Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Composite – Of wax or waxy material
Patent
1998-02-09
2000-06-13
Hess, Bruce
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Composite
Of wax or waxy material
346218, 428195, 428480, 428484, 428500, 428913, 428914, B41M 510
Patent
active
060747609
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a thermo-transfer ribbon with a standard carrier and a layer of thermo-transfer color formed on one side of the carrier, and a separation layer between carrier and the layer of thermo-transfer color.
Thermo-transfer ribbons have been known for some time. They have, on a foil-type carrier, consisted of for example, paper, plastic or similar materials, and a thermo-transfer color, specifically in the form of a plastic- and/or wax-bonded dye- or carbon black layer. The thermo-transfer color is softened in thermo-print technology by means of a thermal print head and transferred to recording or printing paper. Thermal printers or thermo print heads which can be used for this process are known, for example, from DE-AS 20 62 495 and 24 06 613 and from DE-OS 32 34 445. The following step-by-step procedure may, for example, be followed: On the thermo-print head of the printer a letter, which consists of heated dots and which is to be printed onto a piece of paper, is formed. The thermo-print head presses the thermo transfer ribbon onto imprintable paper. The heated letter of the thermo print head, having a temperature of approximately 400.degree. C. causes the thermo-transfer color to be softened at the heated location and transferred to the piece of paper in contact therewith. The utilized part of the thermo-transfer ribbon is passed to a spool.
So-called serial or line printers may be employed for printing. The serial printers operate with a relatively small, movable print head up to approximately 1 cm.sup.2. On it are arranged, vertically relative to the printing direction, one or two rows of dots (dot=targeted heated point). The dot diameter ranges between approximately 0.05 and 0.25 mm. The number of dots per dot-line ranges between 6 and 64, which corresponds to a resolution of between 2 to 16 dots/mm. Higher resolutions, for example 24 to 32 dots/mm, can be expected in the near future. It is characteristic with respect to the serial thermal head that it is moved, during the printing process, horizontally relative to the transport direction of the paper. In contrast to the serial print head, the line print head has a stationary head or a strip. Since the print strip is not mobile, it must span the width of the to-be-printed substrate. Print strips are available in length of up to 297 mm. Resolution and dot-size correspond to those of serial heads. Serial printers are employed in typewriters, video prints, in the field of personal computers and also in word processors, while line printers are specifically employed in bar code printers, in high data volume computer output units, in fax machine applications, ticket printers, address printers, color copiers and in CAD/CAM systems.
In the above described systems of thermo-transfer ribbons, the printing sharpness and the optical density of the produced print depends, among others, upon adhesion of the thermo-transfer color to the paper. These features are proportional to the adhesion surface and the adhesive force. Rough paper has a smaller adhesion surface, since only the protruding parts of the paper surface are moistened by the melted thermo-transfer color. In EP-A-O 137 532 and DE-A-35 07 097 a so-called "filling-layer" is formed on the layer of thermo-transfer color, which consists of an in-melted state low-viscosity material, which flows during the printing process into the valleys of the rough paper surface and thus increases the surface of adhesion. It is of disadvantage that the melted filling layer, in the case of very smooth paper, having a roughness of more than 200 Bekk, is no longer able to penetrate the paper, so that a layer remains between paper surface and color layer. The layer, therefore, has the effect of a "hold-off layer," as described in EP-A-0 042 954. The hold-off layer, however, results in insufficient color fastness, since it prevents the thermo-transfer color from penetrating the paper. A hold-off layer effect is unwanted with respect to a color-fast layer.
In order to avoid the above
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Grendzynski Michael E.
Hess Bruce
Pelikan Produktions AG
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