Seiko Instruments Inc

Hideki Onuki

Mitsuhiro Kaiya

Katsuari Sato

Masaki Denda

Seishi Shimada

Satoru Konuma

A line printer comprises a frame having a pair of spaced-apart side walls, a platen having a shaft mounted to the side walls for pivotal movement, a print head interposed between the side walls and positioned in pressure contact with the platen, and a head-up lever mounted on one of the side walls for releasing the print head from pressure contact with the platen. The head-up lever is mounted on the shaft of the platen for pivotal movement relative thereto.

Line printer equipped with easily assembled/replaceable print head

A thermal line head device operates while a recording medium is fed in a vertical direction for printing dots line-sequentially along a horizontal direction according to bit image data corresponding to dots. A plurality of longitudinal head segments have a plurality of heating elements effective to print dots according to the corresponding bit image data, and linearly arranged along a longitudinal edge portion of the segment and deviated from a longitudinal center portion of the segment. The head segment are arranged in staggered relation along upstream and downstream rows such that the longitudinal edge portions of segments are opposed adjacently to each other in parallel between the rows so that the heating elements are linearly arranged in the horizontal direction between the rows a given vertical spacing. A line memory stores bit image data and distributes the stored bit image data to the heating elements in synchronization with vertical feeding of recording medium through the given vertical spacing.

Thermal line printer with an array of heating elements linearly arranged

A thermal line printer line-sequentially prints dots on a recording medium in horizontal and vertical directions according to bit data. A line thermal head includes a plurality of linear head segments arranged in a pair of parallel rows along the horizontal direction in staggered relation to each other such that the head segments partly overlaps through different relative displacements with each other between the rows. Each of the head segments has a plurality of heating elements disposed linearly along the segment, and effective to print dot according to image bit data and ineffective to print dot according to blank bit data. A feeding device line-sequentially feeds a recording medium relative to the line thermal head in the vertical direction. A designating circuit operates according to the different relative displacements for designating effective and ineffective sections adjacently with each other to the respective head segments such that the designated effective sections are successively connected to each other in the horizontal direction without irregular overlapping and spacing. An assigning circuit operates during each line-sequential printing for assigning image bit data to heating elements within the effective sections and blank bit data to heating elements within the ineffective sections to thereby effect regular dot printing along each line.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Hideki Onuki