has toners of four colors, one for each color. The intermediate transfer belt 5 is wound around a drive roller 7, a tension roller 10, and a primary transfer roller 6, and is pressed against the photoconductor 1 at the position of the primary transfer roller 6 and the position of the drive roller 7. Is pressed against the secondary transfer roller 16. Further, the intermediate transfer belt 5 orbits the primary transfer roller 6, the tension roller 10, and the drive roller 7 in the same direction as the rotation of the photoconductor 1 by the rotation of the drive roller 7. First, the photoconductor 1 rotating in the A direction is
The charging brush 2 uniformly charges the entire surface so that the surface has a predetermined charging voltage. On the photoconductor 1 that is fully charged,
Laser light 31 that is turned on / off according to the image pattern to be printed is emitted from the exposure device 3, and an electrostatic latent image according to the image pattern is formed. This electrostatic latent image is visualized by one of the four color developing devices 4 to be a toner image. Further, this toner image is transferred to the intermediate transfer belt 5 by the primary transfer roller 6. When the transfer to the intermediate transfer belt 5 is completed, the photoconductor 1 is destaticized by the destaticizer 8, and the cleaner 9 cleans the untransferred toner. By repeating this cycle four times, the developing device 4
Thus, the toner images developed on the photoconductor 1 are transferred one by one onto the intermediate transfer belt 5 in an overlapping manner, and the transfer (primary transfer) of the color toner images onto the intermediate transfer belt 5 is completed. The color toner image that has been transferred onto the intermediate transfer belt 5 is transferred by the secondary transfer roller 16 onto the recording paper 10 picked by the roller 30 from the paper feeding cassette 40 (secondary transfer), The image is fixed by the fixing device 12 and the color image recording is completed. After the transfer onto the recording paper 10, the intermediate transfer belt 5 is cleaned of the untransferred toner by the belt cleaner 13, and the toner image of the next cycle is transferred. As described above, the medium transporting mechanism of the printing apparatus currently used has a roller 3 made of rubber, resin, metal or the like as shown in the schematic view of FIG.
However, the medium 10 is picked up one by one from the paper feed cassette 4 by the frictional force generated when the medium 10 comes into contact with the medium 10 from the front side, and thereafter, the medium 10 is picked up by the rollers 3 arranged appropriately.
The type in which the paper is conveyed to the printing section is adopted in many printers because of its simple mechanism and low cost. This recording medium is intended to improve print quality, and recording media intended for color recording require the homogeneity of the surface condition, so synthetic paper, coated paper, calendar processing, etc. Many homogeneous and highly smooth papers such as special papers that have been subjected to are used. Surface roughness (ten-point average roughness; Rz) is one of the numbers that specifically express the surface state of the recording medium. This surface roughness is R for paper generally used as copy paper.
z≈20 μm, and for other papers synthetic paper Rz ≦ 6 μ
m, special paper Rz ≦ 12 μm, OHP film <1 μm
There are considerable differences depending on the medium used. (Rz
The smaller the number is, the higher the smoothness.) As described above, in a recording medium having high smoothness, the frictional force generated between the roller and the recording medium is small, and slippage may occur between the roller and the recording medium. Is as described above. Further, in an extreme case, when the recording medium in the paper feed cassette is picked up by the roller, it may not be picked up due to insufficient frictional force. On the other hand, when a general recording medium called plain paper, which is generally used as copy paper, is used, the medium can be reliably transported without the above-mentioned pickup failure. Therefore, the surface roughness Rz ≧ 20 μ, which is equal to or higher than that of copy paper.
If m is set, it can be said that conveyance failure due to insufficient frictional force between the recording medium and the roller can be prevented. An example of applying the recording medium according to the present invention will be shown below. Example 1 Acrylic rubber 10%, 1.1.1. Trichloroethane 6
5%, spray type adhesive consisting of 25% LPG,
High-speed NIP paper that is plain paper (Kishu Paper Co., Rz ≈ 2
1 μm) evenly sprayed onto synthetic paper (recording surface: R
A recording medium for a printer was prepared by laminating a part of the printing surface of the recording medium 1 (z = 6 μm). (FIG. 3) Example 2 OHP film made of polyester film (Rz <1
μm) with the same adhesive used in Example 1 above, Spicabond (manufactured by Mitsubishi Paper Mills, Rz≈30 μm)
Was attached to a part of the printing surface to prepare a recording medium for a printer. (FIG. 4) Comparative Example 1 The OHP film used in Example 2 in which nothing was attached to the recording surface. The following table shows the results of comparing the medium transportability between the printer recording medium obtained as described above and the comparative example. As described above, the recording media obtained in Examples 1 and 2 did not cause any problem during printing. Further, in Examples 1 and 2, the paper attached to the back surface after printing could be easily peeled off. As a result, as shown in Example 2, O
It was confirmed that even a film for HP could be used by peeling the paper attached to the opaque back surface after printing without any problem in light transmission when it was hung on a projector. Further, even if the user does not want to make the recorded matter thick by attaching another paper to the back surface, removing the paper from the back surface after printing does not cause any particular problem. Further, when the recording medium to be used is made of a resin such as a film for OHP, as a method of forming a portion whose surface state is rougher than that of the recording portion, other than the method of sticking paper as in Examples 1 and 2 In addition, a roller (Rz on the roller surface) at a temperature slightly higher than the heat deformation temperature of the resin material
≧ 20 μm) (for polyester film, the heat deformation temperature is 240 ° C., so the roller temperature is approximately 260 ° C.), or the recording material is masked and the resin material is melted. A method in which a solvent is dropped and a roller having a surface condition of Rz ≧ 20 μm is pressed to form (in the case of polyvinyl chloride, dissolved by acetone) was also effective.

As described above, according to the present invention, a paper that has been mechanically processed for high quality recording, a synthetic paper for color recording, and an OHP film can be used. When it is used, troubles when the medium is conveyed are eliminated, and it greatly contributes to the improvement of the quality of printed matter.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle diagram of a recording medium according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a printing apparatus using the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a first embodiment of a recording medium according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a second embodiment of the recording medium according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 recording medium 11 roughened surface

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Kyota Akeno 1015 Kamiodanaka, Nakahara-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Fujitsu Limited

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A recording medium (10) used in a printing apparatus, wherein a roughened portion (11) is formed on the recording medium (10).
A recording medium for printing, comprising: