Ink ribbon feed mechanism in thermal transfer printer

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To provide an economical ink ribbon feed mechanism easy to handle an ink ribbon, by holding the ink ribbon by a ribbon clamper when a carriage is returned to a home position to draw out the unused part thereof from a ribbon cartridge and drawing the used part thereof into the ribbon cartridge. CONSTITUTION:A thermal head 13 is separated from recording paper and an ink ribbon 33 by a drive lever 20 while a ribbon clamper 14 is revolved and the ink ribbon 33 is held between a rubber pad 1 and a paper guide 4a by said rubber pad 1 and, in this state, a carriage 4 starts return running to the left to be returned to a home position. That is, because the ink ribbon 33 is moved to the left direction along with the carriage 4, the ink ribbon just corresponding to one line is replaced with the entirely unused ink ribbon 33. The taking-up side reel stand in a ribbon cartridge 29 begins to rotate along with the return running of the carriage by a reel driving mechanism and only a part sent out by the carriage 4 is taken up by a take-up reel 41.

Inventors

• 👤 Kazumi Fukawa
• 👤 府川　一美

Bibliographic Details