Printing – Rolling contact machines – Rotary
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-22
2001-01-30
Yan, Ren (Department: 2854)
Printing
Rolling contact machines
Rotary
C101S424100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06178883
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a tower type multi-color printing press, in which a plurality of printing sections are stacked vertically and a paper web is passed through the printing sections in sequential order to print images on the paper web by the respective printing sections. More specifically, the invention relates to a tower type multi-color printing press having heating means for heating a printed image.
2. Description of the Related Art
A tower type multi-color printing press having means for drying a printed paper has been disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. Heisei 7-285213, 8-66997 and 8-230138, for example.
Each the tower type multi-color printing press disclosed in these publications is provided with heating means or heating means and cooling means at a downstream position passed through all printing sections in a direction of feeding a paper web for drying a printed image after completion of printing by the respective printing sections.
The heating means is not clearly disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. 7-285213 and 8-230138. However, if there are no indication of a special printing, such as printing using a UV ink and if no particular drying function is not clearly disclosed, it is typical to interpret that an apparatus disclosed as drying means for these publications is a heating means.
On the other hand, as a drying function of the ink printed on a paper surface, in addition to a drying function for evaporating a solvent by heating the ink and solidifying a thermoplastic material contained in the ink by cooling the ink, there is another well known drying function by penetrating a liquid component of the ink having high flowability in a paper fiber to leave solid component on the paper surface.
In the inventions disclosed in the foregoing publications, it is required to evaporate the solvent from a printed image after completion of printing by the respective printing sections, namely, in a relative thick ink layer, in which a plurality of inks are overlaid. Accordingly, it is required to elevate the entire thick ink layer in a short period. Also, in order to sufficiently evaporate the solvent from the entire thick ink layer, it is required to maintain high temperature for a relatively long period. Accordingly, a large heat amount is necessary. Also, in order to maintain high temperature over a relatively long period, the heating means inherently becomes quite bulky to the extent to be larger than a printing unit in the respective printing sections to require quite a large installation space. Furthermore, a mechanism inherently becomes quite complicated.
On the other hand, as heating means, a production cost becomes significantly large and inspection and maintenance require substantial period. Furthermore, due to complexity of the mechanism, and the possibility of occurrence of failure becomes relatively high.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide heating means of a tower type multi-color printing press which makes heating means compact and simplified to reduce a space required for installation of the heating means, to reduce production cost, to facilitate inspection and maintenance, and to reduce frequency of occurrence of failure.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned object, according to one aspect of the present invention, a tower type multi-color printing press comprises:
a plurality of printing sections provided with stacking in a vertical direction; and
heating means provided on downstream side of each printing section and extending in a width direction of a paper web fed through a path across each printing section, for heating a printed surface of the paper web every time completing the printing in each printing section.
In the preferred construction, the tower type multi-color printing press further may comprise cooling means provided on downstream side of the heating means for cooling the printed surface, as required.
By passing the paper web through each printing section, multi-color printing is performed by each printing section. Each image printed by each printing section is individually heated by the heating means provided located on downstream side of the corresponding printing section for evaporating a solvent of the ink forming the image and/or softening and melting a thermoplastic material contained in the ink by heating to penetrate into a paper fiber. In case of the construction where the cooling means is provided on the downstream side of the heating means of each printing section, the image heated by the heating means is individually cooled to be hardened and set the thermoplastic material in the ink forming each image.
As set forth above, by implementing the present invention, in the tower type multi-color printing press, at every time of performing the printing the image by the printing section, heating is effected immediately after printing to evaporate the solvent in the ink forming the image and/or softening or melting a thermoplastic material to penetrate into the paper fiber. Accordingly, when an ink amount to be evaporated the solvent by the heating means and/or to be softened and molten the thermoplastic material into the paper fiber becomes small, the ink layer becomes thinner to be heated for a relatively short period to obtain a desired heating condition for evaporating the solvent and/or softening and melting the thermoplastic material. Thus, heating period can be short and a heating path of the paper web can be short. Namely, the heating means can be made compact and associating therewith, simplified in construction.
As a result, space saving of the heating means, lowering of production cost and facilitating of inspection and maintenance can be achieved. Also, for simplified construction of the heating means, frequency of occurrence of failure can be reduced. Also, for short period required for heating, a heat amount to be accumulated in the entire paper web becomes small. Thus, cooling means can be compact and simplified associating with compact construction. Accordingly, similar to the heating means, space saving of the cooling means, lowering of production cost and facilitating of inspection and maintenance can be achieved. Also, for simplified construction of the cooling means, frequency of occurrence of failure can be reduced.
On the other hand, in the construction of the shown embodiment where the cooling means for cooling the printed surface is provided on the downstream side of the heating means, the ink forming the image printed by each printing section can be positively cooled every time heating the ink instead of expecting the cooling effect of the dampening water in the downstream side printing section. Also, by providing each cooling means individually corresponding to each printing section, the simple and compact cooling means can be satisfactory.
It should be noted that owing to down-sizing and simplification of both the heating means and the cooling means, as the overall device stabilizing the ink, space saving, lowering of production cost and facilitating of inspection and maintenance can be achieved. Furthermore, associating with simplification, frequency of occurrence of failure can be reduced.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1834147 (1931-12-01), Dausmann
patent: 3952119 (1976-04-01), Buhler
patent: 4697515 (1987-10-01), Germann
patent: 5115741 (1992-05-01), Rodi
patent: 5284090 (1994-02-01), Okamura et al.
patent: 5564336 (1996-10-01), Straubinger et al.
patent: 5606914 (1997-03-01), Borgardt
patent: 5727472 (1998-03-01), Burgio
patent: 5832833 (1998-11-01), Burgio
patent: 0359720 (1962-03-01), None
patent: 3335235 (1985-04-01), None
patent: 7-285213 (1995-10-01), None
patent: 8-66997 (1996-03-01), None
patent: 8-230138 (1996-09-01), None
Satoh Masayoshi
Tomita Yuko
Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn
Kabushiki Kaisha Tokyo Kikai
Nguyen Anthony H.
Yan Ren
LandOfFree
Tower type multi-color printing press does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Tower type multi-color printing press, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Tower type multi-color printing press will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2537868