Thermal transfer ribbon cassette

Details Thermal transfer ribbon cassette Thermal transfer ribbon cassette

1996-08-09

1998-08-18

Burr, Edgar S.

Typewriting machines

Including interposed inking device for record-medium

Package for ribbon facilitating mounting of ribbon on...

400242, B41J 3528

Patent

active

057950830

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to thermal transfer printing, and in particular to cassettes for holding the thermal transfer ribbons during storage and during use in thermal transfer printers.
Thermal transfer printing is a process for generating printed images by transferring thermally transferable colorant from a thermal transfer ribbon to a receiver. The ribbon comprises a base sheet coated on one side with a transfer coat, which usually comprises a non-transferable binder containing one or more thermally transferable dyes, or a fusible ink which is all transferable. Printing is effected while the transfer coat is held against the surface of the receiver, by heating selected areas of the ribbon so as to transfer the dyes or inks from those selected areas to corresponding areas of the receiver. This generates an image according to the areas selected. By repeating the transfer process with each of the three primary colours, full colour images can be obtained. Black may also be used.
Thermal transfer printers using a thermal head with a plurality of tiny heaters to heat the selected areas, have been gaining widespread attention in recent years, mainly because of its ease of operation in which the areas to be heated can be selected by electronic control of the heaters (e.g. according to a video or computer-generated signal), and because of the clear, high resolution images which can be obtained in this manner. Alternative thermal energy sources, such as addressable laser systems, are also being developed.
Transfer sheets for such printers are normally in the form of long ribbons, having sequences of print size panels of each primary colour and any other materials to be transferred (e.g. black dyes or ink), such sequence being repeated along the ribbon to enable it to be used for as many prints as there are repeats of the sequence. The ribbons are rolled up and stored in a cassette. These consist essentially of a supply spool, a take-up spool and a moulded casing; each spool having end portions and a bobbin portion on which is wound one end of the transfer ribbon, the moulded casing having locating means for engaging the spool end portions while the spools are in parallel and spaced apart positions with the transfer ribbon extending between them, and means to retain the spools in such positions. Initially the ribbon is on the supply spool, with one end extending across to the take-up spool, and it is progressively transferred to the take-up spool as it becomes used during printing.
Casings comprise two parallel spool-housings having end portions interconnected by bridge members such that the housings and bridge members together define an open access port through which the transfer ribbon is exposed as it extends from one spool to the other. To give the cassette rigidity, the cases have typically been constructed in two or more intricate moulded parts which are clipped or bonded together. This form of construction also enabled the spools to be loaded during assembly, and to be held permanently in place between the two mouldings. However, the casings of such cassettes generally represented a substantial proportion of the cost of the cassette, and after all the transfer ribbon had been used up, the expensive casing was simply discarded.
Even after assembly of the various mouldings to form a rigid casing, some other previously known cassettes did have an open configuration which left the spools and their spent transfer ribbons accessible for replacement, but such replacement was facilitated by permitting longitudinal movement of the spools in the casing from a free to a retained positions with coil springs around the spool ends to bias the spools into their retained positions, and the problem of assembling a plurality of mouldings was not avoided.
We have now developed a cassette of simple design, in which the features of the casing can be arranged so as to be mouldable as a single integrated moulding, using relatively small amounts of plastics material to form the casing (particularly important if it is to be thrown awa

REFERENCES:
patent: 4413557 (1983-11-01), Wade et al.
patent: 4673304 (1987-06-01), Liu et al.
patent: 5110228 (1992-05-01), Yokomizo
patent: 5238314 (1993-08-01), Kitahara
patent: 5352049 (1994-10-01), Shiraishi et al.
patent: 5399034 (1995-03-01), Fujii et al.
patent: 5455617 (1995-10-01), Stephenson et al.
Patents Abstracts of Japan, vol. 11, No. 50 (M-562) (2497), Feb. 17, 1987 & JP, A, 61 213 180 (T. Kase) Sep. 22, 1986.
Patents Abstracts of Japan, vol. 11, No. 50 (M-562) (2497), Feb. 17, 1987 & JP, A, 61 213 181 (T. Kase) Sep. 22, 1986.

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