Brother Kogyo Kabushiki-kaisha

Akira Ninomiya

Atsuo Sakaida

Akira Iriguchi

Hiroshi Tokuda

Yasuji Chikaoka

Shigeo Ishikawa

Yasuo Imoto

A printer for recording information on one of opposite surfaces of a recording medium, including a recording head displaceable along the one surface of the recording medium, for recording the information on the one surface, a platen device for defining a platen surface which is opposed to the recording head, a vibration device for applying vibration to the platen means and thereby vibrating the platen surface, and an actuating device for, when the recording head is displaced along the one surface of the recording medium, displacing the platen device along the other of the opposite surfaces of the recording medium in a same direction as a direction of the displacement of the recording head and in synchronism with the displacement of the recording head, so that the platen surface continues to be opposed to the recording head. The printer may further include a preventing device for preventing the platen surface from vibrating in a direction different from the vibration direction intersecting an operative surface of the recording head, or a deciding device for deciding whether to operate the vibration device to apply vibration to the platen device. The platen device may include at least one protruding portion protruding from the platen surface toward the recording head.

Printer having a vibrating platen

A thermal printing apparatus includes a carriage body on which a thermal ribbon cassette is detachably mounted, a driving gear rotated in accordance with the movement of the carriage body, a spool shaft rotatably mounted on the carriage body for rotating a ribbon spool of a ribbon cassette, and a rotation transmitting mechanism adapted to interlink or interrupt between the driving gear and the spool shaft when a ribbon cassette is mounted on or removed from the carriage body, respectively. The thermal printing apparatus further includes a shaft operable to detect if a ribbon cassette is mounted, and the rotation transmitting mechanism includes an engaging member engageable with a disc portion secured to the shaft for holding the rotation transmitting mechanism in a state where the interlinking between the driving gear and the spool shaft is interrupted. By means of this structure, rotation of the spool shaft and gears connected therewith is stopped when printing on a sheet of heat-sensitive paper without thermal transferable ribbon, thus enabling the thermal printing apparatus to achieve higher speed printing with reduced load on a driving power source.

Thermal printing apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Nagoya, Japan

Akira Ninomiya