Printer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10780708-B2
Application number	US-201916275506-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 14, 2019
Priority date	Sep 15, 2016
Publication date	Sep 22, 2020
Grant date	Sep 22, 2020

Abstract

In a printer that drives by a ribbon motor ( 302 ), a winding axle that holds an ink ribbon positioned between a thermal head that performs a photographic printing operation with respect to a photographic medium conveyed along a sub-scanning direction and a platen that opposes the photographic print head with the photographic medium between the photographic print head and the platen, a flywheel ( 303 ) is coupled to a shaft of the ribbon motor ( 302 ), and a rotational force of the ribbon motor ( 302 ) is transmitted to the winding axle, via a worm gear ( 501 ) and a helical gear ( 502 ).

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A printer comprising:
a motor that includes a shaft rotatable around an axis;
a winding axle that freely holds for winding, an ink ribbon positioned between a photographic print head that performs a photographic printing operation with respect to a photographic medium conveyed along a sub-scanning direction and a platen that opposes the photographic print head with the photographic medium between the photographic print head and the platen;
a rotation transmitting mechanism that transmits to the winding axle, a rotational force of the shaft included in the motor;
a flywheel that is coupled to the shaft;
a sending out axle that freely holds for sending out, the ink ribbon taken up by the winding axle; and
a control unit that controls rotation of the motor, wherein
the control unit adjusts according to an outer diameter of the ink ribbon held by the winding axle or the sending out axle, a timing at which the rotation of the motor is stopped.

2. The printer according to claim 1 , wherein:
the control unit adjusts the timing at which the rotation of the motor is stopped so that a stopping period necessary until the rotation of the motor stops becomes shorter, as the outer diameter of the ink ribbon held by the winding axle increases or as the outer diameter of the ink ribbon held by the sending out axle decreases.

3. The printer according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a control unit that controls rotation of the motor, wherein
the control unit stops the rotation of the motor after reducing the rotation of the motor stepwise.

4. The printer according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a control unit that controls rotation of the motor, wherein
the control unit, based on a rotational speed of the motor during rotation, identifies a rotation amount of the winding axle for the winding axle to stop and based on the identified rotation amount, performs control of stopping the rotation of the motor.

Assignees

• Citizen Watch Co Ltd
• Citizen Systems Japan Co Ltd

Inventors

• Yoshizawa Masao
• Yamazaki Takeshi

Classifications

• B41J17/02

  Feeding mechanisms · CPC title

• B41J33/22

  by gears or pulleys · CPC title

• B41J33/24

  with drive applied directly to ribbon · CPC title

• B41J2/325 Primary

  by selective transfer of ink from ink carrier, e.g. from ink ribbon or sheet · CPC title